SPRINGFIELD, IL — Mayor Douglas Holt, 58, officially proclaimed March 5 a citywide Day of Prayer and Reflection during Thursday’s council meeting, a gesture that would have carried more symbolic weight had the proclamation not named the recipient city as Riverside, California.

The error, attributed to a template left over from a sister-city goodwill exchange in 2019, went undetected through four departmental reviews, one notarization, and a brief but sincere invocation delivered by a local pastor who did not read the document beforehand.

“We stand united in prayer for the great people of Riverside,” Holt said from the podium, drawing applause from a room of Springfield residents who would not realize what had happened until a Riverside city councilwoman called the following morning to say thank you.

“The spirit of the proclamation was entirely correct. The addressee was entirely incorrect. We’re treating those as separate issues.”

City Communications Director Paula Wentz, 44, confirmed the office is drafting a corrected proclamation, which will be issued the week of March 17 and will include a secondary review process described in internal memos as “someone actually reading it.”

Riverside has not yet agreed to return the framed original, which was already hung in their city hall lobby next to a commendation from the Governor of Illinois that was also meant for someone else.

At press time, Mayor Holt had signed the corrected proclamation, which correctly named Springfield but listed the prayer date as March 5, a day that had already passed.