Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: And was this surprising that it came from Swanson, that he was the
primary sponsor?
A: No, he may have been just the sponsor of the bill. It may have came from
the governor's office probably. He was just handling it for the administration
probably.
Q: I see, yes. There were two groups of bills. Specifically there were
eighteen there, only two of those were approved. All the rest were tabled.
The two that were approved recalled the funds from the local authorities
and established a state fund for the payment of expenses in the projects.
Do you recall that?
A: No, I don't remember those offhand,
Q: Another group of sixteen bills, all of them were tabled, was making the
adjustments from in the housing authority.
A: I don't remember those. Now, when I say all these I don't remember, they
just don't have--you know, they're not indelibilized in my recollection. T
would have to go back and look at the bills and see what they said and it
would a11 come back to me.
Q: Yes, sir. We do have a sheet in that folder there on that which
summarizes all of those. Also in 1967, there were three bills, one with
Swanson, one with Simon and one with Fred Smith, all having to do with
introducing the idea of conservation and rehabilitation into the housing
activity. Do you recall any of those bills?
A: No, not with specificity. Conservation of existing housing has been a
concept that was advanced, I suppose as early as that, on the theory that
there was a lot of housing which was old and decrepit but which was very
soundly built and structured, which had the capability of being rehabilitated.
And that's very true today. There are a lot of very sturdy sound
buildings with very thick walls which lend themselves to rehabilitation.
And those buildings, when rehabilitated, are perhaps better housing, in the
context of heat conservation and all those kinds of things, than some of
the stuff they're building now. Some of the stuff they're building now,
with paper-thin walls that you can hear somebody flush their toilet across
the hall or something . . . (laughs) That was, I guess, really the start of
the program of conservation of housing and rehabilitation of housing.
(taping stopped for a telephone call, then resumed)
Q: Sir, I was wondering, in regard to this conservation and rehabilitation,
since you were involved with three bllls in that year, was there anything
in your district which caused you to become involved in that? What was the
situation with rehabilitation of homes?
A: Well, I suppose I had the recognition that, within my district, there
were several structures that had the capability of being refurbished, con-