The heirs to more than 400 acres of land within a 1,000-acre circle identified as the preferred site for FutureGen 2.0’s carbon storage area say they are opposed to the technology and the use of their land, which is currently controlled by The Farmers State Bank and Trust Company of Jacksonville. FutureGen 2.0 is the […]
Rachel Wells
Posted inNews
IDOT overtime excessive
The Illinois Department of Transportation last fiscal year spent more than $33 million in overtime costs. But in several cases Illinois’ auditor general couldn’t tell why overtime was necessary or find records of actual hours worked. In an audit of IDOT released last Thursday, June 9, Illinois’ Auditor General William Holland found that employees who […]
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Heirs to FutureGen land oppose project
All six heirs to nearly 40 percent of the land promised to FutureGen 2.0 want the “clean” coal project to go away, says Jeffery and Betty Niemann, Jacksonville residents related to the late Bill Beilschmidt. Beilschmidt, upon his death in 1999, placed more than 600 acres of land located near Ashland in two separate trusts […]
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State taps charity funds to pay its bills
Over the last two years, the state of Illinois in order to pay its basic bills has seized more than $1.6 million from at least 15 different “charity” funds, to which Illinoisans voluntarily donate for causes like feeding the hungry and helping the homeless. Each year, the Illinois Department of Revenue invites taxpayers to donate […]
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Public School Choice not quite revisited
Two newspaper articles, 12 days and at least one school board member’s questions later, the CEO of Springfield Public Schools says he’s not yet able to discuss a Public School Choice waiver application that would decrease the number of students’ families notified about potential options for moving from their failing school from more than 4,000 […]
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The nuke next door
On Friday, March 11, 2011, an afternoon earthquake with a 9.0 magnitude struck off the coast of Japan, unleashing a 14-meter tsunami that about an hour later would devastate the country’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site. Designed only to withstand a tsunami of less than 6 meters, three nuclear reactors lost power as the […]
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District 186 wants to limit ‘Public School Choice’
With four themed magnet schools and one charter school drawing students from across the city regardless of attendance boundaries, School District 186 prides itself on offering “choice” to Springfield families who want to put their children in unique educational settings. [See “Choice schools,” April 7, 2011]. But besides the popular magnet schools Superintendent Dr. Walter […]
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School’s out, but there’s plenty for children to do
For at least a few students, the countdown to summer vacation began last August. Others maybe waited until January, by which time the bitter cold and recent memories of semester finals started giving way to daydreams of summer sunshine and three months of test-free bliss. But Illinois summers also come with high humidity, and, come […]
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Hunted in the Heartland
Bonney Hogue Patterson saw her neighbor’s killer twice in the days surrounding a brutal sexual assault and murder that in 1978 shook the town of Marion, where Mt. Vernon native Patterson had moved just months before the homicide. The first time, the stay-at-home mother of two watched the serial killer – at that point just […]
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Sick without sympathy
For the first time in years, Springfield resident Sarah Williamson is off Social Security disability. After 10 years in and out of college, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree from UIS in 2009. Today, four months into a new job and at the healthiest she’s been in 15 years, 30-year-old Williamson is planning to one […]
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Group aims to bring CeaseFire to Springfield
When a young man from a high-risk neighborhood gets shot and survives, he has the potential to become a hero. But what kind of hero he chooses to become can mean either peaceful progress or continuing violence for his community, says James Hodges, pastor at King’s House Church of the Living God, located at 430 […]
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Springfield urged to watch for human trafficking
State officials and local social service providers can’t say how big of a problem human trafficking is for Springfield but they’re still encouraging local residents to keep their eyes open. Interstate 55 is known as a “beltway” for trafficking of any kind and sex trafficking has been found in much smaller cities, like Harrisburg, Pa., […]
