The nearly 100-year old draw bridge at Florence that carries Illinois Route 100/Illinois Route 106 over the Illinois River is about to be replaced.

Public meetings to explore placing a new bridge at Florence began back in 2016 with the Illinois Department of Transportation. Environmental assessments and a potential design followed with subsequent public hearings in counties on both sides of the bridge.

IDOT Engineer Sal Madonia says the Florence Bridge project is now on to Phase 2 with a full design of the accepted proposal: “With the planning study completed, it identified a new location for the proposed Florence Bridge about 300 feet south of the existing bridge. That process has been vetted through the Phase I process. We had a community advisory group that was helpful in helping us in guiding us through the process. Through the selection process of multiple alternatives, we were able to narrow it down to one selected preferred alternative and that is the one that is 300 feet south of the existing bridge. With that being for the most part completed, we have shifted our efforts onto the design of the new bridge. That’s what we have been actively working on. We have a consultant preparing contract plans for us and they are continuing to work on the design to get us at the point to get the project out there for letting.”

Madonia says that the project will be similar to the Meredosia bridge from just a few years ago in which the new bridge will be built while the old bridge remains open and operational.

Madonia says the design will be similar to the Twin Eagle Bridge that takes Interstate 72 over the river: “The new bridge will be very similar to the I-72/Valley City bridges. It will be built higher. The piers in the water will be wider. I believe the current navigation channel – that main span – is around 200 feet right now. The new bridge will have an opening of around 400 feet.”

Madonia says he doesn’t expect any delays for the new bridge to be built, even with current supply chain issues affecting the country. He says there are a few pieces that IDOT will have to tie up before the bridge can start construction: “We don’t anticipate any delays. There is land to acquire. There is probably about 11 parcels that will be needed. We always have utility adjustments in a project of this size. It will impact some of the utilities that fall in the right-of-way as well as potential for some outside of the right-of-way. Those are all being coordinated at this time. The design is continuing. It’s identifying the land we are actually working on. We are working on preparing plats and getting ready to contact property owners and start the land acquisition process.”

Madonia says in the meantime IDOT will keep a close watch on any further deterioration of the old draw bridge built in 1929, which is now considered structurally deficient and functionally obsolete. He says IDOT has done enough maintenance to the bridge and made significant investments to keep the bridge safe while the new bridge is being completed.

The Illinois EPA has given the green light to a new natural gas-fueled power plant to be built in Pawnee.

EmberClear is developing the Lincoln Land Energy Center with a projected $1 billion investment. According to the company’s website, the natural gas-fueled power plant will produce 1,090 megawatts Siemens Energy, Siemens Financial Services, and BDC-Bechtel Power Holdings LLC are partnering with EmberClear to finance, construct, and build the plant.

The project will be constructed one-half mile south of the Village of Pawnee on a 160-acre tract of land zoned for industrial use and located immediately adjacent to the newly constructed Illinois Rivers transmission substation. Ameren Transmission Co. has invested more than $1.5 billion in the development of a 345 kilo-volt electric transmission line known as the Illinois Rivers project to bolster needed improvements to the power grid and to ensure long-term reliability. The project location is next to the new Austin substation and minimizes aerial transmission and viewshed concerns.

The project will purchase water and backup water supplies from the City of Springfield and the Otter Lake Water Commission via the Village of Pawnee. The discharge from the plant will be sent to a nearby sewage treatment facility owned and operated by the Village of Pawnee.

Natural gas will be accessed through the Panhandle Eastern and Rockies Express transmission pipelines located 4 miles north of the project’s location.

Commercial operations are expected to open in 2024. The project is slated to create 400-700 temporary construction jobs over a 7-year period and 35 permanent jobs.

WMAY reports that local environmental groups are opposed to the permit, saying the project will dramatically increase carbon emissions and harm air quality for area residents.

The Ken Bradbury Foundation is on a special quest to form a video archive of the late playwright and author’s productions online.

Foundation member Maryjane Bradbury says that they are in the process of trying to find full-blown musicals that Ken wrote and produced while he worked as a teacher at Triopia High School: “These are actual VHS tapes, DVDS, or film of shows that Ken created. This started out as a quest for those shows that he wrote specifically for the students at Triopia High School. We have so far secured about 16 shows. We are still on the search for about 13 more shows, although those are full-blown musicals that Ken wrote. As we have been on this quest, we’ve learned that there are a lot more shows out there that Ken has written that other people are providing. So, now we are going to make those available for people to view, as well.”

Bradbury says that the need to archive the video footage of the shows has come from people in the community at large who have starred in the shows or had a family member who was in the shows and is wanting to see the shows again.

Bradbury says if you think you have any shows on tapes, film, or DVDs, that the Foundation would only seek to replicate them in a digital format and then return them. Bradbury says that Ken’s nephews, who own the rights to the works, are seeking to make the footage available to the public: “Doug and David own the rights to all of the shows that Ken wrote. Doug is a computer whiz, and he is taking these recordings and digitizing them. He is linking them onto YouTube through the Ken Bradbury Foundation Facebook Page so they are free for anyone to watch.”

Bradbury says that while the original interest was in the Triopia musicals, the group is also seeking copies of any of Ken’s productions including but not limited to “The Follies” fundraiser productions he wrote for the Passavant Area Hospital Auxiliary and the shows he wrote for the traveling theater troupe he led to local area elementary schools. The traveling troupe plays often dealt with topical subjects like bullying.

Currently, the Bradbury Foundation is looking for videos from the following shows if they exist. Some date back to the 1970s:
“Who is Henrietta Hoover and Why is she Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?”
“Vaudeville’s My Home”
“Burgoo”
“Speak of the Devil”
“1958!”
“Captain Jack Bailey’s All-Star Country Western Circus”
“The Lark and The Locust”
“Pasquale”
“Roar”
“Shangalang”
“Roll on Ohio”
“The Time of My Life”

Anyone with a recording they would be willing to loan to the foundation long enough for a digital copy to be made can contact the foundation at 217-243-3857 or call MaryJane Bradbury at 217-473-4735 by email at KenBradburyFoundation@yahoo.com or via the Ken Bradbury Foundation Facebook page.

Pike County is facing the possibility of being placed on the state’s Do Not Pay list.

The Pike County Board was alerted to a number of errors that exist in the county’s fund status report. The errors in the report are a result of payroll expenditures not being reflected in the fund status report, according to Pike County Treasurer Scott Syrcle.

The Pike Press reports that the county’s fund status report isn’t properly deducting payroll expenses resulting in a $2.7 million difference between what’s actually in the fund and what the report reflects. Syrcle told the Pike County Board that the county’s new Paycom system is causing the problem where department heads can’t properly track department expenditures. WGEM reports that Paycom was put in place last year and is to blame for the incorrect reports.

In addition to the errors in this year’s fund status reports, Syrcle reported that the county’s financial audit from last year still cannot be conducted, because adjustments from last year still need to be made – including adjustments encouraged by last year’s auditors and budget amendments approved by the county board last November.

As a result of the ongoing accounting issues, last year’s financial audit of Pike County has still not been conducted.

If the audit is not completed by the end of August, the county faces the possibility of being placed on the state’s so-called “do not pay list,” which would stop many state payments to Pike County.

In the near term, if the audit isn’t completed, the county is also in danger of losing out on a USDA low-interest loan to finance the purchase of the county highway department’s new building.

County Clerk Natalie Roseberry was reported to be working on the payroll issues, which would not be done until mid-August – placing them beyond the state’s deadline. County Board President Jim Sheppard is reported to have said that the audit wouldn’t be conducted until September.

Syrcle criticized the switch of the county to the Paycom system to WGEM. The county’s former accounting system is said to have have its own issues and was costing taxpayer money, according to both Shepherd and Roseberry speaking to WGEM. Sheppard went on to say that the county’s payroll clerk left their position in the middle of Paycom training and there has been confusion over duties since.

The Pike Press further reports that property owners in Ross and Pleasant Hill townships were overcharged on this year’s property tax bill, as a result of an erroneous tax levy being applied to those properties. Syrcle indicated that taxpayers will be refunded the excess taxes paid at the end of December or beginning of January.

One man was cited after a vehicle rolled over on Illinois Route 104 near Rees Road early this morning causing injuries.

LifeStar EMS and the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department were called out to Rees Curve with the rollover and injuries at 12:07 this morning.

According to police reports, the driver of the unidentified vehicle, 37 year old Christan J. Valencia of the 1000 block of East Morton Avenue was found with lacerations and a cut to his head at the scene. His passenger, 35 year old Tiffany N. West also of the 1000 block of East Morton Avenue was found with lacerations and a cut to the arm on the scene. Both were transported to Jacksonville Memorial Hospital for the injuries.

Valencia was later booked into the Morgan County Jail at 4:52 this morning for driving under the influence of alcohol causing great bodily harm and driving with a suspended license. He remains held without bond at the jail.

The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department wants to expedite its legal fight with the state over jail inmate transfers.

WMAY reports that in a new legal filing, Sangamon County along with 5 other downstate sheriff’s departments are asking for a fast track for discovery and trial over the state’s ongoing failure to transfer inmates to psychiatric facilities in a timely fashion. A hearing on a temporary restraining order is set for Monday.

In the filing, the sheriffs want to then proceed to discovery and depositions immediately , including a request to question Department of Human Service Secretary Grace Hou sometime next month.

Governor JB Pritzker recently extended an executive order suspending the requirement to transfer inmates to psychiatric care within 20 days, and the county says that shows the need for fast court action to resolve the dispute.

A Texas man deemed sexually violent that was arrested for allegedly absconding in Pike County last month has been indicted in federal court for failing to register as a sex offender after crossing multiple states.

62 year old Robert W. Niffen of Houston, Texas was arrested on a bicycle by Pike County Sheriff’s Deputies in Barry on June 12^th after approaching several minors and a caller reported the suspicious behavior to authorities.

Niffen was on parole from the Texas Department of Corrections for an aggravated rape conviction and was deemed a violent sex offender absconder. Pike County authorities also said at the time that Niffen had a lengthy criminal history including escape from a penal institution.

According to federal court records, Niffen was taken from the custody of the Pike County Jail by U.S. Marshals on July 20^th. Magistrate Judge Karen L. McNaught held a video conference with Niffen and defense counsel Thursday ordering him to be detained in federal custody pending a trial.

An initial pre-trial conference has been set for August 24^th with a jury trial scheduled for September 6^th. If convicted, Niffen faces the possibility of fines and up to 10 years in prison.

Local unemployment numbers dropped by nearly half a percentage point over the month.

Morgan, Scott, Greene, Cass, and Macoupin all saw dips of 4-to-5 hundredths of a percentage point between May and June. Brown, Schuyler and Pike remain some of the places of some of the lowest unemployment in West Central Illinois, with all under 3.8%.

Unemployment rates in the state are the lowest they have been since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with an average of 4.5%, still nearly a percentage higher than the nation.

The West Central Illinois rates are comparable to the national average of 3.6%.

Persistence has paid off for the City of Jacksonville in the case of the Lake Jacksonville recreational trail.

The City applied for an Illinois Department of Natural Resources Recreational Trails Program grant more than 3 years ago in the hopes of completing the paved walking trail all the way around the lake. Former City Planner Kelly Hall had openly spoke in city council meetings about getting the trail completed, by connecting the north paved trail to the south side of the lake.

In April, after a second application, the city received notification that they had been accepted into the program and that a bridge could be built to connect both sides of the trail. Greg Hillis, engineer of Benton & Associates, explains that the bridge was the final piece to connecting both sides of the lake: “It takes the trail a step further. It gets a bridge across the creek. That piece was eliminated sometime back…quite a few years ago. That’s always been the hurdle of connecting both sides of the lake, trying to get funding to do this bridge. With the DNR Recreational Trail Program that the city received, it’s allowing the bridge to be designed and installed to get that access to what we are calling the south side of the lake.”

The project now moves to the design phase before it is bid out and eventually built. One of the stipulations of the grant that this is for a walking trail only. This will not connect the UTV-ATV path that is currently on the north side of the lake. Hillis did not provide a timetable on when the trail will get completed.