Winnebago County

I don't think people realize how overworked and understaffed most veteran service offices are.

which is why i enjoyed that transition from uh holyoke massachusetts to the the rockford illinois the winnebago county veterans assistance commission because there we were able to build uh the staff that you needed because there's funding for it even though it's in it's upside down right now and everything but during that time there it was nice to have five accredited folks administrative assistants.

You had people answering phones.

You had other people.

We continue our drive home here on Heartland Signal.

Joining us right now is the chair for Winnebago County Democratic Party and an organizer for IBEW, Charlie Laskonis.

Did I say it right again the second time?

Yes, you did.

So let's talk about this.

Rockford, machine shops, aerospace, this is a city that really feels deeply what it means when a plant closes, and when we open one.

So our guest has chaired the Winnebago County Democratic Party for six terms.

From the airport out by Ogle County up to the Wisconsin line.

You can go to PeteForIllinois.com to learn more about his campaign.

That's PeteForIllinois.com. Then coming up a little bit later, we are going to talk to Charlie Laskonis, a six-term chair of the Winnebago County, Illinois Democratic Party and organizer for IBEW, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, of course.

And that's coming up in just a little bit.

And we'll talk to, as well, we'll talk to Jackie Mader, who is the early childhood reporter at the Hechinger Report.

I'm saying hi to everyone listening.

Excellent.

So out in the 69th District, we're talking about McHenry, Boone, and Winnebago County, small towns, farm country, folks who have to drive sometimes a long way to see a doctor.

And our guest has spent 20 years at Motorola designing telecom products and founded a lighting design and historic restoration firm.

The 16th District spans 21 counties across northwestern central Illinois.

It includes over 725,000 constituents in Lee, Ogle, Stevenson, Joe Davis, Winnebago, Boone, McHenry, Henry, Bureau, LaSalle, Peoria, Stark, Putnam, DeKalb, Grundy, Marshall, Livingston, Woodford, Tazewell, McLean, and Ford counties.

To learn more about the candidates, visit nollieforcongress.com and lahood.house.gov.

Illinois State Police says 808 ALPR cameras have been installed statewide under its program.

The state says 10 were installed in Winnebago County outside the original IDOT grant program, and lawmakers have expanded the state program to include Lee, Ogle, and Whiteside Counties.

Rockford has gone even further.

In March, the Rockford City Council voted 13 to one to approve a nearly $444,000 four-year contract with Flock Safety, expanding a system that local reporting said already included roughly 130 cameras with another 27 cameras.

When that happens, the staff is supposed to report that to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

For example, the Winnebago County Jail reported more than 140 fights among detainees over the past several years.

In Rock Island, the county jail recorded more than 100 cases where restraints were used on people.

And in Sangamon County, which is where Springfield is located, they had the second highest rate of incidents of all the state's counties with a jail.

But we noticed they're also being used inside jails.

And so I started to go back to all these counties to request more records and how they're being used, how often, why they're being used.

And something that really struck me is Winnebago County stood out for having the most of these incidents.

It is the second largest jail in the state.

Gacy's defense team, led by attorneys Sam Amarante and Robert Motta, requested a change of venue, arguing it would be impossible to seat an unbiased jury in Cook County.

And a jury was ultimately selected from Winnebago County and relocated to Cook County for the duration of the trial.

Seven men and five women.

Can you imagine you get summoned for jury duty? And it's this, this is a life-changing case that is gonna, I mean, how horrific, because they have to sit through all of the stuff that I've skipped over that happened to these victims.