Belleville News-Democrat
Family asks for tolerance after suicide of transgender child
Toni and Kevin Link don’t completely understand why their youngest child struggled with gender dysphoria, dressed like a “cat maid” or became despondent after losing her job as a church custodian. But the Pontoon Beach couple said the 24-year-old,...
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Families fear funding freeze may end child care aid
For Geria Johnson, the child care center her toddler attends is more than a safe place for her child to play so that she can work. “It’s like a community,” Johnson said. “They have played a huge role in our lives.” UNI-Pres Kindercottage in East St....
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Belleville alderwoman blasts attendance: Is your rep there?
Cancellation of a recent Belleville City Council committee meeting and near cancellation of a second due to lack of quorums have prompted one alderwoman to step up her complaints about absences. “Belleville residents pay us to show up,” said Lillian...
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Lawsuits challenge federal cuts to community schools
A pair of federal lawsuits were filed Monday challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to end millions of dollars in previously allocated funding for 32 Illinois community schools, including Avant and Officer elementary schools in East...
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Regulators warn of energy shortfalls, rising prices
Illinois’ electric grids may soon face power shortages and further price increases as fossil fuel plants go offline and data centers fueling the rise of artificial intelligence demand everincreasing amounts of power. That’s the conclusion of a new...
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Belleville tenants are without repairs, now lose leases
Matthew Clevenger and his family signed a rent-to-own lease on a mobile home at Greenmount Station in April because he said the property manager told them about a “new promotion” that would allow them to pay it off in half the time. The owner, a...
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Charges filed in Granite City police shooting
The man accused of shooting a Granite City police officer on Friday has been charged, authorities announced at a news conference Monday. DJ W. Marshall, 26, of Granite City faces the following criminal charges: Attempted first-degree murder, a Class...
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9 can’t-miss spots for holiday lights around southwest Illinois
December marks the beginning of the Christmas season for many in the metro-east, and the region is home to a variety of fun, festive light displays for those looking to celebrate. From festivities at cultural institutions to cheerful displays from...
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Historic Belleville building zoning request reignites ire
In 1999, Belleville approved a controversial plan to rezone nearly 600 parcels of land southeast of downtown to single-family residence to provide more stability to aging neighborhoods and reverse the trend of homes being subdivided into rental...
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Which St. Clair County school districts pay the most?
The recent release of the 2024-25 Illinois Report Card provides insight into which St. Clair County school districts pay teachers the highest salaries. Released late last month, the Illinois Report Card tracks the average annual salaries of teachers...
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Illinois Democrats clash with Durbin on shutdown vote
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is once again at odds with other prominent Illinois Democrats over a vote that set in motion a plan to end the record-long federal government shutdown. Durbin, who is not seeking reelection in 2026, was one of eight members in...
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‘Bring daddy home’: Rally demands father’s release from ICE
residents in the small town of Staunton were shocked to learn that a local father and Mexican restaurant owner was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late October shortly after dropping his two daughters off at elementary...
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If shutdown halts SNAP, can food pantries meet demand?
For moms Makayla Hawks and Liz Tomarchio, uncertainty around food stamps comes at an especially difficult time. They are among about 100,000 metro-east residents who rely on monthly assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or...
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Belleville, O'Fallon's 2nd No Kings protest draws hundreds
Thunder and lightning joined more than 700 protesters at Belleville’s downtown Public Square for Saturday’s nationwide No Kings Day of Action against the Trump administration. Earlier in the day, more than 500 gathered at O’Fallon City...
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Five-time contest winner finds ‘success’ at chili cook-off
group of metro-east volunteers known as Truman’s 309 won first place in the non-restaurant/caterer division of Belleville’s Chili Cook-Off contest for the fifth year in a row. Formerly known as Truman’s Best, the group raises money for a recruitment...
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Want a historical fixer-upper? City may have a deal for you
city of Belleville is buying two historic brick homes from St. Clair County’s delinquent tax agent with plans to either demolish or sell them, depending on local interest. Officials see the home at 102 N. 11th St. as the one most likely to become part...
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West Main Street redesign among Belleville’s big bike plan
Rik Taylor looks forward to a day when Belleville residents can hop on their bikes and ride to restaurants or downtown festivals or even commute to work easily and safely. The 59-year-old biking enthusiast, who works as service manager at The Cyclery...
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City aims to force homeowner to clean up his property
What may have started as a feud between neighbors on South 19th Street has evolved into a legal battle by the city of Belleville to force a homeowner to clean up his property. Police and other officials have gone to George Green’s home dozens of times...
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New hours, tighter safety controls for fall festivals
The city of Belleville continues to tighten safety controls for its downtown fall festivals after a series of disturbances involving juveniles at outdoor events in metro-east cities. Belleville Oktoberfest and Belleville Chili Cook-Off will close...
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State human services leaders fear fallout from federal cuts
It was a bitterly cold evening on Jan. 19, 1997, when Judy Stegle and her husband, Mike, received the call that would upend their lives forever. Their 17-year-old daughter, Cortnie Stewart, a softball and basketball standout at AnnaJonesboro Community...
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After violence, arrests, can O’Fallon’s City Fest continue?
The future of O’Fallon’s City Fest is in question after a weekend marked by disturbances that resulted in 17 juvenile arrests for battery and disorderly conduct at or near Community Park on Friday and Saturday. “This year’s City Fest has shown that...
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Outrage erupts over Proud Boys billboard near school
outrage over a Proud Boys billboard placed near a Breese high school erupted over the weekend and resulted in dozens of phone calls to public officials and a statement from Gov. JB Pritzker’s office. Christine Sohnrey, 60, of New Baden, was among...
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What’s new for Belleville high school students in 2025-26?
Back-to-school season is often marketed as a time of new beginnings. Belleville Township High School District 201 abides by that idea, as it’s ushering in some big changes for the 202526 school year. From debuting its new 15,000-square-foot expansion...
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IDOT wants feedback on highway expansion project
For the next three weeks, the Illinois Department of Transportation aims to solicit feedback from the public on the Southwest Connector — a highway expansion project that would further connect the southern part of the state to the outskirts of the...
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St. Elizabeth’s is expanding despite Medicaid cuts ahead
Metro-east hospitals are bracing for financial challenges ahead because of the changes to Medicaid that President Donald Trump signed into law this month. Hundreds of thousands of people in Illinois are projected to lose their health insurance through...
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Placement worker checked on foster child 2 days before death
A placement worker visited a Fairview Heights foster home two days before police found 18-year-old Mackenzi Felmlee dying at the bottom of a staircase and after years of alleged physical and mental abuse. The home at 6 Patricia Drive is owned by...
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Granite City feels abandoned by Trump and US Steel
Now that the partnership between Nippon and U.S. Steel has been finalized — and Granite City Works doesn’t appear to be receiving any investments — the focus of local steelworkers, the town’s mayor, state lawmakers and a conR-Glen gresswoman largely...
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Injured Fairview Heights police officer attends fundraiser
Fairview Heights police officer Molly Muennich made her first public appearance on Saturday since being shot in the face six weeks ago. The occasion was a Rock the Blue festival organized by downtown Belleville businesses to raise money for Muennich...
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O’Fallon middle school faces sinking from old mine
Joseph Arthur Middle School is undergoing a multi-million dollar project to remediate and prevent future damage caused by the former coal mine that sits beneath it. Mine subsidence has caused cracks in floors and both exterior and interior walls,...
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Belleville, O’Fallon ‘No Kings’ rallies draw hundreds
Hundreds of opponents of President Donald Trump gathered Saturday, filling up sidewalks in downtown Belleville and O’Fallon to speak out against policies they say are harmful. Among their demands were that members of Congress not go through with the...
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$3M state grant will help build bike path, bridge over I-64
bike trail and bridge over Interstate 64 in Fairview Heights will get the boost of a $3 million state grant, helping transit leaders connect the metro-east community to St. Clair County’s 39-mile bike trail network. The St. Clair County Transit...
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Petitioners aim to stop solar farm near Mount Hope Cemetery
More than 450 people have signed a petition asking Belleville officials to halt their plans to clear-cut woods behind Mount Hope Cemetery to make way for a community solar farm. Opponents are hoping that the new administration of Mayor Jenny Meyer,...
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Black bear sighted three times last week in St. Clair County
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is reporting that a black bear was sighted three times last week in St. Clair County, meaning that bears have made their way to southern Illinois four out of five years. Does that signal a “new normal” of...
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Belleville man charged in shooting of Fairview Heights officers
A Belleville man is facing multiple felony charges in connection with the shooting of three Fairview Heights police officers Saturday. Elijah Thompson, 22, of the 300 block of N. 10th St. in Belleville, was charged Monday with four counts of attempted...
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Art on the Square will go on this weekend in Belleville
They took charge during a crisis and lived to tell about it. Art on the Square Co-Directors Rebecca Boyer and Karl Gilpin expect the downtown Belleville art fair to not only take place this weekKaskaskia end, but to be as successful as it has been for...
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PFAS contamination in Southwest Illinois water: What to know
More than 80,000 people in Madison County recently learned their city’s water exceeded new state and federal limits on contamination from PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” the last time it was tested. Collinsville had some of the highest levels in the...
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Oak Knoll subdivision weighs creating historic district
Belleville Historical Society is proposing that residents of a 100-year-old subdivision known as Oak Knoll take steps to protect its architecture and history by asking the city to designate it as a historic district. An estimated 35 people attended a...
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Outgoing mayor gets standing ovation at City Council meeting
Patty Gregory, Belleville’s first female mayor, pounded the gavel for the last time Monday night at a City Council meeting. Gregory lost the election on April 1 after four years in office. Her successor, City Clerk Jenny Gain Meyer, will be sworn in...
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Group educates crime victims about compensation program
Back in 2019, East St. Louis’ Gloria Hicks received a lastminute invitation to a meeting at a local church. It was about an organization called Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice. There, while reflecting on her experiences leaving a former...
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After 20 years, Illinois drivers still failing Scott’s Law
For a moment, Illinois State Trooper Alex Womack was flying, tumbling in mid-air, alternately seeing sky then ground. He doesn’t remember hitting the road. He regained consciousness and realized he had been hit by a truck and was lying in the middle...
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Broadview Hotel in East St. Louis gets new life for senior living
historic and now rehabbed Broadview Hotel in East St. Louis opened Friday as the “New Broadview” — a 110ro-east unit apartment building for those over 55-years old. Local officials, developers and affordable housing advocates believe the former...
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Mayoral race shows split between powerful Democrats
non-partisan Belleville mayoral race has shaped up to be a contentious battle between two well-known and accomplished women backed by two powerful Democrats in the metro-east. St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern (D-Belleville) is supporting...
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Local farmers lose grant they hoped would grow business
For local farmer Ben Stumpf, the steady stream of income from a new federal grant allowed him to quit his second job working nights for UPS in Belleville and focus full-time on his small Monroe County vegetable farm. He even hired his first employee...
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School districts still struggling to combat teacher shortage
From hiring retired educators to adjusting class offerings, Illinois schools are relying on a variety of short-term, innovative measures to cope with a prolonged and critical statewide teacher shortage. The most recent survey of education leaders from...
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East St. Louis legend speaks at Girls in Sports Day event
Patricia Turley was so excited to be one of the 200 people who attended at the celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day at the JJK Center last week that she could hardly talk about the experience. Turley, whose 8-year-old daughter has...
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Fairview Heights’ Marketplace sold in foreclosure auction
Marketplace Shopping Center in Fairview Heights has a new owner. Highland Capital, a Nashville, Tennessee-based real estate firm specializing in comMarketplace’s mercial retail development, acquired the shopping center at auction last week. The...
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Federal funding uncertainty clouds Pritzker’s state budget
The relative ease of budgeting following the pandemic thanks to federal aid and strong tax revenue surpluses for the state appears to be over. Gov. JB Pritzker will present his seventh budget proposal Wednesday as the state faces a projected $3.2...
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Jury renders guilty verdict in Troy man’s murder trial
A Madison County jury has found a Troy man guilty of killing his mother, the widow of a former mayor who worked as a waitress. Prosecutors had accused Neil Howard of strangling Norma Caraker, 60, with a bungee cord late Sept. 12 or early Sept. 13,...
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Attorney steps up to help immigrants fearing deportation
Marleen Menendez Suarez’s law firm has been busy over the past few days, and it is all because of a Facebook post she published on Jan. 20 saying that she would prepare legal guardianship and power of attorney documents for free for anyone who fears...
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Man accused of hiring hitman to kill wife’s girlfriend
The Madison County state’s attorney’s office has charged a Caseyville businessman with murder and solicitation for allegedly hiring a hitman to kill his estranged wife’s girlfriend. Sammy J. Shafer Jr., 36, is one of three suspects arrested last week...
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Collinsville assisted living home sold, residents displaced
Douglas Albrecht just moved into Addington Place, an assisted living facility in Collinsville, three months ago. But now he has to move again. Addington Place managers announced this month that the facility is closing in April because the owner of the...
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‘ALL OUR FUTURE MONEY IS GONE’
Heather and Stephen Casner sat across from the loan officer in the fall of 2022, a stack of papers between them. The building they were trying to buy — a 21-room, one-story motel in rural Anna, Illinois — was overflowing with trash and would need a...
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Biden blocks U.S. Steel’s sale to Japanese-based Nippon
The steelworkers’ union in Granite City praised President Joe Biden’s decision on Friday to block U.S. Steel’s sale to Japanese-based Nippon, but its leadership remains unclear on what’s next for the Metro East mill. “I just hope at some point we get...
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Most of nation’s horseradish grown in southwest Illinois
You know it as the spicy sauce you put on prime rib or for the wasabi for sushi. Maybe you’ve never tried the pungent, sinuscountry’s clearing root. But in the fertile plains of the Mississippi River Valley, farmers call it their livelihood. The...
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Ollie’s Bargain Outlet is coming soon to east Belleville
A sign for a new business recently joined those of Prime Storage, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Dollar Tree and Club Fitness on the pylon sign at Belleville’s Carlyle Plaza. Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, a Pennsylvania-based overstock and closeout merchandise...
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Funeral set for O’Fallon hockey player shot, killed on I-55
Funeral services have been set for the O’Fallon teenager and CBC High School hockey player who was fatally shot on Interstate 55 in St. Louis last month. Also, CrimeStoppers announced Monday that a reward for information regarding the homicide of...
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Vigil held for O’Fallon teen as police look for shooter
Friends, family and hockey clubs from throughout St. Louis and the metro-east are coming out in support of an O’Fallon teenager who was critically injured in a shooting Saturday night. Colin Brown, 16, was hit by a bullet after a hockey game while...
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War vet who died in fire had fought to save his home
Jason Euge was on his property atop the bluffs in rural St. Clair County Monday, cleaning up what he could and organizing whichever of his father’s sculptures could be salvaged. At his back, just a few feet away, was the burned out shell of the...
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Funeral services set for 3 house fire victims
As George Pappas Jr. goes over the aftermath of the Belleville house fire that killed his father, brother and a close family friend, he recalls how his dad was always the person who advised the family on how to handle an emergency. George Pappas Sr.,...
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Belleville strengthens ordinance that prohibits homeless camps
Belleville City Council has taken action to strengthen the city’s ban on public camping, which police and other officials have viewed as a worsening problem in recent years. Such camping was formerly prohibited by a one-paragraph section of an...
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Three people confirmed dead in Belleville house fire
Three men are confirmed dead after an early-morning house fire in Belleville Monday. Belleville Fire Chief Stephanie Mills confirmed the body of one adult has been removed from the first floor of the home in the 100 block of South 13th Street, near...
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New low-income housing development coming to Cahokia Heights
Illinois Healthcare Foundation soon plans to turn Cahokia Heights properties where derelict homes were once boarded up into a new low-income housing development called Vivian’s Village. SIHF Healthcare purchased the properties at 5708, 5710 and 5712...
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Nonprofit neglected apartments, city and tenants say
Robin Jackson, Chester Helm and their two daughters Gabriella, 4, and Avianna, 6, say they don’t have heat in their Cahokia Heights apartment building. The family doesn’t use one of their bathrooms because it stinks like mold. At one point, they saw a...
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Residents face home damage caused by mine subsidence
and Carolina Paul thought a well-built 1950s brick ranch home in Belleville would be a good place to start a family, so they bought one on Chaucer Drive and settled into the neighborhood. Then their newlywed bliss became a nightmare. In the past...
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Belleville Marathon included runners from 24 states
Meg Tensing of St. Louis hugged her mother through tears after crossing the finish line at the eighth annual Belleville Marathon Saturday. “You crushed it,” her mother told her. “You absolutely crushed it.” Tensing replied: “I never thought I’d do...
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O’Fallon Garden Club honored for its donations to food bank
The O’Fallon Garden Club donated 5,300 pounds of fresh produce to the town’s local food pantry last year — earning the group its second consecutive national award for the most fruit and veggies given to a food bank. St. Louis-based nonprofit National...
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District 201 aims to expand, renovate Belleville East campus
Officials at Belleville Township High School District 201 are preparing for facility improvements that could include renovating two buildings, rebuilding one structure and constructing a new building at the Belleville East High School campus over the...
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