Elgin to name city hall after 40-year councilman
He served his city with honor, and now the city is honoring him.
The city of Elgin will host a ceremony at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, formally renaming its City Hall and municipal complex after councilman Robert Gilliam, who served on the city council from 1973-2013.
The public is invited to join city officials, staff, family and friends in this historic celebration. The ceremony will take place on the steps of City Hall facing the Civic Plaza area. Seating will be available.
The Robert Gilliam Municipal Complex will honor Gilliam, a lifelong resident of Elgin who served on the city council for 40 years, which represent the longest in the city's history. It is also believed to be the longest tenure in the state of Illinois.
While the length of Gilliam's service is historic and likely never to be repeated, it is the distinction with which he served that gives credence to the highest honor a community can bestow on an individual - the renaming of its city hall.
The Elgin City Council voted unanimously to honor Gilliam with this distinction.
Under Robert Gilliam's leadership, the city of Elgin undertook several major projects to ensure the safety of employees and residents and the continued delivery of services, including the construction of the police station, Riverside Water Treatment Facility, Fire Stations 6 and 7, to name just a few.
Gilliam's creativity and perseverance to negotiate intricate projects have added tremendous value to our community, such as construction of the Centre of Elgin, Festival Park, The Highlands and Bowes Creek golf courses, and the Riverside Promenade.
The accomplishment of which Gilliam is most proud is the construction of Riverside Water Treatment Facility. Gilliam worked with City Manager Leo Nelson and his colleagues on the city council to advocate for the construction of the Riverside Water Treatment Plant.
He looked ahead to the future needs of the community instead of reacting to current political pressures. He knew that making Elgin independent from relying on Chicago and using the Fox River to provide the water supply would, in future years, help Elgin attract new businesses and development and provide a guaranteed and unlimited quality supply of clean, reliable water to its residents.
Originally built in 1979 with a capacity of 16 million gallons a day, the plant was upgraded in 2000 (as originally planned in 1979) and now has a capacity of 32 million gallons. Today, the Riverside Water Treatment Plant pumps an average of 14 million gallons of water a day.
If Elgin continued relying on only well water, the city's capacity would be limited to eight million gallons a day. The city would not have been able to accommodate the needs of the growing community. In contrast, because of the excess capacity, Elgin now is able to sell its surplus, supplying water to Bartlett and Sleepy Hollow.
In the 40 years that Gilliam was involved in the budget, he helped guide the city through several recessions. During his tenure on city council, he improved the city's credit rating to AAA, the best municipal rating in the country, thus providing the city an enviable level of fiscal stability.
Gilliam's legacy is his calm and reasoned leadership paired with a personal style that is compassionate and kind. Through the years, Gilliam has led the city with a steady hand and eye toward the long term, and his wisdom and foresight were a reassuring force in Elgin city government.
Gilliam's determination helped lead the city through the difficult decades of the 1970s and 1980s to a period of unprecedented growth and revitalization, and remained committed to nurturing and restoring the city's older neighborhoods and serving the needs of a culturally diverse community.
Naming City Hall and Civic Plaza after him will enable the community to acknowledge the extraordinary leadership and commitment Gilliam demonstrated while serving on the city council.