Mayor's Plans

According to the current Carbondale Communique,here is what Mayor Henry plans to work on during the next year:

Reconstruction of oakland from Walnut to Chautauqua to put in a new water main

Repaving Freeman from Oakland to Glenview

Completing the Highway 13 expansion from Giant City Road to Read Station Road, including a multiuse pedestrian path

Bike/pedestrian path from Oakland to New Era Road

More recreational opportunities at Cedar Lake

Continuing neighborhood based police patrols

Increased number of community events, similar to Halloween.

Furniture King

If you drive by the Furniture King on each Hwy 13, you will see the store windows filled with "Stor Closing" signs. It is only if you look closer, or got a letter in the mail from the store, that you will see at the bottom of the windows in letters only a tenth the size of the store closing ones, "For Remodeling". Not a big fan of this type of marketing as people who drive by are going to see the "Store Closing" signs and that is what they will remember, not the "for remodeling" subtext.

Carbondale Population Over the Decades

with the interest in the upcoming census, I decided to take a look back at the population of Carbondale over the past several censuses

1940--8550 
1950--10,920  +21.7 %
1960--14,670  +25.5%
1970--22,816  +55%
1980--26,414 +15.8 %
1990--27033 +2.3%
2000--25.597  -5.3%
2010--25,902  +1.2%
2017--25,899 (est.)  0.00%

The population of Carbondale doubled between 1950 and 1970, primarily because of people drawn here by SIUC. Not by coincidence, I would bet, the town's population peaked the same year SIUC's did and, while Carbondale has not seen the same decline in numbers than SIUC has, the town is only about 3 times as large as it was prior to WW2.

Election

Looks like a good election if you were an incumbent in Carbondale. Mike Henry won relection as Mayor and Adam Loos and Tom Grant got re-elected to city council. Only Navreet Kang lost his seat to returning councilman Lee Fronabarger. Jane Adams, Kirsten Trimble and Jessica Sergeev all won seats on the Park district board and the resolution calling for exploring merging the Park District into the city passed handily. A major concern of merging the two will be the amount of debt the Park District still bears from Hickory Ridge Golf Course, which will take years to pay off.

Statement by Mike Henry

Mayor Henry posted the following, regarding the domestic incident on his Henry for Carbondale Mayor Page:

By now you may have read in the Daily Egyptian that my wife, Terri, and I had a visit from the police department Sunday night. We had family visiting, and some tensions had arisen, and Terri and I were arguing about it across the room.

Our porch doors were open and our arguing drew the attention of a police foot patrol, who were walking the neighborhood in response to some recent thefts. Ironically, they were doing exactly what they should have been doing as part of the targeted foot patrol policies I have been encouraging.

There was never any violence, or threat of violence. Just some hurt feelings in a difficult family situation.

Domestic Incident

Apparently a "domestic incident" between Mayor Henry and his wife got loud enough last Saturday night to attract the attention of a pair of Carbondale Police officers on foot patrol near the house. No arrests or charges filed but the investigation has been forwarded to the Jackson County States Attorney's office

Election Tomorrow

You can still early vote at the Carbondale civic center today or at your favorite/assigned precinct tomorrow.Seeing a lot of signs for Colombo and a lot of late arriving signs for Henry. Not too many for the individual council candidates, save for Kang.