I have lived in Clinton between outages for 12 years. I personally like Bloomington, it's 30 minutes north, has lots of apartments and motels, plenty to do in the area when your not working.
Clinton is a nice little town but not much to do there, and most of the watering holes are just that, 'HOLES'. I do concur that the Wye Motel and Town and Country are not very good, of course that could be because they have been tax write-offs for the owners.
Decatur is not a very good place to go as far as I'm concerned, but Forsyth is only 15 minutes away and has most of the shoping you need without going into Decatur.
The drive to Champaign is 20 minutes Interstate and 20 minutes State Route, if you don't run into a County Mounty.