Mayor Spesia, Trustee Lauterbur step into a different kind of service

Coal City Mayor David Spesia and village Trustee CJ Lauterbur spent their younger years in the military, but they’ve since stepped into a different kind of service in helping the village of Coal City function.

Each admitted that doesn’t come without its frustrations: In the military, if something needs to be done, then somebody steps up and does it. A city government – all city government, Spesia said – moves quite a bit more slowly.

He’s just thankful it’s not as slow-moving as the state.

Spesia enlisted in the Marines when he was 17 and served from 1984 to 1988 with the knowledge that college wasn’t for him, traveling to Camp Lejeune for his schooling to become a heavy equipment mechanic. What he learned there led to his career working for what was then known as Amoco Chemical and BP Chemical and what is now known as Ineos Enterprises. For the past 11 years, he’s been running Fastrak Construction Management. He got involved in city government through former Mayor Terry Halliday.

“He had an opening, a board member that was resigning for whatever reason, and he said his job was to appoint somebody,” Spesia said. “I knew Terry from our daughters playing softball, and ... he asked if I’d considered serving on the Village Board.”

Spesia’s answer at first was “maybe,” but they met a few times after that, and he learned about the streets and alleys position a bit more and said he’d do it.

He said he’s learned that the wheels of government turn extremely slowly.

“We can sit, our trustees and myself, in our meetings and want something done and it’s a process, a lengthy process,” Spesia said. “It’s frustrating at times, and I can never understand why it takes so long. But you have to do the application, then you go to the bids, and the bids have to get approved. This takes months, right? For the military side, it’s a lot faster. The corporate side is a little faster than that.”

He’s gotten used to the process over the past five years, and he enjoys being in a position to help the community.

Lauterbur understood a little better what he was getting into when he accepted an appointment to a board position. He comes from a nuclear engineering background. He served in the Navy for nine years beginning in 1993, going through the nuclear power program and serving on the Theodore Roosevelt Aircraft Carrier for 3½ years before moving to Ballston Spa, New York, to one of the Navy’s nuclear prototype facilities.

“These are a handful of operating nuclear power plants that the Navy runs to train nuclear operators on how to actually take the book knowledge you learned in school and operate a nuclear power plant,” Lauterbur said. “After I was on the carrier, I went up as an instructor and was teaching candidates coming through the program to actually create a plan.”

He said operating these facilities is much different because they’re operated by the Department of Defense instead of the Department of Energy. He was recruited to work for GE Hitachi in Morris. He’d been working there for several years when his name got mentioned to someone at the city when they had a board position open up.

It was for a position heading up the Coaler DRIVE committee, which then turned into an appointment to the planning and zoning committee. Just a couple of days later, Lauterbur was asked to replace Trustee Sarah Beach on the board after her resignation.

“Then, I found out it’s an elected position,” Lauterbur said. “Then, I was like, pump the brakes, hold on a second. That’s not really up my alley.”

Lauterbur now gets to go through the process of going into the community, gathering signatures and campaigning to retain his seat on the Coal City Village Board.

In the meantime, Lauterbur said he’s trying to do the greatest good for everybody. He knows it’s not quite possible to make everyone happy all the time, but he can take a look at what the best use of village funds is and help guide that.