Most have heard about the unmanned aerial vehicles, or “drones,” that the U.S. government has been flying over Pakistan and Afghanistan dropping bombs aimed at suspected militants and all too often killing innocent civilians. Increasingly, smaller versions of these planes are being purchased by police agencies, border control, and homeland security to use domestically. Rather than carrying weapons, they are outfitted with cameras allowing them to become an all-seeing eye in the sky.

Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice has set up an online petition for people to show their opposition to the proposal from the Jail Planning Team to spend $20 million on new jail facilities in Champaign County. We believe the county has more pressing needs than a new jail; and since more than half of the people in our county jail are African-American (while only 12% of the county population is Black), we know who will end up in these new jail cells.

Show your opposition to mass incarceration at the local level and sign our petition.

https://www.change.org/petitions/the-champaign-county-board-stop-the-20-...

Last week, the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center brought together some of the top experts in community broadband to get an overview of different models for building out local networks. Panelists compared and contrasted public, public/private, non profit and cooperative models.

Watch the video:

At the event national experts spoke to 138 attendees - 45 in the room and 93 watching remotely from a livestream - including city council and staff members, members of the governing body of the local public network, called UC2B, and interested residents. A group proposing to build out as a local cooperative was also present. The panel was facilitated by Brandon Bowersox, who chairs the UC2B governing body.

The ribbon cutting for a new community garden in southeast Urbana took place on a sunny Saturday afternoon, September 8, 2012. Created by the Lierman Neighborhood Action Committee, it is part of the “Let’s Move” campaign launched by First Lady Michelle Obama to create community gardens in cities across the country.

Located at Washington and Lierman, the garden is at the center of a neighborhood which has been in the local mainstream media for its stories of robberies, shootings, and drug dealing. The garden is a sign that some members of the community are beginning to take control of their own destiny.

After months of stalling, the city of Champaign has finally released documents about the incident on June 5, 2011 when a 20 year-old African American man, Brandon Ward, was choked in the back of a squad car by white officer Patrick Simons. While five officers have been disciplined, not one has been suspended for a single day. Nevertheless, it is a sign of the shake-up taking place in the Champaign Police Department.

The Ward case created a storm of controversy in November 2011 when Champaign city officials announced that they had seen video of a black youth being abused by police. It occurred around 2:30 a.m. at 4th and Green streets after the bars had closed. Video of the incident was anonymously leaked at the Independent Media Center website, ucimc.org, and has received nearly 15,000 hits to date.

The national Grassroots Radio Conference is taking place this year at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. The conference comes on the heels of recent legislation opening up markets for low power radio stations across the United States. On Friday, July 27, a day of panels took place about how people could set up community radio stations. 

There were panels of information sharing with people telling stories of how they had successfully produced community radio in their own home towns.

There was also a poetry workshop held by local poet and host of SPEAK Cafe Aaron Ammons.

The keynote address was given by Joe Torres, co-author with Juan Gonzalez, of News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.

It was 96° in the shade, but a large crowd came out on July 19, 2012 for a showing of union solidarity. The Campus Labor Coalition―including AFSCME, SEIU, GEO, AAP, and CFA―held a rally at the Alma Mater on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and then marched across the quad.

The rally was partly to show support for workers in the local AFSCME union who have repeatedly been stalled by university negotiators and are still waiting for a fair contract. The university sites the state budget crisis, while top administrators go on getting paid inflated six-figure salaries. Despite several recent scandals that have forced campus leaders to resign in shame, they have been given golden parachutes by their colleagues. Those at the rally held signs that read “The U of I Isn't Broke, It's Broken!”

On May 8, 2012, a section of East Park Street, between Second Street and Third Street, in Champaign was dedicated to Catherine Hogue, black woman activist and long time County Board member. A sign now stands at the intersection in front of the Boys and Girls Club that reads, "Honorary Catherine Hogue Way."

On Tuesday, April 10 the Champaign and Urbana (Cunningham) Township meetings will have on their agendas two items to be voted on by all registered voters in attendance.

One item calls for an item to be added to the November ballot which urges representatives, from the local to national level, to endorse an Amendment which declares corporations do not have the same rights as people and states that legislation should be pursued which challenges the Citizens United Supreme Court decision by re-enacting curbs on corporate spending in elections.

Another adds to the November ballot a measure which challenges corporate enclosure of the commons by establishing laws in Champaign/Urbana which allow non-disruptive forms of free speech in areas where private business can currently prohibit it, such as private parking lots and malls.

In the last week, documents acquired by a Freedom Of Information Act request have revealed a number of troubling communications exchanged by members of the Jail Space Improvement Project Planning Team. The Team is the Champaign County Board's primary representative to County staff on the jail issue. Among these documents are emails exchanged by County Administrator Deb Busey and County Sheriff Dan Walsh which site projected costs as well as specific numbers concerning bonds to be issued backed by the Public Safety Sales Tax.