Local News

Unemployment up in Fayette County

Fayette County had an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent in March, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

The March 2008 total is significantly higher than the March 2007 figure, 6.2 percent. The March 2008 total, however, is significantly lower than the January 2008 figure, 9.1 percent.

According to IDES, work force conditions did begin to slowly improve in March. Although weather conditions were not particularly favorable, some construction projects did get under way.

Brownstown Schools librarian Aubrey Douglas has had a goal since college to establish archives of history, genealogy facts and photographs for a community.

I am interested in genealogy myself, Douglas said. And before I retired, I wanted to set up a local history collection for Brownstown.

She is making progress with this goal in the Brownstown High School Library, with the assistance of Brownstown native Joann Strobel and other interested people in the Brownstown-Sefton area.

Because it has a little surplus built up, the Fayette and Clay counties unit of University of Illinois Extension believes it can make it through to the end of the current fiscal year without much of a problem.

But beyond that, the local Extension unit and all other units in the state is looking at some substantial cuts if Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich continues withholding funds that have already been appropriated for Extension.

The Illinois Department of Corrections should know by the end of this week who will be working the farmground at Vandalia Correctional Center. For the first time in the history of VCC, it wont be inmates and state workers.

Over the objections of state legislators, including state Sen. Frank Watson (R-Greenville), IDOC has decided to lease the farmground at VCC and cease the dairy operations at the local prison.