Carbondale Tourism

 Carbondale Tourism has moved its offices out of the 126 S. Illinois location. I had noticed the offices were starting to look a bit sparse the past couple of months and now there is a large For Rent sign in the front window.  I remember discussion several years ago of shuttering that office and moving it into the City Hall complex so maybe that finally happened.

Mike Bost

 Listened to Rep. Bosts telephone town hall tonight and to hear him tell it, we are a weak and feckless nation in the eyes of the other countries of the world with rampant inflation caused by Biden's policies and open borers across which flow thousands of undocumented migrants and pounds, if not tons, of drugs every day. A start to cure this would involve immediate authorization of the Keystone XL pipeline and authorizing drilling wherever oil companies want to stick a well.  Sheesh.

Streetscape

 The city will start a third phase of the downtown streetscape project after the first of April. Plans involve working on the streets north of Main from Monroe to Oak. 

City Wide Cleanup

 Keep Carbondale Beautiful will organize a city wide cleanup on April 23. I remember Glenn Poshard complaining about the trash on the west side of Carbondale, back when he was President of SIUC. I think it is much better not than then but the town can always use litter pickup.  Email  eepcb1326@gmail.com for Details

Stop Light timers

City would install sensors on stoplights on lights in downtown instead of relying on timers. It is quite frustrating to sit at a light, with no one else around, waiting for the light to turn. Surely there are lights with sensors on them that would change when there is no one else around.

Cameras

 Given the number of accidents that take place at intersections in Carbondale, it might be a good idea for the city to install cameras at the intersections of 13 and Giant City Road as well as both intersections of 13 and Illinois and 13 and Walnut. Not wanting them there for ticketing purposes but if drivers knew they were on camera at that location, they might drive more defensively and there would be less question as to whose fault the accident was.

There was an accident at the corner of Main and Illinois about a week ago and one car wound up on the sidewalk next to Thai Taste. Happily, it did not hit the building as happened two previous times.

Newspaper Consolidation

 read in Harper's Review this week that roughly 25% of US newspaper have shuttered since 2005 and that, of those remaining, investment firms own half. most investment firms focus on increasing "cost efficiencies" at the papers they own, which generally means cutting local staff and using more materials from wire services. Also the research I have read indicates that communities without a local newspaper have higher taxes and lower voter turnouts, since most local residents do not pay close attention to the activities of city government and are not nearly as engaged as communities with a newspaper.

In addition, local papers are the primary source for coverage of local high school and colligate sports. Local radio and tv stations only devote a few minutes of time to local sports, which papers devote dozens of column inches to the topic and the sports section is generally the most avidly read section of the paper.