Today's News

A week before the planned layoffs of 127 employees at Vandalia Correctional Center, Vandalia officials have reiterated their commitment to doing what they can to prevent those layoffs.

The Vandalia City Council approved on Monday night a resolution voicing opposition to Gov. Pat Quinn’s plan to layoff 2,600 state workers, including 1,000 Illinois Department of Corrections employees, at the end of this month.

At Monday's Vandalia City Council meeting:

• The council set Saturday, Oct. 31, as trick-or-treat night in Vandalia. Trick-or-treating will be allowed for children up through sixth-grade age from 6-8 o’clock that evening.

• The council approved an agreement with the Farnsworth Group of Effingham for engineering services related to the city’s attempt to get its Kaskaskia River raw water intake working properly.

The Farnsworth will perform a hydrographic survey of six sections of the river near the intake.

Over the objection of two aldermen, the Vandalia City Council decided to allow recommended increases in water and sewer rates to go into effect next Thursday.

Those rate increases – 7.19 percent for water and 2.19-percent for water – were recommended by the city’s auditor, Timmermann & Co., as they mirror the percentage increases in water and sewer expenses over the past year.

One-hundred and five years ago, the World’s Fair was in full swing in Forest Park in St. Louis. Some of the amazing facts about that event were: it featured an 18-foot high lighthouse built of pure salt; there were 142 miles of exhibits in the eight main places for people to explore; and 90 million feet of pine was used in constructing the framework for the buildings.

And the same year, 1904, a little girl was born in St. Louis to Ann Gibbons Kupferer, whose parents were emigrants from Ireland, and Charles Andrew Kupferer, whose parents came to this country from Germany.