September Roundup

 

 

As folks can certainly tell, we're still very much behind and finding it impossible to keep up with all the recent changes, pandemic related issues, and news coverage. In some ways there's more local government information easily accessible and available than ever. Unfortunately the pandemic also really affected availability and shook up everyone's lives. Hopefully we'll be able to get back up to a regular schedule of coverage again soon. Here's a quick C-U Local Roundup of news and issues:

The pandemic had also interrupted and delayed a lot of local plans for police reforms. One pilot program for crisis intervention appears to be getting off the ground now in Urbana with plans to expand to Champaign and elsewhere later. From the News-Gazette:

Plans for the crisis co-responder team call for a Rosecrance social worker and an Urbana police officer who has a master’s degree in social work to follow up on calls for service related to mental or behavioral health crises, Marlin said.

The Urbana officer to work on this team will have a new title — behavioral health detective — and since she will be redeployed from her current police job, there will be no new city money involved, the mayor said.

Urbana Police Lt. Corey Koker, who is overseeing this program for the police department, said the police-Rosecrance response team will be focused on public service and will have its own dedicated office and resources.

In follow-up response visits, the team will try to connect people in crisis to available community services that can help them, he said.

That full article here. WCIA had additional coverage here.

Long term plans for improvements in the Garden Hills neighborhood appear to have been approved to get a boost in their schedule with additional funds. From the News-Gazette earlier in September:

The morning after the Champaign City Council unanimously endorsed speeding up long-needed lighting and drainage work in the Garden Hills neighborhood, city staff members were already meeting to get those initiatives underway, Communications Manager Jeff Hamilton said Wednesday...

The council has directed staff see if the city’s $25.2 million in funding from the most recent federal coronavirus relief act can be used for the projects. If that allowed, the city would devote about half of that funding to Garden Hills — $5 million toward the much larger costs of drainage improvements and $6 million to $8 million for lighting projects.

That full blurb with additional details here.

For more information on local gun violence and responses, I strongly encourage people to check out the Champaign County Community Coalition and their meetings. Each meeting has updates from the local police chiefs and presentations on local programs and efforts to address the violence and underlying needs of the community.

Other local news links:

• Urbana violence reduction updates from WCIA.
• Champaign policing hiring changes to fill vacancies more efficiently.
• Buy Black Chambana is promoting Black owned businesses in Chaampaign-Urbana. The Daily Illini had coverage of one of their recent events here.
• Illinois Newsroom had an interview with the Champaign fire chief on 9/11's impact on him personally and on firefighting in general here.