A Murrayville man is headed to prison after pleading guilty in Morgan County court Tuesday.

33-year-old Paul D. Gray of the 200 block of McDonald Street in Murrayville was charged in Morgan County Circuit Court with one count of class 2 felony burglary and class 3 felony theft stemming from an arrest on October 27^th of last year.

The incident was the subject of a Morgan, Scott, Cass Counties Crime Stoppers Crime of the Week back in November. According to charging documents and the Crime Stoppers release, Gray forced entry into a shed in the 2100 block of Heitz Road north of Jacksonville near Literberry and removed a black 5×8 single axle flatbed trailer and 2019 Honda Rancher ATV valued in excess of $500.00.

Gray pleaded guilty to the burglary charge in Morgan County Court on Tuesday. The theft charge and an additional class 3 felony charge of possession of methamphetamine from a separate arrest were both dismissed per the plea.

Gray was sentenced to serve nine years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, followed by 18 months of mandatory supervised release. He was given credit for 23 days served in the Morgan County Jail and ordered to pay a $500 fine plus fees and court costs.

A few fees in the Jacksonville Water Department will be increasing soon, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have sticker shock on a future water bill.

The Jacksonville City Council approved the increases during their regular meeting Monday night. The fee increases are not part of the monthly service rate or costs but instead are isolated to things like bulk water sales and connections.

Mayor Andy Ezard says it has been a long time since these specific fees were last raised and they are now well below the average most municipalities charge. “It’s been probably twenty-five years that we have not raised rates. I mean, obviously, we’ve raised water and sewer rates, but like service fees, tap fees. There’s three or four of them that we lumped in there that were just way behind.

Ezard says he feels the increases aren’t exorbitant and are needed to help cover the costs of specific services provided by the water department. “By raising these we’re not gouging anybody, we’re just getting back to basically our costs that are going in.

For example when we get called out or parts and things, all that has gone up over that time. So we’re just trying to catch up there. We’re not trying to hurt folks financially, but with our due diligence in trying to reach a medium we felt comfortable raising those.”

Specifically, fees that are set to increase are the Call Out Fee, which currently is at $55.00 and will raise to $150.00. That will be broken out to better match specific reasons for the calls.

Tap Fees currently are set at a flat rate of $100.00 for water and $75.00 for sewer and those will change to include a parts cost plus a labor fee.

Also increasing is the Re-Connection Fee for non-payment from $15.00 to $50.00, and currently the cost of 100 gallons of bulk water is $.25 and will increase to $.50 going forward.

A major healthcare network based in central Illinois is apparently back to paper while dealing with a network-wide systems outage.

Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) is experiencing an outage across its entire network of hospitals and medical centers in Illinois and Wisconsin, including the HSHS Medical Group Practice in Jacksonville, HSHS St. Johns, and the Prairie Heart Institute in Springfield.

According to an announcement on the HSHS Facebook page, they are continuing to work through the system outage that includes what officials are calling sporadic phone system access as well as a complete outage of clinical and administrative operations and the internet.

The MyChart system communication is also down. According to a report by the Springfield State Journal-Register earlier today, MyChart helps patients schedule, manage, and check in for appointments as well as request prescription refills and other services.

HSHS is encouraging those who currently have appointments to come in as scheduled unless it is a radiation oncology treatment, in which case they say a staff member will make contact to reschedule.

In a statement to staff obtained by WLDS News this afternoon, HSHS administrators are continuing to work through the outages and are asking staff members not to post about the situation on their own social media and to minimize frustration when giving care to patients.

In the social media announcement, HSHS says they have well-established downtime policies and procedures that work very well when they experience technology issues. In the inter-organization communication, HSHS administration says the hospital system is using temporary paper records for the time being.

No word on what caused the issue which is according to multiple news outlets began Sunday morning.

No one was injured but several area residents lost significant amounts of property due to a suspicious fire in Jacksonville early Saturday morning.

Jacksonville and South Jacksonville Fire Department crews responded to a call of a structure fire in the storage units complex located at 321 West Lafayette Avenue at 2:36 a.m. Saturday.

According to Jacksonville Fire Department officials, upon arrival, multiple units were involved with fire. The blaze destroyed the contents and large portions of the structure of the southern half of the building.

Officials say the storage unit building did not have power or utilities of any kind running to it. They say they have determined the point of origin of the fire and have deemed it suspicious in nature.

An arson investigator from the Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office was on scene this morning and an investigation into the cause is ongoing. No estimate of damages was available as of press time, but officials say there will likely be very significant losses between the damage to the structure and the contents of the individual units.

The fire is the latest in the string of suspicious arson fires that have occurred in the north and eastern areas of town over the last two years, and specifically in that neighborhood over the last year.

In August of last year, a vacant house adjacent to the storage units at 337 West Lafayette was gutted by fire. A pair of houses each burned this year around the corner from the 500 and 600 block of North Church Street.

One of those was the historic Capps house at 606 North Church which burned twice in a matter of weeks. The more than 100-year-old home was at one time owned by members of the Capps woolen mill family and was later a well-known doctor’s office and clinic. It has since been demolished.

Jacksonville Police and Fire Department officials continue to remind residents anywhere in Jacksonville to keep an eye on any vacant or seldom-used properties and report any suspicious activity.

Anyone with information on any of these suspicious fires is urged to call the Jacksonville Police Investigations Unit at 217-479-4630 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers of Morgan, Scott, and Cass Counties at 217-243-7300.

A free cancer screening drive-through event is returning to Jacksonville Memorial Hospital next month.

Free colorectal at-home cancer screening kits will be distributed at two drive-thru events in September at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital. Organizers say the event is thanks to a partnership with the Mia Ware Foundation.

The kits will be distributed from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14, and from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 15, in the circle drive at the hospital’s main entrance at 1600 W. Walnut St.

Organizers say that participants will stay in their vehicles, answer a few brief questions, and receive their kits to take home. The kit contains instructions and supplies for participants to collect a stool sample, which is used to test for blood in the stool.

Participants return their completed kits via a postage-paid envelope, with test results sent by mail in three to four weeks.

Kits will be available while supplies last.

Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. If detected early, 90 percent of those deaths are preventable.

People who are at average risk for colorectal cancer should start regular screenings at age 45 and continue through age 75, according to the American Cancer Society.

Jacksonville’s top cop is praising several members of area law enforcement after a combined operation that he says could have had a very different outcome.

Jacksonville Chief of Police Adam Mefford recently issued a number of letters of commendation for officers with the Jacksonville, and South Jacksonville police departments as well as the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office following the stand-off with an armed robbery suspect on August 7^th.

Police responded to a call of an armed robbery at Dunlap Court Beverages and encountered a suspect fleeing the area. According to police reports, the man pointed what appeared to be a handgun at the officers before retreating into an apartment in the 400 block of West College Avenue. After an approximately three-and-a-half-hour stand-off, police were able to take the man into custody with only minor injuries and no officers injured.

Mefford says in hindsight, it was a very tense and dangerous situation that jeopardized not only the safety of law enforcement but also the public, in general, had things not gone as smoothly as they did in the end.

“It was a team effort by everybody on scene. We had an after-action review like we do with most critical incidents where we get together with all the parties involved. We talk about obviously what went well. We talk about things that we could do differently.

In most cases, there’s no wrong thing that was done. We’d rather use them as training moments to what we could do better next time. If you don’t do that then your responses stay stagnant. So in every critical incident, we review things that could have been done a little better.”

Mefford says it is fortunate that in this case a lot of things went right. He says that can be attributed to the continued training area departments conduct on a regular basis. “During our after action we discussed, were we properly prepared to handle something like this in Jacksonville, i.e., your stand-off with a potential armed individual. And when we went through our after-action, we determined that we had the proper equipment to handle that situation.

You know, we had some little things that we discussed, some communication issues when you have different agencies involved and things such as that. But all in all, we reevaluated our training, we reevaluated our equipment, and we determined that JPD is on the right track when it comes to being able to protect the community and also to bring a peaceful resolution to very tense, very unpredictable situations.”

Mefford says once they were able to determine the suspect was the only person inside the residence, they were able to slow everything down and work through different scenarios of how to bring the situation to an end.

He says that was especially important in a situation with a suspect who was at times showing aggression that included pointing his handgun out the window of the home in the direction of officers.

“And to be able to maintain that position of cover, maintain that patience in that situation was key. I think wearing down an individual in that type of situation by not being the aggressor also helped us start to bring that situation to a close. Again, I can’t say enough about the training of the agencies that were involved, the equipment that the city, the mayor, the council have allowed me to purchase over the last few years have been priceless. But not just in this situation but all situations in general and we got to see a good display on our end of how those things would play out and how they would work.”

In all, about 25 officers from different agencies worked together to peacefully end the standoff. The suspect was taken into custody after tear gas was deployed and the JPD Special Response Team entered the residence. He was treated a the hospital for cuts from broken window glass and remains held at the Morgan County Jail pending his next appearance in court.

Mefford says recognition is deserved to not only the officers on scene but also those who kept the perimeter secure to keep the public safe, as well as West Central Joint Dispatch personnel and the rest of the support staff who worked behind the scenes to keep the public safe and bring the tense situation to a close.

Crime Stoppers of Morgan, Scott & Cass Counties are requesting information to assist the Jacksonville Police Department in their investigation of a recent residential burglary.

Sometime between 4 pm on August 15^th, and 5 pm on August 17^th, an unknown person(s) entered a residence in the 800 block of Myrtle Street. Once inside, some copper piping was then removed from the residence.

The police are asking that anyone who has information concerning this incident or any other crimes within the three-county area submit an anonymous tip online by going to www.morganscottcrimestoppers.webs.com or calling Crime Stoppers at 217-243-7300.

Tips may also be submitted anonymously by texting the word CRIMES, that’s the number 274637. The first word of the text tip must be “payout”.

Crime Stoppers says if your tip leads to an arrest, you are eligible for a cash reward.

Jacksonville School District 117 is now one week into the new school year and off to a good start despite the heat that is now affecting classes today.

Superintendent Steve Ptacek reported to the District 117 School Board last night that despite two major facility moves during the summer, the start of the new school year went according to plan with no issues.

“The first couple of days have been fantastic. It was wonderful to see the excitement on the students’ faces at Washington as they entered into a brand-new building. The Eisenhower staff has done a wonderful job of transitioning into the modulars.

Those modulars are very nice, the classrooms are very nice, and I think they are learning what it’s like to teach with walls, something that they are going to be able to have in the future.

Once again I commend the tech department and the maintenance department for all the work they did to move technology and furniture and equipment around throughout the entire district.”

The district is on SIP early dismissal hours today due to the heat forecasted to reach a high of 99 with a heat index of 110. Ptacek says by waiting until the day of the heat event to call the early schedule the district will not have to have a make-up day for the early release.

He says with the majority of District 117 spaces being air-conditioned, this heat wave has been for the most part bearable for students and staff.

He says though that releasing earlier around the mid-day hour could potentially mean a five-degree difference in temperature so kids aren’t going home during the hottest part of the day.

“The start of the year went wonderful and with the temperature, everybody’s been great. It’s been warm and maybe even miserable in some places but not hazardous. But we’re a little worried about that for [Thursday] with the excessive heat.

Especially when we have twelve non-air conditioned buses some bus drivers that are on our buses for two-plus hours in the afternoon and some kids that are there that long. So we’re doing very well and coping. It’s very good that our buildings for the most part are air conditioned so we are able to adapt and adjust where needed.”

During SIP days, or Student Improvement Planning days, schools release early in a staggered time frame with each school having its own SIP schedule.

Ptacek is asking parents to please check with the SIP schedule for their student’s specific school for release times.

An arrest has been made in the case of a reported robbery on a rural road near Meredosia from last week.

Morgan County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a call of a strong-arm robbery on Beauchamp Lane just off of Illinois Route 100 at approximately 5:15 Friday evening.

According to initial reports, a woman told deputies that an older red Ford pick-up truck had passed her on Beauchamp Lane and a short distance later, blocked the roadway near a bridge so she could not pass.

She said one individual from the truck then approached her vehicle and opened the door demanding money. She said he then accosted her and struck her in the face before taking what money she had on her person.

According to an update by the Morgan County Sheriff’s this afternoon, after a continued investigation into the alleged robbery, detectives with the sheriff’s office determined that the complaint was fabricated and no such robbery took place.

The complainant, 47-year-old Diane Eckert of the 100 block of South Putnam in Meredosia was arrested and booked into the Morgan County Jail at approximately 6:00 pm Tuesday on a charge of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. As of this afternoon, bond has been set and Eckert remained lodged at the Morgan County Jail. She was charged in Morgan County Court today with the misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, and a charge of making a false report of an offense, a class 4 felony.

Officials in the press release say the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office is no longer seeking information concerning this case, including possible suspects and suspect vehicles.

The City of Jacksonville is officially getting a hand from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to stay in compliance with wastewater regulations.

The IEPA announced this week the recipients of more than half a billion dollars in water infrastructure loans to local governments and water districts for the fourth quarter of the 2023 fiscal year.

The funds are made available through the Illinois EPA State Revolving Loan Program which provides low-interest loans to fund wastewater, stormwater, and drinking water projects.

The City of Jacksonville has been granted just over $17 million for the wastewater treatment plant in the city’s ongoing effort to update the aging system and bring it up to compliance with all state and federal regulations.

Earlier this year it was announced the city was not only approved for the low-interest loan but that also a portion of the principal would be forgiven in the form of a grant.

Jacksonville Mayor Andy Ezard says, that although the city knew the funds had been awarded, it is nice to have it official. “It’s always good to see it in writing on their letterhead. We did anticipate this principal forgiveness which is basically a grant towards our sewer project. It’s around seventeen million and we were able to capture two point six million in grant money which is basically fifteen percent of the project, so we’re happy.

Again, it’s the workings of Benton and Associates who do a wonderful job for us- Jamie Headen and his staff. It’s also the relationships we have in Springfield in regards to the City of Jacksonville and the different departments over there.”

The funds will allow the city to construct two coarse mechanical bar screens, six influent pumps, two fine screens, one grit removal chamber, one Parshall flume, and all the necessary accessories for the equipment to be integrated into the wastewater plant.

Ezard says the grant amount combined with the low-interest loan will save city residents considerably. “We did receive the maximum allowable grant, so that’s really good and just adds on to keeping our water rates very competitive. With a lot of things brewing with the start-up of the project and having the pre-conference meeting with the contractor, Plocher Construction out of Highland, so it looks like it’s a go.”

Ezard says the rehabilitation project will be handled differently and over a longer period of time than the recent water treatment plant project. “You have to do the sewer plant a little bit different than the water plant for the rehab versus a new facility. Logistics-wise the original water plant was right down the hill and we were able to switch it off and basically throw some valves and start up the new water plant. And the sewer plant just doesn’t work that way.

We’re going to take the phased approach for our sewer plant, which is aging, and it’s going to be drawn out in probably five to ten years. However, once that is completed it will be good for many years into the future.”

The project was bumped up this year and thereby was able to qualify for a lower rate of interest of just under 1%.