A Springfield boy is dead following an ATV accident in rural Menard County south of Petersburg.

Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon announced today that an unidentified 10-year old boy was pronounced dead last night after he was injured less than an hour earlier in an ATV accident near Petersburg.

Menard County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Ben Hollis told the State Journal Register today that the ATV overturned as it was going up a hill on private property near the 10000 block of Boy Scout Trail close to the border of Menard and Sangamon counties. Hollis says there was no apparent reason for the crash but the ATV overturned and landed on its top. Hollis said that the child lived in Springfield but was on family property I

n Menard County at the time of the crash.

Hollis went on to say that there were multiple riders on the ATV and there were no additional ATVs involved in the accident. The incident was reported shortly after 7 p.m. last night. The boy was transported to HSHS St. John’s in Springfield and was pronounced deceased at 7:42PM.

Allmon said an autopsy was scheduled for today. The death remains under investigation by the Sangamon County coroner’s office and the Menard County Sheriff’s Office. The deceased child’s identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The City of Jacksonville is closing Nichols Park Pool early this season.

In a press release today, the Parks and Lakes Department has decided to close the pool after regular swimming hours on Sunday, August 15^th. The announcement says that with school starting soon, the pool will lose the majority of its lifeguards and will not be able to properly and safely staff the pool.

The city says they wish to thank all of the swimmers and patrons who came out during this incredibly challenging year. The last day of swimming again is August 15^th from 12:30 to 6PM. The city says the Nichols Park Pool plans to reopen May 28^th, 2022, the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

Governor J.B. Pritzker has signed a package of legislation to further protect immigrants and refugees in the state.

One new law makes it a civil rights violation for employers to harass or refuse to hire an employee on the basis of their work authorization status. Another tackles targeted violence and hate crimes against immigrants.

The third piece, Governor Pritzker says, requires local officials to end partnerships with U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement: “Throughout my governorship, I’ve directed my administration to adopt policies that make Illinois a welcoming state for immigrants. I’m very proud to sign these accountability measures into law to advance our cause.”

The final law creates a task force to ensure state programs and services are meeting the needs of immigrants.

Illinois’ pandemic eviction moratorium effectively began Sunday.

Governor J.B. Pritzker announced on Friday that the Illinois Housing Development Authority has distributed more than $185 million in emergency rental assistance to 22,200 Illinoisans through the Illinois Rental Payment Program. In addition, IHDA announced on Friday it has completed the review of all 70,000 applications received during the first application round in June, with an additional 25,000 applications currently in the pipeline to review from the second round.

Landlords with in-progress applications already initiated by their tenants are encouraged to complete their portion of the application before the deadline on Sunday, August 15^th.

The Illinois Supreme Court has issued an order temporarily staying all trial and judgments in residential eviction proceedings involving covered persons, with some exceptions which began Sunday and lasts through September 1^st.

Additional rounds of rental assistance, as well as the Illinois Homeowner Assistance Fund that will provide mortgage assistance, will be announced in the coming months. For updates to these programs, visit: www.ihda.org.

Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a massive reform to the state’s FOID Card laws yesterday.

The FOID Modernization bill lets the Illinois State Police create a combined FOID and Concealed Carry license and grants cardholders who submit their fingerprints automatic renewal. State Police Director Brendan Kelly says it streamlines processes for his office: “Instead of carrying around two cards that have two different processes and two different fees, we will be able to combine them into a single thing. It’s good not just for those lawful gun owners in terms of convenience, it’s also good for us. That means less paperwork and less bureaucracy.”

The law will also help fund the Illinois State Police’s ability to enforce the surrender of firearms from people who have lost their gun ownership license. In return, it also requires ISP to remove guns from people with revoked FOID cards who have not surrendered their weapons.

The governor says that there are safety provisions like universal background checks on all gun sales in the state starting in 2024. Pritzker says it closes a loophole in the state that allows those who have been denied FOIDs due to violent convictions to circumvent the background check process through private sales.

The law also creates a stolen gun and prohibited gun buyers’ database. It also invests in community-based, trauma-informed mental health programs in the communities most impacted by gun violence. Most all provisions of the bill take effect immediately, with universal background checks beginning in 2024.

The Lincoln Land Wind Project announced today it would be contributing to helping the City of Jacksonville get connected to broadband.

Lincoln Land Wind says they are donating $250,000 to contribute to the city’s ongoing broadband internet project with I3 Broadband. The city approved a $2.5 million memorandum of understanding last year to help fund the nearly $18 million infrastructure project that will bring fiber to the door for any residence in the corporate limits that sign up for I3’s services that is alleged to offer 1 gigabit speeds. The projected is expected to be completed by December 31st.

Lincoln Land Wind is expected to begin operations this Fall. The project is expected to generate 300 Megawatts of power, which have already been sold to Facebook and McDonalds. Lincoln Land Wind says the project is expected to generate approximately $65 million in local tax revenue, $90 million in payments to landowners, nearly 400 full-time local jobs during construction, and nine long-term local operations positions.

The State of Illinois is set to award 55 new adult use cannabis dispensary licenses this week, and one could possibly be coming to West Central Illinois.

The Illinois General Assembly passed a trailer bill to its landmark cannabis legislation bill this past Spring to correct ways the state fell short in awarding the licenses that represented equity.

Executive Director of the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois Pamela Althoff says that local governments in the area need to publicize that they want a cannabis business in their community: “The Cannabis Business Association has developed a website page, which is visited by people interested in the industry or applicants that have applied to be included in these lotteries, of cannabis-friendly communities. I certainly would hope that [the] area has contacted us and their information is on that webpage. If not, they should do that because, we send our members as well as our potential members to this website and say ‘If you are looking for a location’ and dispensary entities have not had to designate an area, so they are still going to be looking for sites, we send them to our cannabis-friendly website page and say: ‘Go to communities that want you.'”

Springfield received its first black-owned dispensary licensee on Thursday, the first of three coming to both Sangamon and Menard counties. Three additional licenses will be granted for a west-central Illinois region that includes the counties of Christian, Logan, Mason, Montgomery, Morgan and Schuyler with another three licenses going to a multi-county region of Illinois near St. Louis that includes Macoupin, Greene, and Jersey counties on Thursday.

Althoff says communities who want a dispensary can also visit the state’s website of the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and look up contact information for the licensee and begin courting their business: “As those licenses are awarded, interested communities should go on the Illinois Department of Finance and Professional Regulation’s website, discover who they are in their BLS, and reach out to them and say ‘We’re open for business. We want you. We are going to be good community partners together.’ I’m very positive that would be received with a great deal of joy on the part of new license holders. They are looking for opportunities to get through zoning and get through that [local] government approval process rather quickly.”

Althoff says that most of the larger suppliers for adult use cannabis have more product at this moment than can go on the shelf in dispensaries that are currently in operation. She says the ramp up in production was in anticipation of the awarding of the new licenses this year. She says that craft grow licenses have been awarded, and that the awardees will begin their start up over the next 6 months.

The Illinois Department of Agriculture yesterday issued 32 initial craft grow, 28 infuser, and 9 transporter licenses yesterday. More licenses are expected to be issued by IDOA in the coming weeks as they have provided an extension for some applicants to complete further necessary paperwork. IDOA says that 83% of the applicants in this round were Social Equity applicants, with 67% ownership of this licenses identifying as nonwhite. 60 more craft grow and 60 more infuser licenses are expected to be awarded in the state by the end of the year.

A law sponsored by a local State Senator is awaiting the governor’s signature.

Senate Bill 1646 was passed by both houses of the General Assembly back on May 30^th. It was part of an effort by 50^th District State Senator Steve McClure to help address the state’s teacher shortage by allowing private or parochial school teachers to pay up to 2 years of service into the Illinois Teacher’s Retirement System making benefit transfers easier from private to public school. The transfers would be active until June 30^th, 2023.

It also exempts the 6% Final Average Salary cap for school districts in which summer school is rendered between May 1^st and September 2022 in an effort to address COVID-19 learning loss.

Governor J.B. Pritzker has made no indication when he will sign the bipartisan bill into law. It was placed on his desk on June 28^th. This comes after a flurry of signings of various bills since this past Friday.

The Illinois Auditor General released a financial audit of the Illinois Department of Employment Security on Wednesday. According to Illinois Senate GOP leaders, the audit shows one of the biggest failures of the Pritzker Administation’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

38^th District Senator and IL Senate GOP leader Sue Rezin of Morris says the report revealed why rampant fraud occurred in the administering of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program: “Despite the report only covering the first few months of the pandemic, it revealed massive failures by the Pritzker Administration when it came to protecting the identities of Illinoisans. Sadly, it showed that the administration was unable to implement even the most basic processes to identify ineligible claimants. At one point in the report, the auditors even stated that eligibility for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program couldn’t be properly audited due to the Pritzker Administration’s failure to accurately document eligibility.”

Rezin says that IDES paid nearly $155 million to potentially ineligible claimants between May 11^th and June 30^th of last year. The audit also says that potential claimants to the program went to the deceased, children, and people who never existed.

In separate statements saying essentially the same thing, the Pritzker Administration and IDES says challenges created by former President Donald Trump’s Administration and the unprecedented number of claims in a short amount of time were the roots of most of the problems.

54^th District Senator Jason Plummer of Edwardsville says that Senate Republicans are filing a resolution asking for a complete audit of IDES: “Today, we are filing a Senate Resolution calling for a full performance audit of the issues within Governor Pritzker’s unemployment offices. The findings of the partial audit are bleak, but again, what is even more concerning is that it is just the beginning. This is a disaster and it was completely avoidable. We need a completed audit of the governor’s management of his unemployment program to fully grasp the damage that has been done at the hands of Governor J.B. Pritzker. We know that his offices have been mismanaged. We know that his offices lack effective leadership. However, we had no clue how extensive the failings were and we have no idea today how much money the state has lost – taxpayer money.”

Illinois Democrats have yet to respond to the Senate resolution. IDES confirmed to WICS Newschannel 20 back on July 22^nd that offices have remained closed to the public due to credible threats that include arson, bomb threats, and vandalism along with other threats of violence.

An endangered, missing elderly woman from Missouri has been found alive.

Police indicated shortly after 6PM last night that 65 year old Carol Nance of Washington County, Missouri had been located in the town of West Plains, Missouri alive.

Nance, who is allegedly suffering from a health condition that places here in danger, was believed to have been traveling to the Springfield, Illinois area to see family members.

Nance was originally reported missing on Thursday. As of last night, multiple reports say she was being taken to a nearby hospital for further evaluation.