Marion County Sheriff Andy Garden told the Marion County Board Tuesday night he expects to receive $120,000 from the Illinois Department of Corrections for housing their prisoners when they were refusing to accept new prisoners due to COVID-19.
Garden says after the money is in hand, he’d like to use it for an improvement at the Law Enforcement Center.
“We’ve been looking at body scanners. Same as the airport in stopping contraband. If you have seen in the news we have had an uptick in overdose deaths. That’s one thing we want to keep out of the jail. We don’t want an in-custody death. From this scanner in talking to other counties, their contraband went to nothing because they know they can’t get nothing in.”
Garden says he will look at areas of his budget where he can free up money for any needed structural changes to correctly place the new scanner. He says he wants to do the installation right.
Garden doesn’t expect the work to be real expensive.
Marion County Highway Department Engineer Mike McCormick announced the final easement was obtained Tuesday needed for construction of the new bridge on Church Road just east of Route 37. He hopes to bring bids for the project to the April meeting. The bridge has been closed for several years after it was found to be unfit to travel.
The board approved an agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation to resurface and make improvements to the Walnut Hill Road on the overpass over Interstate 57. The work is part of an overall improvement plan for the Interstate in southern Marion County in the next few years.
Board Chair Debbie Smith signed off on a request for the web address Marioncountyil.gov to be assigned to the county for their new website. Web Committee Chair Wes Gozia says the website itself is ready to go online as soon as the address is approved.
