It was a Friday night after cellist and composer Joshua Roman performed Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto — a piece he looked forward to playing again the following day — when everything changed. He was positive for COVID-19, and while he expected to only be sick for a week, it wasn’t long until he realized his symptoms weren’t going away. “I was having trouble speaking, thinking, standing and ...
Keith Meador and his wife were standing outside their McLouth home in December 2022, preparing to go out for the night, when they clearly heard the explosion. “As soon as it happened, we both looked at each other and we said, ‘The tank battery just exploded,’” Meador said. Sure enough, the group of oil tanks on a natural gas field less than a mile north of the town was throwing up a column of smoke ...
The architecture firms handling the expansion of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, as well as the development of a new Public Safety Building, recently presented some ways to trim the project's budget, but those suggestions weren't universally embraced by county commissioners. On Wednesday during a work session, commissioners heard a presentation from Treanor Architects and J.E. Dunn Construction ...
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office has been authorized to end its current medical services contract for jail inmates due to its dissatisfaction with the provider. At their meeting on Wednesday, county commissioners authorized the Sheriff’s Office to sign a contract with a new provider, Turn Key Health Clinics, for inmate medical services. The office wanted to end its contract with Advanced Correctional ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved a budget with the county's largest property tax rate decrease in decades, after hearing from a room full of public commenters who urged them to cut the tax rate even more. The $201 million 2025 budget includes a property tax rate reduction of 2.911 mills, for a total mill levy of 41.298 mills. As the Journal-World reported, that's the largest ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday are set to consider adopting the 2025 budget — which proposes a significant tax rate decline — but first members of the public will get one last chance to offer comments on the plan. Commissioners will conduct a public hearing on the proposed budget as part of their weekly meeting before making the final decision on the budget. If approved, the budget would result ...