By Bob Okon | The Herald-News

Mayor Bob O’Dekirk this week poured cold water on the idea of hiking the city gas tax.

He also joined a councilman in characterizing council member Sherri Reardon’s discussion of the topic as an attempt to “panic” people.

By Bob Okon | The Herald-News

Mayor Bob O’Dekirk plans to hold a town hall meeting next week on violence in Joliet.

“I’ve been getting a lot of complaints about the level of violence,” O’Dekirk said at the City Council meeting Tuesday.

A date has not been set, but O’Dekirk said he expected it to be next week and that the city would issue a news release….

By Alex Ortiz | The Herald-News

The Will County Board will vote on restricting the sale of alternative nicotine products to those over the age of 18 at its next meeting.

The county judicial committee approved the ordinance Tuesday, so it now moves to the full county board. At the July county board meeting, members debated whether to put the age restriction at 18 or 21.

While the state’s age requirement is 21, the proposed county law would keep the age requirement at 18. Committee Chairman Tyler Marcum, D-Joliet, said the point of expanding the ordinance to include alternative nicotine products was to give resource officers at high schools in unincorporated areas more “teeth” in enforcing rules against students smoking.