Mt. Carmel, Ill.— Wabash Valley College’s Ag program, in conjunction with Wabash Valley Service Company, IB Executive Turf and Landscape, Wabash Valley Stewardship Alliance and southeastern Illinois Farm Bureaus, saw the planting of a new pollinator plot on WVC’s campus. Mike Wilson, CCA, from Wabash Valley Service Company, planted a pollinator plot on campus on May 12. Look for it next time you drive past the college on Oak Street! WVC would like to thank Wabash Valley Service Company which provided the pollinator seed, IB Executive Turf and Landscape which donated use of their planter and drill. Wabash Valley Stewardship Alliance which will provide signs for the area, and area Farm Bureaus: Edwards, Lawrence, Wabash, Wayne, White, Crawford, Gallatin, Richland, Saline, Jefferson and Hamilton counties for providing financial support. The 1.1 acre-plot will provide a habitat for pollinator species, promote awareness and education on the value of pollinator species to our local economy and the impact planting perennials has on soil quality. WVC’s Ag program plans to use the plot during lab days for various courses as a teaching tool. Various plants were sown on the pollinator field. Those plants include: Partridge Peas, Purple Coneflowers, Lance-leafed Coreopis, Indian Blanket, Sunflowers, Lupine, Ohio Spiderwort, Butterfly Milkweed, Showy Trick Trefoil, Lemon Mint, White Upland Aster, Black-eyed Susan, Lavender Hyssop, New England Aster, Plains Coreopis, Spotted Beebalm, Hairy Beardtongue, Eastern Columbine and Gray Goldenrod.
Lawmaker Requests TRO Against Governor's Stay At Home Order
A lawmaker who filed a lawsuit challenging Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s extended stay-at-home order has requested the judge temporarily suspend the restrictions until the court has ruled.
State Rep. John Cabello, R-Machesney Park, filed the request for a temporary restraining order in 17th Circuit Court in Winnebago County on Tuesday.
“J.B. Pritzker has unveiled a wholly inadequate ‘plan’ to ‘Restore Illinois’ that appears to be an arbitrary carving up of the state into four regions that does not make any sense,” he said. “I have filed my temporary restraining order to put the governor on notice that we are not going to let him dictate to local communities. I trust our local officials and our citizens more than I trust politicians from Springfield or Chicago.”
Pritzker was asked about the suit in a news conference earlier this month. The governor called it “similarly irresponsible” to the suit filed against him by state Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia.
Cabello’s lawsuit differs from Bailey’s in that it would apply to all residents of Illinois, where the ruling that was subsequently dropped by Bailey only applied to Bailey. Should Cabello prevail, the courts could order Pritzker to rescind his extension, meaning residents and businesses could operate as they please without fear of retribution from the state.
Shortly after Cabello’s request for a temporary restraining order was filed, state officials filed for a change of venue. Initially, the state asked to move the case to a Sangamon County Circuit Court, but Cabello said they later requested the suit be moved to federal court.
Cabello said he didn’t immediately file the request for a temporary restraining order last month because he wanted to give Pritzker’s office a chance to come to a resolution that achieved the governor’s goals but also protected the constitutional rights of Illinoisans.
“If we would have come up with common-sense solutions, we would have brought in the General Assembly, the two coequal branches of government to make some decisions, there wouldn’t have been a need for a lawsuit,” he said.
Illinois lawmakers are scheduled to convene next week in Springfield.
Pritzker announced an extension of his order through May 30 with some business restrictions loosened. The heart of Cabello’s legal challenge is Pritzker’s ability to extend the emergency declaration beyond the 30 days of the initial measure.
The court is scheduled to meet virtually on Thursday in what Cabello expects will be to consider where the case will be heard.
ISP DISTRICT 12 ANNOUNCES APRIL ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY
Effingham, IL – Illinois State Police District 12 Commander, Captain Cory Ristvedt, today announced activity and enforcement figures for the month of April. Troopers in District 12, which includes Clark, Clay, Crawford, Cumberland, Effingham, Fayette, Jasper, Lawrence, Marion, and Richland Counties, answered 126 calls for service and initiated 325 incidents in the field.
In addition, enforcement figures totaled 35 citations and 10 written warnings, including 6 speeding citations, 1 DUI, 2 seat belt citations, 0 child restraint citations, 0 distracted driving violations, 0 written warnings for speeding, 1 move over violations, and 1 criminal arrests. Troopers also assisted 174 motorists, conducted 16 Motor Carrier Inspections, and investigated 51 traffic crashes. There was 1 fatal traffic crash investigated by District 12 in April.
During the month, 9 citations and 0 written warnings were issued for “Fatal Four” violations. These violations are most associated with fatal traffic crashes and include Speeding, DUI, Failure to Wear a Seat Belt, and Distracted Driving.
Governor May Retaliate Against Communities Who Don't Follow His COVID Plan
Some communities around the state have made it known they plan to open for business soon, despite a stay-at-home order and the governor's reopening plan.
Restaurants and bars have opened in Quincy. Police there say they will only issue warnings and let the state handle any further enforcement.
During his daily news conference on Tuesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he would consider withholding federal funding to communities that won’t follow his plan.
“These people do not follow science or data. They’re just listening to partisan rhetoric perhaps, and following their own instincts, but no science,” Pritzker said.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported the highest single-day number of positive cases of COVID-19. The department reported 4,014 new cases with an additional 144 deaths.
The governor said the high number can be attributed to the high number of tests administered, more than 29,000.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported a total of 83,021 cases, including 3,601 COVID-19-related deaths in 98 of the state's 102 counties.
Also on Tuesday, the governor and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity announced Fast-Track Public Infrastructure Grants designed to accelerate work on planned public infrastructure projects around the state
Concerns Raised Regarding Testing Of Released DOC Inmates
Thousands of inmates have left Illinois prisons since March 1, according to documents published by the state, but it’s unclear how many of those people have been tested for COVID-19.
Some Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about prison testing procedures given concerns about people without symptoms still spreading the disease.
Public health officials have said mandating masks in public spaces where social distancing cannot be observed is because some people who don’t show symptoms can still have COVID-19 and unwittingly spread it to others.
The Illinois Department of Corrections said it is doing targeted tests of inmates and staff. The department reported 191 confirmed cases among those in prison. But when asked if the department was testing people before release, Gov. J.B. Pritzker wouldn’t say if all those his administration is releasing early have been tested.
“There’s not a need to go test every single one of them,” Pritzker said Monday.
There have been more than 4,700 inmates released from Illinois facilities since March 1, according to state records. Some have completed their sentence. Some have been paroled. Others have left on conditional release. Since late March, 90 have been furloughed.
State Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, has been critical of the governor releasing inmates early. He said all people in the prisons need to be tested, especially those being released from facilities where positive cases have been reported.
“They could potentially be asymptomatic and positive to COVID-19,” McClure said. “To me, that sends the signal that, in fact, public safety is not the top priority.”
State Rep. John Cabello, R-Machesney Park, who has a pending lawsuit challenging the governor's stay-at-home order with a venue hearing scheduled later this week, has raised concerns about the early release or transfer of detainees.
He said the public should be concerned about asymptomatic spread.
“But on the other hand, if they follow the guidelines, apparently they should be OK,” Cabello said. “Which means if we follow the guidelines that allow these criminals to be released early from prison, well then maybe we should all be released from our homes early.”
At Stateville prison, IDOC reported 150 confirmed cases. There have been 46 inmates furloughed from there since mid-April.
There have been 12 inmates that have died from COVID-19 associated with Stateville. No IDOC staff have died of the disease, according to officials.
IDOC reported at Hill Correctional Center there were 14 individuals confirmed with COVID-19. Since March 1, around 80 inmates have been released, either on parole or at the end of their sentence.
IDOC COVID-19 statistics: https://www2.illinois.gov/idoc/facilities/Pages/Covid19Response.aspx
IDOC exits since March 1: https://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections/search/COVID_19/FINAL%20list%20of%20exits.xlsx
Most Regions Of State On Track To Move To Phase 3 Under Reopening Plan
Some regions of the state in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s plan to reopen Illinois' in phases could advance to the third phase of the plan by the end of this month, but one region may not.
One state lawmaker said he is hearing more concerns about his rural county is lumped in with the wrong region and a group representing municipalities urging for data used in the plan to be retroactive.
The Illinois Department of Public Health is publishing updated graphics of the key metrics as part of Pritzker's Restore Illinois dashboard. The metrics are separated into four regions: Northeast, North-Central, Central and Southern. Each region has gauges for the positivity rate of COVID-19 cases, the rate of hospital admissions since May 1, and the number of various hospital bed availability.
Pritzker on Monday said the data so far, with nearly two weeks into the month, looked good.
“Thus far, all of our regions are on pace to hit all of the metrics to move forward after the 28-day period with possibly one exception,” Pritzker said.
The only region that didn’t have all green gauges, indicating moving toward the next phase, was the Northeast region, which includes Chicago, Cook County and some collar counties.
State Rep. David Welter, R-Morris, said Grundy County, with around 50,000 residents, was improperly lumped in with the Northeast region. He wants the governor to change that.
“All politics are local,” Welter said. “And if he’s unwilling to listen to us and partner with us, yeah it’s a mutiny. They’ve already announced in certain areas they’re not going to be enforcing his orders. But on top of that, you’re going to have businesses reopening and not following much of any guidelines, and that’s very worrisome.”
Welter is promoting petitions to move Grundy County and Kendall County out of the Northeast region.
Illinois Municipal League Executive Director Brad Cole told WMAY on Tuesday it wants to see the regions separated by the eleven Emergency Medical Service Regions, not the quadrants in the governor's reopening plan.
Cole also said municipal leaders want to shorten the 28-day timeline to fully get to the next phase to 14 days. And, in parts of the state that haven’t been hit hard by COVID-19, Cole said there were concerns about the data starting with May 1.
“We think that there could be a backdate to that,” Cole said. “We can look back further than May 1, especially in an area that hasn’t had any hospitalizations or positive tests.”
But, after releasing his reopening plan last week, Pritzker was asked if historical data back to March 20 was being used at all.
“Not for the purposes of the ‘Restore Illinois’ plan,” the governor said.
Pritzker said this week said if he needs to alter the playbook, he can.
The state’s leading Republican legislators sent the governor a letter, urging for a special session to deal with the issue. Pritzker wouldn’t say if he’d call one, but said he hopes lawmakers meet “soon.”
Lawmakers are in regular session through May 31, but have canceled session days scheduled since they were last in Springfield during the second week of March because of ongoing concerns about COVID-19. It’s unclear when they will return, but some sources said it could be May 28.
IL Officials Announce 4,014 New Cases of Coronavirus
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 4,014 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 144 additional deaths.
Boone County: 1 male 70s
Clinton County: 1 female 80s, 1 male 90s
Cook County: 1 male 30s, 4 males 40s, 1 female 50s, 7 males 50s, 3 females 60s, 11 males 60s, 9 females 70s, 15 males 70s, 1 unknown 70s, 17 females 80s, 10 males 80s, 1 unknown 80s, 7 females 90s, 5 males 90s, 1 female 100+
DuPage County: 1 male 60s, 1 male 70s, 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 male 90s
Iroquois County: 1 female 80s
Kane County: 1 male 40s, 1 male 60s, 1 female 80s
Kankakee County: 1 female 90s
Kendall County: 1 female 60s, 1 male 60s, 1 female 80s
Lake County: 1 female 40s, 1 male 50s, 1 female 60s, 1 male 60s, 3 males 70s, 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 90s
Macon County: 1 male 70s
Madison County: 1 male 50s,
McHenry County: 2 males 80s, 1 female 90s
Ogle County: 1 male 80s
Randolph County: 1 male 60s
Rock Island County: 1 male 80s
Sangamon County: 2 females 80s
St. Clair County: 1 female 90s
Whiteside County: 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Will County: 1 female 60s, 1 female 70s, 2 males 70s, 2 females 80s, 2 males 80s
Winnebago County: 1 female 40s, 1 male 70s, 1 male 90s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 83,021 cases, including 3,601 deaths, in 98 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 29,266 specimens for a total of 471,691.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. Information for deaths previously reported have changed, therefore, today’s numbers have been adjusted. For health questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.
City Installs Extra Parking Next To New Pickleball Courts
The next time you drive through Mt. Carmel’s City Park, you’ll notice quite a bit of work has already been completed on the new pickleball courts. Mayor Joe Judge reported at last Monday’s City Council meeting that parking for the new courts is already in place…
Responding to a question from City Clerk Rudy Witsman, Judge said the parking area won’t be limited to pickleball players. He said there has been a need for extra parking in the park and golf course area and it’s hoped this will help solve that problem. He said more parking options are being explored in that area.
Workers were busy Tuesday afternoon working on the new pickleball courts at the Mt. Carmel City Park. The additional parking is to the right of the courts in this photo.
City Nears Decision On Building New Water Plant
The Mt. Carmel City Council is nearing a decision to build a new water treatment plant. At last Monday’s City Council meeting, Water Commissioner Justin Dulgar said it’s hoped a decision to proceed will be made at the June 1st council meeting…
Dulgar said he wants public input into the decision and if the Governor’s stay at home order is lifted, the public will be invited to the meeting, which could even be held outside of City Hall to allow for social distancing. Mayor Joe Judge said the time is now for a new water plant. Dulgar said the proposal calls for the new plant to be built next to the existing water plant, which would be torn down once the new one is operational. Retrofitting the current facility isn’t feasible since the size of new equipment wouldn’t fit into the structure which was built in 1937. The typical lifespan of a municipal water plant is 25-35 years, officials said.
Newton/Jasper County Land $400 Million Renewable Diesel Plant
NEWTON, Ill.--The City of Newton, Ill., Jasper County, and St. Joseph Renewable Fuels, LLC announced plans to build a $400 million renewable diesel plant in Southern Illinois that envisions utilizing innovative technologies and a new healthcare protocol to test and certify a COVID-19 free workforce. The 40-acre site in Newton, Ill., is within a federally designated Opportunity Zone, and is believed to be one of the largest projects proposed under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that was designed to revive economically distressed communities in the United States.
Plans for the proposed facility include showcasing proactive steps a small city with a population of 3,000 can take to solve a complex health crisis through a new app and testing initiative called ‘HealthCheckIn.’ The testing concept being introduced will help bring a critical facility into operation. This innovative approach ultimately could be scalable to a larger impact at county, state, and national levels, both domestically and worldwide. HealthCheckIn can help solve a larger need for mitigation solutions that will allow the country to re-open from the COVID-19 lockdown that affects virtually an entire workforce.
“We plan to breathe new life into Newton by adding a major employer, creating good paying jobs and advancing green efforts, while delivering a healthy local workforce and community,” said Newton Mayor Mark Bolander. “This will be accomplished through the introduction of leading-edge solutions and the formation of new partnerships that can help us fight the COVID-19 outbreak.”
Bolander notes he quickly recognized the benefits of the ideas being suggested by the St. Joseph Renewable Fuels team. “We welcome a project of this magnitude because it is a game changer for Newton as an Opportunity Zone,” said Bolander. “It will bring jobs closer to where people live, and I’m confident we’re doing something positive to promote economic expansion and protect the health of our community. If we do this right, it will be easy to be supportive and feel good about it.” Opportunity Zones are areas identified by the federal government as distressed and in need of transformation via economic development, investment and revitalization. Congress approved the legislation as part of the tax-reform bill in 2017. Opportunity Zone investments are primarily a way for investors to defer capital gains taxes for a period of time.
Jasper County Board Chairman Ron Heltsley stated, “This is a tremendous project and the county is excited to have it in our community.”
The team involved in the project includes New York-based specialty finance firm, Lance Capital and its New Zealand joint venture partner, Lance-Kamaka Capital Ltd, which serves as a lender on the St. Joseph Renewable Fuels plant and is the sponsor of the HealthCheckIn protocol concept. Other partners include Cyberus Labs, which delivers the technology component of the healthcare platform, and a joint-venture between McDermott and Chevron Oil, which will be involved in the core technology of the renewable fuels produced.
Mayor Bolander said, “Newton and the Jasper County Economic Development team (JEDI) envision that as the state and nation focuses on re-opening, this innovative solution conceived in Newton and Jasper County can serve as a catalyst that ignites a movement to other cities, states and even across the globe.”
A critical component of the proposed plant in Newton is the new HealthCheckIn initiative, which is expected to help deliver long-term disease management and mitigation solutions for COVID-19 and other potential future health threats. The secure, in-home testing concept app, developed in partnership with Cyberus Labs, delivers a viable solution to the COVID-19 pandemic, and can be used to re-open critical buildings and workplaces throughout the United States. In a similar fashion, Lance Capital is also working to apply the HealthCheckIn protocol to the re-opening of major buildings in New York City and other hard hit metropolitan areas, while Lance-Kamaka Capital is developing concepts to re-open New Zealand to tourism and international commerce.
The environmental benefits of the St. Joseph Renewable Fuels facility are supportive of efforts to promote renewable fuels, protect the environment and reduce CO2. Additionally, the plant will bring new sources of renewable fuels to metropolitan, rural and underserved communities. The facility will consume waste fats and greases from a region spanning 1,000 miles around Newton, which would otherwise be landfilled or emptied into sewer drains. The plant will convert the waste into 90 million gallons of diesel and naphtha fuel annually, as well as seven million gallons of technical grade glycerin.
“The fuel production technologies licensed to us and being deployed at the proposed facility in Newton promote sustainable practices,” said Geoffrey Hirson, CEO of St. Joseph Renewable Fuels, LLC. “The benefits realized transfer to both the local and global environment by producing renewable, reduced carbon fuels using carbon neutral or net-carbon negative production methods.”
Richard Podos, CEO of Lance Capital, said, “The St. Joe renewable diesel plant will drive economic growth in the city and county through $400 million of hard and soft construction costs, the revival of a shuttered site, and the production of ASTM-D975 renewable diesel. We will be advancing the project via tax incentives being offered by the city, and we also will be seeking state and federal support,” he added. Podos notes 100 permanent jobs will be created in the Newton community, plus 200 construction jobs for the duration of the two-year construction, as well as 300 trucking jobs for the State of Illinois once the plant is commissioned and operating.
City and county officials are working to offer the HealthCheckIn system to other community stakeholders, including the county power plant, the Jasper County school district, which remains on the front lines providing meals to the county despite being closed due to statewide COVID-19 orders, local police, fire and emergency responders, and front-line healthcare workers, as well as major essential retailers who have remained open for business throughout the emergency.
“This HealthCheckIn system will allow the people in our community to get tested and give them confidence they are not going to infect others, while providing us the workforce needed to stimulate economic growth,” said Amber Volk, Jasper County’s Economic Development Coordinator. “The addition of a new major employer in our Opportunity Zone will fuel that expansion with quality jobs and deliver benefits to other community stakeholders. If we can encourage a critical mass of testing through the HealthCheckIn program, it could help create a firewall for our community to protect against future outbreaks.”
The core of the individual HealthCheckIn solution is based upon a new generation of cyber-secure, password-free data exchange, which allows for secure daily infection testing and app-level reporting with an affordable and logistically sound approach. The HealthCheckIn protocol will use FDA-approved rapid response in-home test devices, such as those from Abbott Laboratories and Quidel Corporation, for daily tests for all employees that take about 15 minutes to generate results. Each testing device will be provided as part of the St. Joseph Renewable Fuels facility development plan, with tests costing $15-25.
The results are secure, real-time, and produce a “Green” rating for non-infectious individuals and a “Red” rating for non-tested, testing-overdue, or infectious individuals. User permissions are required, making the entire system HIPAA and GDPR compliant, as well as meeting OSHA requirements for employee safety in the workplace. The user cannot manipulate the test results and the test evidence comes from an irrefutable third-party HIPAA compliant database. The HealthCheckIn system would be used to allow the individual tested access to places of work, schools, restaurants, airports, sports facilities, and other places of business.
Mayor Bolander concludes, “St. Joseph Renewable Fuels, HealthCheckIn, the City of Newton, the County of Jasper, JEDI and Jasper Unit 1 are in agreement that a project of this size will be a ‘game changer’ for the community and this region. We hope to have more press releases with updates coming soon.”