Senator Sally Turner, Representative Bill Hauter, Mayor Tracy Welch, and County Board Chair James Glenn have been on these. We are not inventing them. We are writing down what Lincoln already knows.
The prison
On June 5, 2026, the Illinois Department of Corrections said it will close Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln and rebuild the women’s prison in Crest Hill, next to Joliet, about 140 miles north. About 400 jobs in a city of 13,000. Locals packed hearings. Turner, Hauter, Glenn, and Welch called it the wrong move for staff, for the town, and for the people housed there. The state says the Lincoln site does not have the space. The state also said it will keep Logan open “as long as it is safe” while Crest Hill is built, about five years. Mayor Welch asked them not to leave another abandoned campus. That is the fear: Logan becomes the next Lincoln Developmental Center.
A new governor cannot snap his fingers and undo a contract overnight. He can stop treating downstate as the place you take jobs from. Darren Bailey can try. The current administration chose Crest Hill.
WGLT, June 5 and September 8, 2026. Chicago Tribune, June 5, 2026. WAND, September 10, 2026. IDOC / Capital Development Board announcement, June 5, 2026.
Lincoln Developmental Center
The state closed LDC in 2002. More than 20 years of blight: collapsed roofs, asbestos, boarded windows, about 100 acres and 27 buildings. Ryan closed it. Later governors promised. In February 2025 the current administration put LDC on a Surplus to Success list and talked $300 million to make idle state sites shovel-ready. Turner and Welch supported demolition. Turner also said the money is “subject to available funds.” CMS says Phase I and Phase II environmental work at Lincoln is done. The buildings are still standing. Welch is now asking the same question about the prison: do not leave us another mess.
We are not saying nothing was ever proposed. We are saying Lincoln is still looking at the same ruin, and now it may look at two.
CMS Surplus to Success (Lincoln listed, 100 acres). WAND, February 21, 2025. Illinois Times, March 31, 2025. WGLT, September 5, 2026. Turner: Straight from Sally and budget remarks, 2025.
Wind, solar, and the farmland
People in Logan County are tired of utility-scale wind and solar on good ground. That is not a rumor. The County Board has spent years on Top Hat wind, Sugar Creek solar wrapped around turbines, Hilltopper, and neighbors who showed up to say no. Some projects still got votes. Some landowners who lease do well. Neighbors who did not sign get the view, the drainage questions, and the electric bill.
How Springfield made it easier for the developers:
- Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, 2021. State mandate toward 100 percent clean energy. Subsidies and adders on the electric bill. That is this administration.
- Public Act 102-1123, January 27, 2023. Counties may not ban commercial wind or solar on land zoned agricultural. They may not write rules stricter than the state’s. They may not put on a moratorium. Logan County still holds hearings. It cannot just say no.
- Federal tax credits for wind and solar go back years, including the Obama-era production and investment credits, later extended. Springfield stacked state policy on top.
Kickbacks: we will not invent a Logan County payoff we cannot source. What is documented statewide is the ComEd bribery case: the utility admitted a years-long scheme to pass a formula-rate law through the Madigan circle. A few got taken care of. Ratepayers got the bill. That is the pattern people mean when they say the few and the many. On farmland, the few who lease can cash a check. The many drive past it and pay Ameren.
PA 102-1123, signed January 27, 2023. Illinois Extension / ILGA 55 ILCS 5/5-12020. CEJA, September 15, 2021. Logan County Board and Lincoln Daily News coverage of Sugar Creek solar and Top Hat, 2022–2025. Hilltopper wind farm, EIA, operating 2018. ComEd: federal deferred-prosecution case, 2020.
What a new governor can try
Darren Bailey is the Republican for governor. He cannot promise a magic wand. He can try to keep Logan in Lincoln, finish LDC instead of another speech, and give counties their say back on farmland. Sally Turner and Bill Hauter already live this. Statewide reasons are on the Why Vote page: taxes, pensions, the $16 billion, people here illegally. Local reasons are this page. Same ticket.