As the effects of COVID-19 spread, musicians have been hit especially hard but some area bands are getting creative. Local pop/punk rockers Hospital Job just released a new four-track EP of covers on their bandcamp with all funds going to Direct Relief USA, an organization for dealing with emergencies in the USA and worldwide. McNeill […]
Cap City
Posted inOpinion
THE MAYBE HOTEL
March 6 is the deadline for the developer of a proposed downtown hotel to prove that more than $73 million in private financing has been secured for the project. Otherwise, a city agreement to provide $450,000 for property acquisition, and more than $7 million in public money down the line, could be in jeopardy. Early […]
Posted inOpinion
FOOD FIGHT!
If there’s one constant at city hall, it’s cage fights, jello wrestling, mud slinging – call it what you will – inside city council chambers, and this week proved no exception as Ward 6 Ald. Kristin “Terminator” DiCenso went up against Ward 7 Ald. Joe “Master of Disaster” McMenamin for the championship belt in a […]
Posted inOpinion
SCOTT REMEMBERED
The late Jeanne Scott blazed legal trails. Valedictorian at Sacred Heart High School when it was girls only, she went on to become the first female Sangamon County Circuit Court judge and, later, the first woman appointed a federal judge in central Illinois, a post she held for a dozen years before retiring in 2010. […]
Posted inOpinion
LET’S GO SWIMMING!
Owing to snow, there was no school Wednesday. The groundhog remains safely below ground. But this all will change soon enough, and when it does, there will be no better way to spend an afternoon than floating in the backyard pool or, perhaps, even paddling a few laps. No worries if you’re prone to sink […]
Posted inOpinion
SCHOCKING
In a complaint made two years ago to the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice, federal prosecutor Tim Bass alleged there were grounds to believe that two colleagues in the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield conspired with U.S. District Court Judge Colin Bruce, the presiding judge, to sabotage a corruption case against former […]
Posted inOpinion
MAKE EDUCATION GREAT AGAIN
Sacred Heart-Griffin High School has banned students from engaging in political displays at school events following an episode at the recent city basketball tournament, when Griffin students in the stands unfurled a Re-Elect Trump banner during a game against Lanphier High School. Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory says he’s heard from constituents as well as […]
Posted inOpinion
ALL YOU CAN EAT
Former state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Leavenworth, this week became the latest in a long string of Illinois pols who’ve sinned after years of – as they are inevitably prone to say – serving constituents whom they profoundly regret disappointing. We’re neither disappointed nor surprised by Sandoval’s guilty plea to bribery charges. Indeed, we’re proud of […]
Posted inOpinion
NO MORE GOLDFISH PRIZES
It is a mainstay of fairs and carnivals around the country: sink a ping pong ball into a fish bowl and win the goldfish swimming inside. But if a bill in the Illinois Senate becomes law, carnivals would no longer be allowed to award live animals – such as fish, reptiles and hermit crabs – […]
Posted inOpinion
SKATING AWAY
Who doesn’t like parks? From Yellowstone in Wyoming to Riverside Park on Peoria Road, we should be grateful for green space wherever we can find it. The family of Elijah Iles, early Springfield settler, understood that, and so we have Iles Park in the city’s heart, named for benefactors who donated land where pickleball and […]
