Freeport

Criminal charges have been filed against a Freeport-area woman after 143 cats and dogs were seized Monday from her home. Many of them were dead. 

Tina McKinnon, 45, is charged with two counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, plus three misdemeanor charges. Officials say they had been trying to find her home after she reached out to animal control and another local animal rescue organization for help with all of the animals, only to back away.  

Bus ridership has nearly doubled in Freeport and Stephenson County in the first six months following service expansion. 

Kevin Cooley, the program compliance oversight monitor at the Freeport senior center, is confident ridership will continue to increase. 

“We’re already well over 30,000 rides--we’ve already pretty much completed everything we did last fiscal year and we have the whole year to go,” Cooley said.

Freeport School District Superintendent Roberta Selleck has submitted her resignation to the Freeport School Board.

The Freeport School Board says it is investigating the district superintendent for “certain administrative actions and decisions.”

In an August 17 written statement, Board President Janice Crutchfield says that the Board decided to place Superintendent Roberta Selleck on paid administrative leave on July 15 while the Board pursued its investigation.

Freeport aldermen approved a plan to sell part of a sprawling industrial compound plagued by environmental problems. For more than a decade, city officials have been removing contaminated soil and lead paint from the Rawleigh complex, the site of a former food processing center. The Freeport Journal Standard reports city leaders agreed to businessman Pete Alber's bid of $100 to buy Building D of the complex.