Other County Updates

Champaign County Crime Stoppers has increased its reward payment for certain violent crimes, including gun related crimes. From the News-Gazette:

Sharing a tip that helps solve homicides and felony gun crimes in Champaign County will now yield a much higher reward.

Champaign County Crime Stoppers announced Wednesday it will now pay a $5,000 cash reward for tips leading to an arrest in a homicide and a $2,500 reward for tips leading to an arrest in a felony involving a firearm...

The organization previously paid a maximum reward of $1,000.

That full article here and similar coverage from WCIA here. For more updates on local violent crime and thefts, check out the latest Community Coalition meetings. News-Gazette coverage of the February meeting here.

The leader of the Ford County militia group, that firebombed a Minnesota mosque and attempted to firebomb a women's clinic here locally in Champaign, pleaded guilty to various federal charges related to the local incident. Hari has already been convicted and sentenced for crimes related to the mosque bombing. From the News-Gazette last month:

Hari’s plea agreement in Urbana wraps up four years of work by government agents against the former Ford County sheriff’s deputy turned leader of a Muslim-hating militia group dubbed “The Patriot Freedom Fighters,” later changed to “The White Rabbits.”

[Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Miller] laid out for Long a summary of the Illinois case.

He said Hari’s leadership of the small band of followers, based in tiny Clarence in northern Ford County, wreaked havoc in several Illinois communities, including Champaign, Watseka, Mount Vernon and Effingham, and reached into Indiana...

The plan to firebomb the Champaign clinic fizzled — literally — when the PVC pipe stuffed with an ignitable powder did not catch fire. Morris admitted he broke a window at the clinic and put the homemade bomb inside. Hari had rented the truck that took the would-be arsonists to the office.

More at the full article here. As a previous Cheat Sheet post noted, the local attack preceded the end of surgical abortion services at that local Clinic, and the last of such services in Champaign County and much of the surrounding region. WCIA also had an overview of the guilty plea here.

There has been an update on early work by area County recorders investigating racial covenants in property deeds, including here in Champaign County. WAND had coverage on the new State law that may make it easier to remove the currently unenforceable, but offensive, language from the official paper work. Excerpt:

Full article here. Previous WAND coverage on area racial covenants here and the second part here.

WAND News extensively reported on this topic and similar issues in a 2021 I-TEAM report. WAND News reporter Doug Wolfe uncovered real estate deeds and other documents dating back to the 1930s and 1940s that discriminated against minorities while allowing whites to get bank loans for homes. County recorders helped Wolfe find restrictive racial covenants and racial restrictions in real estate records that still existed in 2021.

[State Sen. Adriane Johnson (D-Buffalo Grove)] believes the new law will make life easier for those who want their property records updated. 

“Although racial restrictive covenants are no longer enforceable, residents have been forced to jump through hoops to strike the harmful and antiquated provisions from their property records,” Johnson said. “By empowering homeowners to easily remove racist language from their property deeds, our state is taking steps to combat a painful relic of the historical harms done to our communities of color and to root out racism in all of our institutions.”

Other County News and Updates:

• A class action lawsuit has been filed over the methane gas leak in the local aquifer, according to Illinois Newsroom.
• The Champaign County African American Heritage Trail being developed by local history experts and Champaign County's tourism organization Visit Champaign put on a presentation on local African-American history. Blurb from WCIA here. Full video of the presentation here. The initial part of the presentation is about the development of the project. To jump directly to the local history presentation, click here.
• A nature preserve is expanding outside of Villa Grove according to WCIA. More information on the organization behind preserving and restoring tallgrass prairie here at the Grand Prairie Friends webpage.
• Smile Politely highlighted a USA Today investigative article on Champaign County farm runoff and the environmental impact in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Fox Illinois recently posted unemployment data comparing the area Metropolitan Statistical Areas, including Champaign-Urbana and adjacent areas (e.g. Ford and Piatt County), with Springfield MSA and Carbondale-Marion MSA. For more information and maps of the Illinois MSAs, check out the Illinois Department of Employment Security page here.
• High Champaign and Piatt County soybean and corn yields per acre were reported in the News-Gazette.
• Champaign County's water won a recent regional taste test according to WCIA.