Tuesday & Wednesday,
Do you believe? Hannah delivers holiday message Page B1
Our View
Falling Short
State’s school grades raise many questions
Eastside hands defeat to Lakers
Page B4
Page B1
Dec. 24 & 25, 2013
HOLIDAY EDITION Weather Partly cloudy, high 21. In teens tonight. Page A10
GOOD MORNING No paper published for Christmas Day This newspaper will not publish an edition on Christmas Day, so that our employees may enjoy the holiday. We will resume publication with our Thursday, Dec. 26, edition.
Eagleson LaGrange’s new town manager LAGRANGE — Mark Eagleson has been hired to become LaGrange town manager. The town council, which Eagleson serves as president, made the decision last week. Eagleson will assume the new position Jan. 20 and will be resigning his seat on the town board. The LaGrange County Democratic Party has 30 days to appoint Eagleson’s replacement on the council, who will serve until Eagleson’s term expires at the end of 2014. The town will not hold a special election. Eagleson said demands on the town required the board to create the new town manager position. He said the position will allow him and the town’s clerk-treasurer, Laurie Miller, to oversee the daily business of the town. “This creates a sort of checks-and-balances system with Laurie,” Eagleson said. He also pointed out that LaGrange previously operated with an office staff of four, and hiring him as the new town manager brings the town’s staff back up to four people. Eagleson has been a member of the LaGrange town council since 2006.
Portion of U.S. 20 closed due to crash SHIPSHEWANA — A Portion of U.S. 20 near Shipshewana in LaGrange County was closed after a traffic accident at about 9:30 p.m., according to WANE-TV news. The road was still closed late Monday night. No information about the accident was available.
Board of works to consider purchases KENDALLVILLE — A new police vehicle, an upgrade to the council chambers’ sound and recording system and a new City Hall security door are among the items city department heads are seeking in an end-of-year purchase list.
READ MORE ON PAGE A2
Info • The News Sun P.O. Box 39, 102 N. Main St. Kendallville, IN 46755 Telephone: (260) 347-0400 Fax: (260) 347-2693 Classifieds: (toll free) (877) 791-7877 Circulation: (260) 347-0400 or (800) 717-4679
Index
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Classifieds.................................B6-B8 Life..................................................... A6 Obituaries......................................... A3 Opinion .............................................B4 Sports.........................................B1-B3 Weather..........................................A10 TV/Comics .......................................B5 Vol. 104 No. 353
Kendallville, Indiana
kpcnews.com
75 cents
Business tax cut would cost county BY BOB BRALEY bbraley@kpcmedia.com
ALBION — A proposed change in the Indiana tax code could remove 10 percent of Noble County government’s general fund budget, the Noble County Board of Commissioners learned Monday. The Indiana General Assembly is considering a proposal to do away with the business personal property tax, Noble County Auditor Jackie Knafel said Monday. Knafel calculated that business personal property tax accounts for about $922,000 of the county’s $9 million general fund budget.
Including money from outside the general fund, the impact of the change would be closer to $1.1 million, she said. The figures are only those for Noble County government, and do not include cities, towns, schools, libraries and other taxing units that would be affected. Commissioner Chad Kline said he and other commissioners have spoken to state legislators, telling them they oppose such a change because of the impact it would have on budgets. Knafel explained that, under Indiana law, the change’s impact would be spread among other taxes and taxpayers.
“Somebody has to make up those gaps, and it’s all the rest of us,” she said. Also Monday, the commissioners: • learned that the county employee health clinic saved the county $337,969 in 2013. By using the We Care clinic, the county and employees saved money on insurance payments for medical costs, Knafel said. Most of the savings came on prescriptions, with other expenses including office visits comprising the rest of the savings. About 80 percent of the county’s employees used the clinic in 2013, Knafel said.
The clinic is a joint effort of the county and the Central Noble Community School Corp., serving both agencies’ employees and their families. • approved a service contract to pay a $16,909 annual fee to Frontier North Inc. for equipment and software maintenance on the county’s Solarcom E-911 system. The $128,000 system was installed 14 months ago, said Noble County E-911 executive director Mitch Fiandt. The service contract will provide comprehensive monitoring and maintenance of all aspects of the system.
Ice to stick around AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Parts of the country socked by a wild weekend storm will be covered with ice through Christmas and beyond thanks to a steady diet of freezing rain and cold temperatures. The first full day of winter Sunday brought a mix including balmy temperatures along the Mid-Atlantic, snow in the Midwest PHOTO CONTRIBUTED and ice, snow and flooding in Rome City in place of library fines. Kendallville The Kendallville Public Library and Limberlost the Great Lakes, and utilities Public Library staff members Janice DeLong and Public Library recently had a Food for Fines warned that some people who lost Ron Stratman show the collected food, including electricity could remain in the dark event, with the libraries accepting nonperishable items donated by the library staff. food for the Friendship Food Pantry in Kendallthrough Wednesday. ville and the Helping Hands Food Pantry in More than 390,000 homes and businesses were without power Monday in Michigan, upstate New York and northern New England, down from Sunday’s peak of more than a half million. The bulk were BY KATHRYN BASSETT slightly, the needs of the bureau well as throughout the rest of the in Michigan, where more than kbassett@kpcmedia.com remained great. year. 297,000 customers remained The generosity of others is “The Lord has really blessed By Dec. 17 the pantry had without power Monday. The allowing northeast Indiana organius,” Yoder said. Donations served 317 families and 1,270 state’s largest utilities said it will zations to spread blessings this of money allow the bureau to individuals in DeKalb County be days before most of those get holiday season. purchase food from Community during the month. Of those, 19 their electricity back because of “Everybody has really pitched Harvest for 19 cents a pound. families and 79 individuals were the difficulty of working around in and helped with the needs,” said “It gives us the buying power,” new to the pantry, said RSVP ice-broken lines. Richard Yoder, board chairman of Yoder said of monetary donations. executive director Patti Sheppard. In Maine, the number of people the LaGrange County Christmas He said he has been sharing this RSVP is grateful to the without power spiked to more Bureau, a holiday charity operated information with various groups numerous organizations and than 68,000. A medical clinic in by the Clothes and Food Basket of and organizations and they seem Bangor lost power, forcing walk-in individuals that donate items and LaGrange County. patients to seek other options. to be responding. money the pantry can redistribute This year the bureau expected “It’s certainly not going away,” This season the bureau has to those in need, Sheppard said. to serve a few less families than Margaret Curtis, a meteorologist purchased 250 turkeys to distribute This holiday season, DeKalb in previous recent years, Yoder with the National Weather Service to families. Yoder said the bureau Central school bus drivers in Gray, Maine, said Monday of said. As of Dec. 16, the bureau also provides toys, which families organized a “Stuff-A-Bus” food had helped 400 families in the 11 appreciate at this time of year. and coat drive. Nonperishable food the precipitation and cold. “In days it had operated since Dec. The Retired Senior Volunteer donations, monetary contributions fact, we don’t have very many 2. Program’s Community Center of and new or gently used coats were areas where we’re expecting temperatures to rise above While the number of people Caring food pantry has seen high collected and donated to RSVP’s SEE CHARITIES, PAGE A10 freezing.” seeking assistance has dropped demand this holiday season, as
Charities make season brighter
Health insurance shoppers given extra day CHICAGO (AP) — Anticipating heavy traffic on the government’s health care website, the Obama administration effectively extended Monday’s deadline for signing up for insurance by a day, giving Americans in 36 states more time to select a plan. The grace period — which runs through Tuesday — was the latest in a series of pushed-back deadlines and delays that have marked the rollout of the health care law. But federal officials urged buyers not to procrastinate. “You should not wait until tomorrow. If you are aiming to get coverage Jan. 1, you should try to sign up today,” said Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the federal agency in charge of the overhaul. Bataille said the grace period was being offered to accommodate people from different time zones and to deal with any technical problems that might result from a last-minute rush of applicants. The HealthCare.gov site had a disastrous, glitch-prone debut in October, but the government reported on Twitter that it was running smoothly Monday
morning. It had no immediate estimates of how many people visited the site. Monday had been the deadline for Americans in the 36 states served by the federal website to sign up if they wanted coverage upon the start of the new year. The remaining states operate their own online marketplaces, and some of them have also extended their deadlines slightly. The extra day will add incrementally to the already daunting administrative problems for insurance companies, such as inaccuracies on applications, said health care industry consultant Robert Laszewski. “Insurers would like to have two to three weeks to process applications. Now they’re going to have a week, less one more day,” he said. “When the day is done, it doesn’t help.” President Barack Obama himself signed up for health insurance through the Washington marketplace over the weekend — a purely symbolic move since he will continue to get health care through the military as commander
AP
Certified enrollment specialist Richelle Baker, right, talks to Martha Medina, left, and her daughter Martha, both from Hialeah, Fla., at a Healthcare Insurance Marketplace office in Miami recently. The mother and daughter checked the different insurance plans and decided to go home and discuss the different options available to them.
in chief. The White House said he enrolled to show support for the marketplaces, and he chose a less-expensive “bronze” plan.
Obama said on Friday that more than 1 million Americans had enrolled for coverage since Oct. 1. The administration’s SEE INSURANCE, PAGE A10