County Roundup

There were a few news items related to County government this week:

• The results from the State's lottery on solar farm bids was announced. 
• A superbug fungus in Illinois hasn't been found in Champaign yet, but C-U Public Health Department is keeping an eye out for it.
• There were a couple news items following up on the Jail online bond fraud.

The News-Gazette had coverage of the solar farm lottery results and the local impact. In one article Thursday they had a overview of the winners and losers:

Five area solar-farm projects win renewable-energy credits from state
Only five area "community solar" projects were big winners in Wednesday's Illinois Power Agency lottery in Chicago, where about 10 percent of nearly 1,000 proposals snagged the renewable-energy credits made possible by the Future Energy Jobs Act.

In the larger-community category — mostly 2-megawatt projects that will generate electricity Illinoisans likely can buy through subscriptions — only one Champaign County project was chosen: a 2-megawatt farm proposed by Forefront Power near Sidney...

Not a part of the power agency's lottery were another 740 "large distributed generation" projects that were also awarded. These projects, which generally consist of smaller arrays at businesses or homes, do not connect directly to the power grid and offer subscriptions. Instead, Star said, they are designed to offset electricity use where they are located, like the one at Monticello Middle School — one of about 70 approved in Champaign and surrounding counties.

More at the full article here. The News-Gazette also highlighted one of the Urbana projects delayed by missing out on this year's lottery:

Urbana solar project on hold for at least a year after losing out on incentives
...
The project to bring a solar array to Urbana's old landfill site was not one of them, much to the disappointment of the city's environmental sustainability manager, Scott Tess...

In December, aldermen voted to strike a lease option agreement with San Jose, Calif.-based SunPower DevCo, which allowed them to apply to the incentives lottery. The two-year lease-option agreement — the first of three steps to realizing the solar-energy project — would give SunPower the exclusive right to develop solar arrays on 41 acres of Urbana's landfill property, managed by the Champaign-Urbana Solid Waste Disposal System.

Under the agreement, SunPower would have the exclusive right for two years to develop the property, as well as a lease renewal option in the event it can't secure incentives or funding in that time. But in order for them to start work on the array, they have to be secure in knowing who they'll sell the energy to.

Without the incentives, Tess said, it's not likely that the energy output generated by the array would be cheap enough to stave off competition from natural gas and other popular sources. The immediate next step for SunPower will be to apply for next year's incentives lottery.

More at that full article here.


WCIA had blurb and a video segment on local concerns with a superbug spreading nationally in medical facilities:

There have been more than 150 cases of this superbug in northern Illinois.

No one has been diagnosed in central Illinois, but the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District is keeping an eye on the situation.

Doctors say that's because more people have become resistant to treatment.

The fungus -- called Candida auris spreads quickly.

It affects people with weak immune systems, usually through contaminated surfaces or equipment...

Simple things like washing your hands after coming into contact with patients and cleaning surfaces can help stop the threat.

That article and video segment here.


There were also a couple recent followup stories on the issues with the County Jail's online bond payment system that was recently shut down due to fraudulent payments (more on that at a Cheat Sheet post here). From the News-Gazette website on Tuesday (and print edition Thursday):

An Arkansas man who showed up at his pretrial hearing Tuesday on weapons charges was arrested so he could post bond legitimately.

Edwin McCraney, 25, of West Memphis was one of about a dozen defendants for whom arrest warrants were issued last month after Champaign County Jail officials learned that their bond had been posted through an online service using stolen credit-card information.

In the wake of that discovery, Sheriff Dustin Heuerman suspended the use of GovPay.com on March 20.

Heuerman said at the time that there had been more than $25,000 in bail paid with the remote online option from suspected stolen credit-card information since the beginning of the year...

Assistant State’s Attorney Chris McCallum said the rightful credit-card holder lives in Pennsylvania and had no connection to McCraney.

Heuerman said he’s heard no complaints from anyone about the suspension of the GovPay service.

Credit cards may still be used to post bond, but they have to be presented in person at the jail by the poster. Cash and money orders are also acceptable forms of bond, he said.

More information at the article here. There was another article in today's paper along the same lines:

A Champaign man who was released from jail a month ago on bond that was paid with a stolen credit card is back in custody.

Jaime Varelas, 21, whose last known address was in the 1300 block of Williamsburg Drive, was returned to Urbana on Thursday after his arrest in Kankakee County on a warrant issued March 21...

He was jailed starting not long after the alleged incident until March 12, when someone posted $5,034 bond for him using the online service GovPay.com.

Within three days of his release, county jail administrators were notified that the bond had been posted with credit-card information that had been stolen...

Varelas' was among the highest bonds posted with the stolen credit-card information. Heuerman said the amounts ranged from as little as $184 to just over $5,000.

That full article here.