After a yr and a half in workplace, Misty Buscher is coming into her personal. Illinois Instances readers voted the brand new mayor finest metropolis official.
Throughout her quick time in workplace, Buscher has already confronted a trinity of tragedies: the derecho that swept by Springfield in June 2023, the fireplace that consumed a number of downtown companies in June 2024 and the July slaying of Sonya Massey by a Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy.
The derecho created loads of challenges for her then-fledgling administration.
Final yr, the mayor mentioned she did not plan to tackle the function of emergency operations coordinator when she and different officers camped out within the basement of metropolis corridor because the storms hit noon on June 29.
She discovered that the coordinator job had gone unfilled for the reason that administration of the late Mayor Tim Davlin. Buscher, who was sworn within the month earlier than, mentioned somebody wanted to coordinate the companies of police, firefighters, Public Works and CWLP crews and different group assets in weather-related emergencies. That duty has now been assigned to the assistant chief from the Springfield Police Division.
Simply over a yr later, the July 19 hearth at 413-415 E. Adams St. was the biggest downtown conflagration in additional than 40 years.
“The day of the downtown hearth, I used to be on the market till about 12:30 that night time and very first thing the subsequent morning,” Buscher mentioned. “Hanson Engineering and O’Shea Builders requested: ‘What can we do to assist?’ Group partnerships are vital, they usually’re serving to us transfer the ball ahead. … We need to proceed these partnerships as a result of the town itself can not, as an employer, do it on their lonesome.”
Most not too long ago, the town has confronted backlash from residents upset by a number of high-profile incidents involving legislation enforcement, each from the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Workplace and Springfield Police Division.
“It wasn’t actually a ‘capturing.’ I name it an ‘execution,’ as a result of that is primarily what (Sean Grayson) did to her,” Buscher mentioned of the dying of Sonya Massey by the hands of a sheriff’s deputy earlier this yr.
“There was a group listening session held by Union Baptist Church, and it received to be fairly heated in there, however the metropolis of Springfield has continued their conversations since then. We have had a number of conferences and we have had group companions in these conferences, as a result of we’re dedicated to creating certain the group feels snug with our hiring practices and our coaching practices and our policing,” she mentioned.
