Village officials in Bartonville are fining the property owner of the former Allied Mills plant, claiming that he is ignoring requests to fix an “unfit” structure.
Mayor Leon Ricca said that the village had been fining Lord Mic Williams, owner of the property and marketing director of the Peoria-based Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce, $750 per violation of the village’s ordinances against unsafe buildings. He said the conflict began a year ago, when the village declared the Allied Mills property to be a “nuisance.”
“For several years, we had been going after the person who owned it, but that person left,” Ricca said. “They started to tear it down, but he walked away from it, so it sat for three years, waiting (but) still paying taxes on it. When this guy (Lord Mic Williams) took over, we gave him a citation and I don’t know if he ever paid any fines. He ignored us and we kept writing him. We wrote so many unsafe ones, and now it’s a nuisance property.”
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Williams and the ILBCC bought the Allied Mills property in 2021, purchasing it from Peoria County for the bargain basement price of $10. It had been owned by Troy Voss, a Galesburg man, before he sold it to the county in November 2020.
Peoria County property tax records indicate the ILBCC did pay taxes on the lot for 2022, but it has yet to do so for 2023. Williams indicated to the Journal Star in 2022 that he had plans for the site, but nothing has been made public so far.
‘It’s just not a safe place for anybody to be’
The buildings on the property have been vacant since 1988, when Wayne Pet Food closed the factory, with 80 workers losing their jobs. It had been deteriorating even before then, with the 240-strong workforce at the factory in the 1970s being whittled down in less than 20 years.
Those interviewed at the time of the closure felt that the property wasn’t in good shape then, and according to Ricca, it hasn’t gotten better in the 35-plus years it has been closed.
“There’s holes in the floor, there’s no windows on it, the basement’s deep, part of it’s torn down,” Ricca said. “It’s just not a safe place for anybody to be.”
According to Peoria County court documents, an affidavit was filed in January detailing the abatement notices the village had filed against the ILBCC and the property.
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The affidavit said that on three separate occasions – once in May 2023 and twice in September 2023 – abatement notices had been filed against various portions of the property. The first one required the owners to barricade the property to prevent unauthorized entry, while the second notice asked that abandoned materials be removed from the lot.
Finally, a third notice warned them about the tall grass and weeds that had accumulated over the course of decades of decay on the property. On September 22, 2023, the ILBCC was sent a warning from the village, reminding them of the fine structure from the village code and declaring that the property was a nuisance.
Ricca said that Williams and the ILBCC only responded to the violations in court through their attorneys. The case has been continued several times since their first appearance in court in December, to the frustration of the village.
“We’ve gotten nowhere so far,” Ricca said.
Neither Williams nor the ILBCC responded to Journal Star requests for comment.
Uncertain future for the property
For the future, the village is seeking to receive Community Project Funding Grant money from the federal government that would allow it to tear down the building and find a better use for the property. Of course, this means it would have to find some agreement with Williams or the ILBCC to sell the property, which, thus far, has been unsuccessful.
Ricca would like to see the property turned into some kind of green space or new industrial developments, although he warned that the village board had yet to dive into what they would want the property to be if they bought it.
“The village board has made no determination of what that property would be if we got the property and we got the building down,” Ricca said.
Ultimately, the village wants to turn a place that is considered an eyesore into a point of pride. Ricca said that it would be a boon for Bartonville, if only for the fact that it would be a better presentation of the village than what is currently there.
“It would mean a lot for the safety and aesthetics of the village and anyone entering the south gateway to the city of Peoria,” Ricca said. “A lot of people come in on (Illinois) Route 24, and right now, that’s the first thing they see.”
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