McLean County

The Illinois Department of Transportation has awarded $883,000 to McLean County to upgrade stretches of two roads to handle local truck traffic.

The grant money is the first installment on more than $7 million in improvements to County Highway 24 near the Tazewell County line and Meadows Road west of Chenoa in northern McLean County. In all, 19 lane miles will be improved to become designated truck routes.

The McLean County Triage Center in downtown Bloomington experienced its busiest month to date in February. 

The Ecology Action Center is challenging itself and the community to go big or go home, with plans to plant at least 100,000 new trees in McLean County.

Center director Michael Brown said if the initiative plants all 100,000 trees over the next decade, then nearly 14,000 metric tons of carbon could be sequestered.

“It is one of the most significant and cost-effective strategies out there for carbon sequestration and for emissions we cannot address through other means,” said Brown.

The EAC is raising the money to do it through private donations. 

The continuing COVID pandemic, and the challenges facing the health department because of it, were the focus of Wednesday’s McLean County Board of Health meeting. 

McLean County’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate is on the decline, even as the region that includes Bloomington-Normal faces additional restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Local and state government leaders in McLean County are issuing a plea to get counted as the 2020 Census moves into the final weeks.

Wages for Bloomington-Normal and Peoria workers were headed in very different directions when the pandemic hit like a freight train, according to newly released economic data.

UPDATED 1:40 P.M. | McLean County officials are working with other central Illinois leaders to encourage Gov. JB Pritzker to create a subregion for the area in his plan to reopen the state.

National debate over expanding mail-in ballot efforts has come to McLean County.

McLean County is negotiating with a laborers' group that wants to take over the vacant Fairview Building in Normal to turn it into affordable senior housing.

UPDATED 9:10 p.m. | Emergency 911 service has been restored.

Previous story: Emergency 911 telephone service remains out in McLean County and county officials don't know when it will be restored.

There are now four people from three political parties who want the job of McLean County auditor in next year's elections.

McLean County has several new appointments in court services.

McLean County Republican leaders say it’s time to address the “troubled auditor’s office.” They think Trisha Malott is the answer.

Trauma and the behavioral health concerns that come as a result must be addressed.

A Bloomington-Normal nurse has announced her candidacy for McLean County coroner.

Businesses will have to change, well, the way they do business after recreational cannabis use becomes legal in January. Till now, simple drug-screening tests have helped employers maintain a drug-free workplace. After January it won't be that simple at all.

The McLean County Board's Executive Committee will decide Tuesday whether to have a consulting firm overhaul the county's electronic justice system.

A McLean County Highway Department employee was killed Wednesday morning in what county officials have said was an electrocution.

McLean County government is expecting the busy spring legislative session in Springfield to help it chip away at road repairs and other infrastructure.

Less than 48 hours after the latest fatal shooting in Bloomington, leaders of the county’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council signaled Thursday that reducing gun violence will become one of their priorities.

A mental health triage center is on pace to open this spring in the building housing the McLean County Health Department on West Front Street in downtown Bloomington.