Byline: Andrea Damewood The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - Citing a need to "avoid any appearance of partiality," Springfield City Councilors John Woodrow and Dave Ralston have stepped down from a nonprofit group planning a conference center in the Gateway area.

The move followed

the resignations of two city of Springfield employees from the Springfield Conference Center Consortium in May, when residents of the seniors-only Patrician Manufactured Homes park - the site favored for redevelopment by the consortium - threatened to take the issue to the state Government Standards and Practices Commission.

Residents argued that it was impossible for city employees and elected officials to act objectively with regard to conference center development if they also held volunteer spots on the conference center panel.

The departure of the councilors leaves 11 active members on the consortium board, including one city employee, Finance Director Bob Duey.

John Lively, consortium president and former Springfield mayor, said he understood the two councilors' decision.

"I respect that at this point it's what they've been advised to do," he said.

"I don't see it impacting the consortium one way or the other, frankly."

The nonprofit group organized through the Springfield Chamber of Commerce announced in March that it has its sights fixed on transforming the Patrician, a 14-acre Gatewayarea property, into the future home of a hotel- conference center complex.

That would involve moving out the park's scores of residents - a prospect to which many of them object.

The consortium is still waiting for the results of a feasibility report for the site before it will meet again, probably in the fall, Lively said.

Woodrow and Ralston remained on the conference center board after City Manager Gino Grimaldi and Community Development Manager John Tamulonis both announced they were quitting.

The two councilors had said they could remain unbiased and even help Patrician residents by staying on the board and thereby be informed of the consortium's actions.

Residents expressed concern that having city councilors and staff vested in the conference center process would unduly influence them to vote in favor of redevelopment, such as rezoning the site from residential to commercial or approving city funding for the project.

However, in a letter written by Ralston and Woodrow and read aloud by Ralston at the June 16 Springfield City Council meeting, they announced their resignations.

Ralston said they were responding to a May 31 Register- Guard editorial, "which indicated that somehow we would not be objective regarding the need for a conference center in Springfield."

In the letter, Ralston and Woodrow said that "in regards to any specific conference center site, we have not made up our minds."

Patrician resident Gene Hulett said their resignation may be too little, too late.

"They sure took their time to resign; it's put the park in a terrible, terrible position," said Hulett, a former state legislator and Springfield city councilor. "They have biased themselves."

He said he appreciated that they stepped down, but they "have compromised themselves already."

Woodrow said he will apply nothing but the facts to any recommendation the consortium brings before the City Council.

Becoming a board member of the Conference Center Consortium was simply a way to serve the community, the city and the chamber of commerce, he said.

"If something does come to the council, my decision will be made on the evidence presented," Woodrow said.