Booby's

 The planned relaunch of long closed sandwich shop Booby's appears closer to reality as the windows of the store front are now covered over with newspaper, indicating something going on inside the building. For years, due to its location directly across from the train depot, it was a tradition for students returning from Chicago or other parts north to arrive in town and head across the street for a sandwich at Booby's . Hopefully, the new owner plans to reopen the beer garden as well as Booby's beer garden was always a popular summer time hangout.

Murder

 Geez. Another killing in town, this time last night over on S. Lewis Lane. As with most criminals, the alleged killers were not very smart as the police arrested them within a few hours. 

Tower Road

 Work started on the repairs to Tower Road this week. the north end was limited to local access only for a couple of days but it appears traffic is moving more freely along the street now. Next week may block off access at the south end of the street.

Cute Town

 Carbondale has been named one of the "8 cutest small towns in Illinois" according to the World Atlas, because of the number of parks, nature trails and lakes here. Really wish the city and Carbondale Tourism would make better use of them in its promotions. I have argued for positioning Carbondale as the entrance to Southern Illlinois Wine Country for years now but we get "All Ways Open" instead.

Job Opening

 The Carbondale Chamber of Commerce has a job opening for a marketing and office manager. Looking for someone with 2+ years of experience. Pay is $14-$15 per hour for what looks like a 40 hour week. Might be a good fit for someone retired who is looking for work and does not plan to leave the area. If they dropped the 2 years work experience requirement, the Chamber could likely hire a recent SIUC graduate, although not sure how long they would stay around.

Firearm Possession

 Do all firearms incidents have to take place between 2 and 4 in the morning? Maybe I am old but I would think people ought to be asleep at that hour rather than hiding backbacks with guns in them under cars before running into a house where the police are going to come question you about why you shoved a backpack under a car. Does the perpetration not think people would find it slightly suspicious that they shoved a backpack under a car before running off? However, I guess if they were smart, they would not have tried hiding something so obviously.

Puppet Parade

 The All Species Puppet Parade takes place this Saturday. Line up at the Town Square Pavillion starts at 10 a.m. with the Parade starting at 10:30. half hour march to Attucks Park, then an Earth Day celebration from 11:30 to 2:30

Tower Road

 Looks as if Tower Road repair work will start tomorrow and wrap up early to middle of May. Hopefully, the city can patch some of the potholes on the hill on Chatauqua as they are deep enough to cause cars to swerve around.

Methodist Church Parking Lot

 I have noticed the Methodist Church at the corner of Main and Univeristy has taken to chaining off the entrances to its parking lot most Friday and Saturday nights. I figure they do not want a repeat of the shooting incident that took place last June when 200+ people gathered in the lot late Saturday night  and two people wound up shot. Carbondale Police still have a camera installed at the intersection focused on the lot and the church also has security cameras installed.

Scooters

 I thought part of the deal with the electric scooters was that Veo would assign a staff member to gather them up regularly and reloacte them to central pods. I did see a van with a Veo logo on it apparentlycollecting some on Washington Street by the glove factory last week but that is the only sign I have seen of Veo activity in the city.

I generally like the scooters. It is the people using them that are problems, not taking a few extra seconds to position them in locations out of the path of pediestrians or drivers for that matter.

Power Outage

 According to this, Thursday night's power outage was caused by "damage to several Amerin substations". From what I have heard, the entire campus was out as well as areas of West Wall and Chatauqua, although power remaned on out in the Tower Road area.

Building Teardown

 The city is in the process of tearing down the building on the southeast corner of Illinois and Walnut, the old Carbondale Cycle building. Right lanes of both Illinois and Walnut are closed at that location. First step in the process of creating the multi modal transport center.

Cleanup

 In case you are not going to Salukicon, Keep Carbondale Beautiful will have its spring cleanup from 9 a.m. to noon on April 22. Or you could help out at the cleanup in the morning and visit Salukicon in the afternoon. If you register, you get lunch and a free t-shirt. You may get them anyhow as the announcement says registration is not needed but registering is one way to make sure.

Superblock

 The city took over operations of the Superblock 5 months ago and announced this week it has secured a $500,000 grant to make the facility ADA compliant, improve fields and fences and add new restrooms and concession stands.

Rather suprised the facility was not ADA compliant to begin with as most facilites undergoing construction have to meed ADA standards, hence all the work on the downtown sidewalks.

City Budget

 If you want to have a say on next year's city budget, either email you rcity council people or attend next tuesday's council meeting as the budget will get a public hearing then. Also on the consent agenda will be funding for various road projects for 2023 including Tower Road and Pleasent Hill Road.

Me, I want to make sure there are no plants to pass an ordinance maintianing the sales tax at its current level when the funding for the SIUC construction projects ends later this decade.

election Results

 With 100% of the precincts counted and 1988 votes from throughout the city, Carolin Harvey takes her seat as the city's new mayor with 81% of the vote. Unless something major happens with the votes from the last precinct, Adam Loos retains his seat on city council, while Lee Fronabarger and Thomas Grant lost their seats to Clare Killman and Nancy Maxwell.

turnout really stunk for a election determining city policy for the next 4 years. By my calcuations, less than 10% of the city's population bothered to come out to vote. 

Election

 Polls close for Carbondale in about half an hour. I voted about 9:30 and had no one waiting ahead of me. I spoke with a couple of people that voted later in the day who said there were only a few people at their polling place at 1:30 p.m.  I am gonna bet that Harvey wins  the mayoral race and Loos, Fronabarger and Grant get re-elected to city council. Incumbency is very powerful, especially in a local race like this which will likely have less than 10% of elgible voters turn out. I would mention the other races on the ballot but given that all of the races were the same number of people running as there were open seats, it is a moot point.

Walter Wendler

Well, there is a name I hadn't heard from in at least five years.  Former SIUC President and director of the School of Architecture until 2015 Walter Wendler popped back up in the news this week. He has moved back to his original school as the President and got national attention when he  decided to cancel a student sponsored drag show, saything such shows degrade women. Lawsuit filed.

Election Day

 Election Day for Carbondale is coming this Tuesday. Here is a link to the candidates for mayor and city council.  Candidates in bold below are running for another term. The current mayor Mike Henry opted not to seek another term but the mayor pro tem Caroline Harvey is running for the seat. Both she and Visser are first time candidates for the office.. Of the four "new" candidates for council, only Liechty has run for a seat before and I have not seen much in the way of public campaigning from any of them save for Loos, Zurlinden and Fronabarger.

Mayoral Candidates: 

Harold J. Visser, 800 Charles Road, Carbondale IL 62901

Carolin Harvey, 109 South Tower Road, Carbondale IL 62901 

City Council Candidates: 

Adam Loos, 512 West Pecan Street, Carbondale IL 62901

Clare Killman, 900 South Skyline Drive, Carbondale IL 62901

Justin Zurlinden, 600 West Oak Street, Carbondale, IL 62901

Lee M. Fronabarger, 1140 South Morningside Drive, Carbondale IL 62901

Nancy Maxwell, 1408 Bobette Lane, Carbondale, IL 62901

Thomas Grant, 5370 Springer Ridge Road, Carbondale IL 62902 

Joshua Dalton Liechty, 933 West Walnut Street, Carbondale IL 62901