The Jacksonville Public Library still doesn’t have an answer on why their old Facebook Page went away.

Head Librarian Jake Magnuson says he’s found that the platform has done it to other businesses and organizations without explanation: “We’re kind of slowly but surely building our way back up, but we got nothing – never any sort of communication about why it happened. It seems like more and more I’m seeing people talking about…or businesses kind of talking about how their pages just went away one day. So, it’s one of those modern-world problems, I guess.”

Magnuson says they are working diligently to rebuild the online following and get the word out on events and information about the library: “We can advertise here in the building, but there is only a certain percentage of the people that use the website or the Facebook page that actually come into the building to see those ads. We try in venues like radio for getting the word out there, sending out newsletters, things like that anytime we can to try and mention we have this new presence that if you want to know what’s going on, please follow us there.”

Magnuson says links to the new Facebook page are on the library’s website and QR codes are posted in the building. He says that people should be able to easily use the search function on their Facebook app and find the new library page.

Magnuson says the next Music Under the Dome is right around the corner: “January 8th we have Wild Columbine. They play traditional music, kind of sacred, secular sort of stuff. They are a 4-piece band. They’ll be here on the 8th. It will be our first one of the new year.”

To find out more information or to see a schedule of events taking place at the library, visit jaxpl.org.

The first phase of rehabilitation to the Winchester Depot is complete.

The Scott County Times reports that painting of the main room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the hallways has been completed. A new counter top in the kitchen along with new flooring throughout the building and new toilets and sinks in the bathrooms have been installed. A new hot water heater has also been purchased and installed for the building over the last several months.

Stevie VanDevelde and her sister Sonnie Hoover are overseeing the project.

A second and third phase of renovations are planned for the building in hopes of making it a gathering place for events in the Winchester community once again.

Phase 2 is expected to include additional painting, polishing current hardwood flooring, and replacing broken windows. VanDevelde told the Times she and her sister hope to have the second phase completed before the end of winter to begin the third phase this coming Spring, which will involve exterior work.

Funds for the building rehab came from a letter writing campaign seeking donations from the community and businesses as well as from the City of Winchester.

If you would like to donate to the continue efforts at the Depot, you can send donations to the Scott County Historical Society at PO Box 85 Winchester IL 62694.

Illini Community Hospital in Pittsfield is going to be getting a new drive-thru clinic in the new year.

WGEM reports that the Xpress Clinic in the square will be closing and moving to the site of the old annex building behind the hospital on Franklin Street. That’s where the new clinic will be built after it’s demolished and built up. The clinic will be similar to Blessing Hospital’s drive-thru clinic in Quincy.

Administrative nursing director Susan Chenoweth told WGEM that bids are out right now and hope to hire contractors in February. She said the clinic is set to open sometime in the fall or winter of 2023.

Jacksonville Police responded to a third shots fired incident in the city within the last two days.

Reports of gunfire was called in to West Central Joint Dispatch at 2:47PM today from the 500 block of East Lafayette Avenue.

Upon arrival, police say they are investigating an aggravated discharge of a firearm after multiple gunshots were fired into an occupied residence.

No injuries were sustained in the shooting.

If you have any information about this incident, please call the Jacksonville Police Department at 217-479-4630 or leave an anonymous tip with the Morgan-Scott-Cass Crime Stoppers hotline at 217-243-7300.

In a last minute ruling today, the Illinois Supreme Court put a stay on implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act statewide.

On Wednesday night, Kankakee County Judge Thomas Cunnington ruled that the Pretrial Fairness Act portion of the SAFE-T Act was unconstitutional after a combined lawsuit was brought by sheriffs and state’s attorneys from over 60 counties in the state.

Cunnington ruled that the law, set to take effect tomorrow January 1st, unconstitutionally amended the Illinois State Constitution’s provision that allows “all persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties” that are to be set at the judge’s discretion in the local court system. Cunnington wrote in his ruling that if the General Assembly wanted to change provisions of the State Constitution, they should have submitted the questions to the electorate on the ballot as a referendum.

Morgan County State’s Attorney Gray Noll said on Thursday that he was going to have speak with Chief Judge Chris Reif about how the local court system would proceed with Morgan County enjoined into that lawsuit. Cass County State’s Attorney Craig Miller called Cunnington’s decision a win: “We were a county that filed with the lawsuit. We are one of the 65 counties that are no longer bound by the provision of no cash bail under the SAFE-T Act. I would consider that a win. We will be operating as we would have without the SAFE-T Act in place, meaning we will still be setting cash bail. Until we here otherwise from the Supreme Court or the legislature, that’s how we’ll proceed.”

Now, the entire State of Illinois will wait on if the Pretrial Fairness Act will be implemented. In its ruling tonight, the State Supreme Court granted an emergency motion filed by the state’s attorneys of DuPage and Kane counties that asked the court to provide clarity for consistent pretrial proceedings throughout the state. In the ruling today, the court granted the motion on those grounds so that no counties would treat pretrial procedures differently while the body of the lawsuit is worked out.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul expressed his frustrations last night after the Kankakee County Court ruling. Several counties issued temporary restraining orders to stop enforcement of the entire SAFE-T ACT. He called the multiple restraining orders on the final business day before the law was set to be implemented an abuse of the judicial system: “Beginning [Friday] morning, the Attorney General’s office received new complaints and motions for temporary restraining orders (TROs) from state’s attorneys and sheriffs throughout Illinois who are seeking to prevent the SAFE-T Act from going into effect. To be clear, these motions were filed on the last business day before Jan. 1, when the SAFE-T Act will go into effect.

“In some of these TRO motions, plaintiffs are asking that the Attorney General’s office be enjoined from enforcing any provision of the SAFE-T Act, not just the pretrial release provisions. Many of these provisions have been in effect for more than a year; however, my office received less than one hour’s notice of hearings in some counties and no notice at all in others. Throughout the day, we continued to learn of plaintiffs having obtained TROs without giving our office notice or providing copies of the complaints or TRO motions. To say that this is an abuse of the judicial process is an understatement. The SAFE-T Act has been the law in Illinois since January 2021, giving these plaintiffs nearly two years to raise challenges. In fact, the plaintiffs have had since October to join the lawsuits consolidated in Kankakee County. It is outrageous that the plaintiffs instead chose to sit on their hands until the last business day before the SAFE-T Act is to go into effect, and then seek to enjoin it from going into effect.”

Approximately one hour after the ruling by Judge Cunnington was issued, Governor J.B. Pritzker called it a major setback: “Today’s ruling is a setback for the principles we fought to protect through the passage of the SAFE-T Act. The General Assembly and advocates worked to replace an antiquated criminal justice system with a system rooted in equity and fairness. We cannot and should not defend a system that fails to keep people safe by allowing those who are a threat to their community the ability to simply buy their way out of jail. I thank the Attorney General for his work on this case and look forward to the Illinois Supreme Court taking up the appeal as soon as possible.”

Other provisions of the SAFE-T Act beside the pretrial fairness/no cash bail portion have been in effect for more than a year. Those provisions will remain in place despite the stay on the Pretrial Fairness Act.

An emergency appeal filed by the Attorney General’s Office is expected to be heard sometime early next week after the New Years holiday.

One national group is unhappy with Congress, in particular one Illinois Congressman, for not ensuring a provision was in the recently passed $1.7 trillion budget appropriations bill.

The bill did not contain the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program (TAA). The federal program was established in 1974 to provide aid to workers who lose their jobs or whose hours of work and wages are reduced as a result of increased imports. The TAA offered a variety of benefits and reemployment services to help unemployed workers who have had their jobs shipped overseas to find suitable employment. Displaced workers received critical services like training, job search and relocation allowances, income support, a health coverage tax credit, and more. Groups of 3 or more workers from the same company or manufacturer could file for TAA or through a union or their duly authorized representative.

The BlueGreen Alliance says that Congress left workers out to dry by not ensuring the provision was in the recent omnibus budget bill. Specifically, the alliance took aim at Congressman Darin LaHood. According to the alliance in a press release, there are 11 certified active TAA cases in LaHood’s district impacting just under 2,300 workers. The alliance says that over 5,500 workers in Illinois are impacted by the lack of action on the provision.

BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director Jason Walsh said in a press release that due to LaHood’s membership on the House Ways & Means Committee, he could have led a bipartisan deal to save the TAA. Walsh says he’s going to continue to push LaHood and others in Congress in the new year to get the TAA reauthorized.

Jacksonville School District 117 is about halfway through its budget year.

There is a concern that revenue projections will give the district a high fund balance at the end of the fiscal year.

District Treasurer Richard Cunningham says that the general fund balance is up due to a combination of local sales tax receipts are up and the receipt of annual property tax payment from the county in July: “We had local revenues that were received that were $727,000. $500,000 of that total was retiree insurance payments, which is money that gets paid to us but is going out. State revenues, we got $1.3 million. That was mainly Evidence-Based Funding (EBF), and federal revenues, which was mostly Title money was about $400,000. We are, at this point, up about $6.8 million from this time last year.”

Superintendent Steve Ptacek says he immediately got together with Cunningham and began investigating the reason why the fund balance number was so high in comparison to last year: “I got that number and I immediately called Rick and said ‘How on earth are we $6.8 million up?’ We were talking about a year where we really figuring on this year to lose money, but we understood with the payouts to the staff for the buyouts for the health insurance and everything else. We went into it in detail and just between our CPPRT difference, and also we are well under expenditures from last year.”

Many of last year’s expenditures at this time in the school district’s fiscal year included the Bowl’s roof replacement, the paving of the Early Years’ parking lot, and roof projects at both Eisenhower and North Elementary. Those one-time costs were not apart of this year’s budget for capital improvements or life, health, and safety budgets.

Ptacek says ESSER funding was also not a part of the equation in the budget because the district is doing the work on qualifying projects or making the purchases and then, the district gets reimbursed: “So, if we are looking at a month where last year we had spent ESSER money but we hadn’t yet received the check in, the expenditures out of that were taken out of last year’s budget at this point in time and then, we got the money coming in. There’s more money coming in now this year already about some items we’ve already spent for. We looked through this in detail. We were able to come up with, out of $6.8 million about $5.8 million-worth of differences. When I look at the budget report, we are are at 42% of the budget year and we have only had 38% of our expenditures but we have 70% of our expected revenues in. It really is getting once again between CPPRT, increased EBF, our property tax coming in, and there is still another $2 million worth of property tax coming in at the end of December. That number on total revenues is going to be much greater than 100% most likely.”

Ptacek says with the Corporate Personal Property Replacement Tax (CPPRT) revenues and the local 1% sales tax seeing significant jumps, the district is in a good place financially and has a good problem with projections trending upward. Ptaceck cautions, however, that the district now has to find a balance of what is a permanent, sustainable revenue stream and what is simply a temporary or one-time bump: “The toughest thing is to determine is if the money is a one-time revenue or is sustained, repeatable revenue. The reason why we have been in such good financial position over the years is we have committed to the philosophy that you never use one-time revenue for sustained expenses. So we have to really do an analysis of this money that’s up above to see if this is one-time revenue or sustained revenue because that comes into play on how much we can increase salaries. We have a desire still to increase salaries as much as possible. That’s how you’re winning the game of competition for limited staff. That’s your maintaining staff. That’s how your keeping the staff. Before I can go into negotiations for next year and beyond and start talking about we have all this great fund balance, we need to determine how much of it might go away like CPPRT.”

Ptacek also would not rule out the possibility of doing renovations at another school in the district if things continue to trend in the positive. However, he was not willing to commit to that idea at this time saying more research and good trends must continue before that idea could be broached.

In the meantime, Ptacek says the district will continue to monitor month-to-month the district’s revenue streams to ensure proper budgeting and fiscal responsibility continues to be maintained.

Jacksonville Police are investigating a second alleged shots fired incident in as many days.

Police were called to a residence in the 700 block of Northwood Lane at 9:49 last night. The caller told police that shots were fired into their residence while they were present.

Jacksonville Police also handled an alleged shots fired incident at 1:40 in the morning on Friday in the 700 block of North East Street.

No further information about these incidents ares available. Both incidents remains under investigation by Jacksonville Police. If you have any information, please call 217-479-4630.

Springfield will celebrate the arts to kick off the new year once again.

The 35^th annual First Night Springfield is a family-friendly celebration of the arts at several locations on Saturday, December 31st. Tickets to the event are $5 for youth and $20 for adults for evening entertainment at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. Tickets can be purchased ahead of time at the Hoogland’s website. Children’s activities are free to attend at the Hoogland, Union Baptist Church, and the fireworks show.

Parking is available at the Herndon Ramp at 6^th Street and Capitol. There will be a silent auction to benefit the event’s main coordinator and sponsor, the Springfield Area Arts Council. Refreshments will be provided for both the afternoon and evening events. For more information, visit springfieldartsco.org.