May County Board Updates

 

The May County Board meeting approved a solar farm on private property, but opposed by the local Homer government and many residents. Public participation at the meeting had representatives of the Village of Homer and the solar farm company make their cases (jump to video here). The County Board discussion before the vote actually involved a diverse range of opinions and philosophies behind the different members (jump to that point in the meeting video here). 

The Republicans weighed the impact and desires of the community with the private property rights. The Democrats had more internal disagreement about prioritizing private property rights versus greater needs of the community and world. There were also some back and forth on issues like long term climate change and more immediate world hunger issues depending on our regional agricultural world breadbasket.

The full meeting agenda packet and video are available now, and the minutes will be available on the County website at a later date.

There was also a detailed breakdown and spreadsheets of County ARPA federal relief spending and projects in the agenda packet (page 160 of the packet, page 164 of the PDF file here). There was a more brief oral update towards the end of the County Board meeting itself. 

For a more detailed look at the remaining spending decisions, I recommend the long, but extremely detailed discussion at the latest Prevent Violence Task Force meeting. They go through the remaining funds, timetables and time limits to use the funding, and break down the projects by committee member support and projects to be funded. The agenda packet for that meeting also includes the minutes from the previous committee meeting and an overview of the presentations at that time. The News-Gazette had an overview of area ARPA spending in a March article here.

Other Meeting Highlights:

• There is ongoing discussion on how the county should proceed in purchasing additional facilities for Animal Control (from the old Human Society owned facility that was on county land). Board members are looking at the tradeoffs and complications with exposing the unique facility to the market as opposed to purchasing based on (but under) the appraisals. 
  
  
• The Board will be setting up a committee to look at using the county's opioid settlement funds when they're made available in the future. The general plan as laid out by chair Patterson was for a few members from each side of the aisle to hear from stakeholders at these meetings.

Other County Updates:

More on the Nursing Home today on the News-Gazette front page this morning (article also has some additional County Board related information):

With another local nursing home gone, a group calling itself Advocates for Nursing Home Care sees a crisis ahead — not enough longterm- care beds in Champaign County at a time aging baby boomers are going to need them most.

It’s an issue the group’s founder, Cathy Emanuel of Champaign, said she confronted recently when her late husband needed nursing home care.

“We’re already finding that many of the people involved have friends or loved ones who have to go out of the community, because there aren’t enough beds locally,” she said.

Of immediate concern to Emanuel and more than 50 other members of the new group is the closure of the 243-bed University Rehabilitation Center — formerly the Champaign County Nursing Home until it was sold in 2019.

That full article at the News-Gazette's eEdition here. More in a Nursing Home Updates post here.

There will also be another post (to be linked when available) on the current jail and juvenile detention facilities, staffing issues, and other updates soon.