THE
Daily Egyptian SERVING THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1916.
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2025
VOL. 108, ISSUE 26
Meet the 7 candidates vying for 3 open spots on the Carbondale City Council Jackson Brandhorst Morrigan Carey @jacksondothtml mcarey@dailyegyptian.com
Seven candidates are running to claim one of the three open seats on the Carbondale City Council in the upcoming April 1 election.
If elected, Brian Stanfield, Nathan Colombo, Dawn Roberts and Jason Endicott would be fresh faces on the council, while Lee Fronabarger and incumbents LaCaje Hill and Ginger RyeSanders should be familiar to Carbondale residents. The challengers, Stanfield, Colombo,
Roberts, Fronabarger and Endicott, will all be listed on the ballot, while incumbents Hill and Rye-Sanders are running as write-ins after being removed. Their removal came after former Councilman Navreet Kang filed a grievance with the city claiming that the candidates had committed procedural
violations when filing their candidacy paperwork. According to Illinois state law, their paperwork was not properly bound, nor did they provide a receipt proving that they had submitted a statement of economic interest within the past year at the time that they had filed.
Fronabarger has served on the council before, having been a member from 2011 to 2017 before losing to then-challenger Jeff Doherty. Early voting has already begun, and Carbondale residents can vote early at the Jackson County Clerk’s Office in
CITY COUNCIL | 2
OPINION
In Nagy I trust
Ryan Grieser rgreiser@dailyegyptian.com
Stephen J. Cullen, representing Oren Hulsh, speaks to the seven justices of the Illinois Supreme Court as two oral arguments are heard on the SIU campus in the Student Center March 18, 2025 in Carbondale, Illinois. Lylee Gibbs | @lyleegibbsphoto
SIU Law School hosts Illinois Supreme Court oral arguments on drug possession, child custody Carly Gist Lylee Gibbs @lyleegibbsphoto @gistofthestory
The ballroom of SIU’s student center became the setting of the Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday morning, March 18. After over a year of preparation, Simmons Law School hosted the Supreme Court of Illinois’ March Term 2025 Oral Arguments on
the Carbondale campus, where topics such as sentencing, drug possession and child custody were discussed. Close to 850 people attended the day’s event, according to Angela Upchurch, acting dean of Simmons Law School. Among those in attendance were SIU undergraduates of various disciplines, local high school and middle
school students, SIU System Members and Simmons Law School students. Rows of chairs filled the ballroom as attendees gathered and waited for the judges to take their seats on stage. “We had an enormous response from the community, both from schools but also just members of the Carbondale community,” Upchurch said. “So like members of the public, undergrad students
and our law students, so we were really excited.” According to a booklet provided to all attendees, the Court, which is based in Illinois’ capitol of Springfield, has held oral arguments throughout the state in recent years “to raise awareness of the judicial branch and of the important role the court system has in interpreting state laws,” a tradition the
Court calls “riding the circuit.” Since 2008, the Illinois Supreme Court has met in Mt. Vernon, Ottawa, Lisle, Champaign, Godfrey, Chicago and DeKalb. Carbondale’s turnout, however, is the largest the Court has seen in an off-site, in-person setting, Upchurch said. “Simmons Law School was founded in the public SUPREME COURT | 3
I’ll admit it: I made a mistake. Last year around this time, when former head coach Bryan Mullins was fired, I wrote a column titled “Mullins decision one SIU will come to regret.” I don’t think anyone’s regretting it right now, or if they are, it’s because they’re incredibly short-sighted. The trajectory for Saluki basketball is seemingly only up, and doesn’t seem as limited as it once did. The hiring of Scott Nagy was welcomed with the traditional fanfare that a new coach experiences, but not much more, and certainly not acceptance from a great many fans. People, including me, were upset about Mullins’ firing, and didn’t think that Nagy’s play style and ideas about the transfer portal would translate at SIU. Suffice to say, I was wrong. While it remains to be seen how he and his staff handle the transfer portal when they actually have most of a roster in place, Nagy and his assistants still did nothing short of a remarkable job of putting together a fairly competitive roster, especially with how little time they had to do it. The on-the-court product for the 2024-25 season was fun and usually enjoyable to watch, even if it was wildly inconsistent and frustrating at times. I don’t want to lean into cliches NAGY | 9