Marion Mayor Seeks Twelfth Straight Term

Marion Mayor Robert L. Butler filed petitions last week to run for his twelfth consecutive term as mayor of this southern Illinois city.

Butler, who will turn 80 on January 23, had stated previously that he would end his term of office at 44 years. "Louetta [my wife] would kill me if I run again," the mayor told a journalism class at Southern Illinois University in the fall of 2000.

However, as the end of his current term approaches, Butler changed his mind, claiming "she might kill me faster if I don't run again."

The mayor has seen the city through two major tornadoes and rapid development, especially in the last 10 years. The city is currently in the process of conducting a special census to determine if it is growing faster than the census bureau has recorded.

Officially, the 1990 census said the city had 16000 residents, but Butler and the city council believe that the residential growth in the city has far exceeded those numbers.

Butler has been a controversial mayor for years. while serving the city he has lost his license to practice law and been charged with, tried for and acquitted on charges that he fixed traffic tickets for political cronies.

And, he will be the first to admit that in his early days as mayor, he was willing to bend the law for the benefit of the community where his father also once served as mayor. Early in his tenure as mayor, he borrowed money from the city hospital's operating fund to pay the electric bill and forced residents outside of the city limits to vote in favor of annexation or live without sewer lines.

When Butler first took office, the city was in such dire financial straits that the street department could not get credit at the local lumber store for something as simple as surveying stakes. "It was $1.35 and our credit was so bad, they said took the stakes and put them back on the shelf," he said.

Butler said in his official announcement that he will not "go gently into that good night" and that he still has work to do before he can retire. And, this time, the mayor said, he will not rule out the possibility of running again in four years.

"I've learned the folly of saying that you aren't going to run again," the mayor told one local newspaper.

Among the current projects the city is working on is the expansion of the city's newest commercial development region, The Hill, and completion of the new minor league baseball stadium. The city will be home to a Frontier League expansion team, the Southern Illinois Miners, beginning in April.