A first appearance in Morgan County Court for a Springfield man arrested overnight on drug charges took a bit of a violent turn this afternoon.

52 year old Orville Adams of Springfield was arrested by Jacksonville Police at approximately 11:30PM last night and booked into the Morgan County Jail for possession of methamphetamine between 100 and 400 grams and driving on a suspended or revoked license.

Adams was brought before Morgan County Judge Chris Reif this afternoon to hear the two-part criminal information filed on his arrest as well as to hear information on Adams’ appointment of counsel.

Adams requested a public defender for his case. Judge Reif then asked Adams if he currently had any money in personal accounts to post bond or pay for private counsel. Adams explained he was unemployed but had “a few thousand dollars” in a bank account. Adams further explained he had recently come into an inheritance from a deceased family member and was attempting to sell a house.

Morgan County State’s Attorney Gray Noll then explained that Adams was on federal parole. Adams was recently released from federal prison after he plead guilty in 2006 in the Central District Court of Illinois to possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. Adams was arrested in Quincy in June 2005 by the Illinois State Police Drug Task Force and members of the West Central Illinois Drug Task Force after he was found with 14 grams of methamphetamine in a residence. Adams was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison along with 6 years of mandatory supervised release.

Reif ordered Adams to fill out an affidavit to explain his application for a public defender declaring indigence. Reif then remanded Adams back into the custody of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office in lieu of $100,000 bond with 10% to apply.

As Adams was being led away, a distraught woman who had been listening to the court hearing attempted to speak to Adams as he was being lead away by bailiffs to the courtroom’s adjoining jury room. Adams shouted to the female subject to “stop my money” and began resisting the bailiffs. At that time, Morgan County Public Defender ushered the woman out of the courtroom while the bailiffs and Adams wrestled in the foyer of the jury room. At one point, a taser was drawn but never used.

Adams’ case was recalled after bailiffs detained Adams and returned him to the Morgan County Jail. Judge Reif then raised Adams’ bond to $250,000 for his disruption in the court. Adams returns to Morgan County Court for a preliminary hearing on September 7th.

The IHSA ruled that schools who are on probation after a certain date for a particular sport will not be able to participate in State Series competition.

The IHSA board ruled on Monday that schools will lose their eligibility if they are still on probation with the Illinois State Board of Education for non-compliance with the statewide school mask mandate on the day of seeding, or the list of participant entry deadline.

Golf will have until September 22^nd, 1A Boys Soccer will have until September 23^rd, 2A & 3A Boys Soccer will have until September 30^th, Volleyball until October 7^th, and Football until October 23^rd.

IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said in a press release announcing the ruling that IHSA didn’t rule this as a political decision but rather as a rule-making one aligning with the Illinois State Board of Education for the good of its membership. Anderson said that some schools had also shared frustrations about possible impacts on scheduling. Anderson says they hope to avoid and prevent those scheduling issues from occurring during the State Series.

Two area schols appear to be on the path of being restored to recognition status with the Illinois State Board of Education.

Camp Point Central District #3 was one of now 55 schools, including the Brown County School District, who have been placed on probation status after their local school boards voted to not fully enforce Governor J.B. Pritzker’s indoor mask mandate in schools.

Camp Point Central Superintendent Erica Smith says the local school board voted to reverse course and follow the mandate last week: “On August 18th, the school board voted 7-0 to follow the mask mandate, so we should be coming off of probation soon.”

Smith says it should not interfere with the school’s current sports schedule, which started last night with volleyball in Brown County. Camp Point Central is currently a member of the WIVC in both volleyball and football.

Smith says that she has submitted necessary paperwork, and has one more piece to send to ISBE next month: “I’ve shared all the information with ISBE regarding [Wednesday’s] meeting and the outcome. It’s really just a formality, I think, to wait for the meeting minutes to be approved at our next meeting. I feel confident that we will be taken off probation as soon as I can get those to them.” Camp Point’s next board meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 16th.

Brown County School District reversed course on their initial decision to not follow the mandate in a vote on August 19th, and are also now in the process of submitting their paperwork to be reinstated to full recognition status.

The leader of a local business organization says that local census numbers were low because several outlying factors stood in the way of getting people counted.

Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Kristin Jamison says that the 2020 Census count took a back seat to COVID-19 last year: “The U.S. Census Bureau began taking responses in early March. We had been gearing up for that and placing advertising and different editorials and things like that in places so that we could get people excited about the census and answering the census as quickly as possible. March 2020 was rough, and that’s when everything literally shut down. I really feel as though we didn’t have the ‘market share,’ so to speak, in getting that message out [about the importance of the census] because everyone was worried about COVID. Our daily lives were impacted tremendously, and we just weren’t able to get folks to pay as much attention to that effort as they would have in a normal year.”

Jamison says that the problems at the Census Bureau and federal litigation also hampered the census efforts not just locally, but nationwide: “There was litigation. There was a number of things happening between the Trump Administration and the U.S. Census Bureau towards the end of the census. At one point through the process, we were told we would have until the end of October to get responses in and that was cut short, and even the second week in September it ended abruptly. While we thought maybe we had some more time to get the word out and sure up some of those responses, that really did not come to fruition.”

Jamison also feels that online census response numbers are disproportionate due to a lack of Internet access, as this was the first time census responses could be turned in online: “The reality is that not everybody has the ability to [respond online] or the device to do that. In some counties, I think if you look at the map that shows population growth; I would say that most of those places in Illinois are more urban and certainly has a population that’s maybe more connected; whereas more rural area, there maybe are not folks who are particularly comfortable answering in that way [online], and if you didn’t have the door-to-door census taker coming out to finish up those responses, which we had very little of during the pandemic, I think you were expecting to see those declines in responses.”

Jamison says hesitancy may also lie with people still mistrusting the government on what they will do with the information gathered from census responses. Morgan County saw a 7.4% population decline from 2010, losing over 2,600 people during that time frame.

Jacksonville and South Jacksonville Fire units responds to an early morning house fire on Jacksonville’s east side.

An emergency call came in to fire dispatch at approximately 1AM this morning to a two-story home located at 610 South East Street. Captain Matt Summers says that when fire crews arrived, fire was issuing from the northeast corner of the home off an enclosed back porch: “We showed up and flames were showing out that back window, which was an enclosed back porch. A washer and dryer and refrigerator were on the back porch, so the electrical appliances of some sort was in use and flames were already rolling out the window. We just pulled an inch-and-three-quarter line, knocked down the fire, and then, went inside and started attacking the fire there. Thankfully, the homeowners had the door shut between that and their kitchen and the rest of the house, so that helped slow the spread. Crews worked to put the fire out and check for extensions into the rest of the structure. It was a two-story, balloon-frame type structure so the fire could have spread pretty fast.”

Fire crews pulled a second extension line to monitor the attic for further spread. Summers says that they are unsure of the cause of the fire at this time, but no foul play is expected. Summers says that suppression and monitoring for hot spots took a little under 2 hours. No injuries were reported. According to the investigation report, damages to the property are approximately $55,000.

Summers says the Illinois State Fire Marshal is investigating the cause to pinpoint the fire’s origin: “It is difficult to tell a lot of times when it is electrical or some other issue. It takes a little more investigating and time to figure out the very cause. We do not believe that it was anything suspicious. The homeowners were there [when it started], a [fire] alarm woke them up, which is a good thing and they were all able to exit the structure quickly and safely. They did keep the doors to the fire room closed. I think they opened them once and then immediately shut them.”

Summers says that the family dog also made it out safely, and that by keeping the doors closed, it helped contain the fire to the back half of the home.

Morgan County government officials are working through the bureaucracy surrounding the American Rescue Plan funding.

Morgan County Treasurer Kim Mitchell says that her office is currently sifting through all of the paperwork to figure out how and where the money can be spent in the county: “We did receive our first tranch, and we will receive two of those. We will receive the second half of the funds in June 2022. What we are working on right now is just trying to understand how we can spend the funds. We are looking at the government regulations, and what they’ve laid down as the guidelines for how we can spend the money. That’s really where we are at right now is trying to understand the proper way to spend.”

Mitchell says her office is looking at all of the projects that municipalities in the county want to do with the funding: “We are looking at revenue loss so that we can use that in ways. Then, we are also taking the suggestions from different municipalities on what they would like to be able to spend this money on. We are working with the U.S. Treasury. They have a lot of things online for us to look at, but this is really where we are at currently.”

She says that many of the projects currently running in the county were in progress before COVID-19 began and therefore may not qualify for the funding. She hopes that the federal government will loosen some restrictions later on so that the county-wide broadband projects, water, and wastewater and sewer projects in the county may possibly be able to be included in the future.

A 2.5 million-dollar broadband Internet project for the City of Jacksonville is nearing completion. I3 broadband representatives told the Jacksonville City Council last night that barring any unforeseen circumstances, construction crews should be done with running fiber optic infrastructure by the end of September.

The city passed a Memorandum of Understanding with I3 in August of last year to lay down the $18 million worth of infrastructure in the project to bring fiber to the door in the city’s limits.

I3 Broadband General Manager Josh Bradbury says that only a few outlying projects remain in the footprint of the project: “We will have most of the main construction – most of the main construction crews are slated to be out of the area by the end of September, so the majority of the main line construction will be done soon. There are certain properties that require unique coordination, so there are some apartment buildings, commercial buildings, some of the manufactured and mobile home communities that don’t have easements like most of the streets do – those are unique ones that are being worked on currently and we are organizing those projects. Some of the Morgan County Housing Authority properties are still needing further coordination, and we are working through all of those, as well, as quickly as we can. The city facilities – obviously, we are still building fiber up to some of these buildings and we have yet to finalize that large, coordinated project.”

Bradbury says that I3 has connected approximately 7,200 addresses to their broadband network with another 578 left to go.

A recent Illinois Department of Transportation survey of traffic stops in Illinois says that black and brown drivers are still being pulled over disproportionately to whites.

According to statewide data in 2020, Illinois traffic stops were cut nearly in half due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the IDOT report, the monthly report data reveals the direct impact of the virus on people’s travels correlating with the number of traffic stops that occurred.

According to the traffic stop numbers in the data, despite being stopped more, black drivers received nearly 20% less citations than white drivers.

The numbers show that in Jacksonville and South Jacksonville, the numbers appear to be closer to proportionate with rates of 1.7 to 1 in Jacksonville and 1.5 to 1 in South Jacksonville.

The Morgan County Sheriff’s Department shows a disproportionate rate of 3.5 black drivers being pulled over to every white driver. Latino’s are even more disproportionate at 3.9 to 1, with black and Latino being searched and cited less.

The Sheriff’s office averages are both higher than the statewide averages for the other departments who were surveyed for the study. View the full study at this link.

The Jacksonville Public Library will have a new Social Work Intern this fall.

Through a partnership with Aurora University, Samantha Burton will be the library’s new social work intern starting on August 31^st.

She will be available to patrons for the following services: searching and applying for employment or social service benefits, accessing financial documents or other vital information, providing resources and support for individuals to advocate for themselves in matters of employment, housing and personal safety, providing referrals to social service agencies, assisting individuals with scheduling social service appointments, and confidentially talking with individuals to provide emotional support.

Samantha will be available at the library on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. More information can be found at jaxpl.org.

The Morgan County Health Department numbers show that the uptick in cases locally is on par with other counties in the area.

In their weekly press release, 109 new cases of COVID-19 were reported over the last week, bringing the total number of active cases to 215, with 16 of those currently hospitalized.

One-third of those cases are in age groups under 40 years of age.

Of the current outbreaks listed in Morgan County, 6 remain active at Heritage Health, 10 are active at Nestle, 4 are active at Cedarhurst, and 16 cases are attached to Wal-Mart in Jacksonville.

A severe uptick in cases in the county can be traced back to the week of June 28^th.