This post covers February Champaign County Board meetings and other County related news items. We'll be highlighting the nursing home updates, Willard airport expanded service pitch to local governments, recent board and judge appointments, and county law enforcement issues. At the end there is also a list of other county government and news highlights.
Old County Nursing Home and Bed Shortage:
WCIA had coverage of this week's special study session by the County Board on what to do about the old Champaign County Nursing Home property that was sold to a private entity that soon closed it. The meat and potatoes of that meeting begins around the 12 minute mark of the meeting video here (agenda prior to amendment moving up the presentations here). From the WCIA coverage:
The Champaign County Board and community members came together Tuesday night at a study session, talking about the future of University Rehab in Urbana...
When University Rehab closed, the community lost over 200 licensed beds.
Board members and advocates agree they need to think ahead and make a plan for the current and future aging population. The study session was one step to getting there.
Part of that will come from working with the Champaign County Healthcare Consumers and Advocates for Aging Care. They want to work together to bring more beds to the area.
That full article here. The News-Gazette had more in their coverage as well. A few key excerpts:
“AAC has looked into the issue of using the current facility as a nursing home and has come to the realization that it would probably not be suitable, certainly not suitable for a contemporary, nonprofit nursing home,” she said. “If the Champaign County Board decides to lift the restriction on the sale of the facility, allowing it to be sold for something other than a nursing home, AAC will support that decision.”
...
[County Executive Steve Summers] said in a previous interview that a program manager with the Illinois Department of Public Health told him the license for the home has lapsed, and any new operator would have to invest significant capital to get the property in compliance with all current IDPH codes.
He added that the receiver has said they were told that “demolishing the building down to the foundation and rebuilding was the most likely way to have a nursing-home facility on that site.”
That full article here with a lot of additional information, background, and other perspectives. It highlights a key issue for the county is ensuring that it can recoup some of the 2 years worth of back taxes and future property taxes from the site. There was a lot of news coverage and discussion of the nursing home and beds shortage in the last County Board: Winter Updates Cheat Sheet post here.
The Advocates for Aging Care group had an opinion piece in the News-Gazette this month highlighting their community survey. As pointed out in this study session meeting, the group hopes to use the community survey and an additional upcoming market research study to supplement the Illinois Department of Public Health information on the local (as opposed to regional) shortage in order to make the licensing process feasible.
Willard Service Expansion and Public Funds:
Smile Politely had an
opinion piece on the Minimum Revenue Guarantee proposals for a new leisure flight service out of Willard Airport with some helpful information and analysis. The Champaign County Economic Development Corporation (EDC) has been collaborating on presentations to local government bodies,
according to the News-Gazette. The
presentation to the City of Champaign is available here, with a comprehensive
staff report for that study session topic here. From the News-Gazette article:
In addition to the two city councils, representatives from the University of Illinois-owned airport also presented their pitch this week to the Rantoul Village Board.
According to the airport’s updated incentive policy, the university is offering a first-come, first-served minimum revenue guarantee of $500,000 for service to any airport in Florida or Arizona, or to Las Vegas.
Executive Director Tim Bannon has said that the airport is hoping to raise a community match of $500,000 so that it can offer a total minimum revenue guarantee of at least $1 million.
That full article
here. There's already a similar outstanding minimum revenue guarantee (MRG) to expand Willard's services with a route to and from Washington, D.C. The presenters to local governments argued that these kind of risk limiting safeguards will help Willard compete with other downstate airports.
One selling point that appeared to appeal to local government officials was that the University's half of the million dollar MRG would be used up first (as opposed to city, village, or county public funds), if the route struggles for profitability in the initial years. The anticipated timeline for local government bodies to approve the commitment appears to be for this April, with actual funds allocated to the MRG at a later date.
County Appointments:
Don Owen was appointed to fill the vacancy left by former County Board Chair Kyle Patterson as he became the City of Champaign Township Supervisor, according to the News-Gazette. Samantha Carter, the previous vice chair was selected as the new board chair. County Board member Jennifer Locke was selected as the new vice chair. You can see the nomination process for selecting the chair and vice-chair at the February County Board meeting video here. You can also see the vote to approve the vacancy appointment of Don Owen and his swearing in earlier at that same meeting here.
The News-Gazette also had coverage of a new associate judge in the local area Sixth Judicial Circuit of Illinois:
Rob Jacobson, a partner at local law firm Tummelson, Bryan and Knox, will don the robes on March 1 and be sworn in as an associate judge at the Champaign County Courthouse.
Chief Judge Randy Rosenbaum said Thursday that the 14 elected judges of the Sixth Circuit selected Jacobson from a pool of 12 applicants to fill a brand-new position that the Illinois Supreme Court allowed Champaign County to create...
The new judge will oversee juvenile abuse and neglect cases, a load currently split between Judge Matthew Lee and Judge Brett Olmstead. Jacobson’s courtroom also will call guardianship cases, which Judge Anna Benjamin currently oversees.
More at that full article here, including concerns about space issues at the courthouse with 1 more judge than it was designed for.
County Law Enforcement Items:
The Redeploy youth incarceration diversion program is coming to Champaign County according to the News-Gazette:
The launch comes after a group of local partners won funding last year from the Juvenile Redeploy grant, a program sponsored by the Illinois Department of Human Services. It aims to help supplement typical probation plans by providing treatment services and resources to eligible juvenile offenders who would otherwise be sentenced to prison.
Juveniles who apply and enter the program in Champaign County may get life coaching and job training from DREAAM Academy, a Champaign nonprofit, or mental-health and substance-abuse counseling from Cunningham Children’s Home in Urbana...
Forty-five Illinois counties have participated in Redeploy since 2015, according to the state agency’s website, with 72 percent of the youths involved in 2019 having no new arrests while enrolled.
That full article here.
In other county law enforcement news, there was the largest multi-jurisdictional training exercise to prepare for a local mass casualty event. It was the third and largest annual exercise, according to the News-Gazette, of this type and occurred about a month ago. WCIA also had coverage of the exercise:
On Tuesday in Champaign, 163 area first responders prepared for emergencies no one hopes for, but everyone has to be ready for. It was all part of their joint training for departments across the county...
“How can we all work together, speak the right language and everyone knows what to expect when they come to one of these incidents,” [Champaign Police Lt. Aaron Lack] added.
He said smaller groups train together quite a bit, but big sessions like this one happen about once a year. He hopes they can happen a little more often if possible.
That full article here. The event exercise operated under the Active Shooter Incident Management framework.
Other County Law Enforcement Related Items:
- Illinois Public Media had an in depth look at the Rantoul Police Department response to officer involved shootings that included some follow up details on one officer who resigned and was briefly hired by the Champaign County Sheriff's Office soon after.
- There were a lot of updates in the last County Board Facilities Committee meeting on the satellite jail consolidation project (as well as a lot more details on the County Plaza project). The bulk of the information is very detailed financial and change order information in the 2/6/2024 meeting Agenda Packet here. The presentation at the meeting itself explained the reasons for the changes, generally unavoidable when a project plan meets reality.
- The County Sheriff's jurisdiction was included in the News-Gazette's ongoing examination of lost and stolen firearms entering the community, sometimes under implausibly convoluted "loss" or "theft," according to Editor Jeff D'Alessio in a recent 2/29/2024 WDWS interview.
Other County Government News:
- Solar farm zoning decisions continue to be a controversial subject for many local communities, especially after the State of Illinois limited some local authority in denying certain projects. WCIA highlighted one example in Urbana this month where residents were concerned about a project coming to their area.
- The Center Square highlighted a University of Illinois Extension program on revitalizing rural downtown areas.
- Smile Politely had an opinion piece pondering on the feasibility of non-partisan county elected offices, similar to some non-partisan local government bodies like the City of Champaign city council, for example. I hope to get some legal input soon on how that may or may not be possible under Illinois law and circle back to that question.
- There was additional Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding reported coming to the Champaign County Continuum of Care for Service Providers the Homeless at the Regional Planning Commission. For fans of acronyms, that's more HUD funding for the CSPH at the CCRPC. In simpler terms, CSPH brings together a lot of service providers, organizations, and resources to monthly meetings to collaborate and share information on our local homeless situation. The RPC is an umbrella organization of County and other local government bodies collaborating on local services more generally.
- The Champaign County Forest Preserve is acquiring a large piece of land by the River Bend Forest Preserve near Mahomet according to the News-Gazette using State grant money.
- There were questions this month about the status of the rural broadband projects using ARPA money and a desire for an update on the status of those projects. There is some general information about the rural broadband needs and planning here via the Illinois Farm Bureau.
There's a 270 page county report for background on the issue, but it has a concise "Executive Summary" and "Next Steps" section one can start with. There doesn't appear to be any recent meeting minutes (for the January or August 2023 meetings) on the County website yet, or any videos to catch up on with.
In other County News:
