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The award is given by the Illinois
Association of Chiefs of Police to recognize communities that have
active programs in community policing. The other four municipalities
that received the awards were much larger, and all were north of
Interstate 80, Police Chief Richard Montcalm said.
Montcalm was presented with a sign
announcing the honor by Lt. Col. Craig Allen, assistant deputy
director of the Illinois State Police, at Tuesday evening's city
council meeting.
The award is given to police
departments that partner with area organizations for a better
community, Montcalm said. Among the organizations the Lincoln
department partners with are Abraham Lincoln Community Hospital, the
schools in the area, downtown businesses, Healthy Communities
Partnership, neighborhood watch groups and the department's
substation at Centennial Courts.
"Community policing is the most current
area in law enforcement philosophy," Montcalm said. He said he
believes Lincoln police are as active in that area as departments in
large cities, such as Naperville, one of those that won an award.
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Montcalm said the department applied
for the award in October. Before announcing the winners, the
association interviewed him and eight members of the community,
people who represented the organizations the police department has
been working with, he said. One of those interviewed was Alderman
Glenn Shelton.
A certificate naming Lincoln an award
winner was presented to Montcalm by Attorney General Lisa Madigan at
the Illinois Chiefs of Police Conference in January, he said.
The sign given to the city reads, "The
City of Lincoln has been recognized for its efforts as a community
policing community by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police."
Montcalm said he hopes to get three
more of the signs, so one can be posted at every entrance to
Lincoln.
"This is something we have been
striving for, working with the different partners. This honor
belongs to the entire department. The officers do a fine job and it
is great for them to be recognized," he said.
"This isn't
all that we are striving for, this isn't the end. We have more
things we'd like to do for the community," he added.
[Joan Crabb]
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Speaking
at the University of Illinois at Chicago, one of a half-dozen sites where Blagojevich plans to
quickly establish new entrepreneurship centers, the governor
discussed further his plans to provide training, tools and resources
to Illinois entrepreneurs.
In
addition to UIC, the first round of entrepreneurship centers will be
located at five other locations: Rock Valley College in Rockford, the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Western
Illinois University in Macomb and at Southern Illinois University
campuses in Carbondale and Edwardsville.
The
first of the centers could be operational in two months, he said,
and 20 centers could be in place within two years.
“There
are countless entrepreneurs across the state with good ideas who
just need a chance to show what they can do,” he said, explaining
the purpose of the centers.
The
governor's plan to develop the entrepreneurship centers is a key
element of his Illinois Opportunity Fund, the mechanism that
Blagojevich envisions to attract private investment and venture
capital to the state.
The
centers would have the flexibility to draw on public and private
sector resources, in addition to expertise available through
universities and colleges, to help entrepreneurs obtain:
--recruiting services to locate operational management talent.
--legal
resources including patent, trade and other intellectual property
expertise.
--expert
accounting and financial services.
--access
to equity investors and other sources of investment capital,
including participating venture capital funds in the Illinois
Opportunity Fund.
People
looking to expand or create businesses would also be eligible to
benefit from 400 business planning and development assistance grants
worth $5,000 each.
The
Illinois Opportunity Fund would be a “fund of funds” that would
raise almost $200 million from private sector investors. The funds
will be managed by private sector experts and will invest in a
diverse cross section of existing venture capital funds that commit
to investing in Illinois based companies.
Illinois
has largely lacked access to such investments, and such funding is
especially rare in downstate communities. In 2002, Illinois received
less than 1 percent of all venture investment in the United States,
with less than 1 percent of that meager amount invested outside of
the Chicago metropolitan area.
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The
governor said that the Illinois Opportunity Fund “will help
jump-start industries and focus on new technologies that have the
potential to not only put people back to work but to create the sort
of jobs that will attract young people to our state.”
The
Illinois Opportunity Fund is based on a successful model piloted in
Oklahoma and subsequently implemented in several states, including
Iowa and Arkansas.
The
state's
Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity would be
assigned to develop the program and the centers. Jack Lavin, who has
been selected by the governor to head the department, joined
Blagojevich at the event on Thursday.
During
his State of the State address, Blagojevich pledged that the
Illinois Opportunity Fund can help to ensure that “there will be no
more missed business opportunities,” citing the fact that although
the Web browser was developed at the University of Illinois in the
early 1990s, other states benefited more from the economic activity
associated with the Internet.
He
referred to nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter at the atomic
level, as an area in which Illinois is currently a national leader
and a field that he said he would target for expansion.
The
establishment of the entrepreneurship centers at UIC and other sites
could build upon the successes already posted by the University of
Illinois in serving as a valuable engine for research and development needed for
high-tech businesses. More than 35 such businesses are currently
under development through the university's new start-up services
entity, called IllinoisVENTURES.
Through
the university's current program, financing and consulting are being
provided to companies that market -- among other items -- biohazard
and chemical weapon detection equipment; revolutionary power sources
for consumer products; and groundbreaking drugs for the treatment of
cancer, stroke and Alzheimer's disease.
The
university also helped bring about more than 430 new disclosures and
260 patent filings in fiscal years 2001 and 2002.
Scheduled to join Blagojevich and Lavin on Thursday morning were
University of Illinois
president James Stukel; UIC Chancellor Sylvia
Manning; Lawrence Eppley, chairman of the university's board of
trustees; and Gary Conkright, CEO, SmartSignal.
[Illinois
Government News Network
press release] |
