Misty Buscher, candidate for Springfield mayor, is speaking out about the city’s debt forgiveness. Buscher held a press conference Thursday to respond to the Illinois Time’s article noting forgiveness of almost all of local attorney George Petrilli’s $46,000 in fines levied for failing to maintain a dilapidated property.  Petrilli, according to the article, later donated $2,500 to Mayor Langfelder’s re-election campaign.

Buscher says, as a taxpayer, she is “offended that a campaign donation is a result of waived fines and fees” and adds that the mayor did not have to accept the campaign donation.

The city has more than one database to track debt, according to Buscher.  Those include one used by the legal department and can only be accessed by their department. She is advocating for one database with different levels of security that can be accessed by the appropriate departments.

The Illinois Times article states that the city has waived fines and forgiven utility bills in hundreds of cases, but the current administration has refused to release the names of those who benefited, “claiming it is personal financial information exempt from public records laws.”