Weinstein’s win secures nationals Senior’s career comes to an end SPORTS, 1B
Wednesday April 10, 2013
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Vol. 142 Issue 135
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Prussing elected Urbana mayor over Bradfield BY BRITTANY GIBSON STAFF WRITER
Democratic candidate and incumbent Laurel Prussing was voted mayor of Urbana on Tuesday. She received 62.5 percent of the vote over her opponent Rex Bradfield’s 37.5 percent. “I feel just fine,” Prussing said. “I was hoping for sixty percent and did a little better than that, so that was nice.” This is Prussing’s third term as mayor and the second consecutive term where she was able to surpass her Republican opponent in votes. The outcome mirrored the 2009 elec-
tion in which Prussing won with 53 percent of the vote, while Bradfield received 32 percent. The election saw 14,467 voters this week, in comparison to the 26,300 people who voted in the 2009 race. “I have no idea why there were so many less people,” Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten said. “I don’t know if it was more or less contested races, I don’t know if it was the fact that the election was after Easter, I don’t know if it was election fatigue from
See URBANA, Page 3A
PORTRAIT BY ROCHELLE WILSON THE DAILY ILLINI
From left to right: Brittany Aubin, presenter; Shivani Parekh, secretary of UNICF at the University; Ana Cheung, UNICEF member; Melissa Riepe, Road Scholar with the Global Poverty Project; Sagar Desai, co-president of Cross-Cultural Solutions; and Jay Gunning, Road Scholar, pose in front of their sign which explains 1.4 billion reasons for 1.4 billion people to help with world aid. UNICEF gave a presentation at the Natural History Building on Tuesday.
Presentation tackles global poverty HASAN KHALID THE DAILY ILLINI
Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing is interviewed by media at Brookens Adminstrative Center on Tuesday night. Prussing won the mayoral election and will serve another four years in office.
RSOs bring Global Poverty Project to campus Tuesday BY ATOOSA SAYEH STAFF WRITER
Kyle re-elected in only council contest BY EARN SAENMUK STAFF WRITER
Champaign citizens reelected Will Kyles for his second term as District 1 Champaign City Council member during Tuesday’s elections. Kyles received about 60 percent of the votes. The District 1 race was the only contested race in Champaign this year. The two candidates, Kyles and Gina Jackson, have both previously held the position. Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten said the election went well this year, and he saw no major problems with vote tallying. Although Kyles said campus voter turnout more than doubled since he was first elected in 2009, he said he thought the turnout was still low. He said he thinks the campus community is a very important part of the election. “Campus matters,” Kyles said. “If you look at the (campus voting) numbers, it doesn’t look significant, but it helps to finalize everything.” Tierra Braxton, sophomore in LAS, said this was her first time voting in Champaign, and she was not familiar with the candidates. “I’m not really sure who all these people are,” Braxton said. “I just looked at their job and stuff online.” As he continues his role as a council member, Kyles said he wants to focus on infrastructure issues and economic development.
Both candidates agree on certain issues Will Kyles Q Q Q Q Q Q
Q Q
Employment opportunities Reduce crime through job and education opportunity Police-community relationship Provide core services Improve housing stocks in the area Support city minority- and women-owned business initiatives Improve environmental protection Improve relationship between community members and city officials
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Q Q Q Q
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Engage more with police and community departments Insure safer neighborhoods Improved infrastructure Neighborhood stability Collaboration between property owners and city representatives Promote neighborhood commercial zoning options in every neighborhood Increase stable tax base
“Moving forward we definitely have to have some sustainability in the program that we already have,” he said. “I think we will work on infra-
See CHAMPAIGN, Page 3A
“I came here to raise awareness because without awareness there can be no action, and in our world today we need more action.”
Because UNICEF officials agree that this issue is prevalent for University students, Shivani Parekh, UNICEF secretary of the University’s branch and junior in Engineering, said they decided to bring the GPP presentation to the University after seeing it at a national UNICEF conference in Chicago last fall. Desai said CCS also contacted GPP around the same time, so UNICEF and CCS decided to host the presentation together. “We thought GPP would be good to bring to the campus because global poverty is a problem in our world, and I believe the presentation will make students become more aware and use the resources they have to help end poverty around the world,” he said. Desai said CCS paid $500 to fund the presentation, while the University paid the remainder of the cost. Local businesses Panera Bread and Cravings also supported the event by donating food at the presentation.
Atoosa can be reached at asayeh2@dailyillini.com.
Champaign moves forward with Green St. development DAILY ILLINI STAFF REPORT
Gina Jackson
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Nearly 500 students attended the Global Poverty Project’s “1.4 Billion Reasons” presentation Tuesday to learn about what they can do to help end world poverty. The presentation, held at the Natural History Building, was hosted by the UNICEF branch at the University and Cross-Cultural Solutions, a registered student organization. GPP presenter Brittany Aubin began by discussing her experiences in the Peace Corps and how it taught her about problems people face around the world. “I came here to raise awareness because, without awareness, there can be no action, and in our world today, we need more action,” Aubin said. Aubin said the GPP defines extreme poverty as “people in the world who are living under $1.50 a day.” She said GPP’s
Sagar Desai, co-president of CCS and senior in LAS, said GPP is touring around several universities in the U.S. to share this goal, as university students are one of its main focus group. challenge is to make the public “I feel like when we look around campus and see people aware of these conditions. “We at GPP have a challenge with iPhones, MacBooks, iPads, called ‘Live Below the Line,’ it’s hard for students to realize where we challenge people to go that not everyone in the world five days living has what they below $1.50 a have,” Desai day,” Aubin said. said. “Our presenGuada lupe tation is called Garcia, senior ‘1.4 Billion Reain ACES, said sons’ because she attended the event to learn 1.4 billion peohow she could ple live below $1.50 a day, and contribute to the that is 1.4 bilcause. lion reasons why “I came here we need to end to learn more world poverty.” about global She said the poverty and see BRITTANY AUBIN, what resourcgoal of GPP is Global Poverty Project presenter to bring the peres I can use to centage of globhelp end poval poverty down to 0 percent. She erty around the world,” Garcia added that GPP representatives said. “I believe global poverty is believe that making people more a big issue, and this presentation aware of global poverty will help made me more aware (of) what I them achieve this goal. can do to help.”
The Champaign City Council voted 8-0 on Tuesday to approve plans for the Parking Lot J development, at 524-6 E. Green St. and 601 S. Sixth St. Construction of the two-tower 12-story hotel and apartment complex, which will be built in the parking lot’s current location, will begin in fall 2013. The council began the proposal in March 2012 and selected JSM Development as the developer in August. JSM Development will pay Champaign approximately $3.9 million to purchase the land and will also share in the cost of a street reconstruction project of Healey Street, between Sixth and Fourth streets. “This is possible because of the kinds of partnerships we have in campustown and the rein-
vestment in that area that busi- ing and developing in campusnesses have helped us with,“ said town,” he said. “We solved the Deborah Frank Feinen, council flooding in campustown, and member at-large. “(We’re) real- we have been watching the sigly beginning to nificant multilook at that area million dollar as an urban investment roll downtown.” in ever since.” Thomas BruHe added that since the develno, Champaign opment began, deputy mayor, campustown’s said campusre a l est ate town’s “transhas become fo r m a t i o n a l ” desirable. d evelo pme nt , “The highest comprising rents in Chamboth the new paign County, hotels and othTHOMAS BRUNO, er projects, can residential and Champaign deputy mayor be partly attribcommercial, can uted to the city be found in the solving its flooding problems campustown area,” Bruno said. about 10 years ago. “Certainly the surface parking “Flooding depressed the inter- lot has never been the best use est in the private sector invest- for that valuable land, and I’m
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“Certainly the surface parking lot has never been the best use for that valuable land, and I’m glad we can finally put a project on it.”
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glad we can finally put a project on it.” According to the ordinance, the construction will include a five-story parking garage below the new building. Four stories of hotel rooms will extend outward over the building that currently houses Penn Station, 605 S. Sixth St., and Flat Top Grill, 607 S. Sixth St. The project contains 108 hotel rooms, 297 apartments and about 21,000 square feet of retail space. The parking garage will have hourly public parking spaces available. JSM will work to provide additional parking during construction, according to Jill Guth, director of commercial leasing at JSM. “Any time you add more residential area, the surround-
See LOT J, Page 3A
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Po l i ce 2 A | Co r re c t i o n s 2 A | H o ro s co p e s 2 A | O p i n i o n s 4 A | C ro sswo rd 5 A | Co m i c s 5 A | L i fe & Cu l t u re 6 A | S p o r t s 1 B | Cl a ss i f i e d s 6 B | S u d o ku 6 B