Kane County Reporter

In March, the Pritzker Administration announced plans to demolish and rebuild Stateville Correctional Center in suburban Crest Hill. The plan proposes nearly doubling the prison’s capacity, despite the facility being half empty and a significant statewide decrease in the prison population.

Simultaneously, the administration announced plans to demolish Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison located in Lincoln. However, there was no commitment to rebuilding the facility, which employs approximately 500 people in the community north of Springfield. Residents have expressed concerns that permanently closing Logan would devastate the local economy.

Illinois’ State Facility Closure Act mandates public hearings to consider all perspectives on closing a state facility and its impact on staffing, budget, and the local community. Senator Don DeWitte attended hearings held by the Commission on Government Forecasting & Accountability (COGFA) in Joliet for Stateville and Lincoln for Logan. Both hearings saw significant attendance from community members opposing the Governor’s proposals.

Senator DeWitte also attended a Friday meeting in Springfield where COGFA members were supposed to vote on the proposed closures. However, no official vote occurred due to a lack of quorum among commission members.

“The issue of possibly closing one or more of our correctional centers is extremely important and should have been taken care of while we were still in session,” said DeWitte. “We’re also talking about a prison population that is shrinking, and plans to rebuild and add even more space at Crest Hill? Those numbers just don’t make sense.”

More than 150 local chambers of commerce will be awarded shares of $5 million through Illinois’ Back to Business (B2B) Local Chambers program. Administered by the Illinois Department of Economic Opportunity, this initiative aims to support chambers recovering from economic impacts caused by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Eligible chambers include organizations dedicated to improving economic development within their communities that experienced financial setbacks during the pandemic and have annual revenues under $1 million.

Upcoming events are scheduled throughout summer in Illinois' 33rd Senate District. These include traveling office hours in various locations such as Algonquin and South Elgin; an IPASS sticker event with Illinois Tollway; a mobile Secretary of State “REAL ID” event in West Dundee; and a Senior Fraud Prevention seminar in Geneva.

The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office recently issued warnings about a data breach potentially exposing personal information. Around 50,000 residents received letters regarding a “data security incident” from early April when an unidentified individual accessed Lake County government’s computer system and sent phishing emails to Secretary of State employees.

“The office’s Department of Information Technology and cyber security teams acted within hours to contain and mitigate the phishing incident,” stated an official communication shared by NBC Chicago. It was emphasized that none of the agency's databases containing driver or vehicle records were compromised. The Office plans to enhance cybersecurity measures against future attacks.