Dwight White is a lifelong Galesburg resident, a Vietnam veteran, and the city council representative for Ward Four.
He’s also the only Black person serving on the city council.
White was elected to his first term in 2021 and supported the effort to launch a new community center from the start.
“This community center is for everybody. But it helps the people on the bottom. It helps the people that are struggling. So they don’t have to drive six or seven different places to try to get some assistance,” White said.
A decade ago, the city sold its community center to a developer to become a brewery and restaurant.
When Galesburg District 205 vacated Churchill Junior High School last year, the city acquired the property at no cost with a vision for transforming it into a new community center.
White was part of a majority on the previous council, which officially selected the Churchill as the site of the community center.
That passed on a 4-3 vote, as did a .25 sales tax increase and a $5.3 million bond issue to support the project.
The vision for Churchill included investing $7 million in the project.
Undoing everything
Since this year’s election, White has been part of the minority on the council on issues related to a community center.
“The new council came in and they came in with the intention of undoing everything the old council did,” White said. “The whole election was campaigned and put together to undo everything the previous council had done.”
For instance, the new council approved an ordinance authorizing the sale of Churchill on a 5-2 vote.
More recently, they also voted down a request to get the property appraised, after a local developer offered $100,000 for the 90,000 square foot building.
The developer has since pulled back on the offer after community members urged the city not to rush the sale.
Community members are now raising funds for the appraisal.
But residents were further confounded by the situation when local private school Costa Catholic Academy announced they would begin using the property for the fall semester, due to storm damage at their school.
Interim city manager Wayne Carl said neither the developer nor city officials had yet made such an offer to Costa to use the property.
Muddy water
The future of Churchill and the idea of having a community center are hot-button issues in the community.
White said a lack of transparency can make rumors fly and political games on the council can make it hard for the public to understand what’s really going on.
“It’s hard to believe what is really true. When you make the water so muddy, you can’t see the bottom, you leave it up to people to make their own assumptions. And you can’t be mad when they make the wrong assumptions,” White said.
White says he’s been fighting hard for Churchill. He believes it’s a good location and the best option for a community center.
But at this point, he doesn’t care where it goes, just that it happens and isn't scaled down to the point of being ineffective.
“We have great minds in Galesburg,” White said. “Instead of fighting against, sit down and say, here’s the numbers, here’s how we can crunch this together, here’s how we can get this done.”
What you think they need
The new council also appointed a task force to take up the issue of a community center.
Each council member nominated two people. There was no approval process, nor were appointees required to share their qualifications.
But the task force will ultimately make a recommendation to the council on the scope, size, and cost of a community center.
White said he questions the makeup of the task force because the majority of people who were appointed to it can afford things like YMCA memberships or renting facilities for events.
“Most of the people on there are not struggling. So they don’t know how tight my shoes are. And they’re not asking those people. When you don’t ask the people that’s in need of it, you’re just giving them what you think they need or what you want to give them,” he said.
A community investment
Some council members are in favor of a $2.5 million cap on a community center – and instructing the task force to work under that funding limit, while diverting money from the bond issue for road repairs.
White is not one of them. He said he knows the city can work together, and that they can walk and chew gum at the same time.
“We can build a community center that’s going to serve all the people, that will be good for us, and still get our streets fixed,” White said.
He said a good community center is a place where anyone can go and feel important and cared for, and it’s an investment in the community that can change people's minds and spirits.
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