Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Springfield’s mourning the loss of longtime politician and public servant Irv Smith, who passed away Nov. 24 at 96.

While Smith served in many roles, including teacher and coach, regional school superintendent, county board member, and state representative, he may be best known for his role in ushering in the aldermanic form of municipal government which began in Springfield in 1987, “He and Frank McNeil and I were on the first city council,” city clerk and former Ald. Chuck Redpath said at the Nov. 25 city council meeting. “All three of us served twenty years together. (We are in) trying times now, and it was trying times back then, but he was a great public servant, and he’s going to be missed.”

Ald. Brad Carlson noted Smith’s fifty-year career in elective office, calling him “a giant here in Sangamon County.

“He came in (to the city council) under the consent decree and served in Ward 8 for twenty years.”