The Jacksonville Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has been celebrating National Travel & Tourism week all week long.

Executive Director Brittany Henry says people should be watching the bureau’s social media this week for special highlights of what makes it great to come to Jacksonville. The theme for the week has been “The Future of Travel.” The bureau has been doing a city tour on their social media where they’ve been showcasing a different, unique location in Jacksonville each day. There’s also been a Bingo game for families to complete by traveling to different locations in the Jacksonville throughout the week.

Henry says the week will be capped with a party tomorrow night with the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours at the bureau office at 310 East State Street from 4-6PM. Mayor Andy Ezard will give a brief speech about tourism in Jacksonville at 5PM. Since it’s Cinco de Mayo, there will be snacks and refreshments with that theme at the after hours get-together. Henry says though that the party will end a little early, as they are going to attempt to push visitors out to the Central Park Market happening at the same time on the Downtown Square: “We’ve created a fun little market card as well as some fun little swag items…There’s also a big event happening [tomorrow], which is the Central Park Market. We had already had our event scheduled and thought that this would be great. There are going to be businesses open late in downtown, so we shortened our event hours so we can push people out into the community to explore and experience that new event.”

Henry says it’s important that tourism and small business partner with each other, especially during recovery from the pandemic: “When you turn in our market card to us, you have a chance in a drawing to win a $250 Visa gift card. We hope that people will get out and explore this new event that will be happening the first Thursday of every month. The museum will be open across the street from us. There is going to be some local and area vendors and food trucks. There’s just alot of fun things happening tomorrow. With the future of travel, one of the things that we talk about with this recovery process is small business. Small businesses are the heartbeat of our economy, and those are businesses that our travelers like to experience when they are here visiting Jacksonville.”

Henry says according to a report from 2020, tourism supports 364 jobs in the area and $1.6 million in local tax revenue. Travelers to Jacksonville spent $50.6 million in 2020. Henry says the 2021 tourism figures will be released later this summer.

If you would like to RSVP to the Business After Hours tomorrow, RSVP at visitors@jacksonvilleil.org or call 217-243-5678.

A familiar friend will be returning to the State Fair this summer.

Organizers announced that Willie Nelson & Family will be the headlining act at the Grandstand on Tuesday, August 16^th. Opening for Nelson, is four-time Grammy nominee Elle King. King had a #1 U.S. Rock Hit (#10 Billboard Hot 100 single) with “Ex’s & Oh’s” in 2014. She recently reached #4 on the Rock charts and #1 on the Hot Country Charts with her duet with Miranda Lambert with the single “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home.”

Nelson has played the Illinois State Fair multiple times over the past several decades. It will be his first time performing at the State Fair since 2000.

State Fair organizers also announced several opening acts for other shows.

Sean Stemaly and Shelby Darrall will open for Sam Hunt Friday, August 12th.

Southern Illinois native and singer songwriter Kendell Marvel will open for Brooks & Dunn Sunday, August 14th.

Vocalist Ann Wilson of Heart will be the opener for Sammy Hagar & the Circle on Sunday, August 21st.

Ticket sales for Willie Nelson & Family will be available on ticketmaster.com starting at 10am Saturday, May 7th.

Fairgoers are reminded that Ticketmaster is the only authorized ticket broker for the Illinois State Fair. All other websites and offers may be fraudulent and buyers should beware.

The U.S. Central District Court has set a date for a retrial of one of the Western Illinois Correctional Facility guards accused of violating the rights of a prisoner by participating in a beating that led to the prisoner’s death.

U.S. District Judge Sue E. Myerscough says the court has no objection to re-trying the case with a new jury against 53 year old Todd Sheffler of Mendon.

Sheffler’s verdict in the initial case was hung on a 9-3 vote on a jury that convicted 30 year old Alex Banta of Quincy on April 25^th.

According to testimony, Sheffler was not a part of an initial beating doled out to 65 year old Larry Earvin in his residential unit but joined an escort that was taking Earvin to segregation at the Mt. Sterling prison. According to jurors after the trial, other fellow jurors didn’t believe that Sheffler was a part of the assault that ultimately led to Earvin’s death in May 2018, but believe he ultimately didn’t do anything to stop it or to report it properly.

The holdout jurors also said they did not believe evidence proved additional beating in the segregation unit’s blind spot because the bulk of the testimony about it came from Corrections employees who admitted to initially lying to the Illinois State Police or FBI. The “blind spot” in the segregation unit’s vestibule was not covered by security cameras. Multiple reports of beatings at this “blind spot” was uncovered by WBEZ radio in Chicago after an investigative report and interviews with several former inmates of the prison.

Sheffler faces a potential maximum penalty of life in prison if he is found guilty to any of the conspiracy or deprivation of civil rights charges.

Pre-trial motions are due to the court by May 23^rd with responses by both sides to be made by May 31^st. Jury selection for the case will be performed by a U.S. Magistrate judge. The final pretrial conference is scheduled for June 16^th with the re-trial set to begin on July 5^th.

Sheffler, Banta, and other guards and parties who have been mentioned during testimony at last month’s trial also face civil federal litigation with a possible trial in that case set for next year.

A former Morgan County employee who pleaded guilty in 2018 to the theft of thousands of taxpayers dollars and was arrested again in January for illegal use of a business’ credit card is heading to prison.

46 year old Stacy S. Brickey of Woodson was sentenced to 5 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections in Morgan County Court yesterday for fraudulent use of a credit card.

Brickey was arrested in January after a former employer noticed fraudulent purchases made on a company credit card and notified Jacksonville Police.

Brickey pleaded guilty in 2018 to one count of theft after she used a Morgan County credit card to buy personal items such as groceries, gift cards, and a generator during her time as an administrative assistant for the Morgan County Highway Department.

Brickey was remanded back to the custody of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department after yesterday’s sentencing.

An Adams County woman remains behind bars after a motion seeking her release from jail was denied yesterday.

37 year old Natasha L. McBride of Quincy, who is charged in connection with a fatal 2020 traffic crash that killed a Rushville grandmother and her grandchildren, will remain in Adams County Jail held on $5 million bond.

Adams County Circuit Judge Amy Lannerd denied Public Defender Todd Nelson’s motion seeking McBride’s release that said that the prosecution could produce no compelling reasons to keep McBride incarcerated pending her trial.

Nelson filed the motion on April 25^th, and the following day visiting Cass County Judge Timothy J. Wessel ordered a status hearing set for Monday on the motion.

According to Muddy River News, Judge Lannerd cleared the courtroom for 30 minutes to discuss the motion with Nelson and Adams County Assistant State’s Attorney Josh Jones before issuing her decision to deny the motion.

Lannerd has set further status on the case for May 24^th.

UPDATE: The Schewe Community Center was reopened late yesterday afternoon after repairs.

The Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office has closed the Schewe Community Center in Beardstown until further notice.

The Beardstown Park District made the announcement on Monday on Facebook, saying that a sewage smell was the source of the closure and that the Park District was attempting to make repairs.

The Park District said in the post that they believe they know the root of the problem and will be attempting to put fixes in place to reopen the building.

The announcement says that summer programs for the Park District will continue as scheduled. The Sudbrink Water Park is still scheduled to open on time on Saturday, May 28^th and all high school and little league ballgames will continue at the park.

The Beardstown Park Pool House across from the Armory will be open to take summer program registrations from 8AM-1PM and 3-6PM on weekdays, and from 8AM to Noon on Saturday.

Park District leadership has refused further comment and have asked the public to continue to watch the Park District’s Facebook Page for more updates.

Illinois’ top education official is urging school districts to stop working with police to ticket students for misbehavior.

On the heels of a report published jointly by Pro Publica and the Chicago Tribune on Thursday, Illinois State Superintendent of Education Carmen Ayala said the costly fines associated with the tickets can be immensely harmful to families, and there’s no evidence they improve students’ behavior at school.

Ayala says that superintendents who refer students to police for ticketing have “abdicated their responsibility for student discipline to local law enforcement.” Ayala says the State Board of Education intends to survey school districts to learn more about their disciplinary practices and look at issues she says that are non-compliant with state law.

Governor J.B. Pritzker’s Office says it’s something that his office immediately jumped on to begin talks with legislators to close loopholes and address the issue in state law.

The report showed that local police are issuing thousands of tickets a year to students for violations of municipal laws, often for misconduct as minor as littering or vaping. Each ticket can come with hundreds of dollars in fines or fees, forcing many families into payment plans and some districts send debt from school tickets to collection agencies.

An Illinois law passed in 2015 prohibits schools from using fines to discipline students. Instead, the investigation found, schools have been referring students to police, who then write costly tickets — taking advantage of what Ayala referred to as a “loophole” in the law. Students received more than 11,800 tickets for school misbehavior in the last three school years, reporters found.

Locally, the report noted that Jacksonville School District 117 issued 19 tickets to students during the past three school years. The report could not confirm if those debts were sent to collection agencies. The report says that the infractions include but are not limited to city ordinance violations for fighting, truancy, and disorderly conduct. A 2019 Illinois law prohibits police from ticketing juveniles for truancy.

No other small schools in the area received FOIA requests from reporters.

By comparison, Springfield School District #186 issued 18 tickets to students during the time frame. At least 1 municipality did send debts from those tickets to a collection agency. Springfield #186 did not issue any tickets for truancy.

Jersey Community Unit District #100 issued 15 tickets. It was undetermined if the fines assessed from those tickets were sent to collection agencies, and Jersey CUSD #100 didn’t issue any tickets to students for truancy.

The report examined 199 school districts from across the state that included more than 500 Freedom of Information Act requests to districts and police departments.

Ameren-Illinois says that false claims have been made about the Carbon Mitigation Program through the Clean Energy Jobs Act. Commonwealth Edison filed new rates with the Illinois Commerce Commission for utilities on April 27th that included an average of $18/month credit to their customers.

Director of Communications and Public Relations for Ameren-Illinois Tucker Kennedy says that the claims that Ameren opted out of the program is false: “The claims by some of the consumer parties and third parties are blatantly false. Ameren-Illinois was never involved in the negotiations on the Carbon Credit Program. We were never given an opportunity to opt in or opt out. These very same groups that were negotiating the legislation publicly stated that the utilities would not be involved in crafting the new law, and we were not at the table. This provision was written specifically to subsidize the Exelon facilities in Chicago, which are in a completely separate energy market from those of us in downstate. So, the legislation was specifically applied to electric utilities serving 3 million retail customers in the state i.e. ComEd, Ameren-Illinois has 1.2 million customers. This was not a law that was written for downstate and we were not able to opt in or opt out of that program.”

Kennedy says part of the problem is a one-size-fits-all approach to energy legislation for the state: “Downstate Illinois has seen a steady transition out of its base load power generation as we have started to transition out from fossil fuel and we’ve attempted to fill that void with renewable generation. Up north, they have a sizable nuclear fleet that is subsidized by Chicago ratepayers and have excess generation. We have ended up in a situation now, where because of some global issues, because of what’s happening in Ukraine, what’s happening with inflation – all of these issues are coming together to cause a shortage in supply. When you have a shortage in supply in our downstate market, it results in an increase in power supply prices and that’s what happening to ratepayers in downstate. Chicago is not going to experience that same issue.”

Kennedy says Ameren is making preparations to supply customers with enough energy through the summer in lieu of Midcontinent Independent System Operator or MISO seeing a possibility of rolling brown-outs and blackouts this summer: “When the regional grid operator says that regions without sufficient generation face an increased risk for potential of controlled outages, that’s a concern. That gets our attention. I will say that we’re confident today that our delivery system is stable and that we have reliable power that will be there when it is needed this summer. The MISO statement does underscore the issue and the challenges that we face with this transition that we are making in the state and in the nation to renewable energy, which we need to do. It’s something that’s good for us. It’s good for the country. It’s good for society. Our only caution has been that it needs to be done in a steady, measured way so that we don’t leave the zone or our area short of what we need in order to meet the demands for our customers. When you’re short of the energy as stated by the federal grid regulator, then that has consequences for power supply prices.”

Kennedy says people will beginning to see the impact on their bills in the beginning of June. He urges anyone struggling to pay their utility bills to utilize Ameren’s customer assistance programs.

Governor J.B. Pritzker spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh said Monday to Capitol Fax that no new gas plant would help with MISO’s current projection saying that the the build-out of new renewable energy sources would have more of an impact. She also said that MISO should consider accelerating the interconnection of new renewable sources into the grid must faster.

Kennedy says that Ameren-Illinois wasn’t in a position to speak on the generation side of the power market as they simply work the supply side.

Similar price hikes are coming to the states of North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri.