Sales Taxes

 Got curious so checked the sales tax rates for Carbondale. Sadly, the 9.75% rate is now comparable to several other cities within the state.  Add a 9% hotel/motel tax and a 2% food and beverage tax and visiting Carbondale can get rather pricey 

Pure Pet

 Pure Pet will be closing its Carbondale location on the east side of town near Reed Station Road.  the Marion location will remain open. This indicates the Marion location is doing better business than Carbondale because, of course, if the Carbondale location was doing better, it would be the one remaining open.

West Main Parking

 When West Main was made one way through the Arbor District, one of the selling points was that along with West Walnut, on street parking would be provided along one side of the street.  The section of West Walnut between Springer and Poplar does have on sreet parking on the north side of the street, however this never was put into place on the parallel section of West Main. At this late date, it would take some significant contruction to put that in place but it could help slow traffic down through that area.

Houses

 The city has razed about half a dozen houses so far this year.  From what I understand, they were taken for non-payment of taxes by the owners after multiple attempts to collect and were considered too unsafe or run down to allow occupancy.

Given the desire to get more people to move to Carbonale, instead of demolishing them, why not offer them to people for $1 plus a stipend equal to the cost of demolition on the condition that they rehab the house and occupy it for a minimum amount of time. If no one accepts the offer, then demolish it. Maybe I missed them, but I saw no indication that those buildings were up for sale or demolition. maybe there were notices posted online but that involves someone actively going online and searching for notification.  Putting a sign in the front yard at least catches the eye of people driving by.  Lord knows I am not an expert in the field but it seems demolishing the building makes it much harder to infill the space.

Bank of Carbondale Building

 The empty Bank of Carbondale building on East Main has either rented or sold as there is a large sign replacing the Bank of Carbondale sign proclaiming the building is now the Carbondale Elementary Schools Adminstrative Office building. Glad to see another empty building getting reused.

Lost Cross 40th Anniversary

A number of places are helping Lost Cross celebrate its 40th anniversary.  Indigo Lounge had a punk/industrial DJ playing vinyl and tape on Thursday night,  and PK's and Booby's both had shows last night as did the Robbie Stokes Memorial stage.   The Buckminister Fuller Dome Home had an event this afternoon and tonight West Elm is blocked off at the intersection with Beveridge for a concert going on late. Here are the events tonight and on Sunday

Attendance Up

 I see SIUC fall attenance is up over 12,000 this fall, reaching12,066.  While not historic, as the press release says and certainly a far cry from the rumored 2000 I heard last month. 281 students is still, as far as I am concerned,  within the standard deviation andnot large enough and not enough to be pointed to as evidence of a turnaround. After all, for a couple of decades, the university kept losing about that amount each semester and the administration said it was not large enough for concern.

Get an increase of 10% or better and the administration could point to their actions as having an actual effect.