MONDAY November 6, 2017
THE DAILY ILLINI The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
Vol. 147 Issue 21
Changed budget decreases bar raids
UIPD STUDENT INFORMANTS Police utilize student information to infiltrate campus drug scene BY KAREN LIU STAFF WRITER
Students are working with the University of Illinois Police Department in solving drug-related crimes as confidential informants. Joseph McCullough, commander of narcotics and street crime units at UIPD, said 20 to 30 confidential student informants work with the UIPD per year, and the number has been steady for the past decade. “Two or three years ago, we had a massive amount of MDMA issues, and we were able to utilize an informant for that, which led to the seizure of several hundred doses of MDMA amongst six or several other drugs,” McCullough said. McCullough said his philosophy is if there’s involvement of a confidential source, he wants the case done very quickly, and to insert other methods or an undercover officer in the role. “With myself working undercover in these cases, I’ve seen the other side of this, so I understand that there is a safety element to that. There’s an anonymity that you want to have,” he said. “I don’t want people to know what I’m doing or who I’m working with.
We translate that philosophy to any confidential source.” However, McCullough said the UIPD rarely offers students with minor drug charges an alternative to become a confidential informant. McCullough sa id the UIPD is also not actively tr y ing to recruit people, but any person caught up in similar cases is usually strong-armed in becoming a source. The UIPD is also very transparent about the process and encourages people to talk to their attorneys before making the decision. McCullough said the UIPD values confidential sources as people and wants to see the best for them, instead of just getting the information and then saying goodbye. “We want to see them kick the problem that got them into the issue in the first place, so we provide themmultifaceted commu-
BY YASMEEN RAGAB STAFF WRITER
Illinois State Police, with the assistance of the Champaign Police Department, sent out a press release detailing over 20 citations issued at bars across campus for underage drinking violations on one night last month. While it seems that “bar raids” — or procedural bar checks — are on the rise, that is not the case, said Champaign Police Sergeant Joe Ketchem. They are actually declining due to budgeting issues in recent years. Champaign police expenditures on Covert Liquor Enforcement has declined approximately 35 percent from 2016 to 2017. The budget in 2016 for Covert Liquor Enforcement was $79,515 and decreased to $51,815 in 2017, according to the Adopted Annual Budget released by the City of Champaign. “We used to conduct about 12 bar checks a year. This year, we are down to five or seven,” Ketchum said. “That does not mean we have not done three (bar checks) in a row or three weekends in a row.” A typical bar check consists of four on-duty officers from Champaign police, and four or five troopers from Illinois State Police, lasting for five hours and costing a total of about $1,000 to $1,100 per bar check, according to Ketchum. An underage drinking citation costs $350 and increases every two years. For bars, the fine for serving alcohol to someone under the age of 21 is $500 and increases each time a bar is ticketed. When bar managers are informed that a bar check is going to occur, they cooperate, said Luke Henry, general manager of Joe’s Brewery. “We work with the police because they are doing their job, trying to ensure safety and a safe environment,” Henry said. He added both the police and Joe’s Brewery have this goal in mind. Henry has been the general manager of Joe’s Brewery for 10 years. As of January this year, Joe’s Brewery began using tac-
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ISG rebrands with new block I logo BY CORI LIPPERT STAFF WRITER
Illinois Student Government adapted a new, student-designed logo in an effort to consolidate with the University’s implementation of the block I design. Joseph Domanski, vice president of ISG and senior in LAS, said the University “felt like our logo was totally out of date.” The University recently switched from using the column I to only the block I. The University’s public affairs committee asked ISG to change the logo to fit with the rebranding of the University, Domanski said. “We have created a brand standard and some guidelines that allows our brand to function across the entire institution,” said David Black, director of creative services in the public affairs department. Black said the guidelines were created to reflect a single voice of Illinois. “We want the student government to brand with Illinois to show that they have a vital relationship to the University,” Black said. Black said one of those guidelines is that the block I and the Illinois wordmark can not be skewed or adjusted and they can not be morphed with anything else. “I felt like the University of Illinois student government is supposed to be the voice of the student body, so I felt like it made sense for the student body to have a say in what we look like,” Domanski said. “At
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PORTRAIT OF TRACI BARKLEY BY PATRICK LI
PORTRAIT OF DR. HAO FENG BY BEN TSCHETTER
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Methods funded for sustainable farming BY HEATHER SCHLITZ STAFF WRITER
Although corn and soybean fields dominate the majority of Illinois’ farmland, the nearly $500 million specialty crop industry is on the rise. Defined as fruits, nuts and vegetables, specialty crops occupy more than 100,000 acres of farmland and growing status in Springfield as the Illinois Department of Agriculture seeks to expand the state’s agricultural footprint. As demand for locally grown fruits and vegetables increases, the United States Department of Agriculture finds answers in the Specialty Crop Block Grant program, funneling money to individual states to increase production of and access to specialty crops. Three projects in Champaign-Urbana were chosen to receive funding through
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the grant program. The IDOA chose two University professors and a notfor-profit Urbana farm to receive grants as part of the program. “It’s been such a blessing, really,” said Traci Barkley, director of Sola Gratia Farm, of the $24,133 IDOA grant. St. Matthew Lutheran Church and Faith in Place, an Illinois religious organization, created the farm to respond to the high food insecurity rate in Champaign County. Sola Gratia has donated approximately 30 percent of the produce it has grown since its inception six years ago. “For people who don’t have enough money to spend on food or to meet other critical needs, vegetables, which are a key part of the diet for health and nutrition, are also one of the most expensive types of food and usu-
ally that’s not what limited food dollars are spent on,” Barkley said. Champaign County grapples with one of the highest rates of food insecurity in Illinois, approximately 1 in 7 people and 1 in 5 children facing uncertainty over where their next meal will come from. Barkley plans to use the grant money to expand on several successful pilot projects the farm has put in place to increase demand for and access to fresh produce. Among these pilot programs are partnerships with various public and private institutions to provide produce for cooking classes that teach basic nutrition and life skills, pay-as-you-can produce stands, and reduced price farmers markets. Rabin Bhattarai, professor in ACES, received a $79,802 grant to develop nontraditional water
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sources for Illinois’ farms. His interest in treating water started as a teenager growing up in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he would wake up at 5 a.m. twice a week to wait his turn at the taps to fill his family’s tanks with water to use for the week. “Even in a big city like Kathmandu, even in my house we cannot drink the water that comes out of the tap directly,” Bhattarai said. “That’s what led me to get my degree in civil engineering and then my master’s in water resources and I slowly became interested in water quality.” Many farmers in Illinois are essentially dependent on rainfall to water their crops, something farmers in drier states like Arizona can only dream of. However, too little or too much rain can put a rain-
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