The Cass County Health Department announced Friday a substantial uptick in cases in the county over the past week.

In the past five days, there have been 49 new cases of COVID-19. This amount equals the total cases from the previous 25 days combined. Cass County has been identified as a County of high community transmission due to having case rates that are five times higher than the acceptable case rates that are defined by the CDC. It is recommended that all individuals in Cass County, regardless of vaccination status, wear a mask anytime they are in an indoor public setting.

As of Friday, the Cass Health Department is reporting that just over 45% of the county has been fully vaccinated. Since the start of May, 92% of all positive cases in Cass County have been in unvaccinated individuals or 176 out of the 191 cases during the same time period. Currently, there are 52 active cases in Cass County with one of those currently hospitalized.

The state’s top state employee union is pushing back against Governor J.B. Pritzker’s vaccination mandate for some state workers.

Earlier this week, Pritzker mandated vaccinations for employees in the Department of Corrections, Department of Human Services, Department of Veteran Affairs, and Department of Juvenile Justice due to their work in congregate living facilities. Pritzker said during the press conference announcing the mandate on Wednesday that the employees refusing to be vaccinated in these facilities were letting those in their care down because the residents of the facilities have no choice but be exposed to them: “Our most vulnerable residents, such as our veterans, who can’t live on their own, and adults living with developmental disabilities have not choice but to live amongst these workers. By and large, residents of these state-run facilities have done what they can do to protect themselves by getting vaccinated, and yet many of the long-term care facilities’ employees have themselves not been vaccinated. They run the risk of carrying the virus into work with them, and then, it’s the residents who are ending up seriously sick, hospitalized, or worse. It’s a breach of safety. It’s fundamentally wrong, and in Illinois, it’s going to stop.”

In a memo sent by AFSCME Council 31 to state workers, they say that the rigid mandate won’t work.

AFSCME says education about the vaccine, rigorous testing, and appropriate mitigations have been effective in reducing spread of COVID-19 in those agencies’ facilities. AFSCME says many of these state facilities’ vaccination rates now exceed those in the surrounding communities citing little to no new cases since the arrival of the Delta variant.

AFSCME says they have initiated negotiations with the governor’s office and want to opt for more time with voluntary compliance by state workers. AFSCME also see the mandate as a way to end “COVID Time” to be removed for state workers, which they strongly oppose. They say it could lead to workers coming to work sick if they do not have any benefit time on the books.

AFSCME has proposed a vaccine or regular test requirement in place of the mandate.

A Murrayville man arrested for aggravated stalking, unlawful restraint, and multiple violations of an order of protection in May has had his charges dismissed in Greene County Court this week.

Greene County State’s Attorney Caleb Briscoe says that charges against 48 year old Jason E. Wyatt of Murrayville were dropped this week because of an alleged false police report being filed and other miscellaneous offenses allegedly committed by another individual: “We originally had two different felony cases involving Mr. Wyatt and various allegations in those. I think the most egregious ones were aggravated stalking in both cases, and I think there was also an allegation of unlawful restraint. Those cases have been dismissed against Mr. Wyatt. We have charged Sarah Baumgartner who was the alleged victim in those cases with two different criminal offenses. One being filing a false police report and the other one would be allegations of wire fraud.”

According to charging documents, the 41 year old Baumgartner told Carrollton Police on April 23rd that Wyatt had threatened her over text message on April 15th, threatened her in person on April 18th & 19th with bodily harm and sexual assault, and on April 19th detained her in a vehicle not allowing her to leave. Baumgartner had petitioned and was granted an emergency order of protection against Wyatt on March 19th. A warrant was issued for Wyatt’s arrest in the alleged incidents on April 23rd. Wyatt ended up turning himself into police on June 3rd for the case after the Greene County Sheriff’s Department placed a bulletin out for his arrest, believing him to be a threat to the public.

Briscoe says that after an investigation it is alleged that Baumgartner falsely accused Wyatt of the incidents in question when she filed her police report with Carrollton Police on April 23rd. In turn, Briscoe it led to subsequent wire fraud charges being filed against her: “In the wire fraud case, the allegations are that she pretended to be Jason Wyatt and was trying to reach out to other people in a threatening manner in order to receive financial assistance from people feeling sorry for her, for lack of a better term, in order to gain benefits or financial assistance.”

Charging documents say that in a series of text messages, Baumgartner sent messages to Shelli Martin of Carrollton, while pretending to be Wyatt, to provide continual financial benefits. In preliminary hearing testimony in Greene County Court from Greenfield Police Chief John Goode, a resident authority in the county on cyber crimes, he alleged that Baumgartner was attempting to achieve rental assistance from Martin who is her landlord.

Baumgartner is facing a Class 3 felony on the wire fraud charge, which carries a possible 2-5 year prison term, a maximum of 30 months adult probation, and a possible fine of up to $25,000. The false police report charge is a Class 4 felony that carries a 1-3 year prison term, possibly 30 months probation, and up to a $25,000. Depending upon the court, Baumgartner could be charged to serve the prison terms concurrently or consecutively.

Illinois House lawmakers heard from Illinois colleges and universities on their return to learning plans this Fall on Thursday.

Most schools are requiring all students and staff to be vaccinated. Those that can’t show proof of vaccination will have to be tested regularly. SIU System President Dan Mahoney says that the vaccine isn’t being mandated on its two campuses in Edwardsville and Carbondale, but it’s strongly encouraged: “With students in particular, we are providing various incentives – both individual incentives as well as group incentives. For certain student organizations that get up to a certain vaccination rate, we are providing them money to help support their student organizations.”

Risk Management and Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Joe Roselieb of Western Illinois University in Macomb says that they are also strongly encouraging all students and staff to get the shot and are offering incentives to do so. He says they also have parameters in place if a case occurs: “I’m going to go on record and say that WIU has one of the best responses within the state with how we have dealt with [COVID-19]. We have two residence halls specifically offline for the use of quarantine and isolation. We have 350 beds available for both quarantine, isolation, and broken out by gender.”

Illinois College, in their Hilltop READY plan, has asked students to send documentation of their vaccination to campus prior to arrival emailing it to COVID19conerns@ic.edu. Students who upload their vaccination information before arrival on campus in Jacksonville, will be entered into a drawing for $500 in cash. There will be one drawing for every 100 students who submit documentation.

Students who do not get vaccinated will have to provide results of a rapid test prior to moving to campus and then be tested at least twice a week through the campus’ SHIELD testing program in order to remain on campus and enrolled in classes. Unvaccinated students are also being asked to wear masks indoors in certain spaces on IC’s campus.

13^th District Congressman Rodney Davis will be visiting Greene County in less than two weeks.

Davis will be holding his open office hours at the Greene County Courthouse in Carrollton on Monday August 16^th from 10:30AM-11:30AM.

It is part of Davis’ ongoing open office hours for constituents throughout his district. Davis will also be visiting Carlinville, Clinton, Heyworth, and Mt. Zion. Throughout Davis’ tenure, he has held 89 open office hours throughout the district. Also this year his staff have hosted 9 Traveling Help Desks covering 6 counties. There have been 142 of these constituent service events over Davis’ tenure.

Meetings will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis. No appointments necessary. Due to office space constraints, meetings will be limited to no more than five people at a time. Each meeting will have up to 10 minutes to discuss any issue of their choosing. Constituents may contact Davis’ Champaign office at 217-403-4690 with any questions.

The local Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police Lodge has released a statement on the recent dismissal of South Jacksonville Police Chief Eric Hansell.

Jacksonville Lodge 125 President Jason Bryant says in a press release: “Police officers expect to face physical danger every time they wear a badge, but they shouldn’t have to fight political and personality battles as well just to keep their jobs. What happened to Chief Hansell is unconscionable, unjustified and unacceptable. The members of FOP Lodge stand by Hansell and fully support all of the South Jacksonville Police officers as they continue to do their jobs during these trying times. We have your six, even when others are trying to stab you in the back.”

Bryant said no further comments are going to be made at this time. The Village of South Jacksonville is expected to make a decision on Hansell’s dismissal by Mayor Tyson Manker on Monday at 6PM at Village Hall on Dewey Drive.

A Greenfield woman is facing multiple citations from the Illinois State Police after a single-vehicle rollover accident in Greene County Wednesday night.

According to preliminary reports from ISP District 18 Troopers, 34 year old Stephanie R. Woods was traveling on Illinois Route 267 near Bishop Lane south of Greenfield when her 2004 Kia Spectra left the roadway and overturned. Upon arrival, Greenfield Fire & Rescue extricated Woods from the vehicle as she was trapped inside. Also inside was a 2 year old male juvenile under no child restraint, according to police.

Woods was airlifted from the scene with non-life threatening injuries to an area hospital. According to the preliminary report, the juvenile had no injuries, but was taken to an area hospital by ambulance for an evaluation out of precaution.

Woods was later cited for driving under the influence, child endangerment, failure to use a child restraint device, improper lane usage, failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, failure to wear a safety belt, and driving with no auto insurance.

The Village of South Jacksonville’s business meeting was wrought with emotion last night as the Trustees and Mayor dealt with recent fall out from the termination of their Police Chief.

Over 60 people, including local and county police, filled Village Hall for both the village finance committee budget hearing and the regular business meeting.

After the village budget was at a stalemate, the board entered into business and voted to table action items on approving the upcoming budget and salary increases and amended the agenda with two executive sessions during agenda approval, one to cover personnel and the other to cover outstanding litigation.

Mayor Tyson Manker opened the meeting after approval of the agenda saying that personnel matters would not be commented on publicly.

Under the direction of Village Attorney Rob Cross, comments from the floor was moved to individual comments before the board under executive session to discuss personnel matters. Cross said that comments from the public on the Police Chief’s termination should be heard under executive session instead of in an open meeting.

The board spent over two hours under executive session hearing from 4 members of the public, Village Treasurer Tiffanee Peters, and Village Water Clerk Jackie Kennedy. When the board returned to open session, Trustee Paula Belobradjic-Stewart opened by clarifying the next steps at the meeting: “There will be one action item after we meet in executive session Monday night [for a special meeting]. Then, there will be one action item for the board to consider overturning the termination of Police Chief Eric Hansell.” The crowd then erupted in a thunderous applause at the announcement.

The meeting will be held Monday at 6PM to finalize the board’s possible rescinding action of Hansell’s termination. Most of the board wished to not comment directly after the meeting was over on the issue due to it being a personnel matter. Trustee Stacy Pinkerton said after the meeting that she’s optimistic the public will understand the board’s final decision on Monday night: “I mean, we were really impressed that everybody showed up to voice their opinion about what has happened this past week with the police chief. Their voices were heard and they should have been. I think Monday night we have a meeting and we’ll be making our decisions then. I think everybody will be pleased with our decisions, but that’s just my opinion.”

Emotions spilled over when Trustee Tom Jordan then questioned why Mayor Tyson Manker had never opened a public meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, which Jordan says was mentioned in the record of the July meeting minutes. Fiery exchanges then erupted between Manker and various members of the public. Manker also fired back at Jordan asking why Jordan had never brought up the issue until now, accusing Jordan of attempting to “score points” politically to make Manker look bad. Trustee Pinkerton then rebutted Manker’s comments saying she has asked Manker multiple times why he has not included the Pledge at meetings. Manker said the Pledge had been omitted due to creating expedience in the village’s meetings and he did not appreciate having his patriotism questioned.

Multiple members of the public shot back questions and statements directed at Manker for his firing of Hansell, Manker’s service record in the Marines, his discharge record from military service, his alleged blocking of members of the public from the Village’s Facebook Page, and they asked about an alleged active Order of Protection against Manker in the State of Virginia.

After the meeting settled, Jordan voted against all for 4 sets of session minutes from the month of July.

During July payables, Trustee Megan Davidson noticed that a bill on the village’s credit card for Hotels.com for a room in Washington D.C. was listed. Davidson said that Manker had stated on July 29th’s special session that he had paid for the entire Washington D.C. trip himself, one in which he met 18^th District Congressman Darin LaHood to discuss the village’s cellular connectivity issues. The cost for the hotel room was a little over $160. Davidson asked why prior approval wasn’t given by the board for the expenditure.

After the meeting, Trustee Stacy Pinkerton who had questioned Manker about the mayor’s budget expenses at the previous meeting and his trip to Washington D.C. says that Manker admitted to her he had paid for it himself: “Yes, that was said. He did say that last Thursday that he had paid for everything on his own, because I had made the question about the $12,000 that was on the line item [for his office in the budget], and he at that time said that he had paid for it all himself. This is surprising now that we are hearing that the hotel is paid for [on the village credit card].”

The hotel charge and Freedom Fest expenses were pulled from the July payables because Davidson, Belobradjic-Stewart, and Pinkerton all requested a budget for the event and there hasn’t been one produced to them. Stewart even went so far as to tender her resignation as co-chair of the event because she says she had not been given any input or information on the events, budget, or contracts surrounding it. Belobradjic-Stewart brought up her experiences serving on committees for the Concert In the Cornfield and the former Little Miss/Mister Pageant as a precedent, saying both events, which were paid through the village’s tourism funds, always produced a budget to the Village Board, saying that it was out of transparency and to always have an answer on how the money was spent if village residents had questions.

The village’s finance committee is set to meet on Wednesday at 6PM to continue discussions and outstanding questions surrounding salaries and line items in the FY22 budget.

Mayor Manker alerted the board of the $421,000 coming to the village for the American Rescue Plan in the coming months, saying the money is restricted for COVID-related expenses. He updated the board on the continued clean up efforts of Dewey Park and the recent resurfacing of the Village Hall parking lot. Manker says that the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund will be conducting a teleconference audit on August 12th. Manker reported late last month that the village had self-reported IMRF fraud that had occurred previously. Manker says that due to the self-reporting that the village may incur less penalties.

Village Clerk Amy Scoggins says that the upcoming Little Miss/Mister pageant has 10 participants: 7 girls and 3 boys with rehearsals and information meetings coming up in the next few weeks.

The lone action item to ratify the July 1st Motor Fuel Tax vote passed unanimously.

The second executive session about litigation was adjourned without action by the board, with the village adjourning the full meeting shortly after 9:30PM.

A jury trial date has been set for two Western Illinois Correctional Facility prison guards who stand accused of beating an inmate that resulted in his eventual death in 2018.

Todd Scheffler and Alex Banta are scheduled to stand trial on November 3^rd after jury selection. Scheffler and Banta are charged with conspiracy, deprivation of civil rights, and obstruction among other charges in the alleged beating of inmate Larry Earvin as he was being transferred to a segregation unit at the Mt. Sterling prison.

The two guards were in pre-trial hearings this week in the Central Illinois District Court sorting out motions surrounding jury selection questions as well as admissible evidence and testimony in the case. Scheffler and Banta had 4 questions dismissed by the court which surrounded a potential jurors previous healthcare industry experience if any, views and ideas on race, views and ideas on Black Lives Matter/Blue Lives Matter and the Defund the Police movement, and a potential jurors religious and/or moral beliefs. Magistrate Judge Tom Schanzle-Haskins dismissed the questions on various grounds.

The two guards’ counsel also wished to exclude any photographs following Earvin’s surgery at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield after his beating as well as any autopsy photos depicting his critical conditional and multiple internal injuries caused by the alleged assault. In court filings, the defense says the photos are unfairly prejudicial under Federal Rules of Evidence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Bass answered and has asked the court to deny the motion.

Status on the remaining motions in the case will be heard and answered by the court on September 13^th with jury selection set for November 1^st and 2^nd.