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Serving DeKalb County since 1879
Saturday-Sunday, August 10-11, 2013
HUSKIE STADIUM IMPROVEMENTS
AMERICAN PROFILE • INSIDE
NIU players take pride in upgraded facilities Sports, B1
Author Beverly Cleary fosters a love of books
FILLING VACANCIES Officials expect occupation of empty lots to go up
D-427 pact was not publicized Vote on teachers contract apparently violated state’s Open Meetings Act law By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI jduchnowski@shawmedia.com
Rob Winner – rwinner@shawmedia.com
ABOVE: Scott Pfisterer, the executive vice president of ShoDeen Homes, speaks to members of the Sycamore Chamber of Commerce, city officials and real estate agents and brokers Tuesday before a groundbreaking ceremony for the reopening and development of homes in the Reston Ponds subdivision in Sycamore. BELOW: A sidewalk ends at the unruly grass and weeds of several vacant lots nestled between two homes in the Riverbend subdivision in Genoa. Of the three subdivisions in the city, Riverbend has the most vacant lots. Genoa has about 300 total vacant lots.
By the numbers
By FELIX SARVER fsarver@shawmedia.com SYCAMORE – Nate Amidon detects a renewed interest in new construction homes in the Reston Ponds subdivision in Sycamore. The sales director for ShoDeen Homes attended the groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday with members of the Sycamore Chamber of Commerce, city government and other public figures. The event commemorated the first of many steps to finishing Reston Ponds, which has 178 vacant home sites. “Our research has suggested there is a need for new housing there,” Amidon said. The subdivision contains just a fraction of the 1,500 planned, but so far vacant, home sites in DeKalb County. City and village officials have said the Great Recession – followed by the housing market bubble bursting – in the late 2000s affected new home development. But with the improving housing market, some of these lots won’t be vacant for much longer, authorities said. Sycamore can expect to
n 800: Estimated vacant lots in Sycamore n 300: Estimated vacant lots in DeKalb n 300: Estimated vacant lots in Genoa n 117: Vacant lots in Sandwich n 16: Vacant lots in Kingston
Source: City and village officials in DeKalb County
Voice your opinion Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Both Genoa and DeKalb have about 300 vacant lots. DeKalb Principal Planner Derek Hiland said many of the vacant lots are located in the Bridges of Rivermist, Devonaire Farms and The Knolls subdivisions. The older sections of Genoa tend to have the most vacant lots, said Joe Misurelli, the city’s part-time administrative consultant for development, planning and zoning. Three subdivisions that also have vacant lots include Riverbend, Derby Estates and Oak Creek. The lots in those
finish the year with 20 to 25 homes being built, Sycamore City Manager Brian Gregory said. The city has more than 800 lots vacant and almost all of them are in the newer subdivisions of the city, he said. The development of Reston Ponds, Parkside Estates, North Grove Crossing and Sycamore Creek slowed to a crawl in 2008 but will have homes built in them this year. “Many of the subdivisions from that period of time are pretty much finished out,” Gregory said.
Are you optimistic the housing market for new homes will improve in the next six months? Vote online at Daily-Chronicle.com. subdivisions are platted – or mapped to scale – but are not being developed. Some of the vacant lots can be mistaken for a different kind of space. “There are lots that are technically vacant lots that if you drove by looks like someone’s backyard,” Misurelli said.
See VACANCIES, page A7
SYCAMORE – Sycamore School District 427 apparently violated the Open Meetings Act by not informing the Daily Chronicle of a special board meeting for approving a new labor agreement with its teachers union. Board members approved a new 4-year pact with the district’s approximately 300 teachers at a 30-minute meeting that started at 7:30 a.m. Thursday. The contract freezes teacher salaries for the coming school year, but offers raises of 1.5 percent and 3 percent to the base salary schedule in years three and four, respectively, district officials have said. Teachers would receive a seniority based “step increase” in year two of the deal. The school district has yet to provide a copy of the contract to the newspaper. The Open Meetings Act requires pubic bodies to notify news organizations of all special meetings at least 48 hours in advance by using the same communication method as was used to notify board members of the meeting, so long as the news organization requests such notice each year. The Daily Chronicle sent an annual request for notice to the district in January. All school board members have been trained in the Open Meetings Act, according to a document posted on the district’s website. “Any action taken at a meeting not in compliance with the Open Meetings Act is subject to being set aside,” said Don Craven, attorney for the Illinois Press Association. District leaders emailed school board members when they posted the meeting agenda to the district website, but they did not notify the Daily Chronicle. Superintendent Kathy Countryman acknowledged receiving the Daily Chronicle’s annual request in January and said the omission this week was unintentional.
“Due to an inadvertent oversight, we regret that we neglected to notify the Chronicle as we normally do via email. We’ve spoken with the Chronicle to discuss avenues to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” – Kathy Countryman, superintendent of Sycamore School District 427
Inside Our View: District 427 should schedule another vote on the teachers contract after keeping the Daily Chronicle out of the loop. PAGE A9
See D-427, page A7
Leaders seek to speed up lawsuit over lawmaker pay By SARA BURNETT The Associated Press CHICAGO – Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan are trying to speed up the resolution of a lawsuit they filed over Gov. Pat Quinn’s decision to cut lawmakers’ pay. Legislators already have missed their August paycheck as a result of Quinn cutting $13.8 million for lawmaker salaries from the state budget, and
they’re expected to miss at least one more before the next scheduled court date. Quinn, a Chicago Democrat, has said his line-item veto was a consequence for lawmakers’ failure to address Illinois’ nearly $100 billion pension crisis. Cullerton and Madigan, also Chicago Democrats, sued Quinn last week, saying the veto is unconstitutional and violates the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. They also filed a motion for a
preliminary injunction, asking a Cook County circuit judge to force Quinn and Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka – whose office controls the state’s checkbook – to issue the paychecks. Judge Neil Cohen on Tuesday set a Sept. 18 court date to hear oral arguments on the preliminary injunction. That means lawmakers, who are paid on the first day of each month, would miss their September check before the motion would be decided. Under that schedule, it would
likely take even longer – with more missed checks – for a final resolution of the lawsuit itself. So Madigan and Cullerton asked Cohen on Thursday to consider the merits of the lawsuit rather than the preliminary injunction when he hears oral arguments, said Rikeesha Phelon, a spokeswoman for Cullerton. “This change may lead to a quicker resolution of the case,” Phelon said in an email. Quinn believes he has the authority to cut legislators’
pay, and argues that lawmakers also have the option of going to Springfield and voting to override his veto – a move that would require a three-fifths vote and, the governor has predicted, would be wildly unpopular with voters frustrated by the Legislature’s inaction. He has also said the best option for lawmakers is to pass legislation to address the state’s unfunded pension liability, a shortfall that grows by millions of dollars a day.
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Inside today’s Daily Chronicle Lottery Local news Obituaries
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National and world news Opinions Sports
Gov. Pat Quinn cut $13.8 million for lawmaker salaries from the state budget, prompting a lawsuit.
A2, 5-6 A9 B1-4
Advice Comics Classified
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