ACLU

 I thought the City council had changed the ordinance targeting protestors who were speaking out in opposition to the reproductive care/abortion clinics in town but apparently not, or at least not enough to satisfy the protestors and the ACLU. Just stop it. Treat them like anyone else. They cannot go onto private property without permission and if they cause a disturbance, arrest them

Washington Street Garden

 According to this, the owner of the property where the Washington Street Community Garden was decided to raze it due to trash, lack of upkeep and the owner's vague desire to possibly establish a bar in the vacant Center for Empowerment and Justice building with the Washington Street Garden property used for parking.

Taste Buds Stacks

 Taste Bud Snacks, on the west side of Carbondale, announced on social media they will be closing the Carbondale location, not due to poor sales but because the owner is relocating to Columbia Mo

Slabz 2

 It looks as if both the Slabz retail storefront and the Slabz skatepark have both shuttered.  As I mentioned earlier, the Slabz storefront is empty. A sign on the door at the Slabz skatepark directs people wanting access to the skatepark to go to the storefront, which of course, won't do them much good since nothing is there.

SIU Day of Giving

 SIU raised $5.7 million during this week's day of giving. From what I gather though, about $3 million of that came from an already announced gift  to SIUC's women's basketball program. Still $2.7 million is a respectable amount.

Slabz

 Looks as if the Slabz retail location has closed down.  The space is empty. I didn't get a chance to look but would be willing to bet they incorporated into the Skatepark facility.

For Sale

 I would estimate one third to one half of the houses in the 300 and 400 blocks of West Walnut have "For sale" signs on them. Not just "For Rent" but "For sale". That is a lot of places, primarily rental properties, up for sale through Schilling Properties commercial property division. Great investment opportunity if you think the university can get in town attendance back up to 20,000 or so students.

Simply Slices

 Simply Slices opened its third location (the other two are in Chicago) in the closed Long John Silver/ A&W Root Beer location behind Taco Bell. As the name says, it sells slices of pizza, as well as shaved ice.  Lots of customers now checking out the business but we shall see if it has staying power. A drive through slice based pizza location may do quite well, as Newby's is the only other pizza place in town offering a drive through option.

John A. Logan Up

 while SIUC remained flat year to year, John A Logan reported an attendance increase of 4.5%, Shawnee community College is up 6.8% and Rend Lake College is up 3.7%. granted those have smaller student populations than SIUC but Northwestern University has a student population of 23,000 and still saw a 7% increase in admitted students.

corporate Landlords

 Last time I checked about 70% of Carbondale housing was rental properly rather than single family owned. According to this research, that is good for diversity and lower income families as it makes moving into  a home more affordable.  Unfortunately, it makes it hard for those families wanting to own a home as it takes homes affordable for families off the market, forcing them to rent rather than own.

City Council Meeting

 Headed over to tonight's city council meeting but did not get there until 6:20. It was a short meeting as the session had ended and people were at the dais talking to various council members

Getty Solar Farm

 The Getty solar farm is nearing completion. Probably a good 20 to 30 acres of solar panels. Despite Rep. Mike Bost's complaining, no "prime farmland" was taken out of production for its installation

SIUC Attendance Update

 According to this updated story, Chancellor Lane did a 180 on his decision to avoid the media and SIUC lost 95 international students year to year. Normally, that wouldn't be significant but as thin as SIUC's enrollment increases have been over the past several years, any drop is going to have an outsized impact. This is also the smallest freshman class since 2022.

As was noted in the comments on the previous post, the drop in incoming students may be due to the lack of attention SIUC administration has paid to facilities over the past 25 years. The last major upgrades to infrastructure were the new student services building football stadium and Arena renovation. There is no real need for the Tedrick Welcome Centeras the student services building could easily serve that function. The Tedricks have donated a lot of money to the university over the years but do not have anything on campus to show for it. A new welcome center is nice but does nothing to fix the leaks in the roof at Quigley Hall or the broken book shelves in Morris Library. Students come here because of solid programs, facilities that support them financial aid. Anything else is window dressing. No student, save for those on athletic scholarship, comes here because of the athletic program. 

City Council Agenda

 Here is the majority of the city council agenda for next Tuesday. Assuming there aren't a lot of citizen comments and no one wants to pull items from the consent agenda, it should be a pretty quick meeting as there are no general business items to come before the council:

3.1 City Council Meeting Minutes from August 26, 2025

3.2 Approval of Warrant for the Period Ending: 08/29/2025 for the FY 2026 Warrant 1519 in the Total Amount of

$1,389,325.01

3.3 Approval of Wells Fargo Warrant for the Period Ending 07/31/2025 FY 2026 Warrant # WF 07/2025 in the amount of

$171,224.23

3.4 Ordinance Approving a Budget Adjustment to Increase the Information Systems FY 2026 Budget in the Total Amount of

$7,020.00

3.5 Award the Purchase of One (1) - 4 Door GMC 1500 4x4 to Auffenberg of Carbondale in the Amount of $46,320, Adopt an

Ordinance Approving a Budget Adjustment to Increase the Meter Services Budget in the Amount of $46,320, and Declare

City-Owned Property as Surplus

3.6 Resolution Approving the Submission of an IDNR OSLAD Grant in the Amount of $578,776 and Obligating Matching

Funds in the Amount of $289,388 for the Evergreen Park Playground Upgrade Project

3.7 Approval of Consent Agenda Items

SIUC Attendance Flat

 According to this article from the Daily Egyptian, attendance at SIUC is flat this semester, with a 5 person drop to 11, 785. According to the numbers in the press release, attendance would have been up 5 to 10% if not for a significant drop in international students. How large the drop in international students is, the press release did not say.

I found interesting Chancellor Lane's explicit refusal to sit for media interviews about the numbers but then, from what I hear, he does not much care for staying around campus.

Community Garden

 It looks as if the community garden at the corner of Washington and Jackson has been removed. From what I understand, it was used as a toilet with human feces found there regularly, along with drug paraphernalia and the volunteers who had started the garden were no longer able to maintain it.

Highway 13

 From what I understand, when Highway 13 was expanded to multiple lanes and run through downtown., part of the agreement was on street parallel parking . Highway 13 eastbound along Walnut in the Arbor District area has the promised onstreet parking. However, it was never installed on westbound Main Street. It still could be which might help slow traffic through that area. I would really like seeing 13 reduced to 2 lanes going through town. There is no good reason for 3 lanes of traffic running through a residential area.