Phase 5, intrepid reporting during COVID, street resurfacing, garage sales, and Cruise Night
by Melanie Jongsma and Josh Bootsma
LANSING, Ill. (June 11, 2021) – Publisher Melanie Jongsma and Managing Editor Josh Bootsma spent a few minutes rounding up some important news from the week. Links to the stories mentioned appear below the video.
Phase 5 (0:20)
Illinois moved into Phase 5 on Friday, June 11, and The Lansing Journal published the news as it was released by Governor JB Pritzker’s office:
- Illinois moves to Phase 5 as COVID-19 metrics remain low (posted June 10, 2021)
Local impacts of COVID (2:03)
Throughout our year of COVID, in spite of personal challenges faced by our reporters and business challenges brought on by economic uncertainties, The Lansing Journal faithfully reported the local impacts of this worldwide pandemic. Examples are linked below:
- Church in a time of COVID, by Ashlee De Wit, July 2020
- Lansing loses Minuteman Press to coronavirus, by Melanie Jongsma, May 2020
- TF South school year begins without students on-site
- TF North Class of 2020 receives congratulatory video featuring celebrity messages, by Jennifer Yos, May 2020
- Lansing residents cope with life disruptions during outbreak, by Carrie Steinweg, March 2020
- This week
Without The Lansing Journal, those important local stories would have gone unreported and undocumented.
Local reporting needs local supporting (3:15)
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Free money for street resurfacing (3:59)
Josh reported on Village Board discussions about using Rebuild Illinois funds to fix Lansing streets:
- Lansing plans to use over $900k in Rebuild Illinois funds for street resurfacing next year (posted June 6, 2021)
Lansing’s pavement assessment (5:25)
Last year Katie Arvia reported on the pavement assessment process, which produced results that the Village is referring to now to make street repair decisions:
- Free assessment of Lansing roads will guide future road repairs (April 2020 article)
81 garage sales (6:17)
Josh compiled the addresses of all 81 garage sales that will be hosted in Lansing on Saturday, June 12:
- Village-wide garage sale planned for Saturday, June 12 (posted June 7, 2021)
Understanding Cruise Night (7:30)
Melanie Jongsma first reported on Cruise Night in 2017, and it changed her understanding of this Lansing tradition:
- Cruise Night: It’s not about the cars (posted July 2017)
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Thank you for your thoughtful commentary. I must respectfully disagree with your assessment that the additional funds for road repair are “free money”. Government has but two sources of income for the most part; income from either personal or corporate taxes, or simply printing more money and increasing a skyrocketing deficit which we can not cover. In my opinion, both scenarios have long term effects which we are passing on to future generations.
You’re right, Bill. Thanks for the reminder to think long-term. I appreciate the feedback.