A Carrollton man was found guilty this afternoon of predatory criminal sexual assault of a minor.

23 year old Tanner L. Schofield of Carrollton was found guilty of a single count of predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim under the age of 13 this afternoon, according to Carmen Ensinger of the Greene Prairie Press.

Schofield was charged in September 2020 after he allegedly touched the anus of a child under the age of 13 between August 13 and August 15, 2020 for his own sexual gratification, according to charging documents.

The charge is a non-probationable Class X felony that carries a term of 6 to 60 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. According to Illinois’ truth in sentencing laws, Schofield will be required to serve at least 85% of the sentence and will be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.

The trial was delayed due to ongoing issues with Covid-19 as well as a conflict of interest within the Greene County Court. The case was heard by Jersey County Circuit Judge Allison Lorton and tried for the state by Lorinda Lamken of the Illinois State’s Attorney’s Appellate Prosecutor’s Office.

The sentence came after approximately 3 days of testimony. Schofield’s sentencing has been set for August 18th.

A Virginia man arrested last month for animal cruelty has been placed on house arrest prior to trial.

24 year old Enrique Rangel of Virginia was arrested by Cass County Sheriff’s Deputies on charges of animal torture and depiction of animal cruelty on May 26^th.

Rangel has been held at the Morgan County Jail on $75,000 bond since the arrest. Yesterday in Cass County Court, Rangel’s Defense Attorney Mark Johnson entered a motion to reduce bond to a recognizance bond so his client could seek a psychological evaluation.

Cass County State’s Attorney Craig Miller objected to the motion asking that Rangel remain in jail.

Cass County Circuit Judge Timothy J. Wessel granted the motion to reduce bond to a $10,000 recognizance bond and ordered Rangel to be placed on house arrest. Wessel ordered that Rangel can only leave his home to attend work or attend medical appointments and submit to mental health evaluations and treatment. Wessel also ordered Rangel to take all prescribed medications for his treatment and refrain from using substances and alcohol.

An omnibus hearing has been set for September 21^st with a possible trial set to begin on October 17^th.

The South Jacksonville Board of Trustees officially accepted the resignation of two employees last night.

Village Public Works Superintendent John Green stepped down after 25 ½ years to take a new job with the City of Jacksonville.

Green says it was time to move to a less stressful job: “It’s been good. There’s been ups and downs like any job. I mean that’s life. For the most part, I’ve really enjoyed being here. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done. It’s just 25 1/2 years, and I’m tired of all the hats that I have had to wear. At one point, I looked at it as a challenge to juggle everything. I’m just…I’m tired. I’m ready to do one thing, wear one hat and take five of them off.”

Green says he was glad to oversee some of the changes to make the job of utility superintendent more streamlined over his time in the office. Green has accepted a position to help maintain the City of Jacksonville’s Municipal Building grounds.

The Village accepted the appointment of Green’s replacement, Brian English, last night. English comes over from the City of Jacksonville where he worked most recently in the utility department: “I think I was ready for the next challenge of taking on a couple more jobs. I actually worked for the City of Jacksonville starting with the Street Department and was there for a couple of years before I moved over to the Sewer Department. Then, I took on the Water Department for the last 7-8 years. Putting it all together right now, I guess you could say I want to see if I can handle it all or not. I think it will be okay. John has left me very well with everything. I’ve been with him for the last week and a half, two weeks now. It’s going to be a lot, but I’m up for the challenge, I think. We’ll see what happens.”

A reception to honor Green for his years of service to the village will be held on Wednesday.

The Board of Trustees also accepted the resignation of Village Treasurer and Office Administrator Tiffanee Peters. Peters was not in attendance.

Peters submitted a one line email on June 15^th to Village President Dick Samples and Village Attorney Rob Cross reading: “Please acknowledge my resignation.”

Peters had been on medical leave from the village since the early part of this year. Peters had been employed with the village since 2018.

The U.S. Supreme Court today overturned the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade that generally protected a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion. Previously, the Supreme Court upheld the decision in 1992 in the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In the final decision of another case brought from a challenge in the State of Mississippi called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in a 6-3 decision today the court held that the Constitution does not confer a right to an abortion: “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

Reactions have been swift across the country and in the State of Illinois.

SEIU Healthcare Illinois Executive Vice President Erica Bland-Durosinmi in response to the SCOTUS ruling to overturn the historic Roe vs. Wade decision: “Today, the United States Supreme Court voted to overturn the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision. This ruling will rescind 50 years of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights for women across this country. As advocates of civil liberties, we are appalled by what is undoubtedly one of the most flagrant abuses of civil rights against women in our country’s history.

As a union that fights to protect the healthcare standards for over 90,000 frontline workers, the majority being Black and brown women, we will continue to speak out against this classist and sexist injustice that disproportionately affects low-income women of color.

There is evidence that our democracy continues to be under attack when 69% of voters in 2020 polled that they wanted Roe vs. Wade to remain as ruled. Americans have made it clear that abortion is healthcare, and that Roe vs. Wade saves lives. Unfortunately, the voice of the people is disregarded.

History has shown us that when access to safe and legal abortions is denied, women will suffer. Women who have limited financial resources and are unable to travel when faced with an unplanned pregnancy will be forced to endure extreme medical hardships that often lead to death.

This ruling will not result in our silence. Our members will continue to speak out as healthcare providers to demand that our legislators pass laws to protect women’s reproductive rights. We stand firm in combating this attack on women’s civil rights as well as in fighting to secure the safety and well-being of generations to come.”

Illinois House Speaker Emmanuel “Chris” Welch released the following: “Today is a dark day in our nation’s history. Today, this Supreme Court told half of Americans they don’t have the right to make deeply personal health decisions without government interference. Today, half of Americans are losing their basic human rights and bodily autonomy.

I’m grateful that in Illinois we’ve prepared for this day. Thanks to strong women and fierce advocates we have codified reproductive health care into law, and we will always trust women to make their own health decisions.

Today our nation is taking an enormous step backward but, regardless of what any conservative judges say, in Illinois we will never waver in our fight to ensure every person has the right to safe, accessible reproductive care.”

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin released the following: “Today’s decision eliminates a federally protected constitutional right that has been the law for nearly half a century. As a result, millions of Americans are waking up in a country where they have fewer rights than their parents and grandparents.

“The bottom line: on critical, personal choices involving a woman’s right to make reproductive decisions about her own body, do you trust her or the government? The Supreme Court now says a woman’s right to privacy does not extend to the most personal, private choice she will ever face.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee will explore the grim reality of a post-Roe America in a hearing next month. The Court’s decision to erase the right to access an abortion will not only lead to the denial of critical health care services, but also criminal consequences for women and health care providers in states eager to embrace draconian restrictions. I will keep fighting to enshrine into law a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices. We cannot let our children inherit a nation that is less free and more dangerous than the one their parents grew up in.”

Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth released the following: “I am outraged and horrified-this outcome is a nightmare that robs women of their right to make their own choices about their healthcare and their bodies, and it paves the way for a nationwide abortion ban that Republicans have been seeking for decades. Millions of American families-including my own-have relied on Roe v. Wade for almost 50 years, and 70% of Americans believe it should remain the law of the land. The Supreme Court of the United States and the Justices who claimed Roe was ‘settled law,’ but then turned around and ruled otherwise, will-as Justice Sotomayor said-‘struggle to survive the stench’ of this extreme decision.

“In a nation with a growing maternal mortality crisis and often inaccessible healthcare, without affordable child care or universal paid leave, forcing births on anyone-even when the mother’s life could be at risk-is not only cruel, it will also be deadly. Doctors working in states where abortion, or even management of a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, is outlawed could even be threatened with prison for daring to save a patient’s life. Victims of rape could be forced to relive theirtrauma every day.

“I refuse to let my daughters grow up in a world with fewer rights than I had. As Republicans continue their march toward a nationwide abortion ban, I will do everything in my power to ensure that Illinois remains a safe haven for all women seeking reproductive care. It is as important as ever that the Senate acts to codify Roe v. Wade into law so that every American in every state has equal access to basic, necessary healthcare-regardless of their skin color, zip code or income.”

18th District Congressman Darin LaHood released the following: “As a father of three and a Pro-Life advocate, I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case, returning the question of abortion to the states and to the people. In Congress, I stood proudly with the growing Pro-Life movement to advocate for the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade, and this decision is a huge victory for the sanctity of life.

“Democrats in Washington and Illinois, including President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and Governor Pritzker have spent years seeking to undermine and delegitimize our independent judiciary. In the weeks since the unprecedented leak of Justice Alito’s opinion, we have seen attacks on pro-family crisis pregnancy centers, disruptions of church services, and an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh and his family. The Dobbs decision, in the face of violence, is a win for our independent judiciary and the Constitution.

“Governor Pritzker continues to push his radical abortion agenda in Illinois, which includes late-term and taxpayer-funded abortion, restrictions on conscience protections, and limits on parental involvement. The Governor’s policies are widely outside the mainstream. I will continue to lend a voice to the voiceless and push to enact Pro-Life protections that uphold the sanctity of life and support mothers and families.”

13th District Congressman Rodney Davis issued the following statement: “This is a historic and incredible day for Life and the unborn in America, a day that all of us in the pro-life movement have been praying for and working towards. The Supreme Court was absolutely right to overturn previous, wrongly-decided abortion decisions. Nothing in the Constitution confers the right to an abortion. As a pro-life lawmaker with a 100 percent pro-life voting record, I have advocated for years that the Court overturn Roe. 

“Now that the Supreme Court has turned this issue over to the people’s elected representatives, our pro-life work continues. We must elect pro-life leaders at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure we advance pro-life policies and protect the unborn. Nowhere is this more important than the State of Illinois, where J.B. Pritzker and Democrats in Springfield have advanced an extreme abortion expansion agenda that legalized taxpayer-funded, late-term abortions, and even restricted parents’ abilities to know if their minor child is seeking an abortion. This is an extreme abortion agenda that is out-of-step with the people of Illinois. I will continue to work tirelessly to advance pro-life policies and protect the unborn in Washington and in Springfield.”

Governor J.B. Pritzker released the following statement announcing that he is calling a special session of the Illinois General Assembly saying he wishes to further enshrine reproductive health rights in the state’s laws: “In Illinois, we trust women. Despite the action of the Supreme Court today overturning Roe v. Wade, the right to safe, accessible reproductive health care is in full force in Illinois – and will remain so.

In Illinois, we’ve planned for this terrible day, an enormous step backward and a shattering loss of rights. We passed the Reproductive Health Act, enshrining choice as the law of the land in Illinois. We removed the trigger law that would have prohibited abortion in Illinois with the overturning of Roe v Wade. We expanded health care so that finances are not a barrier to receiving reproductive care.

In Illinois, we are a state committed to expanding access to reproductive health care including abortion care, contraception access, fertility treatment and gender affirming care. We’ve made it clear that we trust people to make the best decisions for themselves about their own reproductive health.

In Illinois, we will hold firm to these rights and continue to work with stakeholders to expand them. To that end, I am calling the General Assembly into special session in the coming weeks, with the support and consultation of House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon. Together, we are committed to taking swift action to further enshrine our commitment to reproductive health care rights and protections.”

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield issued the following response: “Today’s decision by the Supreme Court of the United States marks an important moment for our nation, lifting a cloud that has hung over our country for nearly a half century. There is no way to undo the tragedy of tens of millions of innocent lives lost or the decades of division sown by the Roe v. Wade decision. But, for the sake of future generations, we can now move forward with a more honest debate and efforts to advance policies and support programs that protect innocent life and promote stability and security for vulnerable mothers. Much work remains to be done on both fronts, and that work will now necessarily have more of a local focus, particularly in our own home state of Illinois. Importantly, these efforts must include prayer and concerted efforts to preserve peace in the face of recent violence, intimidation, and criminal vandalism against churches and government officials.”

Welch and Harmon have said they are currently working on the logistics of that special session’s scheduling at the current time. A televised and broadcast announcement is expected at 10:30AM today in Chicago.

A Springfield-based rental car business has had its license plates for its rental vehicles revoked by the State of Illinois for not being properly insured.

Springfield Leaks reports that Secretary of State Spokesman Henry Haupt had informed them that the license plates for Urgent Rent-A-Car had been revoked for failure to meet the state’s insurance requirements. According to the Springfield Leaks report, the business was still attempting to rent vehicles to the public.

The car rental business has been under extensive scrutiny after the company’s owner & CEO Jordan Monroe was arrested after a high speed chase in October of last year. Urgent Rent-A-Car formerly operated a location on East Morton Avenue in Jacksonville. The business was regularly reported for questionable business practices. The business currently has an ‘F’ rating from the Illinois Better Business Bureau.

Jacksonville School District 117 is on budget. However, disbursement of the county’s property taxes to the school district has caused some trepidation about whether Eisenhower Elementary School will be able to receive the full scope of renovations that had been planned over the last year.

Morgan County property tax disbursements to school districts had come in June over the last four years. With the disbursements coming close to the end of the fiscal years for school districts, financial officers and school districts have had to amend budgeting procedures. School districts throughout the state are on similar fiscal year calendars as the State of Illinois, with new fiscal years beginning on July 1^st each year.

Morgan County Treasurer Crystal Myers said Tuesday that whether the tax disbursement occurs in June or July, school districts still receive their amounts because legally her office can’t and doesn’t withhold payments: “In the last few years, we have been able to disburse the money in June. We were hoping to do that again this year. That will always be our goal. There were some delays that happened this year in getting things to our office that were nobody’s fault – things that were beyond our control. We got the bills out as soon as we could and set the due date by law. When the tax bills go out, we have to allow 30 days prior to the due date by law. That’s the explanation. Some years they’ll be due in June. Some years will be due in July. We will always try to have a June due date. We will always try to distribute in June, but it will not always work out that way. This year, there will just be a few weeks delay to getting those funds to the school district. It will be about 3 weeks until they get the funds, but they are getting their funds. They’ll be getting their money for sure.”

Myers says that the the software company representative that walks the county’s department heads through the budgeting process retired in April. Myers said that that this particular representative had been working with Morgan County for a number of years and had knowledge that made the process go faster. She says that many of the procedures for the budgeting process this year had to be done remotely and with new people, which slowed everything down.

The last four years, distribution of property tax funds had taken place in June and had also been through direct deposit. Prior to 2018, Morgan County school districts received their property tax disbursement in July.

Superintendent Steve Ptacek said at the June 15^th School Board meeting that a day makes a difference: “Whether we put $8-9 million in the school district’s fund balance in June or July is a major impact on our budget. People could think it’s one month. That’s not how annual fiscal budgets work on a cash accrual basis.”

District 117 Chief Financial Officer Richard Cunningham said at a special public hearing on Wednesday evening that despite the disbursement coming late from the county this year, the school district’s budget is right where it should be: “On the previous amended budget, on the FY22 ending fund balance, the previous amended fund balance was at $31.8 million, and with this new amended budget that was updated on Tuesday, I have it down to $31.4 million. Again, on the amended budget, we don’t have the revenues coming in from that tax distribution that we were anticipating at the beginning of the [school] year. Overall, in the numbers, there was not much of a change from the original presentation.”

District 117 Board President Noel Beard reiterated that the $5.4 million reduction shown in the amended budget presented on Tuesday was based off of the anticipation of receiving that property tax disbursement in June and not July: “The reduction in our fund balance is because we only received one property tax payment during the [fiscal] year. With that property tax payment being roughly $9 million, we would have shown a $3 million surplus. We were expecting that first property tax payment to be in June and it won’t be coming until mid-July at this point.”

Myers said that the solution to the problem moving forward is moving the school districts in the county back to paper checks: “I hate that their fiscal year ends between June and July because we can’t make a guarantee on when we will be able to make that disbursement. I have offered to the school district to have a paper check to give them more control on when their money goes in their account. That’s about all we can really do to help them. We cannot make guarantees. Things just happen. A few weeks’ delay for most people wouldn’t be a big deal, but I do get the school district’s fiscal year and what it looks like on paper. They truly did not operate at a loss.”

Ptacek said on June 15^th that the current situation has created a temporary downside when it comes to Phase III of the Vision 117 renovation plans: “Four years ago, when we got this extra payment, and then the next year get the same number of payments – we had a one year windfall of $8-9 million. Originally, we were going to use that for the Washington project. Well, then, the online sales tax came in. ESSER came in to pay for the Washington project, so we were going to start talking about doing the Eisenhower project with that [money]. Now, with the new shift, it’s shifting back to its old pattern. That $9 million windfall we no longer have. I want to stress once again, we didn’t get shorted any money. We are just not getting the advance that we thought we were 4 years ago, and it’s of no fault to anybody.”

Ptacek says doing the full scope of the Eisenhower renovation will have to be scrutinized in the coming months as a result. He says with current delays in the supply chain for construction materials, inflation, rising costs, and maybe other unseen outflows of money from the the district; Eisenhower’s full renovation may have to be spaced out over a number of years.

Ptacek says that one piece of the Eisenhower project will get done with the district’s ESSER funds: “The big thing at Eisenhower that is in the ESSER plan is to get the cafeteria done because then, the students won’t have to share the gym and the cafeteria in the same space. Some of that money is still to replace flooring and some other projects. We are a little concerned that the increased costs that we are facing with the Washington project will also be in those numbers that we put in as estimates. We don’t know for sure exactly how much we are going to be able to do [at Eisenhower]. We are committed to at least getting the cafeteria done.”

The Washington Elementary renovation is currently in full swing, with internal demolition and final asbestos removal being completed. Modular classrooms for the upcoming school year are near being placed onto the Jacksonville Middle School grounds due to existing infrastructure left over from the JMS renovation. The classrooms are set to be operational by the first day of school in August.

Traffic through the middle of Winchester may be disrupted for the next few weeks.

Utility Supervisor John Simmons and work crews began pulling up sidewalks at the intersection of Cherry Street and Main Street to replace crumbling storm sewers next to the Illinois Rural Electric Co-Op building.

Winchester Mayor Rex McIntire says that the city has been looking to fix the problem with the sewer since last Fall: “There are some issues with the foundation of the IREC building that they feel like that the storm sewer has created. They fear that old sewer pipe might settle and create a problem with the building. We are going forward with replacing the storm sewer to hopefully stabilize everything there. We needed a new sidewalk along there anyway.”

McIntire believes the project will take approximately a week to complete. Currently, the city is using employees from the Illinois Department of Transportation as flaggers due to lane reductions on Cherry Street, which is a part of Illinois Route 106.

McIntire says the city waited for the material for the sewer through the winter time to begin the project.