“It has taken me a while, but I’m learning that letting go of the past is a good thing. It doesn’t mean forgetting, it just means moving on. Because the fact is, we can’t enjoy the present and embrace the future when we are still stuck in the past.”
— Don Dewberry, internationally renowned consultant.
It was in Mr. Gholson’s 5th-grade class that I developed a love for history. I became especially enamored with President Lincoln because this man, who had a strong connection to Danville, saved our great nation. It was clear to me that whoever ran the government had a huge impact on everything, so I tucked this away in my 10-year-old brain.
Fast forward to 2019. Just two months into my first term, huge chunks of Bresee, which replaced Lincoln’s law office and had sat empty since 2005, fell onto Main Street. Miraculously, no one was harmed. After additional years of meetings with potential “developers”, regularly hearing near-accidents due to the road closure, and more pieces falling, major safety concerns forced our hand. We completed a professional architectural assessment to determine salvageability while also setting aside $4 million in case it was not. The results were sobering: due to decades of neglect, it would cost a minimum of $12 million just to re-open as is. Changing the use of the building to residential would be $20+ million, a sum which investors would never recoup. While I had hoped to be the mayor who saved Bresee, I resolved to be the mayor who took care of a major longstanding problem. We’re collaborating with Vermilion County to demolish it and the similarly situated Courthouse Annex simultaneously, which will likely be late summer.
I became public enemy #1 to some, including a person who exclaimed “I don’t like you because you didn’t try hard enough to save Bresee! You’re getting rid of old buildings and there’s gonna be nothing left!” A man who runs an online group celebrating folks’ connections to Danville even gave me the nickname “Wrecking Rickey.”
These comments about Bresee combined with constant lamentations about GM leaving (despite its occurrence nearly 30 years ago), the decline of the Village Mall (which will soon lose another anchor), and complaints about the new businesses that do come to town paint a picture of doom-and-gloom. If this was the only information I knew, I’d be awfully down on Danville. Thankfully, it isn’t.
I’m incredibly proud of the nearly 400 dilapidated structures we’ve demolished over the past 5 years. With every blighted building that goes down, property value, neighborhood security, and the opportunity for something new to replace them goes up (think Kirchner’s, Sonic, etc.). I’m also proud of the millions of dollars in redevelopment funds we’ve invested in buildings Downtown and throughout town. We spent almost $90,000 alone to save the Adams building, we’re working with the owners of the mall to determine its best future use, and new businesses continue to come.
The great news is that many people are choosing Danville as well. Over the past 2 months, I have met folks from: Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oregon, Texas, Washington, Quebec, and the Philippines. The even better news: only two sets of them have any connection to our community, meaning people from all over the country and world have chosen to make Danville home and they love it. Some common reasons for choosing us include affordability of good housing, high quality-of-life (such as our access to nature and the arts), and an opportunity to live out their dreams.
Why can others see our value when we can’t? I think it’s because we’ve become so mired in yesteryear that we can’t enjoy what we have now. American clergyman and professor Douglas Horton was right when he said, “Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.”
In close, I present to you a question often posed by my mentor. Brenda Yoho: “Are you a part of the problem or part of the solution?” If instead of celebrating the past, you use it to tear down our community, then you’re hindering progress. If we want a bright future, we need everyone to join the thousands of people already working hard every day to make Danville an even better place to live, work, invest, and play. Albert Einstein once said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
Thanks to everyone’s collective efforts, I’m proud to say that we’re doing just that.