Tornado Sirens Silent

[UPDATE: After today's recent damage from thunderstorms, tornado warnings, but no tornado sirens heard in Champaign-Urbana, some residents were curious if there was a problem still. The News-Gazette updates quoted the Champaign County Emergency Management Agency Director saying they were working, but lacked enough information to sound them today:

Storms batter Champaign subdivisions
...
Champaign County Emergency Management Agency Director John Dwyer said most of the damage came in Champaign's Copper Ridge subdivision, with two homes sustaining heavy roof damage.  The Red Cross was on hand in that neighborhood.

Dwyer also said a grain bin near Longview was damaged.

Dwyer said after a malfunction last week, the county's emergency sirens were working Sunday.  But he said there wasn't enough information to sound them.

Full article and updates here. More storm updates from WCIA here. Both links still point out that the Weather Service is still trying to verify if there was a tornado or touch down as opposed to just straight line wind or microbursts.]

Original Post:


If you didn't hear the first Tuesday of the month tornado sirens, there was a malfunction yesterday that appears resolved. From today's News-Gazette:

The next meeting of the Champaign County Local Emergency Management Program Advisory Committee isn't until October 30th, 2018 according to their last meeting's agenda. If there are updates on this sooner, it may be brought up at the next Committee of the Whole on June 12th. Updates on that, if any, as I hear them.


[Originally posted on 6/6/2018 at 12:04pm]

The Week Ahead 6/10 - 6/16

*** There is a Meeting to Determine County Board District 6 Candidate to Fill County Board Vacancy on Sunday afternoon. More information at the press release here and at the Cheat Sheet post on background here. ***

*** There is a County Board Committee of the Whole meeting this Tuesday. Agenda here. More information on what that is and how to attend here. ***

Other Events:

A "People's Hearing" on Monday June 11th will be held to get public input and inform the public on the coal ash pits seeping toxic chemicals into the Middle Fork River. More information is available at their facebook event page and this Cheat Sheet post: People's Hearing on Middle Fork Toxic Spill. Meeting details: 5 p.m. June 11 at Danville Area Community College's Bremer Conference Center, 2000 E. Main St., Danville.
 
Groups that crossover with Racial Justice Task Force recommendations meeting this week:

Build Programs Not Jails doesn't meet this week. Meetings are every other Wednesday at 7pm at the IMC. Next meeting is June 20th.

Champaign Community Coalition meets Wednesday June 13th from 3:30pm to 5pm at the Champaign Public Library.

Urbana Human Relations Commission meets on June 13th at 5:30pm. More information on Urbana Council Chambers and meeting times here.

County Calendar:

There is a Meeting to Determine County Board District 6 Candidate to Fill County Board Vacancy on Sunday afternoon. More information at the press release here and at the Cheat Sheet post on background here.

On Monday afternoon there is the Rural Transit Advisory Group meeting. The Rural Transit Advisory Group deals with issues with rural public transportation in the county. More information including agendas available here. There's a recent quarterly report for anyone who wants to dive into their overview.   

On Monday evening there is the Nursing Home Board of Directors meeting at it's new 6:30pm time (agenda here and addendum here). From the previous month's minutes in this month's agenda packet you can see this is more of a managerial board discussing financials and marketing more than policy or politics.

There is a County Board Committee of the Whole meeting this Tuesday. Agenda here. More information on what that is and how to attend here.

The Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Thursday night may have drama spill over from last time over concerns with Solar Farm noise and proximity to homes. WAND had an article about the concerns that had a large public turnout to the last meeting (upcoming agenda here). Board page here. 


The full 2018 schedule is on the Calendar page and the County page. The regular County Board meetings are back to Thursdays until next holiday season.

If you're curious about learning more about how your county government works, it's easy enough to live stream a meeting or go in person: Attend a Meeting.

*Meeting is broadcast live on Comcast Public Access and at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/champco1776

Where is Brookens?

Brookens Administrative Center
1776 East Washington Street
Urbana, Illinois 61802-4581
Phone: 217-384-3772

After 4:30 the Washington Street side Parking Lot is Closed See Maps for the North East Parking Lot Access

Summer Meals Program

[UPDATE: Parkland College has also established Summer Meals program location. More on that at the News-Gazette here along with an updated listing of times and locations: Parkland College site added to free summer-lunch program.]

The Summer Meals Program will be available at local schools and the public health district building for kids who might miss out when school is out of session. Dates and times for meal options at Champaign schools here and at Urbana schools here. From the News-Gazette recently:

C-U Public Health District's summer-meal program for kids starts Tuesday
Summertime brings a temporary halt to food service at area schools, but a program hosted by the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District will again pick up the slack starting Tuesday.

Sponsored by the Illinois State Board of Education, the summer-meal program will offer free breakfasts and lunches for kids ages 1-18, regardless of where they live or how much money their families earn.

The meals will be served in the lobby of the public health district building at 201 W. Kenyon Road, C.

Breakfast will be served from 9-11 a.m. and lunch will be available from 12:30-2:30 p.m. on weekdays through mid-August.

Full article here. Dates and times for meal options at Champaign schools here and at Urbana schools here at their respective websites.


[Originally posted 5/26/2018 at 12:31pm]

Democrat Enters Sheriff's Race

Yesterday was the last day for parties to fill vacancies on the general election ballot when no one ran or was nominated in the primary. For example, the County Board District 1 race will be having Ben Chapman (more on his write-in campaign here) join the fray. It appears that there will be another addition to the 2018 General Election ballot, this time for County Sheriff. From the News-Gazette website yesterday:

Lake Land instructor, officer running as Democrat for Champaign County sheriff

A longtime criminal-justice faculty member and police officer for Lake Land College in Mattoon is the Democratic candidate for Champaign County sheriff.

Dustin Heuerman, 37, announced Monday that the Champaign County Democratic Party has slated him to run for sheriff against Republican Chief Deputy Allen Jones in the November election...

Before coming to Lake Land in 2010, Heuerman worked as a patrol officer and field training officer for the Champaign County Sheriff's Office for two-and-a-half years.

Heuerman said he wants to look at providing alternatives to incarceration...

Heuerman said he favors providing help for drug offenders...

Heuerman said he wants to make domestic-violence victims comfortable enough with the sheriff's office to report abuse...

Heuerman said he opposes any jail plan that would increase the number of beds.

"It may be more efficient to have one facility as opposed to two, but we need to re-purpose the jail to address special populations of offenders," he said.

More including quotes on these policy positions at the full article here. The Cheat Sheet Elections and County Office races pages will be updated this week to reflect these and any other additions this week.

Local Pedestrian Stop Data and Racial Disparities

 
Durl Kruse of Champaign Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice wrote a guest commentary in today's News-Gazette noting a recent Illinois Department of Transportation study (data available here, and executive summary here and a slideshow from another presentation of the information here) that shows vast racial disparities in pedestrian police stops. Here's an excerpt:

African-Americans compose 14.83 percent of Urbana's and 13.5 percent of Champaign's population; yet they total 58 percent of Urbana's and 42 percent of Champaign's pedestrian stops. This percentage discrepancy between population and stops might reasonably be explained by crime rates and locations of crimes. On the other hand, less justifiable reasons such as targeting, over-policing certain neighborhoods or profiling individuals based on skin color could also be partial explanations.

When comparing the actual number of local African-American pedestrian stops with other Illinois communities, a dramatic and disturbing picture emerges.

Excluding Chicago because of its population size, Urbana with 377 stops ranks second and Champaign with 322 stops ranks third only behind Cicero (529 stops) with the highest number of African-American stops in the state. That's correct, second and third. In 2016, only five other cities in the state reported more than 150 African-American pedestrian stops: DeKalb, Evanston, Joliet, Calument City and Oak Park.

More surprising is the fact that Peoria (129 stops), Springfield (116 stops), Decatur (51 stops), and Rockford (46 stops) had a combined total of 302 African-American pedestrian stops, 75 fewer than Urbana and 20 fewer than Champaign.

This difference is magnified when accounting for the African-American population of each community. Peoria, Springfield, Decatur and Rockford have a combined African-American population of 72,091, nearly 13.5 times greater than Urbana (5,344) and 7.8 times greater than Champaign (9,199). Together, these four cities have fewer African-American pedestrian stops than either Champaign or Urbana, even though their collective African-American population is eight to 13 times larger.

Also notable is the rate difference of stops between local Caucasian and African-American pedestrians. Caucasians are stopped at a rate of 8 and 9 per thousand in Champaign and Urbana, while African-Americans are stopped at a rate of 35 and 70 per thousand. A discrepancy of this magnitude is troubling.

The full commentary is available here. CUCPJ's has a facebook group that can be joined here.

Rosecrance Changing Locations

Rosecrance — which works a great deal with local government on mental health solutions and criminal justice alternatives and options — will likely be changing their facilities to better suit their space needs. Additionally I excerpted some of possible and potential future plans if there's support from the community. From yesterday's News-Gazette:

Rosecrance planning facility changes now that acquisitions are complete
Some Champaign building changes may be on the way for Rosecrance, a provider of mental- and behavioral-health services in the area.

The Rosecrance facility at 1801 Fox Drive, C, is for sale for $2.9 million. Rosecrance eventually plans to relocate the administrative offices and counseling services at that address to a smaller building in Champaign, according to Chris Gleason, executive director of Rosecrance Central Illinois.

Rosecrance is also looking at replacing its longtime residential treatment facility at 122 W. Hill St. in downtown Champaign with another building, Gleason said...

Since Rosecrance acquired both Community Elements and Prairie Center, it's worked at integrating mental-health and substance-abuse treatment services in the area and has been able to make some back-end efficiency improvements without reducing clinical staffing, Gleason said.

One change that isn't on the immediate horizon is reopening the local detox unit that had been operated by Prairie Center and closed in 2011 due to state-funding cuts.

While discussions continue about that, Gleason said, detox is a pricey service to provide, and several partners would need to be involved in bringing it back to Champaign County.

On his wish list is a community triage center that could include an observation unit for people undergoing a temporary mental-health crisis — a venture that also would require multiple community partners, Gleason said. Rosecrance provides a triage program for people in temporary psychological crisis at one of its facilities in Rockford, he said.

More details at the full article here.

Housing Authority Selling Skelton Place

In a move that is upsetting some residents, but will help the HACC finance new construction, they are selling the Skelton Place property. It appears it will become more student apartments. From Yesterday's News-Gazette:

Housing authority's Campustown complex to become student apartments
...
The Housing Authority of Champaign County is selling its former Skelton Place facility to Green Street Realty and has been moving residents to new locations.

"We sold it to Green Street Realty for $5 million," said David Northern, the housing authority's CEO. "It was used for traditional public housing, built in 1967, with 84 units. It was a mixed-used building with seniors and people with special needs."

Green Street Realty plans to convert the eight-story building at 302 S. Second St., C, to student apartments, owner Chris Saunders said...

The housing authority sold Skelton Place to help finance a new building it's constructing on the north end of town near Interstate Drive and Toalson Lane.

"That will start in the fall, with an 18-month build-out period," Northern said. "We will have 96 senior units and 24 permanent supportive housing units for individuals with special needs."

More at the full article here.

Week Ahead 6/3 - 6/9

*** Cancellations *** See calendar below for more information...

Other Events:

Groups that crossover with Racial Justice Task Force recommendations meeting this week:

Champaign Human Relations Commission June 4th at 5:30pm. More information on City of Champaign meeting times here. This commission had previously recommended to the City Council that they remove the exemption to their housing discrimination protections as recommended by the RJTF.

Build Programs Not Jails meets Wednesday, June 6th at 7pm at the Independent Media Center.

County Calendar:

Most meetings were canceled this week, so the only regular meeting this week is the Environment & Land Use Committee which deals with environmental issues and how land is used within the County's jurisdiction.
The full 2018 schedule is on the Calendar page and the County page. The regular County Board meetings are back to Thursdays until next holiday season.

If you're curious about learning more about how your county government works, it's easy enough to live stream a meeting or go in person: Attend a Meeting.

*Meeting is broadcast live on Comcast Public Access and at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/champco1776

Where is Brookens?

Brookens Administrative Center
1776 East Washington Street
Urbana, Illinois 61802-4581
Phone: 217-384-3772

After 4:30 the Washington Street side Parking Lot is Closed See Maps for the North East Parking Lot Access

Nursing Home Sale Next Moves

So what's happens now that the Champaign County Nursing Home has been sold? Beyond the requirements set forth in the terms of the sale, the News-Gazette laid out some of the bureaucratic steps that will happen between the vote this week and the final transfer of ownership. From today's News-Gazette:

Due diligence, licensing next steps in sale of county nursing home
...
"It's a lot like closing any other transaction of this type," said Barbara Mann, who heads the civil division of the county state's attorney's office. "They will perform their due diligence, which means finding out all the details that we haven't yet talked about."

For instance, she said, that includes sharing information about existing vendor and employer contracts the county has for the nursing home.

"We will be providing many of those things for them to look at," Mann said.

Also in the run-up to the July 31 closing date, the buyers will need to apply to the state for a new license for the nursing home — required in a transfer of ownership.

The state issues a probationary license if the applicant is deemed responsible and suitable to operate, direct or participate in the operation of a facility "by virtue of financial capacity, appropriate business or professional experience, a record of compliance with lawful orders of the department (of public health) and lack of revocation of a license during the previous five years," according to a section of public health code.

Other licensing requirements include a licensed administrator running the nursing home and the facility itself being in substantial compliance with state regulations.

More details at the full article here, including a run down of the requirements in the terms of sale. For more information on the lead up to the vote to sell, see this post: Nursing Home Vote Tonight [UPDATE].

Immigration in Champaign County

UPDATE: There was a panel discussion on this report and analysis recently as well. From the News-Gazette a couple days ago:

Immigration panelists: Integration requires bridging culture-shock gap
In front of a packed room Wednesday, a panel discussed what Champaign County can do with newly-published data on its immigrant population, as well as which efforts are already underway.

The Gateways for Growth Community Data Report, compiled by the University YMCA's New American Welcome center and the New American Economy advocacy group, breaks down contributions made by the county's 24,000-strong immigrant population during 2016 — noting that those residents contributed $1.4 billion to the local economy and $57.2 million to the tax base.

A crowd of about 160 — including employees of state and federal representatives — gathered at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign to discuss the report, which uses information from the Census Bureau, federal agencies and public economic data. Immigrant was defined in the study as naturalized citizens, green card holders, temporary visa holders, refugees, asylum-seekers and undocumented people born outside the U.S. to noncitizen parents...

General members of the public were encouraged Wednesday to share and discuss the report as much as possible, while local lawmakers were asked to continuously refer to it while creating legislation and strategic plans.

While Champaign and Urbana already mainly lean toward inclusivity, panelist Joseph Wiemelt, director of Equity and Secondary Bilingual Programs for the Urbana School District, said there's still a lot more that can be done.

"We have to unlearn the biases, stereotypes and misinformation we've been taught," he said.

More at the full article here.]

The University YMCA's New American Welcome Center and others have issued a report and analysis of local immigration data according to the News-Gazette (more from the article below). The full report is available here. A quick snippet from the overview:

Champaign County is home to one of the largest immigrant populations in Illinois outside of Chicagoland. In 2016, 1 in 10 county residents, 1 in 8 Champaign residents, and 1 in 5 Urbana residents were immigrants—joining our community from over 76 countries around the world. Our neighbors are from China and Mexico, Germany and India, Pakistan and the Philippines, Colombia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Champaign County was 1 of only 13 counties in Illinois with a growing population in 2016, in no small part thanks to immigrants.

And the overview numbers (click to enlarge):

Today's News-Gazette had an article today which went through the data and methodology and work behind it. It included some common myths that the study debunked:

Debunking myths

Andre said the findings challenge the narrative that immigrants aren't educated enough to contribute to the community, including:

— Education: Among non-college students, immigrants were 50 percent more likely to hold a bachelor's degree or higher than their U.S.-born counterparts. More than 21 percent had a doctoral degree, compared to about 4 percent of their U.S. counterparts.

— Health care: Fewer immigrants received government-subsidized health benefits, with 8.6 percent on Medicaid or Medicare, compared with 26.2 percent of U.S.-born residents. More than 84 percent of immigrants had private health care coverage.

— Marriage: Non-student immigrants were also more likely to be married — 74.1 percent, compared to 53.9 percent for U.S.-born residents not in college.

— Home ownership: Immigrants owned $746.7 million in property, though a smaller percentage (31.2 percent) owned homes compared to U.S.-born residents (48.1 percent).

— Labor force: Immigrants made up 12.3 percent of the labor force and 25.1 percent of STEM workers in 2016. They tended to concentrate in certain jobs: teachers, scientists, software developers, cooks and scientific technicians.

The report estimated that immigrants helped preserve 1,104 manufacturing jobs "that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere."

Andrew Lim, director of quantitative research at New American Economy, said that number is derived in part from a detailed study by a University of Washington professor of how undocumented immigrants affect counties across the United States. It concluded that immigrants fill critical niches in manufacturing industries, from highly skilled engineers and researchers to manual labor, keeping companies competitive and operating costs low and allowing them to stay in the United States rather than move overseas, he said.

Full article here.

[Originally posted 5/23/2018 at 6:25pm]

Willard Master Plan

A master plan project for the area's airport is in the works that could determine future improvements and/or expansion. The project could cost around $1.3 million (with the FAA covering roughly 90%) would likely be completed in 2019. From WCCU:

A master plan is in the works for Willard Airport.

Willard Airport Executive Director Gene Cossey said a master plan is a Federal Aviation Administration requirement that helps determine the long-term development plans of an airport.

"It's a series of studies," Cossey said. "First of all we start by studying passenger demand."

Cossey hopes to use this data as a tool in expanding growth for the airport.

He said the data will be used to measure the demand, especially when it comes to the need for bringing additional airlines to the airport.

"How can we use that study and this data to the airlines and convince them this is a good spot to bring additional services into," Cossey said.

More at the full article and video segment here. The News-Gazette had even more details a couple days ago:

Willard's master-plan discussions branch off into outlets, TVs
...
"One thing we have seen in our new leakage study is overall passenger demand growth for this region has grown by over 100 percent," Cossey said. "Unfortunately, with just American and just United, even with the growth we have, we don't have enough to meet that capacity and demand. People have to go somewhere else. There's a million people a year who want to fly in and out of our area, and we only have about 300,000 seats."

The master plan isn't expected to make recommendations to change the size of the airfield but could include some expansions to the terminal, especially since it was built for pre-9/11 security standards...

The airport has already started working on the master plan and hopes to complete it by the end of 2019.

The plan will cost about $1.3 million to create, Cossey said, with the FAA picking up 90 percent of that, and the state and airport splitting the rest.

"The FAA looks at funding the airport from the attitude of funding what they would consider a public good or a common good. They would look at funding those things that would be beneficial to everyone. That's because the money that they fund it from comes from everyone. It comes from aviation fuel taxes and from surcharges on your aviation ticket," Cossey said. "What we do with the master plan is we try to identify those things that the FAA will fund and that we can get public funding on that capitalize and leverage that money as much as possible."

That full article here with a link to the airport's own information page on this here: cmimasterplan.com.

Nursing Home to be Sold

[UPDATE: Video of the meeting is up here at the County Clerk YouTube channel for anyone who wants to see the drama unfold for themselves. Agenda packet is here (helps when trying to follow along).]

A quick update from the News-Gazette about last night's County Board meeting (more in the upcoming days):

Champaign County Board approves sale of nursing home
The Champaign County Nursing Home will be privately owned come August.

Following months of debate and deliberations, the Champaign County Board voted 15-6 Thursday night to authorize the sale of the financially challenged home to Extended Care Clinical LLC and Altitude Health Services Inc., both headquartered in Evanston.

The purchase price was $11 million, the minimum set by the county board.

The proposal required a supermajority of at least 14 votes to pass, according to an opinion from Champaign County State's Attorney Julia Rietz.

All 10 Republican board members supported the sale. They were joined by Democrats Pattsi Petrie, Giraldo Rosales, Chris Stohr, Shana Jo Crews and C. Pius Weibel.

Full article here. More information on the lead up to the vote here: Nursing Home Vote Tonight [UPDATE].

Nursing Home Vote Tonight [UPDATE]

[UPDATE: More links added from the Champaign County Health Care Consumers with their latest research material sent out by e-mail today in follow up to their press conference yesterday. More details below.]

Heading into the vote on whether or not to sell the Nursing Home may come down to who is on the board and how a vacancy will affect the vote. From today's News-Gazette:

Champaign County officials are researching exactly how many votes are needed to approve a sale of the county nursing home since a vacancy on the board will not be filled before that vote is taken.

Weibel said Tuesday that he will defer the seating of the new board member until next month. In the wake of that decision, he has asked State's Attorney Julia Rietz to look into whether the vacancy affects the vote set Thursday on selling the nursing home.

If the board has all 22 members present, it would take 15 votes to approve the sale.

More on that at the full article here and the Cheat Sheet post on the disagreement on the recent vacancy appointment vote here (with update) here.

The Champaign County Health Care Consumers had a press conference in response to the County Board's information packet (update and ADDITIONAL information packet here too now) that attempted to shoot down concerns about the process and potential buyer (available here). The press conference is available on the Champaign County Health Care Consumer's YouTube page here. It references their research on the potential buyers linked here: Research on bidder for Champaign County Nursing Home and here: IDPH Quarterly Reports on Safety Violations for Extended Care Clinical, LLC Facilities.

WCIA had coverage and a video segment here for those short on time for the full hour press conference. Excerpts below:

The group says it's not against selling the home, just not to the current interested buyers. It's a joint bid between Extended Care Clinical and Altitude Health Service. Both are owned by father and son, William and Eric Rothner.

CCHCC says the county board is under extreme financial pressure to sell the home for the asking price of $11 million, but it has serious concerns with the buyers.

On the eve of the vote to sell CCNH, CCHCC is raising some concerns.

"We have done extensive research into the quality of care for Rothner companies."

More than 60-hours of research laid on the table from the Illinois Department of Health, explaining why CCHCC thinks the only bidder isn't equipped.

"Almost every single case that has led to this problem haws ben because of short staffing in the nursing home."

They say the Rothners have had thousands of problems with their other nursing homes, including closures and, just because they're a big operator, doesn't mean they'll do better.

Jack Anderson is on the county board and says that's not true. They were given facts and have talked with the potential buyers.

"At the end of the day, this company rates much better than a lot of the other companies out there providing services for nursing homes."

More information at the Nursing Home page here, all Nursing Home related posts on the Cheat Sheet available here, and more information about the upcoming County Board meeting here.

[Original posted on 5/23/2018 at 7:16pm]