Champaign Municipal Election Preview

 
An update on who's in so far (petitions are still be circulated, more information on that here) from today's News-Gazette:

No surprises where the 2019 Champaign municipal election is concerned: Mayor Deb Feinen and at-large city council members Tom Bruno, Matt Gladney and Will Kyles all turned in their petitions to run for re-election on Monday, the first day of the filing period.

The latter three will have competition. Also declaring their at-large candidacy were former 32-year council member Michael LaDue, who lost his District 2 re-election bid last year, and newcomer Jon Paul Youakim.

Other candidates who are attempting to join the fray so far include Elizabeth Sotiropoulos for school board and Kenton Elmore for city council. In that same News-Gazette article Pattsi Petrie is listed as thinking about entering the Champaign City Council race. She lost a primary fight on the County Board this year.

Unit 4 Teacher's Strike Information

It's looking as if Champaign Teachers are likely to walk out next week and the district will respond by shutting down all facilities and programs:

Unit 4 board: If teachers strike, district will be shuttered
If Unit 4 teachers go on strike nine days from now, all of the district's buildings will be shut down.

Responding to the Champaign Federation of Teachers filing its official intent-to-strike notice a day earlier, Champaign school board members said Friday they've decided to shutter all district buildings and cancel all school-related programming if no deal is reached on a new contract and the teachers stay home Nov. 26.

"This means that there will be no classes, practices, competitions, club meetings, Kids Plus programming or community activities at any schools, program or other Unit 4 building," the school board said in a statement issued early Friday evening. "We look forward to reaching a resolution that does not require us to take the actions above but wanted to be proactive in our communication in the event we do."

Teachers union President Jen White has said if the union does decide to strike, it will happen on Nov. 26.

On Tuesday, the two sides are scheduled to meet for an 11th negotiating session. Teachers in Unit 4 have been working without a contract since June 30.

Full blurb here.

Champaign HRC and NAACP Report

This week's Human Relations Commission meeting (agenda here) included a presentation of the NAACP report on criminal justice. Thomas Moore argued that the report is an educational tool as opposed to a road map and what we've tried over the past forty years hasn't worked. He argued for a new focus on the ineffectiveness of punishment in the system of mass incarceration. He noted that jails are a big part of the problem and a local issue. Video is available here and the NAACP report begins at the 6:20 mark. There were many ideas discussed and listed in the News-Gazette yesterday:

Among the suggestions discussed during Monday's meeting:

— Allowing those incarcerated to register to vote and cast votes while in prison.

— When drawing up legislative district boundaries, assigning prisoners to the locality they come from instead of the prison site.

— Advocating for more humane policies that stress restorative justice.

— Having the NAACP form a partnership with local libraries to develop a crime-and-punishment bibliography and establishing a repository of books and articles on incarceration, public safety and justice.

— Advocating for the collection of data on the justice system "to develop more grounded responses to crime and punishment."

— Developing justice reform that gives a prominent role to the faith community.

— Exploring programs that restore civil rights for those incarcerated and awaiting trial.

— Developing a pretrial-assessment protocol in Champaign County.

— Integrating restorative practices within both the Champaign Unit 4 and Urbana 116 school districts.

Full article here. One item not mentioned in this list was their support of the recommendations of the Racial Justice Task Force (more information on that here). Some of the discussion talked about mass incarceration being a new Jim Crow which references a study of the mass incarceration system that looks at disparities throughout the criminal justice system. More information on that information and popular book in criminal justice reform circles here.