cu-citizenaccess

How Champaign County residents organized an AI data center resistance

Longtime Champaign County residents Ruth Yontz and Antonia Herbstreit had never met before organizing what would become an AI data center resistance group. Yontz, a former faculty member at the ...
CU-CitizenAccess.org

Philo Road pharmacy access remains a challenge for vulnerable residents

Restrictive covenants associated with the former Walgreens property prevent another pharmacy from operating near the Philo Road corridor.
cu-citizenaccess

One year, four accidents at Archer Daniels Midland’s Decatur, Ill. headquarters; company fined over $400,000 in past 10 years

An explosion in September at the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) plant in Decatur, Illinois injured eight workers, but federal work safety data shows it was only the latest in series of safety incidents ...
cu-citizenaccess

Concerns about brain cancer cases in Piatt County grow, but Illinois public health agency yet to investigate

Lessie Ann Patterson lived in Monticello, Illinois, for 25 years before dying in 2015 from glioblastoma, a rapidly advancing brain cancer with an average survival time of 12 to 18 months. Belinda ...
cu-citizenaccess

Efforts continue to keep Illinois’ aging nuclear power reactors operating

The Clinton Power Station nuclear reactor, about 34 miles from Champaign, generates enough energy to provide heating and electricity for over 800,000 of Illinois’ almost 13 million homes. At the ...
cu-citizenaccess

University Housing inspections strive to be thorough despite lack of local inspection process

Each year, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign maintenance crews inspect the conditions of its 17 undergraduate and graduate residence hall locations to correct the deficiencies they find, yet ...
cu-citizenaccess

Champaign County nursing home fines, violations soar as planning of new facility continues

In just one year, state and federal fines against the four nursing homes in Champaign County nearly tripled from $117,401 to $334,015, according to Medicare and the Illinois Department of Public ...
cu-citizenaccess

Roofing contractors appear to often work without licenses; State regulators count on public to alert them to illegal operations and safety issues

Over the past five years, federal workplace safety officials inspected about 1,800 roofing contractors in Illinois. But a CU-CitizenAccess review found no state records that showed that 1,200 of those ...
cu-citizenaccess

Champaign residents warned the county about a nursing home operator. Now, four senior facilities are closed.

When the Champaign County Board sold the Champaign County Nursing Home in May 2018, the board members expected the new owners to care for seniors for the next ten years. But just five years later, the ...
cu-citizenaccess

Champaign police met with Shadow Wood residents to calm growing fear over immigration enforcement, ICE

Residents at Shadow Wood Mobile Home Park, a community with many Spanish-speaking residents, have been meeting with Champaign police over concerns about immigration enforcement. Lieutenant Katherine ...
cu-citizenaccess

Champaign County Sheriff’s Office knew Norman Meeker had an alcohol problem for a decade. Why did it take a flipped truck and a DUI for Meeker to leave the force?

This story is part of a partnership between the Invisible Institute and CU-CitizenAccess exploring police misconduct in Champaign County. Champaign County Sheriff’s Sergeant Norman “JR” Meeker had a ...