Champaign County voters will get a chance to say whether they want to raise their property tax rates to help the financially strapped county nursing home, or allow the county board to sell or otherwise dispose of the facility.
Champaign County Board members approved both questions for the April 4 ballot, during a more than four-hour special meeting on Tuesday night.
“No New Tax For Jails” is the message on yard signs opposing Champaign County’s sales tax referendum. Opponents of the quarter-cent sales tax say it will expand the county jail system, tempting county officials to put more people --- especially minorities – behind bars. But county officials say the work on the jail is needed, as part of plans to maintain all Champaign County government buildings.
After hearing a number of comments from the 'Build Programs Not Jails' movement, on a vote of 15-2, the Champaign County Board Thursday approved placing a quarter-cent sales tax on the November ballot.
In Champaign County, the Chamber of Commerce and the Farm Bureau think that a county executive would make government more effective. But the chair of the Champaign County Board isn’t so sure it would work.
Champaign County Board Chair Pattsi Petrie says she hopes to find 21 people to serve on a new Racial Justice Task Force, to study racial disparities in the county's jail population and justice system.
