The Illinois Department of Agriculture will be hosting the first ever Illinois Products Fall Farmers’ Market on the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield today.
The fall market will run from 9AM-2PM at “The Shed” on the fairgrounds.
The market will feature all Illinois produce and fresh products, food trucks, free kids’ activities, and live music including Jacksonville’s own Robert Sampson.
Children are also encouraged to dress in their Halloween costume to receive a free surprise. IDOA Director Jerry Costello says there will also be plenty of things for kids to do, as well with face painting, balloon animals, pumpkin decorating, and tie-dye. There will also be a Fall book giveaway.
Visitors are encouraged to go to the information booth for a chance to win an Illinois Products Basket or Market Cash. There will also be a separate drawing for kids.
Marketgoers who spend $25 in LINK will receive an additional $25 in LINK Match to spend on fruits and vegetables courtesy of IDOA.
Parking is located across the street from The Shed on the Fairgrounds.
The Illinois Department of Transportation has announced upcoming lane closures for the Joe Page Bridge over the Illinois River.
The bridge carries Illinois Route 100 from Greene & Jersey County travelers into Hardin in Calhoun County.
Traffic is expected to be reduced to one lane from 8AM to 8:30PM each day between October 24-27.
The closures are being made for routine annual inspection of the bridge by IDOT engineers.
IDOT says Motorists can expect delays and should allow extra time for trips through this area. To avoid the work area, when feasible, use of alternate routes should be considered.
The Sangamon County Coroner has reported that two people died last night in a two-vehicle crash south of Chatham on Illinois Route 4.
Coroner Jim Allmon says the driver of each vehicle involved in the crash, a 17 year old female from Virden and a 31 year old male from Beardstown, were pronounced deceased at the scene.
Autopsies are being scheduled and identities are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.
The Illinois State Police and the Sangamon County Coroner’s Office are in charge of an ongoing investigation into the cause of the crash.
Jacksonville Police Detectives have released more information about an arrest that occurred over the weekend.
On Saturday, August 13th at 9:41PM, Jacksonville Police received a report of a robbery at the Shell Gas Station located at 1720 West Morton Avenue. An employee of the business said that a man had indicated he was armed with a handgun and took an undetermined amount of money. The suspect was gone before officers arrived and was not able to be located at the time. No injuries were reported.
Detectives processed the scene and during the course of the investigation, a person of interest was developed to pursue an arrest warrant.
This past Saturday, Morgan County Sheriff’s Deputies took 39 year old Tony C. Harold of Springfield into custody on the warrant for aggravated robbery, a Class 1 Felony. He remains lodged at the Morgan County Jail on bond.
Harold is due in Morgan County Circuit on the charges on November 1st for a preliminary hearing.
A Morgan County woman has been indicted on federal drug charges.
58 year old Tonja L. Day of the 800 block of Routt Street in Jacksonville was indicted by a federal grand jury on September 7th for possession with intent to deliver 50 grams or more of methamphetamine on July 25th, according to federal charging documents. Day was arrested on October 4th after a Morgan County Court hearing with the unsealing of the indictment coming last Wednesday.
Day’s charges in Morgan County Court of possession of methamphetamine less than 5 grams from a February 7th arrest along with the July 25th arrest by Jacksonville Police for methamphetamine delivery between 15-100 grams and possession of methamphetamine between 5-15 grams were dropped pursuant to the federal case. Day also has a pending case of possession of methamphetamine less than 5 grams from a June 8th arrest near Greenfield that still remains pending in Greene County Circuit Court.
Day was arraigned on the federal charges in U.S Central District federal court last Thursday. Day was appointed a federal public defender and had a jury trial set in front of federal Judge Sue E. Myerscough for December 6th.
At a detention hearing on Tuesday, Day was ordered detained and taken into custody by U.S. Marshals. According to Day’s detention filing, the charges in the case involve a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. Day was also deemed a danger to the community with a lengthy criminal history and a predisposition to re-offend if offered bond citing 2 unnamed pending cases that violated Day’s probation from a 2021 conviction for possession of methamphetamine in Morgan County, according to documents signed by federal Judge Karen McNaught. Day remains held within the custody of the U.S Marshals in Springfield.
Day is next due in federal court for a pre-trial hearing on November 17th.
The city has hired Eric Shumate, former Chief of Police in Thomasboro, a small town in northern Champaign County. Shumate will be the city’s four chief of police since 2019.
According to the Champaign News-Gazette, Shumate was terminated without cause by the Thomasboro Village Board of Trustees in June. Thomasboro Village President Tyler Evans told the News-Gazette he disagreed with the vote of termination and said Shumate had done nothing wrong.
According to a LinkedIN profile for Shumate, he was employed as Police Chief in Thomasboro for a little over 2 years. Prior to that, he served as an agent for Bill Clutter Investigations doing business as Courthouse Courier in Vermillion & Champaign counties for just under 5 years. He previously served as a Champaign County Sheriff’s Deputy from 1989 to 2014.
Lewis & Clark Community College will be replacing one of its board members after some controversial comments on social media and at a public meeting forced them to resign.
Lewis & Clark Board Chairman David Heyen resigned this week at the board’s monthly business meeting Tuesday night.
Heyen has been under intense scrutiny dating back to 2019 when Heyen was named the board’s chairman. Riverbender reported in May 2019 that an anonymous reader sent screenshots of anti-Islamic, anti-foreigner, and pro-Confederate stances on a Facebook Page attributed to Heyen. Shortly after the investigation was made public, the Missouri chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations called for Heyen’s resignation as the controversy drew national attention. Subsequent calls for Heyen’s resignation came from the Lewis & Clark Faculty Association.
According to a recent Riverbender report, Heyen made unprofessional comments during the board’s September business meeting during public comment directed toward current Philosophy Professor Gerald Mozur, who was commenting about a historic building being torn down on campus. The Riverfront Times reports that Mozur was in process of giving his comments remotely but technical difficulties delayed the comments. As the tech issues were being worked out, a voice can be heard saying a derogatory comment directed at Mozur. The Edwardsville Intelligencer says that the voice was later attributed to Heyen prompting an immediate investigation into the incident by the Board of Trustees and Lewis & Clark administration.
After a brief closed session Tuesday night, the current board accepted Heyen’s resignation and appointed Vice Chairwoman Julie Johnson as its new chair. The board will make a decision at a future meeting on how to fill the vacancy.
The Lewis & Clark Community College District covers Greene, Calhoun, Jersey, Madison, and southern Macoupin counties.
AT&T Illinois has agreed to pay a $23 million fine for trying to illegally sway former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Former AT&T Illinois President, 65 year old Paul La Schiazza, now faces charges for conspiring to influence Madigan. Madigan and longtime associate Michael McClain now face an additional conspiracy count alleging the corrupt scheme with AT&T Illinois in a superseding indictment from the federal government.
The federal investigation of AT&T Illinois (listed as Illinois Bell Telephone Company), which was previously reported by the Chicago Tribune earlier this year, is being resolved with a deferred prosecution agreement under which the company admitted it arranged for payments to be made to an ally of Madigan to influence the powerful speaker’s efforts to assist with legislation sought by the company in Springfield.
The Chicago Sun-Times says in exchange for admitting guilt and paying a $23 million fine, the charge will be dropped by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in two years. The deal is similar to the deal that Commonwealth Edison entered into more than two years ago that started the slow downfall of the Madigan regime.
According to reports, the AT&T Illinois court documents now name Madigan outright as a party to the bribery scheme. It says that in 2017, the utility arranged for an unnamed individual, whom the Chicago Tribune report names as former State Representative Edward Acevedo who was working as a registered lobbyist for another company at time time, to indirectly receive $22,500 for a 9-month consulting contract from AT&T Illinois even though he allegedly did no work in return. The payments were allegedly filtered through former Madigan staffer and political strategist Thomas Cullen.
More developments on the case are expected to be released throughout the day.
A ballot issue in Schuyler County raised the ire of the Illinois Republican Party last night.
The Schuyler County Clerk’s Office was notified yesterday that they had printed an incorrect person’s name as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate challenging Democrat incumbent Tammy Duckworth.
Incumbent Tammy Duckworth (left) is seeking to defeat Republican challenger Kathy Salvi (right) for a second term in the U.S. Senate.
Rather than having Kathy Salvi’s name printed as the candidate, Salvi’s primary challenger and runner-up Peggy Hubbard’s name was printed on the ballot. Hubbard overwhelming won the primary in Schuyler County with 396 votes to Salvi’s 170. However, Salvi did well in the suburbs and the City of Chicago to win the overall race to take the Republican nomination.
Schuyler County Clerk Mindy Garrett (photo courtesy IACCR)
Schulyer County Clerk Mindy Garrett says the human error caused problems on some early voters’ cast ballots and mail-in ballots: “When we were notified yesterday morning, as soon as we were notified, we contacted the vendor and took immediate action to get the ballots corrected. We had 45 early votes placed here in the office and 307 that were vote-by-mail ballots. We are in the process currently of re-sending out with a letter those 307 mail-in ballots, so that they have an opportunity to vote a correct ballot.”
Salvi’s campaign and IL GOP Chairman Don Tracy were upset over the error calling it a more pressing problem with modern-day elections asking for integrity and transparency.
Tracy called it an unacceptable error by Garrett’s Office in a press release: “Voters need to have confidence that our election process is conducted fairly and transparently. This is an unacceptable error by the Schuyler County Clerk. While we are lucky that we caught this error early, this doesn’t change the fact that it could very well disenfranchise dozens of her voters. Officials responsible must be held accountable professionally, and Schuyler County must come up with a solution to remedy their mistake and ensure these voters have a say in who represents them in the United States Senate.”
Garrett says she currently is awaiting a ruling from the Illinois State Board of Elections on the 45 early voters’ ballots on whether they can re-cast their vote on correct ballots. They are currently being sequestered. Matt Dietrich, spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Elections told Capital Fax that barring any court order to do otherwise, any votes for Hubbard will be disregarded when tabulation begins at 7 p.m. on Election Day.
Garrett, who is a Democrat, says the issue was not a politically concocted plot to disenfranchise voters: “There was no ill-intent whatsoever. I mean, it was a human error. I take responsibility. It was a human error and I completely apologize for the error. And I’m sure politics have come into play, but it was nothing politically driven any shape or form.”
Garrett says voters coming into early vote and receiving a mail-in ballot now can be confident the error has corrected and that her office is working with the Salvi campaign to satisfy any further questions: “As soon as we found out about the error, we took immediate action and within an hour (I don’t know the exact time) we stopped all voting as soon as we found out and made the correction. Then, we immediately started having the corrected ballots being sent out and for people coming in to early vote. We are working with her legal counsel, and we are working well with them trying to answer any questions and do everything we can to make this as clean as possible. We got the corrections done as soon as we could.”
Ballot certification by the State Board of Elections took place on August 26th after the June primary was certified. The Board of Elections does not approve local ballots being printed after certification. According to the June primary, there are 4,792 registered voters in Schuyler County. Garrett is running unopposed for re-election as Schuyler County Clerk.
UPDATE 6:52PM OCT 13: Ameren says approximately 1,200 customers have had service restored to their residence. The estimated return to service for the remaining 460 customers is expected to be 7:30PM.
The west side of Jacksonville dealt with a major power outage this afternoon due to strong winds downing a tree limb that caught fire after severing a power line.
Representatives of the Jacksonville Fire Department, South Jacksonville Fire Department, and Ameren-Illinois were called out to a power line and downed tree limb that had caught fire on Mound Road at Sycamore Street at approximately 3:30PM.
Brian Bretsch, Communications Executive with Ameren-Illinois, says a sizable limb fell on to a primary power line causing the limb to catch fire. At the same time, the limb burnt up a section of the power line causing it to drop to the ground. Ameren crews have been in the area assessing damage and re-routing customers where they could to restore service. According to the Ameren Outage Map approximately 1,670 customers were affected by the outage.
Bretsch says that full service should be restored at approximately 6:45PM this evening.
The entire WLDS/WEAI listening area remains under a red flag warning for consistently high winds, low humidity, and the easy ability to spread any kind of fire outdoors. Burn bans are in effect in some portions of the area due to the warning. The National Weather Service says the heightened fire danger may persist through the weekend.
