GREENE PRAIRIE PRESS JANUARY 15, 2014 – Vol. 145, No. 3 – Carrollton, Illinois 62016
INSIDE LOCALS
Petri ~ Scott engagement. See page A3
NEWS
Roodhouse continues to look for water loss by CArmeN eNSiNger Greene Prairie Press With the new year comes change, but one thing that hasn’t changed in Roodhouse is their search for the source of their excessive water loss – something the city has been experiencing since the 1980s. “I’ve been doing some checking, and from what I have seen so far this city has been experiencing a large water loss since Jim Crabtree was mayor back in the 1980s,” Mayor Tom Martin said. “I know back then he got grants to put in new meters and that didn’t take care of it.” The city is currently experiencing roughly a 25 percent water loss and while some level of water loss is expected, the level is much higher than the average of 15 percent noted on the National Municipal Water Loss website. “This website shows that municipalities all over the country experience some level of water loss,” Martin said. “This is due in part to the aging infrastructures in many of the smaller towns like ours.” Even though the city has a brand new $8 million dollar water plant, the water from the plant is delivered to town through a 10-inch cast iron pipe
which was dug out and laid by hand back in 1921. “They probably should have upgraded that line to a 12- or 14-inch line, but at the time replacing that six miles of line would have cost almost as much as building the new
“We are paying to treat 105,000,000 gallons but only get paid for 55 million .”
Tom Martin Roodhouse Mayor
water plant,” Martin said. “During the process of building the new line, the engineers checked out this line and deemed it was still a good line.” Eight years ago, when Jim Young was mayor, the council approved the purchase of a meter to be installed at the west end of town to determine whether the water loss was coming from the line into town or from within the city. “The meter didn’t work too long, but the time it did work showed the loss was coming from within the
IF
Winchester Invitational Tournament tips off. See page b1
city, just like the guys had thought,” Martin said. “The bad thing about it is this town was not set up to where it could be sectioned off where you can cut off a certain section of town and see if the water loss is coming from there.” One thing the city is certain of is that the water is not going into the city’s storm sewers. “You would think if you were losing it through your storm sewers that it would show up somewhere,” Martin said. “Our guys tested every single puddle for chemicals this fall when it was so dry and they even checked the creeks running through town, and none of the treated water was found in any of those places.” According to the engineer’s report, 105,000,000 gallons of water a year is pumped into the city but sales of water are only 55 million gallons. Of this amount, it is figured 2,000 goes to each meter for a total of 20,000 gallons, which brought the total down to 85,000,000 gallons. Reports for 2012 show a little more than 60,000,000 went through the water office to be billed out, which puts the city at about a 25 percent loss. “In the past, we didn’t have a new (See, water loss, A2)
Roodhouse to finalize water project by CArmeN eNSiNger Greene Prairie Press Roodhouse City Council discussed three pay resolutions which will essentially close out the water plant project at its workshop meeting on Jan. 8. Two of the pay resolutions on the agenda for the Jan. 15 regular city council meeting will essentially make $30,000 available at a very low interest rate to the city for other water projects. City Comptroller Suzanne Roundcount explained the city could reimburse itself through the water grant for around $22,000 in parts, material and labor for fixing the Alsey meter pit, along with another $7,000 for water meters which the city already had on hand. “It’s not something you have to do because you have already expended the money,” Roundcount said. “What you are doing is requesting to pay yourself, which is putting this money back into the loan which means you are paying yourself around $30,000 at a very low interest rate. You can then use this money for other projects
Phone scam targeting residents by CArmeN eNSiNger Greene Prairie Press Greene County Sheriff Rob McMillen is urging all residents of the county to be aware of recent reports of citizens receiving automated calls from someone reporting to be a representative of Premier Bank of Jacksonville who are fraudulently attempting to obtain banking and personal financial information.
“Premier bank of Jacksonville and most all other banks will not contact its customers or any citizens by telephone, email, text message, etc . to obtain information .”
NGJH competes at state speech competition.
Rob McMillen Greene Co. Sherrif
See page A8
SPORTS Carmen Ensinger/Greene Prairie Press
eli Flowers, right, of Carrollton keeps a wary eye on his buddies behind him at monday night's game against the Carrollton Hawks . Flowers was busy playing a game on his phone while waiting for his brother's team to play . Sitting next to Flowers is Nicholas Stendeback who helped the sixth grade boys defeat Carrollton .
Donkey basketball tourney planned at Carrollton by CArmeN eNSiNger Greene Prairie Press
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Obituaries in this issue: hallOck, hardwick, herberling, geOrge, schild, snyder
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around the city.” The third pay resolution is for Hutchinson Engineering for $26,465.55 which is a 5 percent holdback retainer for their engineering services. “Ralph (Phillips) and I went out to the water plant after Christmas and it looks like all the issues we saw in the beginning had been fixed,” Mayor Tom Martin said. “Pretty much all those items on the punch list have been taken care of and the city didn’t have to pay a dime on any of it.” Roundcount informed the council they need to approve a resolution to transfer $7,606.80 from the water department to the general fund to satisfy a CDAP grant the city received to replace its emergency sirens. Roundcount said during the audit the auditors caught the mistake by the previous administration. “They said the money should have never been put into the water account because it was a grant for the sirens,” Roundcount said. “Since it was a grant, they just dumped it into the water account with the previous grant money. (See, roodhouse, A2)
COUNTY NEWS
LOOKS COULD KILL....
SCHOOL
Lady Spartan Classic begins. See page b10
75¢
Carrollton is well known as a community that loves its basketball, and they are also a well-known farming community. Well, those two loves are being combined into one to help raise money for those in need.
“We decided on donkey basketball because it is a unique fundraiser that can be very entertaining for the crowd .”
Ashley Steinacher FFA Reporter
Carrollton FFA Chapter is planning a donkey basketball tournament in March with all proceeds going to local community members faced with large medical bills. FFA Reporter Ashley Steinacher said the group wanted to do a fundraiser, but they wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary. “Rather than having our members sell pizzas or cookies, we wanted something that would get the whole community involved,” Steinacher said. “We decided on donkey basketball because it is a unique fundraiser that can be very entertaining for the crowd.” All proceeds from the event will be donated to as many designated families as possible within the community to help cover any medical expenses. The goal is to raise $5,000. A full evening of entertainment is being planned starting with a pork chop dinner and a silent auction going on throughout the evening in addition to a 50/50 drawing and a half-court shot.
While most school fundraisers are held to help the different organizations or teams sponsoring the fundraiser, none of the money collected from this fundraiser will go towards the FFA Chapter – it will all be donated to those in need. “Our FFA chapter wanted to do something for the community to help make a difference to families in our community,” Steinacher said. “We just got done with our Combine Chase, which raised a good amount of money for our chapter, but we felt that we needed to do something to give back to the community. We had been hearing of some families that were in a tough spot financially and we wanted a way to help them out. Our members brainstormed some ideas and when someone brought up the idea of donkey basketball we thought it would be a perfect fundraiser.” While the riders might not be professionals – the donkeys are. They will be rented from Dairy-land Donkey Company in Wisconsin. “They have trained the donkeys to do certain things,” Steinacher said. “These donkeys can be trained to buck, sit down, run fast, and a number of other things that make playing difficult for the rider, but at the same time gives the audience a good laugh.” Another goal of the fundraiser is to involve as many from the community as possible. They are in need of donations for the silent auction, business sponsorships for the event and volunteers to help with the dinner and some really daring individuals who would be willing to ride a donkey in the game. They are also looking for names of local families who might need financial support. Anyone who has a name of a family in mind or can donate in any way can contact FFA Advisor Christie Joehl at cjoehl@chawks.net or call (217) 416-0839. Check out the FFA website for an up-to-date list of donation items still needed at www.carrolltonffa.com. Tickets will be on sale prior to the event once a date has been scheduled. C
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“Premier Bank of Jacksonville and most all other banks will not contact its customers or any citizens by telephone, email, text message, etc. to obtain information,” McMillen said. “This is why I am urging all citizens to not provide this information to anyone, especially an untrusted source who is contacting you in this manner.” McMillen said both he and his wife received this type of inquiry. “My call came in at around 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 13, and my wife’s call came shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Jan. 14,” McMillen said. “The number showed up on both of our phones’ caller ID as coming from the number ‘330’.” The phone calls are not limited to just those with bank accounts at Premier Bank in Jacksonville. The majority of local people on Facebook who have mentioned receiving the phone call do not have an account with the bank. “Giving confidential information out to these types of fraudulent groups could cause serious financial problems and identity theft problems, which could take years to correct,” McMillen said. “What is worse, the perpetrators may never be identified.”
WATER
BOY
Carmen Ensinger/Greene Prairie Press
eight-year-old Jake maurer of Carrollton was helping out at the concession stand during monday night's game against the St . John's redbirds .