You’d think it would be easy to accept $623,000 in free money from the state, but this is the new Springfield city council we’re talking about.

Aldermen Roy Williams and Larry Rockford spoke up about a Route 66 improvement plan including a dozen storytelling murals, one of which appears destined for the side of a Chatham bar – A.J.’s Corner – owned in part by Mike Buscher, the new mayor’s husband.

“There’s some people on this council that may be benefiting from the location of these murals,” said Williams. “Is that true? Is that not true? Or is it just a perceived conflict?”

“We know who’s part owner of A.J.’s, so to me it’s a conflict of interest,” threw in Rockford.

After the meeting, Mayor Misty Buscher – protesting that she had been on the job for eight days – said she had nothing to do with the murals and the bar, adding the discussion of the Mother Road improvement plan predates her time as mayor. She added the mural locations really have not been chosen. “They just gave examples in their presentation,” she said of A.J.’s being included when Scott Dahl, director of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, spoke to aldermen Tuesday.

Ald. Shawn Gregory – voicing hope that the story could include the Black experience of “sundown towns” – joined Williams in voting Present on the vote to accept the grant, which will also pay for “wayside” attractions and the resurrection of Shea’s gas station.

Tuesday night was Buscher’s first with gavel in hand.