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EDITORIAL: Take stock of the people in your life: Page A4 NEWS: Conjuring some snow: Page A2
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P.O. Box 407 Jerseyville, IL 62052
JERSEY COUNTY
JERSEYVILLE, IL 62052
Online petition made to save Jerseyville Moose Lodge
Share your love in the newspaper! See pages A8 A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be at Principia College. See pages A10
Current plans are to use lot for parking
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Emergency personnel investigate and clean up at the scene of a two-vehicle collision that killed a 19-year-old Jerseyville resident.
CORRECTION Payments were up to date regarding the transient slip rental fees were made beginning in 2006. The resolution regarding the use of litigation against DeSherlia Marina Management, OK’d by the Grafton City Council, stated otherwise. Grafton Mayor Rick Eberlin said the resolution will be amended to reflect this correction at the next Grafton City Council meeting.
WEEKEND WEATHER FRIDAY, FEB. 7
35 24 High
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SATURDAY, FEB. 8
34 23 High
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SUNDAY, FEB. 9
44 30 High
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TOP STORIES ONLINE Jan. 29 - Feb. 5 1. State Street to retain angled parking in resurface project 2. City of Grafton is suing DeSherlia Marina 3. Interest expressed in selling marijuana in Grafton 4. Area Special Olympics athletes got to boogie
INDEX Opinion . . . . . . . . . . .A4 News . . . . . . . A2, A7, A10 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Our Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A8 Court. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A7 Public Notice. . . . . . . A6-7 OBITUARIES: GETTINGS, HARRISON, PACE, SHAW. JERSEY COUNTY
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VOL. 18, NO. 6 - 75¢
FEBRUARY 5, 2020
INSIDE
Welcome, baby Lucy. See page A8
JOURNAL
Jerseyville resident dies in collision on US 67 By JARAD JARMON Jersey County Journal A 19-year-old Jerseyville resident died following a head-on vehicle collision with a tractor-trailer truck at 3:25 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, on US 67 at Kristie Lane, according to Illinois State Police. In the news release, police officials say Christian M. Cazier, 19, driving a 2014 Chevrolet Malibu, was traveling northbound on US 67, and Robert L. Gilbert
Sr., 60, of Greenfield, driving a Peterbuilt truck-tractor semi-trailer combination, was traveling southbound on the road. According to police, Cazier’s vehicle crossed into the oncoming lane and struck the truck head-on. Cazier was pronounced deceased on scene by the Jersey County Coroner at 4 p.m., police say. The Illinois State Police Traffic Crash Reconstruction Unit is continuing the investigation and no further information was provided as of Tuesday evening.
Jerseyville receives funding for Hollow Avenue construction By JARAD JARMON Jersey County Journal A section of Hollow Avenue will be getting a long-needed and extensive makeover following a $1 million grant award to the City of Jerseyville. U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R- Illinois, announced that the city, in conjunction with the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), was awarded the grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. The funding comes from the Accelerated Innovation Deployment (AID) Demonstration program. The AID Demonstration program provides funding for innovative construction techniques. Hollow Avenue is an east to west concrete road in relatively good condition, but past the intersection with Baxter Avenue, the road is an older deteriorating oil and chip road, Jerseyville Public Works Director Bob Manns said. “This one, for a couple of reasons, is in really bad shape physically,” Manns said. The grant funding will go toward helping reconstruct approximately 2,000 feet of deteriorated asphalt roadway with a compacted concrete pavement, along with related subgrade improvements, road widening, storm and sewer/drainage improvements and the addition of an ADA-compliant sidewalk extension. The project will extend from Baxter Avenue to N. Hickory Street and is set to cost $1.3 million, $300,000 of which will come from the city. According to Manns, the improvements
will make a big difference for traffic on the street. “It is going to help with residential flow, and there is bus traffic through that area that it will really help,” Manns said. Acquiring this grant was an effort taken on by numerous individuals at the city level and higher. “I applaud the City of Jerseyville for their innovative construction project along Hollow Avenue,” Rodney Davis said. “As infrastructure demands grow, it is important that the federal government support new and innovative methods to meet those needs. “It is always great to have federal tax dollars coming back to our local towns and cities. As a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I will continue to be an advocate for projects that benefit the communities I serve.” Jerseyville Mayor William Russell expressed thanks to Representative Davis for his efforts and said this was an effective and efficient way to get more road area. “It has a lower cost of installation, faster construction, and is a high-strength pavement with a long-term wearing surface,” Russell said. “It is critical to our residential and school bus traffic in our area. The only way it would’ve happened is with the federal funding.” This will be a one- to two-year project for the city, but Manns said this is not the extent of the work the city wants to do on this road. “We have a long-term plan of improving that entire roadway alignment,” Manns said. This will be possible when the city can afford it or find additional grant funding to back the work.
By JARAD JARMON Jersey County Journal John Gajewski was shocked when he heard about the city’s intentions for the building at 120 E Pearl St. At their early January meeting, Jerseyville City Council OK’d the use of tax increment financing (TIF) district funds to purchase a soonto-be vacant lot located at the 120 East Pearl where the Jerseyville Moose Lodge building resides. For Gajewski, a local resident who said he has spent 25 years consulting on historic buildings, it was unbelievable that a city would support such an end to one of its own historic buildings, especially since the Moose Lodge building is listed among numerous other properties under the Jerseyville Downtown Historic District, a historic place on the national register. “For all of the places in which I have lived, I have come across scenarios where developers have tried to demolish historic buildings, but I have never come across a scenario where a historic building was being advocated by a city or by the government,” Gajewski said. “Always in my experience, the city was the custodian and the steward of their built environment, and that did not feel the case to me here in this situation.” Per the agreement as it stands now, the city will be purchasing the lot for $189,000 following the demolition of the building. As previously reported, they will be buying it as a lot — gravel-ready. The plan is to use the lot as more off-street parking for Jerseyville’s main strip, based on of discussions with local business around the property. In an effort to save the building, a group of individuals including Gajewski are making efforts to save the building including gathering
“I don’t dispute that there is a concern around parking. I do dispute that the answer is to demolish the Moose building.”
John Gajewski Petition Author public support through a petition. Following a public call for the demolition to be nixed, Gajewski authored an online petition on petitions.net to save the Moose Lodge, one that has garnered 468 signatures, most of which are said to be from Jerseyville. The petition calls not only for a stop to plans to demolish the property, but also, it offers another approach that could at least save a portion of the building. This is an approach Gajewski raised during the public comment portion of the most recent meeting. Instead of demolishing the property, Gajewski proposed a plan in which he and others would take on the Moose Lodge, or at least a portion of the property for future commercial use. In this plan, the owner demolishes only the right-hand side, the modern buff-colored section of the building; the historic red brick building is allowed to stand; the City buys the whole property, per the agreement made before; and Gajewski and other individuals take on the brick building to rehabilitate it. Gajewski said this plan would still leave open the potential for 35 parking spaces. Notably, issues regarding parking along State Street had been raised following considerations that would have removed angled parking along the street in the short-term. Gajewski argued demolishing the entire building would only allow for 13 additional parking spaces. “I don’t dispute that there is a concern around parking,” Gajewski said. “I do dispute that the answer is to demolish the Moose building.” Gajewski said he envisions the site, once rehabilitated, to be used as a commercial community event space with something like a coffee shop on one floor of the building, potentially. The building could serve as a “living room for the town,” he said. Gajewski stressed the building and the commercial business within it would have to “stand on its own two feet,” noting his interest is not just to preserve the building for the sake of its historic value. Reviving the offline building is possible, Gajewski said. It was indicated in the petition that work to rehabilitate the property would be financially and physically doable, citing the dry and structurally sound status of the space. Also too though, Gajewski said there are (See, PETITION, A2)
Jerseyville boy invents video game By CARMEN ENSINGER Jersey County Journal Jacob Bellet might only be 12 years old, but he has already done more than most people achieve in a lifetime – he created a video game that was picked up by the Google Play Store and is now available to anyone who has an Android phone. Jacob, the son of Steven and Misty Bellet of Jerseyville, said he created the game “Protector of the Planet” in about five months but had to overcome one major obstacle – he didn’t know how to code. “He announced one day that he was going to create a video game and we are like ‘okay, honey, that’s great,’ and then one day he said ‘I’m done,’” Misty Bellet said. “Neither my husband nor I know anything about coding, but Jacob got on there and learned it on his own.” Jacob, a seventh grade student at Jersey Community Middle School, said he loves computers.
“I’ve always liked computers, and when I grow up I want to create indie video games,” he said. “I have a computer class at school, but it didn’t teach us coding. For that I had to watch YouTube videos, and then I used a program called Unity to create the game.” The game is pretty simple to understand. The planet Earth is being bombarded by asteroids, and the player has to blast those asteroids to smithereens before they hit earth. There are three difficulty levels, easy, medium and hard, and power-ups can be earned for rapid fire, to slow down the asteroids and even a shield to shield the earth from the asteroids. “I even learned how to put music to it,” Jacob said. “Some of the art I used was from free stuff that was available on Google, and then I edited it a little and coded it all.” But Jacob wasn’t satisfied with just creating the game – he wanted to make it available to everyone, so he set out to
get it on the Google Play Store for everyone to download. But before that could be done, he had to write a privacy policy. “When he said he wanted to get it on the Google Play Store, we just shook our heads again,” Misty Bellet said. “Neither of us helped him any, and he spent two days going through the process of writing all this stuff, and I’m thinking it’s not really going to come to fruition. But then the next thing you know it is on Google. Jacob has done this entirely on his own.” So far, Jacob has not collected any money off of the game, but he hopes that will change in the future. “I don’t make any money off of it because I don’t have any ads, but I’m going to put ads in in the new update that I’m going to put out in a couple of weeks,” he said. “But right now it is on Google for free for those who have an Android device. It’s not available for Apple users because it costs a lot of money to put it on there.”
Submitted photo
Jacob Bellet sits at the computer he used to create a video game called Protector of the Planet. The game was picked up by Google and is now available on the Google Play Store for anyone with an Android device. Bellet taught himself code to be able to produce the game. He is a seventh grader at Jersey Community Middle School.
Jacob’s friends are impressed that he actually created a video game. “My friends all think it is pretty cool and fun to play, but a lot of them have iPhones and can’t download it,” he said. “But I let them play it on my phone, and they all seem to like it.” It is a bit of a throwback
for Misty who grew up in the era when Atari ruled the video gaming market. “It is a lot of fun and reminds me of the old school Atari game of Asteroids when video games first came out,” she said. “Of course Jacob knows nothing about those games so it is kind of ironic that his game is a lot like it.”