June Events Highlight: Juneteenth and Jettie Rhodes Community Events

I'd like to start off by highlighting a few of the many Juneteenth celebrations and activities happening this year, as well as the annual Jettie Rhodes event. People may have different opinions on these events. Some are clearly more secular in nature and others more overtly religious depending on your own preferences and interest. 

For our purposes at the Cheat Sheet, they tend to involve a great deal of local political information and outreach: from tabling by various organizations, voter registration events, and often a lot of education on local issues and advocacy. 

This list is in order of starting date/time. The flyers are by city location:

• June 13th, 12pm-3pm: Champaign Park District Juneteenth celebration including a lot of tabling and other events.
  
  
• June 19th, 10am-3pm: DREAAM hosting a Freedom Bike Ride, festival, basketball shootout, and voter registration events at Stratton Elementary campus. 
  
  
• June 19th, 2:30pm-5pm: The Well Experience is hosting a parade and celebration in Urbana starting and occurring at the Sunnycrest Mall parking lot.
  
  
• June 19th, 6pm-8pm: Champaign Park District hosting a free concert at Douglass Park. 
  
  
• June 27th, 12pm-4pm: Jettie Rhodes Day which will include tabling and other events.
  
  
• Wednesdays in June, 6pm: Juneteenth Bible Study via Zoom featuring AME pastors from Champaign, Bloomington, and Minneapolis.

Click to enlarge the images for the event flyers.

Champaign:

 

Urbana:

 

Online:

There are some events in June for Pride month, but the larger local Pride Fest event usually occurs in the fall here when the students are in town. For more information on local Pride events, reach out to the Uniting Pride Center. The UP Center is generally a good starting point for events and organizing around LGBT and related issues.

Of course there are always a lot more events going on locally, many may be directly related to your political interests or issues that you care about. It can be difficult to keep up with everything going on and many organizers struggle to get the word out on their events to a wider audience. 

The Champaign County Community Coalition may be a good starting point for most people learning about all the organizations and organizers out there related to local issues: on everything from gun violence to rental assistance, from youth programs to the need for nursing home beds.

Other County Government Updates

There's a lot going on with Champaign County government offices in general this month. From Amnesty Week in the Circuit Clerk's office to a lot of Champaign County Sheriff's Office updates, health care, housing, and history!

The Champaign County Circuit Clerk is hosting its annual "Amnesty Week" according to WCIA:

Starting October 11 to the 21, if you have delinquent tickets, you can settle them with the city.

Amnesty Week is hosted by the Champaign County Circuit Clerk’s office. Suppose you have a balance on any criminal, traffic, DUI, ordinance violation(s), or conservation violation(s); you can pay off your balance without any late or collection fees. Officials said this does not apply to any fines and costs already paid or tax refunds used against what is due.

That full article here. More information from the Circuit Clerk's website here.

The News-Gazette's 9/16 "Meeting Minutes" feature highlighted a CSSO Lieutenant's FBI training graduation:

Just back from Quantico, Va.: newly minted FBI National Academy graduate and Champaign County sheriff’s Lt. Dave Sherrick (right). The 22-year department veteran, who serves as the administrative support lieutenant in the Law Enforcement Division, spent 10 weeks learning about advanced communication, leadership and officer resiliency, among other topics.

That blurb with photo is available at the News-Gazette's eEdition here. WCIA also had a short blurb on the same story here.

The 9/2 "Meeting Minutes" feature had an article on area corrections hiring. Excerpt related to Champaign County: 

Current openings: 16 correctional officers (of 50), two sergeants (of eight)...

Sheriff says: Staff shortages aren’t unique to Champaign County, Dustin Heuerman has learned in conversations with fellow sheriffs in similar-sized cities: “One is down 15 correctional officers and the other is down 10. Sheriffs across the state are struggling to find quality staff to help fill our vacant positions.”

Unlike police and fire departments, Heuerman says, “the corrections division has never had a robust list of interested applicants, which makes it difficult to replace employees leaving in a timely manner.”

That full article is also available on the eEdition here. WCIA had additional coverage on low morale and staff shortages in Champaign County corrections:

Some Champaign County correctional officers say morale is low among jail workers. It’s been hard to hire and keep employees. So, they want to start negotiating for a better contract. Their current one expires in December...

They’re down 16 officers, and [union representative] Micah McMahon said it’s been taking a toll on their physical and mental health. That’s why he went to the County Board meeting Tuesday night and asked to start the negotiation process...

McMahon said some officers are working 12-16 extra hours of overtime per week and haven’t taken a regular day off for a while. He said closing the downtown jail helped, but housing is still limited.

That full article with video segment here. In a somewhat related story, the Champaign County Bailout Coalition was in the news attempting to protect the scope of the SAFE-T Act reforms on cash bail and pretrial detention. WCIA had coverage with a video segment here. County Board member Emily Rodriguez was also interviewed. WCCU had a recent article that suggested the reforms might help a bit with some of the staffing issues in the local jail and another article looking at how the reformed process may work (including comments by the Champaign County State's Attorney).

C-U Publich Health District employees formed a union and expressed some of their frustrations with working conditions throughout the pandemic.

More at the full WAND article here with additional links to more information and the News-Gazette's coverage with more details from their FOIA request here.

Additional County area health updates are in a separate Cheat Sheet post here.

Other County Updates:

• Illinois Newsroom had coverage of one of the area judicial election races between Democrat Chad Beckett and Republican Sam Limentato here.
• The News-Gazette had some of the latest news on the Champaign County African American Heritage Trail project working with MTD, Visit Champaign County, and other local organizations.
• WCIA highlighted some upcoming activities with the Champaign County Forest Preserve District.
• WCIA highlighted the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission – Workforce Development Division.
• WCIA also highlighted the Housing Authority of Champaign County's YouthBuild program in coverage here.
• Additional events at this year's Pride celebration from WAND.
• Electronic recycling collection registration is available, but as of yesterday only by phone and not on-line. The phone number is 217-403-4780. More information from Smile Politely here.

November County Roundup

There is a separate post on the jail consolidation news at the last County Board meeting here (video, agenda packet). This post covers other County government news including: the elimination of the County Recorder office, updates on the appointment power fight between the County Executive and the Board, area homeless shelter updates, and many other items.

This will be the last month for the office of the Champaign County Recorder of Deeds after voters approved of consolidating the office within the Champaign County Clerk's Office. From the News-Gazette:

Under changes approved by voters in April, Ingram’s job will be eliminated, the recorder’s office staff and functions will be rolled into the clerk’s office and County Clerk Aaron Ammons will become clerk and recorder on Jan. 1, 2022.

The change is likely to be fairly seamless for the public, according to Ingram and Ammons.

[Recorder Mike Ingram] said the five staff members in the recorder’s office will remain in the same space at the Brookens Administrative Center in Urbana.

Full article available here.

There was movement in the ongoing dispute on appointment powers between the new County Executive and the County Board chair under the new County Executive form of government. This time it was a unanimous appellate decision in favor of the County Board and chair to make vacancy appointments on the Board. From the News-Gazette:  

The three-judge panel unanimously ruled that the board chair — not the county executive — has the authority to make appointments to fill elected offices that are vacated between elections.

In ruling for the board and against County Executive Darlene Kloeppel, the court overturned a local judge’s ruling in Kloeppel’s favor...

[County Board Chairman Kyle Patterson] said his position remains that he will appoint candidates chosen by the party’s central committee to fill vacancies. The appointment of [Wayne Williams] will likely come up in December, he said.

Reached Friday, Kloeppel hadn’t had time yet to read the decision but said she would likely appeal it.

Full article available here.

C-U at Home's plans for additional homeless shelter highlighted some use of federal COVID relief funding use by the County government. From Illinois Newsroom:

C-U at Home is seeking funds to build two, low-barrier shelters for the homeless.

The agency’s current year-round shelter for the homeless reopened in August as a sober shelter after a several-month closure due to staffing issues.

Unlike the agency’s sober shelter at 70 East Washington Street, these two shelters would provide services to those who deal with drug and alcohol addiction.

Kyle Patterson is the chair of the Champaign County Board. He says the board has a key role in funding this initiative.

Patterson says the County Board plans to donate $150,000 using COVID relief funds from the federal government.

More at that full article here. C-U at Home was also in the news recently with a new Executive Director. More at WCIA here. WCCU reported back in October that the Champaign Continuum of Service Providers noted Champaign County's need for more low-barrier housing here.

WCIA also had updates on the C-U at Home emergency winter shelters this year. 

In other County and area news:

• Smile Politely had an editorial with an analysis of the situation at the County's Animal Control office, raising questions on leadership and local media coverage.
• The recent News-Gazette's Tom's Mailbag column had two items on County government. One addressing the Circuit Clerk's expungement event and the other highlighting the County Clerk's Statements of Economic Interest portal during the previous office transition.
• WAND had updates on the Champaign County Sheriff's community engagement plan. WCCU had additional details here.
• WCIA reports Willard Airport among many Central Illinois airports getting State funding for improvements.
• There has been local and regional coverage of the coming African American Heritage Trail (Chicago Tribune articles are available on ProQuest with some local library cards) being established in Champaign County with the Visit Champaign County and local historians and family members of important pioneers, historical figures, and events here in Champaign County.
• There is a separate Cheat Sheet post on this past month's Champaign County Community Coalition meeting and news.