The city is getting closer to putting river camps they own up for auction. At Monday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Joe Judge said city engineer Dave Dallas was on River Road Monday surveying the lots. Two squatters had refused to leave the lots delaying the city putting the lots up for auction. But, Judge said one of the two had left and he believed the other was in the process of leaving. If the squatters don’t leave voluntarily, city attorney Derek McCullough said he has a June 12th court date set to force them off.
City Council Still Considering Solar Array For Sewer Plant
If a solar energy system is installed at Mt. Carmel’s sewer plant, it won’t be done by a Pennsylvania company. Last year, the city council approved a contract showing intent to move forward with Keystone Energy to place a solar array on the southern portion of the city property at the wastewater treatment plant. Keystone proposed to build and own the system and take advantage of state and federal credits. But city attorney Derek McCullough told the council that if those government credits go away, the city would be responsible for making up the difference. Brad Morton of Morton Solar and Electric has submitted an alternative proposal in which the city pays for the construction of the project and owns the system. That means the city would be able to use the state and federal credits. He told the council Monday that construction would take 9 to 12 months to complete. The council took the information under advisement and tabled making a decision.
Mt. Carmel Woman Gets 3 Years In Prison On Meth Charge
Kelli Storckman, Wabash County State’s Attorney, reports that Monyck O'Bryant, a 26-year-old Mt. Carmel, Illinois woman, was sentenced to 3 years in the Department of Corrections to be followed by 12 months mandatory supervised release by the Honorable Circuit Judge William C. Hudson in Wabash County Circuit Court.
State’s Attorney Storckman advises that the Defendant was charged on March 18, 2023, with Possession of Methamphetamine, greater than 5 grams but less than 15 grams, a Class 2 Felony. While out on pretrial release Monyck O'Bryant failed to attend court on multiple occasions, violated the conditions of her pretrial release, and was charged in Lawrence County, Illinois with another felony offense.
Original Arrest Release From MCPD:
On 3/18/23, Mt. Carmel Police arrested Monyck S. O’Bryant, age 25, of Mt. Carmel, for Possession of Methamphetamine, Driving While License Suspended, and a Richland County Illinois Warrant for Failure to Appear. The arresting officer stopped O’Bryant after she began flashing her headlights at the officer in what the officer took as a request for assistance. Upon making contact, the officer recognized O’Bryant and knew her to have a suspended license. O’Bryant admitted she flashed the lights while attempting to turn them on in an unfamiliar vehicle. Furthermore, O’Bryant returned with the above warrant resulting in her arrest. In doing so, the officer located a plastic baggie containing suspected methamphetamine, which a field test result later confirmed. O’Bryant was transported to the Wabash County Jail where she was charged accordingly and held pending a bond setting by a judge.
California man arrested for Reckless Driving
On May 14, 2024, at 7:07 p.m. Gibson County Deputies Michael Owens and Chad Craney conducted a traffic stop on a Silver 2024 Mitsubishi Outlander after observing the vehicle traveling 98 mph in a 50 mph zone on US 41 through Fort Branch. Upon stopping the vehicle north of Coal Mine Road Deputy Craney identified the driver as 22 year old Kevin Navarro Alvarez of Corona, California. Deputy Craney conducted a roadside investigation before placing Mr. Alvarez into custody and transporting him to the Gibson County Jail where he was charged with Reckless Driving.
Assisting Deputy Craney in his investigation was Haubstadt Officer Bryan Munnier.
All criminal defendants are to be presumed innocent until, and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Allendale School Board Notes
At the May 2024 Allendale School Board meeting held in the Library of Allendale School, the board:
Approved the 2023-2024 tentative amended budget which will be on display in the main office for the next 30 days.
Set the date of June 19, 2024 at 6:10 pm for the budget hearing on the amended 2023-2024 budget.
Approved the dates and time for the 2024-2025 School Board Meetings.
Approved to abate $15,000 from Capital Projects Fund to the Debt Service Fund.
Approved the hiring of Jonathan Bowser as Part-time Summer Custodian.
Approved the hiring of Rhett Andrews as Part-time Summer Custodian.
Approved the hiring of Brendan Bowser as Part-time Summer Custodian.
Approved the reduction in hours for Jason Seaton beginning June 1, 2024.
Approved the resignation of Mackenzie Thread as Junior High Math teacher, effective at the end of the 2023-2024 school year.
Approved the hiring of Morgan Thread as District Treasurer, effective June 1, 2024.
Approved the re-employment of the following support staff for the 2024-2025 school year:
Paraprofessionals - Mychelle Blythe, Brooklyn Ritchey, Makayla Wall, Michele Jackson
Individual Aide - Danielle Nelson
Bus Driver - Tom Jefferson, Doug Hawf
Cook - Talley Wyatt
Assistant Cook - Shelly Deisher
Assistant Custodians - Kent Deisher, Ron Witsman
Health Aide - Kristi Isaac
Administrative Assistant - Sarah Courter
Capitol Briefs: House OKs program for student teacher stipends – but not the funding for it
By PETER HANCOCK
& ANDREW CAMPBELL
Capitol News Illinois
news@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois House approved a bill Tuesday to allow student teachers to receive stipends while earning their education degree, even though the money needed to fund those stipends is unlikely to be included in next year’s budget.
House Bill 4652, by Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, authorizes the Illinois Board of Higher Education to disburse stipends of $10,000 per semester to student teachers working in public schools. That’s the rough equivalent of $15 an hour, based on a standard 40-hour work week. It also authorizes stipends of $2,000 per semester to the teachers who supervise them.
But the authority to disburse those funds would be subject to appropriations. And with an estimated annual cost of $68 million to fully fund the program, Hernandez conceded it is unlikely such funding will be included in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year that lawmakers are currently negotiating.
“I do not think so, unfortunately,” she said during debate on the House floor.
The proposal is an initiative of the Illinois Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, and the advocacy group Advance Illinois. They argued in committee hearings that the lack of compensation for student teachers deters many prospective teachers from completing their degrees, adding to the state’s ongoing teacher shortage.
The bill passed the House with bipartisan support, 85-23. But it also drew criticism from some who said the General Assembly spends too much time authorizing programs it can’t afford to fund.
“Here we go again, folks. We’re passing bills that are subject to appropriations,” said Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates. “I get the sense that we think it’s like Monopoly money. But you’re creating a line item and you’re putting pressure on the budget. It’s an empty promise that gives people a false sense of hope.”
The bill next goes to the Senate for consideration.
Fallen firefighters remembered
Firefighters, families and officials from around Illinois gathered in Springfield Tuesday to remember the firefighters who died in the line of duty in the last year.
Five individuals were memorialized during the annual Illinois Fallen Firefighter Memorial. They include Jermaine Pelt, Andrew “Drew” Price, Lt. Jan Tchoryk and Lt. Kevin Ward, all of the Chicago Fire Department, and Maroa Countryside Fire Protection District Chief Larry Peasley. Their names are now engraved in the Illinois Firefighter Memorial outside the Capitol.
“Each year at this sacred memorial service we offer tribute to those heroes,” Gov. JB Pritzker said at the ceremony. “To remind us of the sacrifice they made and to beckon forth within ourselves a reminder of our greatest aspirations to serve our families, our communities, our nation with honor.”
Families of the fallen firefighters were bestowed with gold badges at a ceremony following the memorial. Medals of honor and valor were also given to firefighters from across the state.
While the event usually takes place on the Capitol lawn, this year it was indoors due to weather.
State Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, is pictured in a file photo on the Illinois House floor. She’s the sponsor of a bill to create a stipend program for student teachers, although she said she doesn’t expect funding to be allocated for it in next year’s budget. (Capitol News Illinois file photo)
As vacated Centralia funeral home prepares for new tenant, owner makes a startling find
By BETH HUNDSDORFER
Capitol News Illinois
bhundsdorfer@capitolnewsillinois.com
In the basement of a Centralia funeral home in a dark hallway off the embalming room, tucked inside a nook behind two steel plates and a door, a visitor found three disembodied, neatly wrapped human legs, two of them marked with names and dated to the 1960s.
The discovery stunned property owner Cindy Hansen, who had been cleaning up at the site of the former Moran Queen-Boggs funeral home for weeks. After all, she’d seen her last tenant evicted, his funeral director license suspended for the home’s filthy conditions – which included a dead rat in a stairwell.
But as the shock dissipated on what first appeared to be a grisly find, a more mundane explanation materialized – the legs were likely the result of amputations, stored away decades ago until their owners died and they could be reunited and interred together, said Jay Boulanger, who has operated a funeral home in Highland for decades.
“In those days, hospitals didn’t treat that as medical waste and cremation wasn’t popular then, so they just embalmed them and held on to them. Sometimes, people don’t get them, so they just stay,” Boulanger said.
The discovery was made at the former funeral home operated by Hugh Moran in recent years, but he surrendered his license in March after state regulators found his facility in deplorable condition. But the hidden nature of the room and the fact that two of the legs were dated decades before Moran operated the facility indicate he was not involved in placing them there.
Moran vacated the building last month, and Hansen began scrubbing and filling two large dumpsters with trash. After weeks of work, Hansen was seeing progress.
Two casket salesmen came to pick up a display last week and asked her for a tour of the historic home with ornate oak woodwork and stained-glass windows, built by a cigar magnate in the late 1800s at the corner of South Elm and East Second streets in Centralia.
On the tour, one salesman kept returning to that steel door in the dark hallway just off the embalming room.
“Finally, he got a pair of pliers and turned the bolt to open it,” Hansen said. “There was another plate, so he opened that, too. Then, he got to the door and looked in. He backed up and said, ‘There’s legs in there.’”
The three stood for a moment, then closed the door, returned the plates, and pondered what to do next.
“I was completely freaked out,” Hansen said.
But her shock at the situation did not raise any immediate response. She called the Illinois State Police, who called the Marion County coroner, who advised her to lock up when she left on May 7 and they would get back to her. The legs remained at the funeral home as of Tuesday, but the coroner said he will be getting them soon, Hansen said.
In late February, three days after Capitol News Illinois sent questions to the department about an unanswered December 2023 complaint that the embalming room looked “like something from a scary, filthy, freak show,” the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation inspected the building.
Inspectors didn’t disturb the steel plates blocking the nook with the legs, but they did find that Moran had maintained the embalming room in “extremely unsanitary conditions,” and he agreed to surrender his funeral director license permanently. Photographs of the room submitted with the complaint depicted a water leak, piles of dirty laundry and medical waste, along with the dead rodent.
The conditions at Moran’s funeral home became public within months of a discovery that a Carlinville funeral home provided the wrong ashes to at least 80 families, spawning lawsuits and legislation.
Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, introduced legislation called “Reestablishing Integrity in Death Care Act” after that discovery resulted in at least nine exhumations, including five from Camp Butler National Cemetery in Springfield. No criminal charges have been filed against the funeral director responsible for those remains, August Heinz.
Senate Bill 2643 codifies best practices already in place by most funeral homes, mandating that a unique identifier must be put on the deceased’s body and any other associated human remains. Under the proposal, a director must also document the chain of custody for all bodies and human remains.
The bill also mandates that the state must respond to complaints within 10 days and gives authority to remedy the complaints, including inspecting the funeral home premises.
That bill is awaiting a vote in the House.
Clean-up at the former Moran-Boggs continues.
But the name on the sign outside will soon change. Funeral Director Vonda Rosado will take over and change the name to Maxon-Rosado Funeral Home, the same as her other funeral home in DuQuoin. She plans to hire a professional to clean the embalming room.
“We want to restore the history and integrity of this beautiful facility,” she said.
A doorway is pictured in what was once the embalming room of the Moran Queen-Boggs Funeral Home in Centralia. Behind it, a visitor last week found a hidden nook behind two levels of steel plates, which covered three human legs that were neatly wrapped and dated to the 1960s. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Beth Hundsdorfer)
City Reminder: You Must Be Licensed Driver To Operate Golf Carts On City Streets
Summer vacation is about to start for local kids and City Commissioner Susan Zimmerman issued a reminder at Monday’s City Council meeting that no one under the age of 16 is allowed to drive golf carts and UTV’s on city streets. She said a golf cart operated by an underage driver pulled out OF North Park in front of her recently and nearly hit her vehicle…
Mayor Joe Judge pointed out that not only do golf cart/ UTV operators but they also have to be licensed drivers. In response to a question from Commissioner Tom Meeks, Police Chief Mike McWilliams said seat belts are not required for anyone, including children, riding on the back of golf carts. While most golf carts aren’t equipped with rear seat belts, officials said they only cost about $100 to install.
13 Graduate From Allendale School
On Tuesday, May 14th, Allendale Elementary School promoted 13 eighth grade students to high school. Here is a list of the students promoted:
Cadence Buchanan
Logan Doerr
Keilob Escobedo
Emma Ford
Noah Hipsher
Conner McGinnis
Clairabelle Nelson
Stetson Potts
Gabby Schneider
Joel Schneider
TJ Singh
Aiden Swift
Tiffany Westlake
Receiving awards last night during the promotional exercise were the following:
American Legion Award presented by Mr. Clint Seybold - Noah Hipsher and Cadence Buchanan
Reading Award presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Perry - Keilob Escobedo, Emma Ford, Conner McGinnis
Top Accelerated Reading Award presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Perry - Emma Ford
Spelling Award presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Perry - Conner McGinnis
English Award presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Perry - Conner McGinnis
Math Award presented by Mrs. Mackenzie Thread - Emma Ford and Joel Schneider
Science Award presented by Mr. Nick Waldroup - Conner McGinnis
Social Studies Award presented by Mr. Nick Waldroup - Conner McGinnis
Heath Award presented by Mr. Ryan Dougherty - Joel Schneider
Accelerated Reading Honor Wall (100+ points) presented by Mr. Bob Bowser - Cadence Buchanan, Logan Doerr, Keilob Escobedo, Emma Ford, Noah Hipsher, Conner McGinnis, Stetson Potts, Gabby Schneider, Joel Schneider, TJ Singh, Aiden Swift, and Tiffany Westlake
All-Sports Award presented by Mr. Bob Bowser - TJ Singh
Allendale CCSD 17 wishes each of these students the best of luck in their high school endeavors.
ISP ARREST FLORA MAN FOR PREDATORY CRIMINAL SEXUAL ASSAULT OF A CHILD
FLORA - Illinois State Police (ISP) Division of Criminal Investigation Zone 8 announces the arrest of 26-year-old Braxton D. Allen of Flora, IL, for Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child (Class X Felony).
On April 11, 2024, ISP was requested by the Flora Police Department to conduct an investigation into an alleged Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child which occurred between May 1, 2021, and May 31, 2021, in Clay County. After a thorough investigation, agents presented the findings to the Clay County State’s Attorney. On May 13, 2024, Braxton D. Allen was formally charged with two counts of Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child and was taken into custody on an arrest warrant by Flora Police Department. Allen was transported to the Clay County Jail where he remains in custody with no bond.
ISP was assisted by the Flora Police Department, Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, and Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. No further information is available at this time.
