The McLeansboro City Council came together for a lively, if difficult and sometimes struggled through a special meeting Thursday afternoon. Last week, despite thorough diligence and legwork put in by Deep South operator Adam Little to gain public approval from neighbors surrounding his popular business, the council declined, by a 4-2 vote, an amendment to the city code that would’ve allowed him a special permit to coincide with a music festival he’s planned for September 22nd at Deep South.
Following that meeting, Little visited with Mayor Dick Deitz and the mayor said he thought they’d worked through some miscommunications. After council worked out a street improvement bid with superintendent Windell Bowman, councilmen, the mayor and city attorney Tom Malkovich spent the next quarter hour dissecting how to most appropriately move forward. Council ultimately decided to follow the attorney’s recommendation to not amend city code and rather moved to close an alley and a street. Council also issued Deep South a Class F “Beer Garden” License to go along with their Class E “Restaurant” License.
In spite of working out the details, there remained a single councilman who voted no on all 3 motions. Donald Cox, who represents Ward 2 expressed his displeasure/issue was with Little printing flyers and promoting the event prior to addressing council.
Little says September 22nd should be what folks that live in the country have always enjoyed about Hamilton County, just in town now.
“Plan is we’re gonna have 2 local artists in Meghan Barrow and Justin Downen and our headliner will be Kendall Marvel. A lot of songs he’s written you’ve heard on the radio. He’s written songs for Chris Stapleton, Jamey Johnson, Jake Owen and has several Grammy winning songs that he’s written and he’s a southern Illinois boy too. He’s kind of a big deal on the County Music scene. Meghan will start at 5. We’ll have a beer tent and food on site. It’s just gonna be good, free entertainment.”
The Cherry Street Music Festival is scheduled from 4pm – 10pm and will occur on and around Deep South located on Marshall in McLeansboro.
The most vocal portion of the meeting however was the final item, regarding the planned construction of the Izaak Walton Cabin. Tempers flared enough that Councilman Jim Mason ended up cursing in frustration of what he described as a failure to say no if the council had no intention of moving forward on the project. The cabin committee has been working the last 12 months, some longer on the project expecting the city to participate in the funding. It became apparent at the council that was not the case leading to flared tensions. The item ended up getting tabled until the September 11th meeting.
