Cleaning Up

Want to go into the laundry business? Laundry World at the corner of College and University has a "For Rent" sing in front of it, saying the owner will gladly remodel it to whatever suits your needs, be it retal, office or medical. Guess the laundry business isn't doing as well as it was.

Also, SI Wireless has moved into the Capps Law Firm building on East Grand Ave.

Notes from Pickle's Alley

SIUC MBA and MA programs go online.
Young Writers Workshop comes to campus later this month.
The 'skeeters are coming, the 'skeeters are coming.
In response to student demand (?), Krispy Kremes are now at the Student Center.
Clifford Liddell held on drug charges.
If you have a STD, safelabcentre.com is now here for you.

Royal Plaza Inn

Interesting side story arising from the Oluwatofunmi Kaiyewu story. Kaiyewu had been a medical student at Windsor University Medical School at St. Kitts in the West Indies. Students who fail courses at the main campus are sent to Royal USMLE courses taught at contract schools in the US to retake those classes. One of these courses is taught at 2400 West Main St. in Carbondale, which coicidentally is the Royal Plaza Inn. According to this, the Royal Plaza no longer rents rooms to the public but serves solely as a dormitory for students from Windsor and is either an extremely fine hotel or slowly falling apart.

Notes From Pickle's Alley

A lot of southern Illinois infrastructure projects are on hold until the budget gets worked out.
The C'dale Public Library is offering assistance with converting your TV to digital.
Support groups for Mom in southern Illinois.
Downtown Art and Wine Fair this Friday night (assuming it doesn't storm again).
Cross country bicyclists pass through Carbondale.
Energy-related events in the area for June, both of them.
WSIU keeps flogging the Fantasy Auction.
Oluwatofunmi Kaiyewu had mental health problems and was often absent from his SIUC classes.

Blogging the Budget

Working my way from page 1 to page 274. Page one is a short history of Carbondale with the main focus on the community's economic development, the importance of the railroad in the early years and the ever increasing importance of SIUC, which currently, according to the budget, employs about 40% of Carbondale's labor force.

Quick Work

Looks like the C'dale police have arrested some suspects already in last Thursday's spate of robberies. An arrest has also been made in last Friday's attempted robbery of the Stake & Shake.

Blogging the Budget

This is interesting. On page 5, under objectives of the budget, there are only 2 organizations specifically named to get support from the city in the budget. Objective 10 is Support the Main Street Program for Downtown and Objective 15 reads Provide resources to support the Boys and Girls Club of Carbondale. No mention of the Hayes Center, Chamber of Commerce or Conv3ention and Tourism Bureau. Give the amount of money allocated to the Convention and Tourism Bureau, you'd think it would be listed on there but the closest thing is Objective 6: Encourage development of tourism related destination facilities.