Mount Carmel City Commissioner Joe Judge must be taking great pride in himself for a job well-done after announcing his recent successful ability to secure a $35,000 grant to purchase brand new bike racks!!
Empty building 1
Well it’s about time Joe! I say, Bravo!! The last time I thought about riding my bike to go shopping at any of your wide variety of businesses on Market Street downtown… the only thing that made grab my keys and jump in the truck instead of filling my water bottle and jumping on my $700 Trek (whose tires admittedly could use a little more contact experience with the road), was a lingering suspicion that there might not be any place for me to leave my bike when I got downtown.
Empty building 2
Aww heck… who am I kidding? I wasn’t really hitting downtown Market Street for an afternoon of shopping anyways. What I really needed to do was pay the red notice on my electric bill otherwise I might have missed a couple of baseball games on the TV when they came to turn my power off.
Honestly…
Empty building/lot 3
I can’t stand Market Street. I will actually take a couple of extra minutes to drive out of my way so I can take Walnut Street as I smack my head when I have to deal with people who can’t seem to figure out whose turn it is at those four way stop signs… just so I don’t have to get hypnotized by the ancient, swinging, flashing red lights at every intersection, while slipping myself into a temporary coma to avoid having to bear witness to the deteriorating, ghetto-style appearance of Market Street.
Empty building/lot 4
Empty building 5
City Commissioner Joe Judge must feel the same way I do… I mean… he must hate Market Street. Otherwise he would probably want use his esteemed position and the connections that come with it, to do something that might improve the deteriorating condition of the city he works for. I mean his title is ‘City’ Commissioner Joe Judge, right? Those lousy bike racks that he has worked so hard to secure grant money for aren’t even primarily for the city of Mount Carmel. The South Central Illinois Health Coalition is working with Judge while they go through the phases of installing these precious bike racks all over Wabash County. Apparently City Commissioner Judge’s animosity for Market Street far outweighs mine. Apparently he’s trying to motivate me to pedal my ass right out of town and into greater Wabash County.
Empty building 6
I guess it shouldn’t bother me this much, but it does. I guess it might be because I work for the organization that I do. Disclosure gets letters and emails every day from all sorts of people with all sorts of legitimate gripes about the towns, cities, counties, and state they live in. We read all of them too… Believe it.
I’d like to take a moment to share with you one of those letters that coincidentally comes from a concerned, hard-working, family-loving citizen of Mount Carmel.
Commissioner Joe Judge… I pray that you’re reading this.
Empty building 7
(GG from Mt. Carmel… I apologize in advance for taking some spelling and grammatical liberties with your letter… God bless & walk safely out there sweetheart!)
Dear Disclosure,
A few months ago I went to the city council meeting in Mt Carmel to try and get something done about Oak St. between 9th and 3rd. My family and I have to walk down that road to get home from work late at night. That bit of road has no sidewalks to make walking down that road safe. It only has four lights on it. One is on the corner of 9th and Oak, one at the intersection of Oak and Willow Swamp Road, one is the light from a the 24 hour gas pumps at Andrew’s Oil. The last light is on the corner of 3rd and Oak. Mayor Bill Hudson told me that the project I requested would cost around $200,000, and they don’t have the money. They also talked to the light company to put in more lights so we can be seen while we walk home at night. I was informed that they are only required to put in lights at the intersections.
On June 22 at 10:45 PM, my family and I were walking home using that road. A light colored minivan came within an inch of hitting me. I was pushing the stroller which has reflective strips on it. Thank God my 5 month old baby was not in the stroller that time. I am certain the driver of the van could see my reflectors. Yes, I could have called the cops and reported this but they will not do anything. You can give them the plate number, a description of the van, and tell them what way they went and all they will do is file a report because they didn’t see it happen.
Something needs to be done before it’s too late and someone gets hit. Mount Carmel City Council is not taking the responsibility of keeping those of us on the poor side of town very safe. I would like your help to get this problem fixed before it is too late for someone’s mother, daughter, sister, or even someone’s father, son, or brother. On June 22 it was almost too late for my family. They could have lost me; their mother, wife, and daughter. Please help me and the other families who have to walk on the road in the dark.
Thanks,
GG from Mt. Carmel, IL
Empty building 8
So what do you think? Do you think City Commissioner Joe Judge is planning on sharing some of his shiny new bike racks with those folks walking home from work after picking up their kids from the sitters after dark out there on the south side of town? Hell, he probably won’t… It’s too dark to ride bikes on that side of town after dark…
Empty building 9
A lot of those people probably can’t afford to buy the kinds of bikes that he and his friends at the South Central Illinois Health Coalition would prefer to see parked on those racks anyways.
Hey… I have an idea! With all these new bike racks around Wabash County, there’s bound to be a growing demand for bicycles in our area, right? Remember all those empty, broken down buildings downtown? Maybe I should get a group of investors together and chase some of tumbleweeds off of Market Street to open a bicycle shop.
Empty building 10 (former Hadley’s cafe…burned a few years ago…now painted with a “skyline” of some sort…)
On second thought, scratch that… I’m probably too late to request one of those bike racks my customers would want at the front of the store, so what would be the point? Plus…it’d probably be too much of a conscience conflict for Commissioner Judge to do something like leaving one of his precious bike racks somewhere in town where it might see some use while benefiting the people of the town he serves.
Hey Commissioner! Next time you go hunting for grant money, why don’t you look into the Safe Walks to School Program and try to at least get some sidewalks and crosswalks laid for the kids living out on the south side? It worked out pretty good in Allendale.
Heh… and maybe next time you’ll return one of my five phone calls. Then I won’t have to be so mean to get your attention.