Rauner Making Himself At Home In Springfield
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Gov. Bruce Rauner began settling in at the governor's residence in Springfield over the weekend, bringing the family's dogs with him, and he said there's a lot of work needed to fix up the "badly deteriorated" Georgian-style mansion.
"It's basically the White House of Illinois, and I want this to be a place of pride and of strength. I want to see it nice. It doesn't have to be fancy," he said.
The Illinois Executive Mansion has a litany of problems to fix, from crumbling plaster to a broken elevator, from buckling floors to an inaccessible main entrance, and waterlogged furniture damaged by a leaking roof.
Rauner said, although the roof appears to have been repaired, there is a lot more that needs to be fixed, including plaster that is coming down in some hallways and bedrooms.
"The governor's house has deteriorated badly," he said.
No governor has lived in the mansion full-time in more than 15 years -- since Jim Edgar left office in 1999 -- but Rauner has said he will make it his home while he's governor.
Rauner said his team is doing an exhaustive evaluation of the mansion, and he does not yet know how long it will take to fix the whole building, but he said, "I want this to be a nice place, that's high-quality, that's classic, that's traditional."
"I want to entertain and negotiate with and meet with and bond with legislators here, community leaders here, business leaders, and I want to invite presidents from around the world to come here and negotiate trade agreements, investment agreements, business expansion here," he added.
The governor and his wife, Diana, won't be the only ones who will have to get used to living in a fixer-upper for a while. Rauner drove the family van to Springfield on Saturday, to bring their two Labrador Retrievers, Stella and Pumpkin, to their new home, and he said they'll have to get used to sleeping alone near the kitchen.
"Pumpkin is 15, and she has arthritic knees, so she can't really handle stairs very well," he said. "The elevator doesn't work. So I've got a plan. The dogs are not going to be able to sleep up near me, as they normally like to do. They're gonna have to sleep down by the kitchen. That's okay. They'll get used to that. They don't have to do that at home, but they're gonna have to do that here."