Grand Avenue, between Illinois and Washington, will close next week for repairs to the railroad crossing. Expect to see the Mill Street Underpass get a lot more use: From the press release
Grand Avenue will be closed from June 3rd-June 7th between Illinois Avenue and Washington Street due to Canadian National Railway construction improvement projects. Detours will be clearly marked in this area.
Final "At the Table" dinner of the spring takes place June 18th. From the press release:
The City of Carbondale, Southern Illinois Collaborative Kitchen, and the Carbondale Branch of the NAACP invite members of the community to attend the Carbondale “At the Table” Dinner & Dialogue series on Tuesday, June 18th 2024 at the Carbondale Civic Center.
The City of Carbondale will celebrate Juneteenth during their final Carbondale “At the Table” event this spring. Representatives from the African American Museum of Southern Illinois will briefly discuss how they serve the region and the significance of Juneteenth. The discussion topic for the evening is Resilience, Racial Justice, and the Racial Healing Journey. The theme honors Juneteenth while capturing the overall goals of the Healing Illinois initiative.
The City of Carbondale has been thrilled to present the Carbondale “At the Table” Dinner & Dialogue Series over the past few months. The Carbondale “At the Table” Dinner & Dialogue Series brings an intersection of topics ranging from culture, racism, history, and racial healing to the table through facilitated conversations so that community members from diverse backgrounds can engage in dialogue while enjoying a community meal by Cristaudo’s Café & Bakery.
The upcoming event is free and open to the public. Doors will open at 5pm and the Dinner & Dialogue will begin around 5:30pm. Seating is limited and registration is required. To register click here. For more information, please contact Dianah McGreehan at dmcgreehan@explorecarbondale.com or call 618-457-3282.
the 20th annual Southern Illinois Music Fest started last Saturday and runs through the 7th. This is a marquee event for SIUC and attracts musicians from all over the world. Here is the schedule Here is the schedule should you want to attend a few performances.
If you drove through downtown Carbondale yesterday, you may have seen the flags lining Illinois Avethe flags lining Illinois Ave and Main Street between the railroad tracks and Illinois. The local Lions club has been putting them up on national holidays for over a decade now and it is quite an impressive sight.
Shooting on West Mill Street Saturday May 25 about 11:30 am which puts it right across the street from the University. No mention in the police message of any injuries so it appears it was "just" gunfire with no injuries as the release made no mention or any injuries or hospitalization.
The city council will meet Tuesday night. Here is a copy of the agenda. Notable items on it include:
Proclamations of June as National Preservation Month and Gun Violence Prevention Month
Announcement of the owners of 206 S. Poplar, 302 N. Poplar, 615 S. Tower Road and 801 East Walnut Street as recipients of Historic Preservation Awards
Presentation of the City Wastewater Treatment Master Plan
Consent agenda including appointments to boards, hiring Kerber, Eck, & Braeckel for audit services for 2024, hiring TWM, Inc for water main replacements, entering into a contract with Placer.ai for access to their location intelligence software (tracking movements in the city through cell phone GPS).
Studying reducing the minimum square footage of a single house from 800 square feet.
Hiring Planning NEXT to update the city Comprehensive Plan.
Adopting the City Wastewater Treatment Master Plan presented earlier in the meeting
Adjournemnt.
Green Earth has a Story Walk trail installation in the Oakland Preserve trail system. each month a new story gets put into the Story Walk boxes. Pretty nice thing for Green Earth to do and yet another thing for families with young children to do in Carbondale.
The section of Lewis Lane just south of Highway 13 Eastbound is closed. Telephone and electric lines down across the street. Closed since about 1 this afternoon but will likely reopen by sunrise tomorrow.
The city is looking for people to serve on a committee to research rental unit housing license planning committee . Looks like there will be 13 people on this committee which is probably about 6 people too many. Here is information if you are interested in serving:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CARBONDALE -
The City of Carbondale is researching rental housing unit licensing. This will be a substantial and important update to the current rental housing regulations. As part of this process, the City Council has directed staff to solicit for interested parties who wish to serve on a rental housing licensing planning committee. If you have a desire in serving on this important committee, please submit a written letter of interest via email to Mayor Carolin Harvey charvey@explorecarbondale.com . Your letter must include your name, address of current residence, reason for interest in the committee, and a detailed description of your background or resume. All inquiries will be confidential until the appointments are made. All letters of interest shall be submitted by June 4, 2024.
The Rental Housing Licensing Committee will be comprised of the following community members:
- 4 landlords
- 4 Carbondale tenants (at least one of whom shall be a full time SIUC undergraduate currently living off campus)
- One at large citizen.
These committee members will serve with two Carbondale City Councilpersons and two City staff employees.
For further information and questions contact the Community Development Manager at 618-457-3251.
Carbondale now has a Hotworx hot yoga studio open on East Main Street. always glad to see a new business come to Carbondale. Apparently, and someone with more knowledge feel free to correct me, you exercise inside a sauna or sauna like atmosphere, increasing the level of sweating during the exercise.
Walk through of the city's unfinished multi-modal transit system building. Still pretty much a shell but you can get an idea of what it will look like. From what I understand, both the Chamber of Commerce and Carbondale Main Street will move out of the Old Train Depot into offices in the building and there will be a tourism welcome center as well.
If you are free this Wednesday at noon, The Natives will play the Carbondale Main Street Brown Bag Concert. The show will also stream on the Carbondale Main Street Facebook page if you cannot make the show in person.
From what I have heard Qin Guan got shut down briefly last week by the Jackson County Health Department. The restaurant got whatever the problem was fixed quickly as it was open for operation again yesterday.
Y'all Rockfest is currently taking place in the Washington Street Entertainment Plaza and runs until 10 tonight. Not sure what bands are playing, but they are audible 2 blocks away
Looks like Popeye's has reopened, at least partially. There is now a sign in the window saying "Drive through Open". Not sure as to what the hours are though and certainly no inside dining.
The Preservation Commission meets this Monday at 5:30 in the civic Center. Not much on the agenda, and I mean that. Aside from approving the March Minutes, there is nothing but the Preservation Award Nominees and Selection of Winners. Not even any reports about stuff.
I have no idea who the Preservation Award Nominees even are though I am certain they are listed somewhere.
Poplar Camp Beach opens for the season May 24 and is a "swim at your own risk" facility as lifeguards will not be on duty at all times. This is not just a problem for Poplar Camp Beach. There is a nationwide shortage of lifeguards with roughly a third of public swimming facilities shortening hours due to a lack of lifeguards.
William Lo, Executive Director of the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce and General Manager of New Kahala, was the recipient of the Outstanding Service in Leadership award during the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month ceremony in Chicago today. If you haven't joined it, check out the Southern Illinois Eats page he moderates on Facebook
The city announced today it received a $400,000 grant from the Department of Energy "to conduct a comprehensive pre-feasibility study of what our community has been calling “The Energy Sovereignty, Security, & Democracy Proposal”, a revenue-positive and replicable rural energy system model that fosters equitable American self-sufficiency and lasting prosperity for our Nation’s recovering energy communities,".
That is good but I cannot help wondering what good a pre-feasibility study will do. Shouldn't it at least look at the feasibility of a rural energy system model. Studies often get done and then tossed on the shelf.
The Carbondale Main Street Brown Bag Concerts feature The McDaniels this Wednesday at Noon. If you cannot catch them in person, CMS will stream the concert live on its Facebook page.
Figured since I subscribe to the Southern Illinois digital edition, I ought to start reading it again. The first couple of pages are local news which is pretty good. One of the few places you can find local news. However, checking out the editorial page, oh my gosh. When I got the paper edition of the Southern, the editorial page was somewhat balanced, with one moderately liberal columnist, one moderately conservative columnist and Doonesbury relegated there from the comics page.
Today the editorial page features two conservative columnists, one of which argued that unions are bad for business and for the economy, and Mallard Filmore, which is kinda like Doonesbury except conservative and lacking Donnesbury's satirical touch (and decent art).
The Zoning Board of Appeals has a meeting next Wednesday with two items on the agenda. One deals with a request for a setback variance while the other deals with structure size in areas zoned low density residential.
Apparently some people did not realize this is graduation weekend as I had one person ask "Why are there so many cars in the Arena parking lot?" Just a reminder to expecting this week
1. more people than usual driving the wrong way on one way streets
2. really long waiting times at restaurants in town. The parking lot in front of Mary Lou's was packed this morning.
SIUC has launched a NIL (Name Image Likeness) portal for SIUC athletes call the Pride of Little Egypt. Near as I can tell, and I have not paid for access, your $8.99 a month helps support various athletes at SIUC and also allows further access to making offers to them for such things as personal appearances, shout outs on social media, autographs, etc. This is quite different from similar portals I have seen in that those are open to the public with no payment required to enter the portal. The only payment required is that made directly to the athlete.
Maybe there is more to it, but I have no desire to pay the $8.99 to find out.
From what I have heard, a tornado touched down in the Cedar Lake area last night during the storms. 55 mph winds over in the Harrisburg area.
SauSea's Seafood says on their Facebook page they have closed temporarily but no one has been updating the page and there has been no sign of any activity at the restaurant.
Caught on the news last week that there was so much traffic in southern Illinois for the eclipse that traffic monitors did not show traffic in Illinois getting back to normal until around 8 p.m. that night. That's a whole lot of people exiting the area.
The intersection at the intersection of West Mill and the South University Ave. cutoff needs more signing to remind people that cars coming from the left no longer stop. There are accidents and near-accidents almost daily there as people turning onto West Mill from South University expect drivers coming from the S. University & S. Illinois & S. Mill intersection to stop at a now non-existent stop sign.
having people stop at the stop sign is also unsafe because the distance between the S. University and West M ill intersection and the 5 way intersection to the east is so short that cars stopping there risk getting hit by those heading south on S. University.
Not sure what is going on in downtown tonight, possibly students preparing for finals week. but the civic center parking is filled, street parking is filled and most of the town square parking lot is filled as well.
Two items were on the agenda for the Zoning Board of Appeals Meeting today
4. Hearings
ZBA 24-03: Gary Williams is requesting a variance from Section 15-2.10 of the Carbondale
Revised Code, which outlines the City’s setback regulations for new primary structures in the
RR, Rural Residential, zoning district. This request is for the following described property,
which is outside of City limits, but within the City’s mile-and-a-half zoning jurisdiction: 8
Bittersweet Lane, Parcel Number: 19-06-400-014
ZBA 24-04: David Mack is requesting a variance from Section 15-3.4.1 of the Carbondale
Revised Code, which outlines the City’s accessory structure size regulations in an R-1-12,
Low-Density Residential, District for the following described property: 875 North Norwest
Lane, Parcel Number: 15-18-428-013
