Mayor Jim Langfelder With tens of millions of public dollars at stake, unions representing city of Springfield employees have sued the city seeking to overturn a city council decision ending a pension-fattening perk that municipal officials say is unique to the capital city. Since 2003, city workers have been allowed to accumulate, then cash out, […]
Bruce Rushton
Bruce Rushton is a freelance journalist.
Posted inNews
Urban League hit in pocketbook
The Springfield Urban League has been ordered to pay more than $200,000 in a reverse discrimination lawsuit filed by a woman who says that she was fired because she is white and refused to participate in workplace religious activities. The order issued last month by Sangamon County Associate Judge Jack Davis came on top of […]
Posted inNews
North to Peoria
Court and Karen Conn, long a Springfield institution when it comes to having fun, are taking their show on the road to Peoria, where the couple has purchased a church-turned-banquet-hall that will become the planet’s second Obed and Isaac’s. The version in downtown Peoria promises to be bigger and better. In addition to a microbrewery, […]
Posted inNews
Cop-turned-thief ordered back to work
A thief has been ordered reinstated to her job as a Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy. Sherry Waldron admits that she shoplifted $26 worth of groceries from a Schnuck’s on Sangamon Avenue in the spring of 2013. Two months earlier, she had been acquitted of stealing plants from a Sherman park, a case that prompted the […]
Posted inOpinion
Cubs going to the World Series?
There has been much talk lately about the Chicago Cubs. How things are different now. How they’re young and on the cusp of dynasty-dom. How Bartman can now get on his billy goat and ride into the sunset. Brave talk for fans of a team that hasn’t done, well, anything. When the Cubs finish above […]
Posted inNews
Update: ALPLM director out
Eileen Mackevich This article has been updated twice from its original form. Eileen Mackevich, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, has resigned. Mackevich resigned today after a meeting with top aides to Gov. Bruce Rauner. “I resigned as of today,” Mackevich said. “I resigned for multiple reasons.” Asked if she was […]
Posted inNews
Lincoln museum finances reviewed
Amid a reshuffle of the institution’s governing board and a state budget impasse, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum’s finances are being scrutinized. Chris Wills, spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency that oversees the institution, confirmed that IHPA director Amy Martin is reviewing monies that the ALPLM receives from the gift shop, catering […]
Posted inNews
Agency applies for Lincoln grant
After saying that it would not apply for a federal grant to help fund the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency says that it did, in fact, seek federal funding for the effort to digitize every document the Great Emancipator wrote or read. “There was some internal miscommunication about that, which […]
Posted inNews
State skips Lincoln grant application
The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency will not apply for a federal grant to help fund the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project that is digitizing every document ever read or written by the Great Emancipator. After deadline for an Illinois Times story printed today that highlights the project’s financial uncertainty, IHPA spokesman Chris Wills yesterday afternoon […]
Posted inNews
Supporters defend Lincoln papers project
PHOTO BY OLIVIER DOULIERY/TNS With finances uncertain, a financer of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project is urging the state to fund the project that aims to digitize every document that Lincoln either wrote or read during his lifetime. “We consider this project one of the most important historical efforts by the State of Illinois,” […]
Posted inNews
Autumn 2015 Brew Review
Tastes change with the advent of fall. Absent the blast furnace of summer, we become more finicky, less willing to shotgun can after can from 18-packs that dip below 10 bucks when the temperature shoots past 90 degrees and humidity strains our ability to do anything except, well, drink beer. In July, we care only […]
Posted inNews
Gold’s Gym shutting down
Gold’s Gym is closing pursuant to an order issued today by a bankruptcy court. The gym closed effective 1 p.m. today, according to a note on the door from Maureen “Mo” Suhadolnik, the gym’s executive director. She declined an interview request. “I am so very sorry…this has been like a family for all these years,” […]
