$4000 building

According to the new owner, 213 West Main sold at a sealed tax auction for only $4000. Of course, it is going to take some $80,000+ additional to update the building for any reasonable use. Going to have to keep an eye on upcoming auctions for unpaid taxes.

City Council Meeting

City Council meeting tomorrow night at 6 p.m. Among other topics, the council will discuss rewriting the current liquor code and parking permits for employees of downtown businesses and downtown residents.  

Best of Southern Illinois

The Southern Illinoisan has opened its annual "Best of Southern Illinois" poll. You can vote from today through Jan 26th.

Restaurants That Use Biodegradable Packaging

Ran across a thread on social media listing local restaurants that had switched to biodregradable packing, either in whole or part. If that matters to you, here is a partial list:

Harbaugh's
Longbranch
Quatro's
Thai Taste
New Kahala
Keeper's Quarters
Flame
Mama Pang inside PK's

City Council Park District Meeting

The city council met last night to discuss the discussion of absorbing the park district and its functions into Carbondale city operations, rather than continuing to have the park district continue to operate as a separate entity. From what I have heard, despite the discussion about this in the media, only 8 people had enough interest to show up to the meeting.
From what  I can tell, one of the big sticking points to any agreement is Hickory ridge Golf course, which has hemorrhaged money for decades and shows no sign of stopping.  Almost all local school teams have abandoned the course to practice at other facilities so no fees from schools coming in.  The Park District has also maxed out the amount of property tax it can raise without going back to the voters and asking for a tax increase. Given the level of taxes in Carbondale already and with no plan in place to deal with Hickory Ridge, I doubt the Park District could make a good case for another property tax increase.

Not sure how the process would go but seems to me the best thing the district could do is put Hickory Ridge up for sale and let a private developer deal with it and take the revenues freed up from that for some much needed maintenance on other park properties.

We're Number One...

in terms of people moving out. More people moved out of Jackson County over the past ten years than any other county in southern Illinois. Anderson County was number two with a full quarter of the county's population decamping. In fact, Williamson County was the only one to add  any population and that a measly 700 people. Of course, Jackson and Anderson are in (good) company as 93 out of 102 of the counties in the state lost population. Even mighty Chicago lost 1.2% of its population

Parking Tickets

Apparently people have not realized that free parking ended on the First of the month. A poster on Facebook noted 6 parking tickets on cars within one block in one day.