• Reduced weight limits still allow two Mahomet-Seymour School District buses to cross the reduced one lane bridge in Mahomet, but buses will be re-routed during upcoming repairs.

    Long delays for funding plague bridge repairs
    June 5, 2013

    Illinois state inspectors say the bridge carrying traffic on County Highway 50 over Interstate 74 in Mahomet is in “critical condition” and “structurally deficient.” 

    But an average of 2,550 vehicles  — including school buses — still use the bridge each day, although the bridge has been reduced to a single traffic lane since August 2011.

    Gary LaForge,...

  • A common area for inmates to gather during the day, at the Champaign County Jail.

    Poor conditions in county jails persist as state inspections go unenforced
    May 30, 2013

    By Amy Harwath/CU-CitizenAccess.org - Trash litters the floors of the Edgar County jail, unknown liquid leaks from the ceilings, and broken locks make it impossible to secure internal doors.

    The Sangamon County Jail is consistently overcrowded, making living quarters unfit for inmates.

    These are just a few of the shortcomings in the Illinois county jails revealed in a review of hundreds of state...

  • Opt-in text alert system leaves many at University of Illinois out
    April 25, 2013

    By Amy Harwath/CU-CitizenAccess.org -- A Northern Illinois University lecture hall was the target of a mass shooting in 2008 where five persons were killed and 18 injured before the shooter took his own life.

    At the time of the shooting, Northern’s students had to voluntarily sign up for emergency text message alerts, which only reached up to 10 percent of the university’s students.
  • Photo of people looking at Dr. Alan Kalmanoff on a big screen.

    Community voices questions, concerns to jail consultant at public hearing
    April 19, 2013

    By Amy Harwath/CU-CitizenAccess.org -- On Wednesday, April 17 the group Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice held a public hearing with jail consultant Alan Kalmanoff to air their concerns and ask questions about his ongoing evaluation of the Champaign County jail.

    Over 70 people were in attendance, from local community members to graduate student members of the Planners Network to county officials...

Restaurant Inspections: Map, Graphs & Stories

Click HERE to see restaurant inspection reports

For the past four years, Champaign Urbana Public Health District officials have discussed ways to best publicize restaurant inspections.

Health inspection reports of restaurants and food facilities are available by request from the health department. In June, the health department also began posting a monthly list of all inspected food facilities and the current status.

In 2011, CU-CitizenAccess.org began posting full inspection reports of all restaurants that failed routine health inspections since 2008.

As a service, we continue to post the full reports of failed health inspections as part of our searchable, interactive map.

Access the map, stories and other content on this issue here.

Jobs

Latitude News: As jobs go overseas, foreign jobs come here - just not enough
Jobs, jobs, jobs. That’s been the national mantra since the Great Recession hit in 2008, and it does not seem to be going anywhere. In our perpetual quest to illuminate U.S. connections with...

Immigration

List of documents needed to get a driver's license
Driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants debated
By Sean Powers/Illinois Public Media -- There are only a handful of places that Urbana resident Marcela Guillen will drive to – the fast-food restaurant where she works, to buy groceries and to...

Housing

Housing authority to discuss preference plan
By Robert Holly/For CU-CitizenAccess -- For more than a month, community members have waited for The Housing Authority of Champaign County’s board of commissioners to reach a decision on...

Justice

Aaron Ammons
Aaron Ammons, a Leader in Social Justice Advocacy
By Amy Harwath / For CU-CitizenAccess.org -- Some people who are in a dire financial situation may feel that they have no choice but to deal drugs. But Aaron Ammons was not in a dire situation. And...

Neighborhoods

Bristol Place Speaks: A personal housing project
By Bob Merlo -- Chad Sullivan is an aspiring carpenter and real estate investor. When Chad purchased his first home in 2011, he chose Bristol Place, a neighborhood with some of the lowest...

Food

A 100 percent taste of Mexico
By Azra Halilovic / CU-CitizenAccess.org / Hoy -- Out in the middle of farm country in Central Illinois, Arturo Zendeja and his wife run the town’s first Mexican restaurant, a small joint...

Education

Picture of a viola
Fundraising for arts not always a pretty picture
By Andrea Baumgartner/For CU-CitizenAccess.org -- Champaign and Urbana nonprofits in arts education took a hard hit to funding in 2007 as the great recession began. For example, the Champaign-Urbana...
Local barber shop plans to feature mural depicting Champaign's history
May 1, 2013

By Amy Harwath/CU-CitizenAccess.org -- Four University of Illinois students created an interactive mural reflecting the history of Champaign that will be part of the North First Street Revitalization Project.
Spot check: Campus emergency alert systems across the country
April 27, 2013

By Amy Harwath/CU-CitizenAccess -- A spot check of universities across the Midwest and around the nation has revealed that four-year institutions are inconsistent in their approach to sending out emergency alerts to students and staff. Although universities automatically send out emergency notifications via school email addresses, they vary on their policies and success for text alerts. 
Emergency text alert system inconsistent across college campuses
April 25, 2013

By Amy Harwath/CU-CitizenAccess.org -- If an emergency happens on its campus, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville gets the message out to 100 percent of its students via text message.



But only about half of the students at  Iowa State University​ would receive an emergency alert via text.



And less than one-third of students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign would receive an emergency notification via text message.

Pages

Subscribe to Front page feed