HSHS St. John’s Hospital and the Gateway Foundation are partnering together to create a better response to for hospital patients presenting with substance abuse disorder.

Hospital officials around the state are reporting that more cases of patients presenting in the emergency room or needing continued treatment for the effects of substance abuse.

Dr. Teresa Garate, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Engagement for Gateway says, that hospitals are simply not equipped to deal with the problem: “One of the things that we knew before the pandemic started was that hospitals, in general…not all, but most were very unprepared to support people presenting in their hospital Emergency Rooms or even in their med surge floors with substance use issues and opioid use disorder. That’s because hospitals are also under-resourced and just don’t have the right staff to focus on that. So, this warm hand-off model started way before the pandemic; and then, during the pandemic, the need got even more heightened. I think HSHS saw this as a way to partner with a community-based provider to save people’s lives because of the number of people that were coming into both their emergency rooms as well as their med surge floors suffering from some kind of substance use disorder. They themselves saw that they did not have all the resources and sometimes any expertise to engage people and convince them to go to [substance abuse] treatment.”

The new partnership establishes a team, including a certified addictions counselor, to screen patients who may be in need of addiction treatment and to refer them to appropriate facilities for care using a warm hand off model from the E.R. or med surge floor directly to a substance abuse treatment facility or program.

The model for Gateway is being used in 26 hospitals across the state, with 10 of them within the HSHS system. The work is being funded through the Illinois Department of Human Service by a formula grant based on population.

The City of Winchester has moved on to the second phase of procuring funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to replace and upgrade water mains.

The Winchester City Council approved a preliminary engineering agreement with Benton & Associates back in February.

Municipal Engineer Greg Hillis says the city has moved onto the next step of providing a full application for a matching grant and a low-interest loan to complete the $3.4 million project: “You submitted the Preliminary Engineering Request some time back [in February]. Before this month’s Winchester City Council meeting, the city did get the full invitation to apply for USDA grant. The full invite is for the full application for the programs. The PER was just a pre-application. The city is now selected to submit a full application. It does not mean the city is obligated anything, but it is looking good for the city and the USDA grant/loan program.”

Hillis says much of the application needs to be completed before the end of the calendar year because of a new Buy America-Build America (BABA) requirements signed into law in November: “We are trying to get the application done before the first of the year because of the BABA requirements. If we can have all of this paperwork in and you can get obligated before the first of the year, you do not have to meet those requirements. It’s a good requirement, but it is going to increase the costs. If we can get this done and get going, we do not have to meet the requirements of BABA.”

Hillis says while it is good in concept, it changes the landscape of the ability to procure materials for a project of this scope and size. It also significantly increases waiting times on material availability and costs.

Hillis went on to say that the city would be saving close to $10,000 on the project because most of the land will not need environmental studies because it’s already on previously disturbed land that had previously been surveyed. Hillis says the $10,000 would be held into a different portion of the construction phase of the project.

Hillis says the timeline and the scope of the project will be determined upon the amount of funding the USDA grants and loans to the city for the project.

The RCHS/OSS Dreams Drawing had another record sellout this year for tickets.

Dreams Committee Co-Chair Stacy Bradshaws says it’s all leading up to the grand prize drawing at the Routt Family Fun Festival on Sunday, September 4th at 6PM: “After the Early Bird drawing, we had about 200 tickets left on Sunday, July 31st. Those sold out within a couple of days. Ticket sales went great and we’re very excited to be giving away $100,000 and then, our second prize of a 2022 Jeep Wrangler.”

Bradshaw says that the only ways left to get one of the 4,300 tickets for the drawing is by 1) winning one of the 8 tickets that WEAI 107.1 the Eagle is giving way through their drawing – call and listen for the sounder and be the correct caller to get entered into the ticket giveaway or 2) win a ticket during one of the chances in the various activities during the weekend of the Routt Family Fun Festival.

Bradshaw says that this year has seen a number of social media scams trying to goad people into buying false tickets: “I was looking at our ‘Sold Out’ post on Facebook last Friday and several of the comments were scammers saying they had additional tickets to sell. We deleted all of those comments and tracked them down and figured out they were scammers. We actually delved into it a little bit further. If you just search ‘Sell Out’ in Facebook, you can come across all kinds of these different raffles where people say they have all these different kinds of tickets for sale. With the Dreams Campaign, once we sell the 4,300 tickets, there are no more additional ticket sales. There are no other tickets for sale at this point.”

The winners of the 8 WEAI Dreams ticket giveaway will be drawn at 12PM during “Lunch with the Legends” with Kate on WEAI 107.1FM on Friday, September 2nd.

The Dreams drawing winners will be simulcast live on both WEAI 107.1FM and AM1180 WLDS on Sunday, September 4th starting at 6PM.

The Jacksonville City Council approved the preliminary steps to upgrade a well-traveled bridge on the city’s east side last night.

The East College Avenue bridge at Mauvaisterre Creek has been on the city’s radar for the past 5 years to get upgraded through a federal grant program.

Jim Hutchison of Hutchison Engineering says that with the city taking the first steps to secure a preliminary engineering agreement and approve appropriations through the city’s Motor Fuel Tax funds, things can proceed: “One of the things that has happened is the condition of the bridge continues to deteriorate to the point that we really need to get serious about funding. In an effort to do so, we recommend that you move forward with Phase I engineering, which would be surveying, hydraulic study, a bridge condition report, and some environmental work to be submitted. Then, as we apply for the next round of grants for that bridge, we can show that [the city] has taken the initiative, and that will bump your score up on your grant application. It probably would be scoring it up to the point where you should be able to get funded this next year. That’s an 80-20 program, with 80% of course coming from federal funds and 20% would be funded utilizing local funds. We have saved money back for that process in the MFT.”

Over the last 5 years, the city had been using motor fuel tax funds to patch potholes over the dangerous bridge that leads to Old State Road. Hydroplaning and standing water have been a major issue. Hutchison says once the preliminary work is completed, the city may finally be granted the federal funds to completely redo the bridge.

Morgan County residents who have a complaint or question about the Lincoln Land Wind project now have a way to contact the project’s owner.

After concerned citizen Joana Ramsey of Alexander pointed out to the Morgan County Commissioners at a previous meeting that the contact information for Ørsted Energy, the owner of the Lincoln Land Wind project, was incorrect, the county board sought out the company to fix the information.

Brad Zeller says contact was made with the company and the county’s website is now updated with the correct information including an email address: “We made some phone calls to Ørsted Energy and talked to them about how they could streamline that process and make sure that anyone that called the hotline number was responded to in a more than adequate fashion. We want that response to be immediate. They also suggested that we put a email address up, too. We have posted that on our webpage. It does say ‘for landowners only’ on it, and that is not the case. That email is for anyone that wants to contact Ørsted.”

Citizens in the county have continued to question when Ørsted will get the Aircraft Detection Lighting System up and running so the blinking red lights will shut off out in the county.

Jacksonville Memorial Hospital and the Simmons Cancer Institute at SIU Medicine are partnering to offer a free community skin cancer screening later this month.

The screening will be held 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Aug. 20^th at JMH.

Screenings will be conducted by the dermatology team from the Simmons Cancer Institute. Preregistration and a short consent form are required to participate in the screening. To preregister, call 217-479-3928. Participants should not currently be under the care of a dermatologist.

Funding for the screening is provided by the Simmons Cancer Institute at SIU and the Jacksonville Memorial Foundation.

The Biden Administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday. More than 6,500 cases have been reported across the country.

Governor J.B. Pritzker declared monkeypox to be a statewide public health emergency last Monday, classifying Illinois as a “disaster area” in regards to the disease. Illinois currently has the 4th highest number of cases in the nation.

Morgan, Scott, Greene, Cass, and many other West Central Illinois have yet to announce a confirmed or probable case yet.

Morgan County Health Department Administrator Dale Bainter says that the virus is being closely watched: “Internally and in our office we are watching closely to see what’s going on, and testing when we have possible cases. It’s a different animal than Covid. The way it is spread is different. It tends to be more of a close contact from active lesions. We don’t consider it to be the same as Covid, but with anything like this that’s a communicable disease, we are going watching for it and testing. We hope to not to see that level of spread. I think we are well over 6,000 cases across the nation. Illinois has quite a few of those. I think we are in the top 3 – most of it being in our larger municipal areas. We are watching for it locally and hope to not see the level of spread anything like we have seen with Covid or anything else like that. It should not see those levels just due to its nature of how it spreads.”

Both state and federal declarations open up access to emergency funds, allow health agencies to collect more data about potential cases and vaccinations, accelerate vaccine distribution, and make it easier for doctors to prescribe treatment.

According to NBC Chicago on Friday, Illinois had reported 571 monkeypox cases with 460 of those cases in Chicago. As of Thursday, Sangamon County had reported only 1 probable case of the disease.

The Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce is encouraging residents to shop local during the state tax holiday on back to school items.

The Chamber is running a Back to School Shop and Win contest running from August 5-14, in conjunction with the State Sales Tax holiday.

Chamber Executive Director Lisa Musch says there are some simple ways to get in the contest: “Basically, you just have to do 3 things: spend $20 or more at any local retailer and if you shop at a Chamber member’s business you get a bonus entry; email a picture of your receipt to our email address chamber2@jacksonvilleareachamber.org or you can drop it off here at the Chamber Office; just make sure you have your name and phone number on the receipt. Then, all of the entries are going to be entered into a drawing for three $100 Chamber Checks that can be utilized for shopping later on in the year.”

Winners will be drawn on the chamber’s Facebook live at Noon on August 16^th.

Musch says you don’t have to buy just school supplies to enter the contest: “Really, it is just an initiative to remind everybody to shop local for your Back to School shopping. The receipts you turn in can be really from any retailer in the local area and not just for Back to School supplies – anything that you buy from August 5th through 14th, turn in your receipt for that contest.”

For more information about the Back 2 School Shop & Win, check out the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook Page or call them at 217-245-2174.

Residents of Brown County have an open chance to tell community leaders and elected officials about how they feel about living and working in the county.

The Be Heard Brown County survey is available online now.

The questions ask residents what they think is most important, like walkability, hometown atmosphere, entertainment options, and safety.

Several Brown County organizations are pitching in for this, including the Tracy Family Foundation and Action Brown County.

WGEM reports that the county and local leaders try to perform the survey every 4 years. The last survey in 2018 reportedly showed a major request for a Mexican restaurant to come to the county. Shortly after, Los Rancheros opened in Mt. Sterling.

Officials said, this year they have added more questions to the survey to go more in-depth including questions about mental health.

The survey closes on August 31^st.

Two area public libraries are set to receive grants from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office as a part of the 2023 Project Next Generation program.

PNG grants provide for mentors to work with middle and high school students to develop skills using various technologies. The at-risk students learn to achieve success through project-based learning, and gain life skills, such as effective communication, goal setting and conflict resolution.

Beardstown’s Houston Memorial Public Library will receive $14,925 and the Petersbug Public Library will receive $22,154 as a part of the more than $627,000 awarded from Jesse White’s office this year.

White said in a press release he is happy to continue the program he established when he was first elected to help students position themselves for success through learning technology hands-on at their local library. The program is now in its 24^th year of existence.

Projects were awarded grants from the Illinois State Library using federal Library Services and Technology Act funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Grants are awarded to public libraries serving culturally diverse, low-income and underserved populations.