Local News
Georgetown-Ridge Farm school board OKs bond sale to generate cash
GEORGETOWN – School officials voted Monday to sell about $2 million in bonds to generate money for the district and to restructure some older, higher-interest bonds.
Broadband consultant forced to cancel visit to Champaign
CHAMPAIGN – The Maryland consultant who audited the Big Broadband proposal will not attend this week's Champaign City Council meeting to field questions from council members, a city official said Monday.
Doug Dawson was ill on Monday and will not travel to Champaign for Tuesday night's city council meeting, Information Technologies Director Fred Halenar said. His absence likely will delay a council vote on whether to accept federal grant money if those funds were awarded.
Search for dean for UI's College of Media on hold indefinitely
URBANA – Bleak financial conditions at the University of Illinois could be partly to blame for calling off a job search for the dean in the media college.
"I do not believe it is appropriate to appoint a new dean for the College of Media at this time," Richard Wheeler, interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, wrote in an e-mail to faculty Monday.
Urbana trying to cash in on Canadian coins
URBANA – Everybody has seen them.
You try to put a coin into a vending machine or toss a coin into the quarter-ante poker pot. But the machines and the other players at the poker table reject the coins. You put a coin into an Urbana parking meter and don't get any time on the meter.
The probable problem is that it is a foreign coin and, most likely, a Canadian coin.
Urbana's parking meter staff collects the coins and then sells them. They are currently offering Canadian coins with a face value of roughly $800 for sale by auction.
Three area residents accused of credit card 'cloning'
URBANA – Lt. Bryant Seraphin of the Urbana Police Department offers advice to consumers following charges filed against three people for a credit card "cloning" operation that police say cost consumers more than $10,000.
Credit card cloning electronically copies credit card details onto a bogus card that works like the original.
"The best advice I could give you is to keep your card in your sight," Seraphin said. "Simply hang onto it."
