Woodford County Agendas and Minutes/info

We shall endeavor to post monthly meeting agendas and minutes/budget information for our readers' convenience:

Woodford County Board -
Agendas
Minutes
Committee Minutes
Budgets - N.A.

Illinois Central College District #514 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees - N.A.
Budgets - N.A.

Congerville-Eureka-Goodfield CUSD #140 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees
Budgets

Deer Creek-Mackinaw Unit No. 701 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees
Budgets

El Paso-Gridley CUSD #11 -
Agendas - N.A.
Minutes
Committees - N.A.
Budgets

Fieldcrest Community Unit No. 6 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees - N.A.
Budgets

Germantown Hills SD #69 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees - N.A.
Budgets

Lowpoint-Washburn CUSD #21 -
Agendas - N.A.
Minutes - N.A.
Committees - N.A.
Budgets [links broken]

Metamora Community Cons. District Unit No. 1 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees
Budgets [links broken]

Metamora Township High School No. 122 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees
Budgets ['07-08 missing]


Riverview Community Cons. School District #2 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees -N.A.
Budgets [fiscal '07 missing]

Roanoke-Benson Community CUSD #60 -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees -N.A.
Budgets


Eureka Public Library District -
Agendas - N.A.
Minutes - N.A.
Committees - N.A.
Budgets - N.A.

Illinois Prairie Public Library District -
Agendas
Minutes
Committees - N.A.
Budgets - N.A.

Grant Memorial Park District
Web Site - N.A.

Metamora Park District
Web Site - N.A.

Roanoke Park District
Web Site - N.A.

Village of Bayview Gardens 309-678-4742	Village of Metamora 309-367-4044
Village of Benson 309-394-2523	City of Minonk 309-432-2558
Village of Congerville 309-448-2276	Village of Panola 309-527-3693
City of El Paso 309-527-4005	Village of Roanoke 309-923-3661
City of Eureka 309-467-2113	Village of Secor 309-744-2444
Village of Germantown Hills 309-383-2209	Village of Spring Bay 309-822-8400
Village of Goodfield 309-965-2517	Village of Washburn 309-248-7222

Benson Fire Protection District
2040 Co. Rd. 2200 E, Benson IL 61516
Fire Chief-Randy Koehler (309) 394-2421

Congerville Fire Protection District
317 County Highway 8, Congerville IL 61729
Fire Chief-Dave Zobrist (309) 448-2384

El Paso Fire Protection District
247 E. Front St, PO Box 56, El Paso IL 61738
Fire Chief-Dale Uphoff (309) 527-2555

Eureka-Goodfield Fire Protection District
PO Box 2, 211 North Main St., Eureka IL 61530
Fire Chief-Craig Neal (309) 467-6181

Germantown Hills Fire Protection District
313 Prairie Ave., Metamora IL 61548
Fire Chief-Mathew "Chip" Wilmont (309) 383-4890

Metamora Rural Fire
1472 Lourdes Rd, Metamora IL 61548
Fire Chief-Fred Glueck (309) 367-2640

Minonk Fire Protection District
PO Box 32, Minonk IL 61760
Fire Chief-Bill Herman, Jr. (309) 432-2844

Roanoke Fire District
106-108 West Broad, Box 748, Roanoke IL 61561
Fire Chief-Jeff Smith (309) 923-8351

Secor Fire District
Box 17, Secor IL 61771
Fire Chief-Greg Slayton (309) 744-5358

Spring Bay Fire District
200 Ronald Road, East Peoria IL 61611
Fire Chief-Dennis Perry (309) 822-0152

Washburn Fire District
2004 Co. Rd. 00N, Washburn IL 61570
Fire Chief-Jesse Erkman (309) 248-7219

Tip o' the Hat to www.woodford-county.org . . .

More to follow . . . stay tuned . . .

"Pluralistic Ignorance" in the United States of America

The editorial staff at the Bloomington Pantagraph writes:

You read it here first, so you should believe it

Sunday, September 23, 2007 11:01 PM CDT

Anyone who regularly reads Internet blogs, comments made after stories on www.pantagraph.com and even letters to the editor on this page has seen how many people can ardently, fervently believe something no matter how much contradictory information is available.

The old Mark Twain quotation that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” may have been a humorous observation in his day but it’s deadly accurate in the era of the World Wide Web.

For those who are troubled by that, there’s no comfort in a recent study by University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz. He found that even when people are told by an authoritative source that something is not true, a large percentage of them will erroneously remember the false information as true. Worse, they will attribute the false information to the source that tried to debunk it.

A lot depends on what people hear first — the correct information or the myth, according to Schwarz and other researchers.

The situation would be almost comical if not for the serious implications.

Schwarz’s latest research involved a myth vs. fact flier distributed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding the flu vaccine.

But such examples also have been witnesses— and most likely will continue to be seen — in political campaigns, whether it’s the issue of which candidate is “smarter” than the other or what a candidate did decades earlier while serving in a combat zone.

Political consultants are well aware of the phenomenon — confirmed by these researchers — that repetition leads more people to believe something, even if the repetition is from an unreliable source or involves individuals trying to debunk the information.

But ignoring a falsehood won’t make it go away.

In the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” category is research finding that failure to respond promptly to accusations leads many people to believe they are true.

Just ask unsuccessful presidential candidate John Kerry.

Therefore, whether you are the CDC or a political candidate, you have to do your best to get your message out and hope for the best. There is not a lot you can do about human nature.

But there is something we, as individuals, can do — and must do.

We can be careful consumers of information who read things carefully and consider the source or sources.

We respond:

Woodford Pundit wrote on Sep 24, 2007 7:22 AM:

The unfortunate side effect of this pervasive 'factual relativism" is the development of what some writers have termed "the decline of truth" in the U.S. and the fact that, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, a lot of people today think they are smarter and more knowledgeable than they objectively are proven to be.

This, in turn, has led to a feeling on these folks part that they are somehow "more special" than others and somehow "better" and should not have to abide by the rules and conditions of "the others" in society. ["The others" tending to be everyone but themselves.] When confronted with fact and reason they tend to shut/shout down discussion with, "deal with it" or "grow up", or with cries of "racist!"

The Pantagraph wisely avoids mentioning specific issues demonstrative of the "I's knows what I's knows and ain't no facts gonna make no difference" attitude. Empirical, evidential reasoning seems dead. The ancient Greeks must be turning over in their graves. Wait . . . you know they're not really dead . . . "We heard that in an email we got from an online blog we read (well, we looked at the pictures anyway . . . )."

Another article we were reading recently states:

". . . Sociologists call it pluralistic ignorance. It's this concept where reality applies to everybody but me," says Kevin Wehr, an assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Sacramento. "We justify things because we think we're better or different from other people. But, of course, we are not better than others. We are just as bad as the next folk."

Track Federal Spending - If You Can!

A tip o' the Blogging Hat to Mark Schaver of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky for this:

... using the new, free FFATA Portal. A spokesman for Global Computer Enterprises, Inc., the private company that created the site, told Federal Computer Week that "the goal of the search portal is to make the information easy to find by taking out the government jargon." The site explains:

The portal offers free, instant access to contracts and grants awarded across the federal government via a user-friendly free text search and dynamic reporting tool. No login or registration is required – the public has instant access to federal spending information and the ability to create custom reports from that information. This site is not associated with any government agency and is provided free of charge from GCE.

By providing more transparency in government, this site is the easy way to track federal spending and your tax dollars at work. Users are able to search government contracts, grants data, and earmark grants from the appropriations process.

OMB Watch is another private entity that offers a federal spending database.

We need to stay on top of this spending machine in Washington. We may not be able to stop it but we can certainly attempt to expose it.