A look at the candidates: Joel Fritzler

William Ford
Daily Egyptian

Even though he has only been in southern Illinois since 1997, City Council candidate Joel Fritzler said he has ties to the area that qualify him for the position, which will be decided in the general election April 5.

"My claim to southern Illinois goes six feet deep," Fritzler said. "My great great grandfather was buried in Old Shawneetown in 1876." Fritzler never had any other ties with the state of Illinois until he came to Carbondale. He spent most of his life in the state of Oregon, where his family moved when he was 8 years old after living in Indiana. He came back to the Midwest in 1994 when he was offered a fellowship at Illinois State University in Normal studying political science and community development.

After moving to the Bloomington-Normal area, Fritzler said he thought the sate of Illinois had no natural character like his home in Oregon. In Oregon, Fritzler was an avid skier. He worked at a ski lodge for eight years and would ski every weekend. He didn't feel Illinois had much opportunity for outdoor recreation and was ready to get out.

"At that time I thought all of Illinois was as flat as Bloomington-Normal," Fritzler said. "My goal was to get out of Illinois as fast as I could." While trying to finish his thesis at Illinois State, Fritzler was called for an interview with the Carbondale Main Street Program. Fritzler said at that time he had not had a formal job interview in a year, so he decided to make the trip south to check it out. What he found in Carbondale was not only a job, but also a reason to stay in Illinois.

"I thought I would go down for the sake of the interview," Fritzler said. "But as soon as I got south of Effingham, I began to see trees and rolling hills and a lake and I thought, 'I could live here. This is great." Fritzler was offered the job and immediately moved to Carbondale, where he served as the director of the Carbondale Main Street Program for two and a half years before he stepped down to concentrate on finishing his Master's Degree, which he completed in 2000.

Since 2002, Fritzler has worked for SIUC as a research project specialist for the research and development department where he works alongside researchers to obtain grants. "We work kind of cradle to grave with the researchers as they submit their proposals and get their award letters in the whole cycle of the grant program," Fritzler said. Having been the director of Carbondale Main Street, Fritzler said he has experience working for the city and its officials. He said he has been here long enough to realize some of the growing pains Carbondale is going through and he wants to help ease those as a city councilman.

Living in an older area of town on Dixon Ave., Fritzler said he is always seeing the city have to come in and patch water lines that break because of old age, but they are never replaced. He said this goes to show how the city needs to pay more attention to older areas of town.

"There has been a lot of expansion and new developments in the last nine years but there has been a lot of neglect to the older areas of town," Fritzler said. "I'm not against development, but I think there needs to be a balance of attention paid to new development and older neighborhoods."

Fritzler said one of the areas he feels needs to be updated is downtown. With people coming through the center of town to visit SIUC, he said it is an important area to give people a good impression of the city.

Even though development in downtown has increased in recent years, he feels too much emphasis has been put towards the eastern part of the city, where the University Mall and Wal-Mart are located, and other businesses along Route 13.

"They give big bucks to the east area and pocket change to the downtown," Fritzler said. "There needs to be a balance. We need to clean up the downtown." Several of the City Council members say the city needs to have a pool. Fritzler said he isn't against the idea, but believes more interest has to be shown on the part of the children. While many adults have said their kids want to have a pool, he said he hasn't seen any children say the same.

"I'm just concerned whether or not the children themselves would use it," Fritzler said. "You see all these adults that are pushing the project, but I don't see any kids on these committees."

Fritzler said he grew up with a pool in his home community, and if the city did get a pool, he would use it. He said he just doesn't want it to turn into a financial issue for the city.

"I don't think that the city belongs in the recreation business," Fritzler said. "I don't have a problem with the city supporting it and providing some funding, but I don't think the city needs to be the managers of the facility."