Light Bulb Recycling

Apparently it's going to become much easier to recycle compact florescent bulbs locally and the state and Ameren are partnering to put a hundred recycling units are various locations throughout the state, including Carbondale.

Chancellor Goldman and MAPP

SIUC is really getting concerned about the cutbacks in the MAP program. Chancellor Goldman just sent out this email requesting alumni contact the state about restoring the funding.

Athletics Problems Nationwide

SIUC is not the only university running into problems funding new athletics facilities. apparently, it's a problem nationwide.

Great Place to Live

The Evansville Courier caught this but the Southern hasn't mentioned it yet. Mother Earth News has rated C'dale as one of the 11 best places in the US you've never heard of. I looked for the article but couldn't find it so thanks to the Arbor District mailing list for the link.

Dinosaurs

Would somebody please explain to me how having a degree from SIUC in Mechanical Engineering makes you qualified to speak on the Bible and dinosaurs?

Rash of Burglaries

C'dale has been hit with a spate of burglaries since the 17th From the Carbondale Police website:
North Illinois (perpetrator caught)
South. Cedarview
Sweets Drive
South Elizabeth
West Freeman
West College
South James

And one report of shots fired on East Chestnut. So may burglaries in such a short period of time makes me wonder if it's the same person or group of people.

Warrants

Apparently May Cole has gotten tired of Councilman Joel Fritzler's asking questions about the city's warrants (bills and invoices for good and services provided to the city that the council is required to approve). According to the letter Fritzler sent to the Daily Egyptian Thursday, Mayor Cold has announced that, due to cutbacks, council members can no longer email the city manager quesitons about the warrants prior to council meetings. Instead, council members will have to revied the support materials for warants themselves during regular city business hours.

Also, according to the letter, council members will no longer be able to quesiton warrants during council meetings. Guess the mayor wants to speeding meetings up (Thanks to various people who forwarded the letter/link).

Economic Recovery?

Sat in on a presentation by an economist from the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve. Among the high points: inflation will stay low, about 2.5% for the next year; unemployment will stay in the range of 8-10%, also until early to mid 2010; and the average household currently has income of about $35,000 and debt totaling $45,000.

$5.8 Million Short

Missed the city council meeting lat night but it appears that after the Future's program students were recognized, the council discussed the expected shortfall in city revenues, expected to run about $5.8 million over the next couple of years. City Manager Alan Gill presented a series of proposals (thanks to Jane Adams for the link) designed to close the gap. Among them are:

--re-institution of a city property tax, the elimination of which Mayor Cole cites as one of his major accomplishments.

--not replacing Deputy Chief Sterns when he retires next year.

--having the police department accredited by a state rather than national organization

--elimination of the community relations officer

--postpone construction of the new police station

--postpone investing $100,000 in city parks and greenspaces

These last two are supposed to be funded as part of the sales tax increase passed in 2007 that also partially funds the Saluki Way project. Becaue of the contract with SIUC, tax revenues provided by the city to SIUC for the project cannot be withheld unless the contract is negotiated. Given the amount the city is providing, I really doubt the university would be amendable to renegotiatng the funding.

Recovery in Carbondale

According to Recovery.com, which is a much more accurate and up to date record of the governments stimulus spending than is recovery.gov, Carbondale has two projects funded by economic stimulus dollars: the resurfacing of local roads, starting apparently with S. Washington, and upgrading the roof and solar collection system on the Paul Simon Federal Building.

College of Science Uproar

It appears that politics is reasing its head yet again at SIUC, this time in the College of Science, as three of the departments have votes of "no confidence" in Dean Jay Means on record, while the five other departments have a "we don't know what you're talking about," attitude towards the matter. Meanwhile, one math professor is disturbed enough by Dean Means's response, or lack thereof, to write a letter to the DE. Just another day at SIUC.

Insurgent Internet Powerhouse Coming

Insurgent Internet Powerhouse (his words, not mine) Andy Martin will swing through Carbondale the first weekend in October to promote his campaign for the Senate.

Aaand, he's a birther.

Same as It Ever Was

Mike Bost announced he is seeking re-election to the state legislature for an umpteenth term. For those pushing for complete overhauling of the state legislature, neither the Democrats nor the Greens have put anyone out with enough name recognition at this date to have a shot at knocking off Rep. Bost. Sheila Simon or Kevin Clark come to mind as potiential candidates for the Democratic slate but I'm not sure either has enough recognition outside of C'dale to have a chance. Rich Whitney is probably the only Green with enough name recognition to do it, but he's already announced for governor.

Carbondale Main Street Pig Out

Looks like this year's Pig Out will be much more of a success than last year's rain deluged event as the rain managed to hold itself to a few drizzles late Friday night and early afternoon Saturday. Still, not a lot of people managed to make it down there during the afternoons or so I was told and, when I arrived about 7 both nights, there only about a dozen or so people by the stage on Friday for Defined Perception and Saturday for Backyard Tire Fire. The 710 parking lot managed to fill up impressively for the Woodbox Gang's set Friday night and people crawled out of the woodwork for the Jungle Dogs' reunion concert Saturday. At the Main Street tent Saturday evening, a number of people said they had attended other festivals during the day but made a point of getting back to the 'dale in time for the Dogs' show and the Pig Out beer tent, while busy Friday night, was really jumpin' on Saturday, as the Dogs kept playing until almost 11:30

Kid's events went over well too, with the balloon crafters staying busy until almost 10 p.m. on Saturday.

While not the best year for the Pig Out (that was 2002, I think but I'm nowise positive), it was many steps above last year's event.

Notes from Pickle's Alley

SIUC really trying to retain more students.
Online the way to go?

Varisty Center

Got the opportunity to take a walk through the partially renovated Varsity Theater/Varsity Center for the Arts yesterday as part of the Center's seeking historic/landmark district status. The reason for seeking this, I was told, was to make it more difficult to demolish the building, should it ever pass from the Stage Company and CCA's trusteeship.

Renovations are entering stage 3 which means the plan is to finish interior restructuring of the building. If you ever saw a show in the theater before it closed, you should remember the small balcony theater. The plan is to remove the walls separating it from the larger main theater, creating a 400 seat venue. The bathrooms will be remodeled, offices installed in the basement as well as a concession area on the main floor. Finally, the lobby area will be remodeled to approximate what it looked like when it opened in 1940. However the Center has no photographs of the interior from that time so is having to rely memories of local residents as to how it looks. If anyone reading this has photos of the theater during the early years, the Center would appreciate seeing them.

Stage 4 involves the final restoration of the exterior of the theater and is scheduled for completion in 2013. Of course, that date is contingent on the Center receiving funding, currently estimated to cost $4.5 million to complete stages 3 & 4.

The Historic Preservation committee looked over the paperwork the Center provided and, aside from a couple of questions about wording, seemed pretty favorable disposed for it. The HP committee will have another meeting later this year, at with the Center will make its final presentation for the designation, the public will have an opportunity to make comments. The committee then votes and, if it approves the designation, moves the decision onto the city council agenda. for a vote at a subsequent council meeting.

Planning Commission Followup

Since I was curious as to why city staff recommended again the rezoning at last night's planning commission meeting, I swung by the planning dept. this morning to clarify the city's reasoning.

According to city planner Chris Wallace, the main reason city staff opposed the rezoning was the plan for the two lots adjacent to the Stiegal Road/Hwy 13 intersection. The city wanted those lots retained for business development, as the lots on the other corners of the intersection have been developed. Under the revised plan presented last night, the developer agreed to keep them available for business/office space development, but only until the other apartments were completed. If they had not sold for business use by then, the developer wanted to retain the option to put apartments on them. Without a firm commitment from the developer, the city staff felt supporting the rezoning was not in the city's best interest and the commission voted against it 6-1, with John Hunsaker the lone vote in favor.

Planning Commision Meeting

Just got back from this month's Planning Commission meeting where the main topic, in fact only topic, was the request by Dr. William Hamilton to rezone the strip of property on the north side of Black Diamond Drive, abutting West 13 from Professional Administrative to Planned Unit Development in order to put in apartment buildings. Last summer, Dr. Hamilton failed to convince the city council to give him a special use permit to put apartments in an area zoned for offices, so now he's requesting the city rezone the strip of land, the last undeveloped enterprise zone in the city, for apartments. In his presentation, Hamilton pointed out the property had sat undeveloped for years, he had been working with city staff to meet concerns and the apartments would increase the value of the property and thus tax revenue. The revised development would leave the area Black Diamond meets Steigal Road reserved for commercial development and a whole 20' buffer of native trees as a buffer between the apartments and the single family residences to the west.

Speaking in opposition were half a dozen residents of the nearly Woodland Hills subdivision, who complaining about the effect of Hamilton's apartment development on the south side of Black Diamond Drive, noise, lights shining into windows, increased traffic and the danger to children, especially with the apartments running right alongside eastbound Hwy. 13. The speakers referred several times to the pristine nature of the area and how the view had been ruined by the first set of apartment houses, not mentioning the fact that the development had already destroyed the pristine nature of the area when it had gone in 10 years ago. There were also some complaints about how,while Hamilton said he targeted students, single professionals and families as tenants, the advertising literature shown by the Woodland Hill residents appeared to specifically target SIUC students.

City staff advised the commsion to deny the application thought I didn't quite get why, and the commission voted deny it as well. One reason give for the vote against was the commission didn't want to see the last remaining undeveloped enterprise zone put to a residential rather than a business use.

Oh I'm a Lumberjack...

and apparently I'll be at the Main Street Pig Out this weekend.

Crime Maps

Been looking over the maps provided by the police department at the Arbor District crime meeting last month. Speaking of which, most of the meeting consisted of requests for more information from the C'dale police department regarding crimes occurring within the city and more info on the sources of crime statistics provided by the department, as the stats provided don't appear to jibe with the statistics found by some of the speakers in the audience. The first problem is starting to get addressed as the police department now puts info about weekend crimes on its website, rather than just relying on their media phone line.

The maps provided at the meeting showing reported criminal incidents by location are rather distorted, expecilly in the case of The Crossings trailer court, which has reports of criminal incidents every weekend. However, there is only one spot in the area marked on the map for such this as criminal sexual assault, theft, and aggravated battery. When I checked at the Planning Office, I found that incidents at The Corssings were all loaded onto one address, so a dozen reports of theft would still only show up at one spot.

Looking at the maps, some interesting things stand out. For one, robbery is not that common in Carbondale. those incidents showing up on the map are concentrated on West College, downtown and the six blocks east of the railroad tracks. It's hard to beleive, but according to the map,The Crossings has no robberies.

On the other hand to avoid criminal sexual assault, you want to stay out of The Crossings area and off West Cherry. Of the dozen incidents shown on the map, over half are within 2 blocks of Hwy 13.

Aggravated battery is found all over student residential areas and the eastern side of the city, esp. in the northeastern residential areas.

Lots of reports of burglary in the downtown area again, esp. along University Avenue, with a large number also occuring in the northwestern residential seciton of town. Suprisingly, nothing showing in the Arbor District area.

Ah, here's why. If you look at residential burglaries, with the city apparently classifies as different from a regular burglary, the map shows especially heavy concentrations in the Arbor District and the southeastern sudent resdiential areas, but they are found in residential areas all over the city.

Burglaries from motor vehicles are common all over the city as well but are especially heavy in the area south of 13 between S. Oakland and S. Wall.

Theft occurs all over the city, but theres a suprisingly high number of thefts over $300 in the relavely small area bounded by S. Forrest, West College, West Cherry and S. Illinois. I count about a dozen incidents and no other area has quite that large anumber in such a small area. It looks like about 90% of all motor vehicle theft takes place east of S. Illinois.

Not a lot of reports of criminal trespass, but what there are look to take place mainly in the student resdiential areas.

Not a lot of reports of unlawful uses or possessions of weapons or firearms either, which the city appaently classifices as two different things. According to the maps, just stay north of 13 and out of downtown and you'll be OK.

MAP Grants and SIUC

This is scary. Not so much that the grants might be cut, though that would be a horrendous blow to the university, Carbondale and southern Illinois but that the university relies so heavily on MAP grant funded students and is only now developing plans on how to deal with the cuts. So far the only plan appears to go to the state and argue for the reversal of the cuts.

Party Rules

The C'dale police have sent out info on how to have a safe, and legal, party in the 'dale. Apparently they were quite serious as I've had reports of higher than normal numbers of patrol cars out over the past weekend as well as (gasp) actual foot patrols in some neighborhoods.

Mountaintop Presentation

Short notice but if you're free around 11 tomorrow morning:

Mountaintop Removal

Coal Mining in Appalachia

In Virginia, West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, coal companies blast as much as 600 feet off the top of the mountains, then dump the rock and debris into mountain streams. Over 300,000 acres of the most beautiful and productive hardwood forests in America have been turned into barren grasslands.



Mountaintop removal mining increases flooding, contaminates drinking water supplies, cracks foundations of nearby homes, and showers towns with dust and noise from blasting.



The Mountaintop Removal Road Show features a beautiful and thought-provoking multimedia show with traditional Appalachian music and culture. Lexington, Kentucky environmental activist Dave Cooper will explain what it is like to live near a mountaintop removal mine, and answer questions.





Date: Tuesday, September, 15^th

Time: 11:00AM-12:50PM

Location: ASA 118C located on SIUC campus

ASA = Engineering Building

Free and open to the public

Sponsored by Students for Peace and Democracy

Speaking of Storm Damage

Purina announced it will donate $10,000 to help repair the damage to SIUC's Horse Research Center. Good but that stills leaves $440,000 in damage still needing repair.

Ch ch changes

The long empty Taco Bell on East Walnut is well on its way to being razed and Great Wall Chinese Buffet out by University Mall finally has its sign almost replaced after the storm damage last May. From what I understand, the reason it has taken so long to replace so many of the storm damaged signs in town is that most of them are free standing. The business insurance policies I've see typically have a clause exempting damage to signs not attatched to the building from coverage. Repairs to free standing signs typically are expensive, hence it takes awhile for the business owner to come up with the capital or loan to get them repaired.

Shimkus Gets Bored

Apparently Rep. Shimkus got bored with President Obama's health care speech the other night, as he walked out midway through. Not quite as bad as Joe Wison's "You Lie" shout, and probably better than the twit twittering in the front row during the speech.

Citizens for Cole

Mayor Cole has been moderately busy this year, raising quite a bit of money so far, about $45,000 in itemized donations and another $7500 in non-itemized.

More on SIUC Enrollment

The DE follows up on what I noted a couple of days ago, attendance is down at SIUC and up at other institutions. Quotes from the article indicate SIUC is going to get right on this, you betcha. Fifteen years of slow but steady decline is not going to get fixed in a semester or even two and I hate to break it to 'em, but online courses will not make SIUC any more compeitive. You have to have an institution people want to attend first, then they will start taking your online courses.

Enrollment Down

SIUC enrollment continued its slow but steady drop again this semester as enrollment is down for the fifth consecutive year, 1.6% from last fall. Chancellor Goldman plays it as "Our figures are amazing given the economy" and also blames cutbacks in MAP grants. Meanwhile, attendance is up at ISU and UI Champaign Urbana, while other colleges are reporting being swamped with students. When the economy is bad, people go back to college, but not at SIUC, it appears.

Arrests Made

Three men have been arrested in the shootings that injured 5 over the weekend. Quick work by the C'dale Police department.

Letter to Chief O'Guinn

In the wake of the meeting with Chief Jody O'Guinn last Thursday, Arbor District board member Jane Adams sent the following letter to the Chief:

OPEN LETTER TO CARBONDALE POLICE CHIEF JODY O”GUINN

September 7, 2009

Dear Chief O'Guinn,

Thank you for meeting at the First Presbyterian Church with the residents of the Arbor District last week. As you could tell from the large turn-out and the questions and comments, crime is a very big issue for the people who live here.

I was pleased to learn that you are upgrading the Police Department digitization capabilities and make that information available to the public through the Carbondale Police website. I hope that you will also map the home addresses of those arrested as part of your efforts to use our limited resources to the greatest advantage.

As long as Carbondale residents don't know the "profile" of the criminals, they will remain shadowy and malevolent – a force that erodes confidence in our police and other institutions.

Unfortunately, I have serious reservations after listening to you and Asst Chief Grubbs. There was a quality of don’t worry, everything is alright. But that’s not the way we feel in the neighborhoods. We feel that crime is out of control.

I fear this sense of impotence and growing lack of confidence in the police is heightened when you deny that there is a problem. Asst Police Chief Grubbs provided statistics that he claimed showed that our neighborhood was not disproportionately affected by crime. He said there had been 253 “incident reports” in the month of July, of which 40 had occurred in the Arbor District. I assure you, we are not worried about the number of traffic tickets or calls about firecrackers. We are concerned about the serious crimes to person and property. Felonies. I doubt there was anyone in that meeting who didn't see through that attempt to diminish and trivialize our concerns – and most, from feedback I have gotten from several people at the meeting, were angered by it or, if they were disposed to be generous, puzzled at why Asst. Chief Grubbs was not responsive to our concerns.

We were disappointed that you did not provide the tabular data that accompanied your maps of crimes that have occurred this year. Not only were the maps very difficult to read, but there is no way to understand the data that they represent. I did my best to count the crimes by area and, based on this potentially inaccurate tabulation, found that fully 24% of the crimes you mapped (excluding damage to property that I could not tabulate) occurred in the Arbor District and another 37% occurred on the southeast side. That is, the areas in which students primarily live and walk about accounted for over 61% of the criminal activity in Carbondale, despite the fact that students represent only 40 % of Carbondale’s population. Seventeen percent occurred on the northeast side, 12 % on the north central and northwest side, and only 7% on the large residential southwest side although 28% of the residents of Carbondale live there.

You stated to Channel 12 that crimes have decreased by about 18 % from previous years. We may be working with different statistics, but the data provided by your department to Blackwell Thomas, published in the Southern Illinoisan, shows an apparent increase in armed robberies – one of our primary concerns – with more occurring in the first 8 months of 2009 than in all of any previous year except one. It does appear that burglaries are down significantly, which is good news. But the armed robberies have continued, as have the gratuitous beatings, which would suggest that factors other than good policing cause these patterns.

You explained to us that our demographic “causes” the crime, pointing out that 40% of the people here are between 16 and 25. But Charleston (Eastern Illinois U) has 44% of the population between 18 and 24. Yet they have extremely low crime rates.

In fact, Carbondale has the worst crime rates of any university town in the state, except possibly Champaign-Urbana. Our city lives on the vitality of Southern Illinois University. If you visit any website that shows city crime rates, and there are many, you will see that Carbondale is dead last when compared to those university towns that draw from the same pool as Carbondale – DeKalb (Northern Illinois U.), Bloomington-Normal (Illinois State U.), Charleston (Eastern Illinois U.), and Murray State, Kentucky and Cape Girardeau, Missouri (Southeast Missouri State U.).

Our crime rates are also far higher than any of the surrounding towns. Carbondale needs families with school-aged children and other young working people to live here. The shootings and wounding of 5 young men that occurred this weekend happened on N. Michaels St. just north of Sycamore – a residential neighborhood where young working people live – and the 400 block of S. Marion, two blocks from the university campus and the middle of the housing projects.

Please do not trivialize or dismiss our apprehensions about crime in our neighborhood. We are concerned about our own personal safety and our own property values. But we are also concerned about the well-being of the young people who live among us and to whom we have a great responsibility. We want to live here and feel safe to walk the streets and secure in our homes.

We heard you say that you have ordered targeted patrols into our neighborhoods. And we are grateful, but we are still deeply concerned as gunshots are heard again in Carbondale.

You are new to our city. You may have too few resources to do what needs to be done. I heard you say that you have knowledge of how to use new technologies (including reverse 911 which for some inexplicable reason our system lacks). And from reading your biography you appear to have a depth of knowledge of effective policing techniques.

We wish to support your efforts to make this town as safe as it can possibly be. We hope you will listen to our concerns and our knowledge. You need to enlist the neighborhoods as force multipliers for the police force. We’re ready and willing, and as the large turn out the other night revealed, we are a large and motivated citizenry.

Sincerely,

Jane Adams

Board member, Arbor District Neighborhood Association

618 457 8228

Iota Nu Cleanup

In the wake of a series of loud parties and a shooting incident last May, members of the Iota Phi Theta fraternity are trying to repair their public image by sponsoring a neighborhood cleanup next Monday between 2 and 6 p.m. From the email:

"The brothers of Iota Phi Theta along with the Greek community of SIUC are planning an Arbor District area community clean up. We understand the importance of contributing to the community that we live in and value the ideals of community service which provides a better environment for all.

We feel that this clean up will be a positive step in bridging the gap between the students and the community. With better communications between the two, changes can be made to have a positive and lasting effect on bettering the relationship between the two."

Amazing how the desire to reach out and improve communication always happens after the fact.

New Rector

It's not all bad.

More shootings

Five people shot in less than six hours last Friday night. One shooting on N. Michaels and one on S. Marion. More here, along with calls from commentors for everthing from mor epolice on the streets to legalizing concealed carry. Luckily, none of the shooting appear serious and it doesn't seem they are connected.
When you look at maps of C'dale crimes, most batteries are in downtown, the Crossings, and between Wall and the railroad tracks. Unlawful use of a weapon (I guess both guns and hand held) looks clustered around, the Crossings, the south side of Walnut and the north side of West Mill, while arrests for possession of a weapon by a felon tends to be pretty heavy in the southeast section of the city. Oh, and the Crossings.

Wal-mart People

Interesting way to rate towns. Based on his observations, the writer ranks Carbondale at the top of the list in Illinois.

State Spending

Gary Metro uses a very awkward gambling metaphor to describe the budget situation in Springfield.

Neighborhood Walk

I missed the "Walk the Neighborhood" with city staff last Thursday but here's a report on it from D. Gorton:

Walk the Neighborhood", a program initiated by Mike Pierceall, Development Services Director of the City of Carbondale (third from left), took its first tour of neighborhoods in the Arbor District on Thursday afternoon. The goal was to listen to the views of residents about the condition of housing in the area. Careful scrutiny of foundations, roofs, parking areas and other issues of Code Enforcement were discussed. Sandy Litecky, Arbor District President (2nd from left), Brian Swoboda, Arbor District Board member (3rd from right) along with Tom Redmond (2nd from right) and Bob Child (on right) were joined by Building and Neighborhood Services inspectors and staff including Steven Phillips (far left), Kenneth Lynon 4th from left) and David Miller (5th from left).

The group toured W. Cherry St. along with College, Hays and Beveridge in the afternoon. It was noted that there are a large number of vacant rental houses. Ironically, the neighborhood was looking better than it had in memory with most yards mown, trash out of sight, and of course the new roofs and siding that were replaced after the May 8th storm.

It was also noted that many of the Fisher properties were in poor repair, especially the roofs which are long overdue for replacement. The group was informed that the Fisher interests at Home Rental had successfully argued in court that since they had such a large number of roofs to replace, ostensibly because of the storm, that they were allowed to take longer than most repairs in the area on any particular property. However, out observation was that the Home Rental roof deterioration stood out from all others by its long time lack of maintenance.

Problem housing was pointed out to the "Walk the Neighborhood" team from City Hall, and they will return in the near future for a more careful assessment and inspection program in the area.

"Walk the Neighborhood" will take place in all of Carbondale's neighborhoods this Fall. Sandy Litecky, President of the Arbor District said that "its impressive when the city sends out busy inspectors and staff to work with us on neighborhood improvement. We're looking forward to the results".

We're hoping that the Police Department will institute a similar program to incorporate our concerns about crime in the area.

Residents of the Arbor District are encouraged to call Mike Pierceall at 549-5302 x 257 (with any questions or observations about Code Enforcement in the neighborhood. Our experience is that Mike and his staff are more than accommodating with our concerns.

H1N1/Swine Flu at SIUC

First case of swine flu in the area reported on campus this morning. Hopefully, the student will be smart enough to stay home for a couple of days. If you're coughing, sneezing or running a fever, I'd really rather not have you in my class or office.

Crimestoppers

Sat in on the Arbor District meeting with Chief O'Guinn and City Manager Alan Gill and and have stuff to post about it but time is short at the moment. I did run in to a friend who works closely with Carbondale Crimstoppers today and found out how effective the program is. It appears Crimstoppers make regular cash payouts to tispsters and the cash flows out freely. Two tips in the past year garnered payouts of $800 and $500, while smaller rewards are paid out frequently, leaving the organization in need of funds. Their website is woefully out of date regarding fundaising, as there will be a "penny raffle" fund raiser at several locations throughout C'dale over the next month including the Pig Out.

SIUC Assault

Attempted sexual assault on campus Sunday night. Not sure it means anything but it's interesting that most of the crimes reported on the C'dale police website involve robbery, while the first reported crime of the year from campus involves an attempted rape.