Wednesday began as any typical Wednesday for St. Joseph’s Jon Arteaga . 

He woke up at his mom’s house, just sitting around.

But on this Wednesday, there was a spark inside him, suggesting that he needed to do something to show that people in St. Joseph support the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I had gone to the protest in Champaign on Monday,” Arteaga said. “I just thought that it was just such an important thing to have such a peaceful protest after the looting that happened on Sunday. The juxtaposition of the two was just so powerful.”

“I thought, why does it have to end in Champaign? It needs to go farther than that.”

Arteaga notified his parents that he would go out to the four way stop of IL-150 and Main Street to peacefully protest.

The 2014 graduate of St. Joseph-Ogden High School, where 96-percent of students were white, said that since returning home after being gone for five years sees changes happening in the community. According to the Illinois Report Card, the student population at SJ-O is more diverse than when Arteaga graduated: the student population is currently 93-percent white.

The five hours that Arteaga spent outside with a few of his classmates had its discouraging moments. Some people passing by held their hands out the window with a thumbs down. But, David said that the response was overwhelmingly positive.

“The support was just mind blowing to me,” Arteaga said. “I just really didn’t realize how many allies there are in this town. So I was just very overwhelmed with the amount of love that we got.”

“A ton of people just drove by to raise their fists in solidarity. They dropped off water and snacks. Many people were like, ‘I wish I could join you, but I have to go to work.’” It was very heartwarming for sure and getting that response on social media just immediately made me realize that people want to protest, they want to do these things, they just need somebody to organize them.”

A conversation in a local Facebook page, St. Joseph, IL-Information & Community Events showed Arteaga that there was a desire to have something more formal planned so that others could congregate for the same reasons.

The St. Joseph Peaceful Protest for Equality will be held on June 5  from 5 to 8 p.m. at the four-way stop on the side of the street that is owned by the St. Joseph-Ogden School District.

Being a white man organizing this protest has been difficult, though. 

“This isn’t about me,” he said.

Over the last 12 hours Arteaga has reached out to people of color to see if they wanted to join forces with him to organize the event or speak during the protest. 

“We’re currently in talks with trying to figure out who our speakers will be,” he said. “Of course, we want people of color, particularly black people to be our speakers because we don’t want to speak for them. 

“As it stands right now we don’t have anybody. We’ve been reaching out. People are very intimidated, they don’t want to, or they feel pressured, and we don’t want them to feel like that either.”

Arteaga said that he has found comfort, though, from the willingness of black residents encouraging him and helping him plan the event. 

“I’m not speaking for them,” he said. 

“That’s not my position. My position is to have my privilege be their weapon, to be their megaphone.”

“I value black voices above my own. And that’s something that I want to make sure is at this protest. I’m working so hard to find people (of color).”

A few of Arteaga ’s classmates who identify with more than two races are working behind the scenes.

“They’re giving us valuable insight. They’re helping to inform our decisions,” Arteaga said.

“They have told us that it would be okay for us to speak there, but only speak on how white people can do better.”

An African American woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, also connected with Arteaga to say that he is doing the right thing; the same thing she and others have worked on doing in St. Joseph for decades.

“Apparently a white male was what was required to break through this wall that she’s been trying to break so many times for 30 years,” Arteaga said. 

Although Arteaga is currently focused on the event that will take place in 24 hours, he also knows that any protest just needs to be a beginning point for real change. 

After leaving St. Joseph-Ogden, Arteaga went on to study literature at Illinois State University. He had his sights set on returning to his hometown to teach English. 

“When I started making this protest tomorrow so many people of color reached out to me personally and said that they just really really want us to address the school. They want to make sure that their kids are safe and that they are represented in the coursework.”

An avid reader, Arteaga believes that part of the answer can be found through literature.

“You don’t have to be reading all of these dead white authors all the time,” he said. “They can be substituted with all of these diverse authors with Queer authors,Black authors, Latino authors. We can diversify. I think changing that up will have a little bit of a ripple effect; that’ll open people’s minds.”

Friday’s event will include a poem by Langston Hughes, a Black American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist.

Arteaga believes that St. Joseph and Ogden residents working together towards changing the systemic racism that continues to be prevalent both nationwide and at the local level could be the next moves.

This afternoon Arteaga connected with St. Joseph Mayor Tami Fruhling-Voges to hear her thoughts and vision for the community. 

“There have been so many changes that have occurred since I’ve been gone, so I really want to know where she’s at,” he said. 

“Now that I moved back home and plan on living here for a while, I’m wanting to get a grasp on how the community is, where our leadership’s mind is at, and how they feel about the types of issues.”

He was also hoping that the conversation would put her mind at ease about his intentions with the protest. 

With fears that there may be looting and rioting like Sunday’s events in Champaign in rural towns and with rumors that groups from larger cities, like Chicago, would stop in small towns in East Central Illinois as they travel from Champaign to Danville, Arteaga wants the community to know that what he has planned will be peaceful.

St. Joseph Jim Page, who works for ILEAS (Illinois Law Enforcement Alert System), re-iterated that the rumors of Antifa coming to small communities are unwarranted.

“I can tell you that one of our biggest challenge is tracking down and separating false Internet rumors from actual intelligence. While anything is possible – as far as we know, it is not true,” Page wrote Monday.

“Having said that, in these challenging times it is always best to be prepared and watchful. Keep an eye on your neighbors, pay attention to your surroundings – all things that we should be doing every day anyway.”

Arteaga said his message is peace, though.

“Even in the detail of the event itself on Facebook I put, ‘If you see anybody acting violent or speaking violently, tell them to stop. Tell them that’s not okay.’

“We want this protest to be peaceful and impactful,” he said.

It is not lost on Arteaga that the world is also still in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He has instructed everyone to wear masks and socially distance during the event. 

Currently, Arteaga is looking for donations of water, snacks, hand sanitizer and masks. He also asks that people bring signs, one for themselves and one for someone else.

“We need this to be loud,” he said.

Through this protest, Arteaga wants people of color to know that St. Joseph and Ogden are lifting them up. 

“We should be doing everything we can to make them feel they’re safe so that they can live the American dream that everybody wants to live.”

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Over the last three months our community along with the rest of the world has experienced something that none of us could have ever imagined. Each of us will remember this time in different ways. For some it’s been a time to reflect on where our life priorities should be and may have been able to enjoy the time to slow down their pace of living, but for others it’s been a troubling time either for health, financial, business survival, or concerns of living in a free society.

As we navigate our way through the next few days, weeks, and months ahead please be patient with each other. You will begin to see many things begin to open to the public. To allow some of our businesses to take advantage of the Governor’s announcement to move into Phase 3, the village has worked out a plan to give them some space temporarily in our downtown.

Unfortunately, our downtown has limited parking, but accommodations have been made to try and make the best of the situation. Please take extra precautions as you drive through the downtown on Lincoln Street. This portion of Lincoln Street will remain one way while we allow outdoor seating for those businesses.

Our community has done a great job so far to give the village’s businesses their support. I encourage you to continue to shop local, support the curbside services, take advantage of some outdoor dining and be sure to thank those business owners for doing an extraordinary job serving our community during this time. St. Joseph is fortunate to have every one of them.

The Village is continuing to monitor the guidelines set forth by the State of Illinois to open the parks slowly and safely. Beginning next week, we can allow practices at the ball fields, the tennis courts will be open and within the week we will open the restrooms. The pavilions and picnic tables are available for use, but large gatherings and the playgrounds are still prohibited. The Municipal Building will open to the public during regular business hours but renting the meeting room will still be limited.

We encourage our community to continue to follow the guidelines set forth by the State and Local Public Health Departments.

I also wanted to thank our village residents for taking the time to complete your Census response.

The Village of St. Joseph has a comfortable lead in our response rate. Currently, we hold the lead at 81%, the best in the County. Great Job St. Joe! Thank you for being such a great group of residents. Continue to share those welcoming smiles, lending a helpful hand, saying a kind word and please work with us as we make those steps to bring our lives back to a healthy and safe normal.

God Bless and Enjoy your Summer, Tami Fruhling-Voges, Village President/Mayor. 

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When Friday May 29, 2020 arrives, it will have been 74 days since people could gather for a sit-down meal at their favorite restaurant in Illinois.

Still, as Illinois moves into Phase 3 of the Restore Illinois plan, dining out will take on a different atmosphere. Indoor seating will be closed, parties will be limited to six, or fewer, disposable silverware will be provided and waiting areas must be closed.

For some restaurant owners, offering an outdoor dining opportunity is something they are familiar with. Two days before the beginning of Phase 3 has some restaurant owners still wondering how they will be able to make outdoor dining a possibility while others say it is not something they want to deal with.

Mayors in small towns in East Central Illinois have been working with local restaurant owners since Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced seven days ago that restaurants could host outdoor seating.

St. Joseph’s Mayor Tami Fruhling-Voges updated the St. Joseph Board of Trustees on progress Tuesday night. All downtown businesses in St. Joseph, including the seven food vendors located downtown, are allowed to open when Illinois reaches Phase 3.

Fruhling-Voges reported that residents had asked about the possibility of closing down Lincoln St. to accommodate seating for restaurants, but she wanted to keep in mind that customers going to businesses like Chittick Family Eye Care, Wagner’s Sign and Apparel and Salon 192 would also need access to their destination.

She said that even restaurant owners were unsure that offering outdoor seating was the right approach for their business at this time.

Scratch, which was closed for a month, just reopened its doors on May 13. “She wants to keep her curbside, because she’s getting more business from curbside,” Fruhling-Voges. “She doesn’t feel she can manage that outdoor seating situation.”

But other establishments, like El Torro and Geschenk Boutique and Coffee and Tea Haus, are planning to offer an outdoor dining experience.

To accommodate those businesses, the Mayor suggested to the board that Lincoln could become a one-way street, moving from east to west temporarily. She cited that it would slow traffic through that area while also limiting the number of cars traveling down the road, providing a safer situation.

Geschenk will utilize its outdoor space in the back of the building while also setting up coffee tables along the side of the building.

The Village would also accommodate El Toro by giving it a few parking spaces in front of the building while doing the same for Roch’s on the south side of its building.

The Wheelhouse, which offered outdoor dining prior to the pandemic plans to open eight dining tables, offering three seating times at 5:30, 7:00 and 8:30, closing the doors at 10 p.m.

Fruhling-Voges said it is important that there is still room for, and a focus on, curbside for the restaurants that offer it.

“All the businesses seem very willing to compromise and work with one another to allow everybody to take advantage of more opportunities to start bringing in more sales. So, that’s a good thing,” she said.

Additionally, the Village of St. Joseph plans to extend an event liquor license without additional fees to the establishments so that they can serve alcohol outdoors.

“I’m confident that all of our business owners in St. Joseph are responsible and will do all that they can to keep our community safe,” Fruhling-Voges said in an email. “It’s been amazing to see the local support from our residents during this shutdown. I encourage their continued efforts and patience as we navigate our way through this opening process.”

The Village of Mahomet will take a similar approach to its liquor license modifications during the Illinois stay-at-home mandate.

“We are getting creative and trying to support them as much as possible with both the liquor licenses and some, I guess, additional freedoms or relaxing of some things,” Mayor Sean Widener said at a board meeting Tuesday night.

Widener, having come off two meeting with the Reopen Mahomet Restaurants Task Force, which included members of the Mahomet Chamber of Commerce, JT Walker’s owner Justin Taylor, and property owners Jill Guth and Mark Kesler, said that the Village is willing to work with local restaurant owners, particularly those dine-in establishments that had been hardest hit, to find solutions to make the transition to Phase 3 easier.

“I think what you’re gonna see is more sidewalk cafe type of arrangements,” Widener said.

Some restaurants, like JT Walker’s and Project 47, owned by Taylor, are set up for outdoor seating. Taylor said that he will use the outdoor seating areas that they already have, moving a few things around to meet the guidelines.

The only restaurant located in the old downtown Mahomet, Walker’s has a unique situation where they could also put tables on the sidewalk.

“The main thing for this is going to be weather dependent,” Taylor said. “That’s the big problem for a lot of the restaurants; even if they can figure out what to do with outside seating, you have to have staff and have people ready to go, and then if it rains and an hour later it’s super nice out and people start coming out, you’ve got to figure out what you are going to do with your staff.”

While having the opportunity for outdoor seating is exciting for businesses, Taylor said that there is more that is being taken into consideration by restaurant owners.

No matter what the outdoor dining or curbside situation is, all restaurant owners in Illinois have a few more financial worries looming overhead. By July 1, they will be required to pay a $10 minimum wage to employees, a $.75 increase over the $9.25, a $1 increase that was mandated Jan. 1, 2020.

Mahomet Subway’s owner, Satesha Patel said that the road to $15 an hour by 2025 will hit small businesses hard.

“Increased wages are catastrophic for small businesses like ours,” he said. “We are locally owned and operated and the corporate will help with national emergencies and pandemics but when the issues are local, we’re on our own.  So increased wages is not something corporate has propriety on.”

Patel has been working with his landlord, Mark Kesler, to figure out how Subway can offer outdoor seating until customers can eat inside again.

“We will have to purchase new outdoor tables and chairs or benches,” Patel said. “This will be expensive.  I am also trying to figure out if we can do something permanent since we will be investing in the new outdoor furniture.”

The Reopen Mahomet Restaurants Task Force is offering $1,000 grants to dine-in restaurant owners who want to offer outdoor seating to help cover the cost of additional expenses. Widener said that there will be an application process that will go through the Task Force for approval.

According to Village Administrator Patrick Brown, Los Zarapes is working with the building owner Jill Guth to try to offer outdoor seating that will also be ADA compliant. Last week, Los did not plan to host an outdoor dining experience. Brown said that because of the tight schedule, outdoor dining will not be available this weekend.

Brown also said that Breaking Taco is excited about the possibility of expanding its outdoor dining area with the help of the grant.

Filippos, on the other hand, will stick to the no-contact curbside pick-up system it instituted early on in the stay at home order.

“Our priority is safety and making good food,” Brigi Paris said.

Increased food prices and consistency in food availability is something that local restaurant owners have had to deal with over the last nine weeks.

Filippos said that they have not raised their prices much, knowing that everyone is hurting at the moment.

Billy Bob’s of Ogden has had to change its menu prices twice, though, to help cover the costs.

Owner George Woodard wrote a letter to the Champaign County Board, explaining the current state of business.

“The current restrictions in place for in-house dining allows only carry-out orders, and the complete loss of income from bar customers has severely impacted my business hours and our operations are down 33-percent,” Woodard said. “This in turn, caused total receipts to be down 70-percent. Most of my staff is currently laid off, but to keep up with the carry-out business, I still have to keep enough employees on duty to fill orders, this has only resulted in a 24-percent decrease in labor cost.”

Woodard said that the cleaning costs associated with reopening would also cause hardship for his business.

A consistent observation among restaurant owners,Obie’s Artic Chill in Oakwood said that beef prices have doubled and pork prices are near 40-percent more than what they previously were.

Obie’s has also seen an additional $500 per week increase since the first minimum wage increase, saying it will be difficult for businesses to withstand the full increase.

Obie’s will continue to follow the state of IDPH guidelines along with the Vermilion County Public Health District guidelines through cleaning, wearing masks and marking six-feet distance for customers.

Oakwood’s Mayor Clayton Woodard said that his community has taken the COVID Pandemic very seriously.

“The Village of Oakwood has followed the directives of the Governor and will continue to do so to the extent the civil liberties of our residents and business owners are not violated,” Clayton said. “We will make every legal reasonable accommodation necessary within our municipal powers to support our businesses with the continued concern for public health.

“We, as a community, have taken the COVID Pandemic very seriously.  We have tried to be very understanding and compassionate as to the extreme stress this epidemic has placed on our residents, businesses, and employees and first responders.  We are very grateful for the dedication to public service our employees and first responders have displayed during this unprecedented time.”

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BY HEATHER SCHLITZ

During a Tuesday night St. Joseph Village Board meeting, trustees voted 3-2 against a motion that would’ve allowed gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores in the municipality to operate gambling machines.

Jack Flash, a chain of convenience stores with a location in St. Joseph, had pushed for the creation of a Package/Pour license that would’ve allowed the store to serve alcohol poured on store premises in addition to bottled alcohol. 

In order to nab a video gambling license in Illinois, businesses must have a liquor license that allows them to serve alcohol that is consumed on-premises. Jack Flash currently only has a package liquor license and is restricted from operating video gambling machines.

Trustees worried that expanding gambling to businesses in town that currently only have package liquor licenses would damage the town’s image. 

“My thoughts are that they (the gambling machines) are too trashy,” village trustee Max Painter, who voted against the package/pour license, said. 

“I’m concerned about the branding of the community,” Mayor Tami Fruhling-Voges, who cast the tie-breaking vote against package/pour, said. “We do allow it (gambling machines) for our restaurants. Those are very small, local restaurants and if they need a little bit of help to subsidize their business to make it, I want to make sure they have that opportunity. By adding that additional license classification, you’re opening it up for another business to do that.”

People attending the meeting said that amending the liquor license would increase the possibility of drinking and driving, allow too many businesses in the village to operate gambling machines and negatively influence the children who frequent convenience stores. 

Lisa Wortman, co-owner of Jack Flash, showed the trustees a petition she claimed had more than 100 signatories in support of the package/pour license. Though she declined to make the petition viewable to the public, some trustees pointed out that many of the signatory’s addresses were from outside of St. Joseph. 

“I didn’t have anyone come into my store saying they supported the gaming in the community,” Jim Wagner, village trustee and owner of Wagner Signs + Graphics, said. He also raised concerns that the gambling machines would drive away potential residents.

Wortman attempted to assuage the concerns of trustees and audience members, saying that Jack Flash would build a gambling section walled off from the rest of the store and that poured alcohol makes up less than 1% of their sales in other Jack Flash locations that operate gambling machines. 

Roch’s Place is the only business in the village with a video gambling license and operates four gambling machines in a cramped space walled off from the rest of the bar and restaurant. The village received $12,408 in taxes from the Roch’s gambling machines in 2019, money that the mayor said has gone toward the stormwater fund. 

A letter from the owners of Roch’s Place was read aloud during the meeting, where the owners expressed worries that allowing additional businesses to profit from video gambling would eat into the bar’s revenue as a small, family-owned business. 

“It wasn’t an easy decision,” Fruhling-Voges said. “I’ve been tossing around with pros and cons for two months about what would be best for the community.” 

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