DDC-1-1-2015 by Shaw Media

THURSDAY

Ja n u a r y 1, 2015 • $1 .0 0

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29 19 Complete forecast on page A6

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D-428 board spot still vacant in race By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com DeKALB – More than half the members of the DeKalb School District 428 board are up for election next year, but none of them will run for re-election. To add to the potential shake-up awaiting the district, three candidates have filed for the four open seats on the board so far. Howard Solomon and

DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder’s office. Board President Tracy Potential candidates can file Williams said he plans to stay write-in paperwork with the DeKalb involved with the school disCounty Clerk and Recorder’s office, trict, but he thinks the board 110 E. Sycamore St., Sycamore, by could use some fresh perspecFeb. 5. The forms have to be signed tive. by a notary public. He also questioned if he could continue to make enough room in his schedule Kerry Mellot filed by the to lead the board. deadline, while Mike Welsh “It would be very difficult filed as a write-in candidate for me to commit the time the this week, according to the district deserves,” Williams

About write-in candidates

said. “It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be difficult.” Former president Tom Matya said his other commitments, such as being the president of the Kishwaukee Hospital Board and a grandfather, pushed him to step away from the school board at the end of his term. “Despite trying to recruit others to run, they did not turn in petitions,” Matya said. Departing board member

Nina Fontana said she sought out retired teachers like her to bring their experience inside the schools to the board. However, they declined. Fontana said her belief in term limits was what compelled her not to seek a second term. She’s confused about why the field of candidates isn’t more crowded, though. When Fontana was elected with Williams, Matya and Cohen Barnes in the 2011 election,

11 people competed for four seats. The 2013 election had five candidates for three positions. “I’m not sure why there is such a disparity,” Fontana said. “Last year, the issue of the grant had people interested in how we would spend that.” The small candidate pool might be a result of people

See BOARD, page A3

Palestinians to press case of war crimes against Israel

Big-picture success

By JOSEF FEDERMAN and MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH The Associated Press

Photos by Danielle Guerra – dguerra@shawmedia.com

Ideal Industries employee Connie Mohney puts together wire strippers Tuesday in the Sycamore manufacturing plant.

10 years later, DeKalb County goals for economic vitality ring true A closer look

By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com DeKALB – When Dave Juday looks at what’s happened to the DeKalb area’s economy in the last decade, he concentrates on the people who have impacted it locally. Juday, who retired as the chairman of Sycamore-based Ideal Industries in February, said he doesn’t see people trying to out-shout one another about whether the pace of growth is appropriate or about what they don’t want to see in DeKalb. Instead, he sees a group of people focusing on what they do want. “We have our squabbles, certainly,” Juday said. “But I get a feeling we’re doing a better job of looking at the big picture.” Those efforts stem from a set of documents drafted almost a decade ago, in 2005, called “The Vital Community Papers.” Members of the local business community signed a series of philosophical statements, modeled after The Federalist Papers from the nation’s Revolutionary era, about the values the DeKalb area needs to embrace to achieve sustainable economic success. Those values include qual-

Values touted in “The Vital Community Papers” • Educational programs that prepare our community’s young people to compete in the global marketplace • Quality job opportunities for graduates of both secondary and higher educational programs • A tax base that – at reasonable levels of taxation – produces revenue streams of sufficient magnitude and diversity to provide stable support for public costs despite economic variability • A business climate conducive to entrepreneurialism • A commercial and industrial base Vickie Hughes, an Ideal Industries employee, puts together wire stripper of sufficient size and variety of comblades after they are sharpened Tuesday in the Sycamore facility. position to buffer the destabilizing effects of business and employment ity educational programs and use a few additions. losses job opportunities for both high school- and college-age residents; a tax base that produces enough revenue to support government operations with “reasonable” tax rates; a business climate that encourages entrepreneurial spirit; and a diverse commercial and industrial base that could offset any business losses. Some of those statements still hold true, local business leaders say. In other ways, however, the documents could

Juday was among those local business people to sign the documents, and according to the documents themselves, he was someone who galvanized the local efforts to shed a positive light on development in 2005. At the time, development had a different connotation in the DeKalb area than it does now. “Ten years ago, growth was a reality, so there was no point in fighting it,” Sundog IT CEO Cohen Barnes said. “Now, it’s

that we want growth. So what do we do to attract people here?” When the documents were drafted, the development debate centered around allowing or preventing unbridled growth. Since then, DeKalb has gained a new high school, hospital and several housing

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Turning up the pressure on Israel, the Palestinians announced Wednesday that they are joining the International Criminal Court to pursue war-crimes charges against the Jewish state – a risky, highstakes move that brought threats of retaliation from Israel and criticism from the U.S. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas acted a day after suffering a defeat in the U.N. Security Council, which voted down a resolution setting a three-year deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state on lands occupied by Israel. “We want to complain. There’s aggression against us, against our land. The Security Council disappointed us,” Abbas said. Turning to the international court at The Hague marks a major policy shift, transforming Abbas’ relations with Israel from tense to openly hostile. The ultimate goal is to pressure Israel into withdrawing from the territories and agreeing to Palestinian statehood. The strategy carries risks, including the possibility the Palestinians themselves could be accused of war crimes over rocket attacks by the extremist group Hamas on Israeli population centers and other violence against Jewish targets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to take unspecified “retaliatory steps.” In Washington, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said the U.S. was “deeply troubled” by the Palestinians’ “escalatory step.” He said it was “entirely counterproductive and does nothing to further the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign and independent state.” At the international court, the Palestinians could seek to have Israeli military or political figures prosecuted for alleged crimes involving settlement construction on occupied lands or actions by the military that cause heavy civilian casualties, for instance. Israel is not a member of the court and does not recognize its jurisdiction. And the court has no police force and no authority to go into Israel and arrest suspects. But it could issue arrest warrants that would make it difficult for Israeli officials to travel abroad. Abbas has been under heavy pressure to take stronger action against Israel amid months of rising tensions over the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks last spring, a 50-day war between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza over the summer, a recent spate of deadly Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets, and Israeli restrictions on access to a key Muslim holy site in Jerusalem. The Palestinians planned to submit the paperwork for joining the ICC to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday afternoon, but postponed it, probably until Friday. Handing over the documents is the last formal step for Palestine to become a member of the ICC, which would happen in about 60 days. Israel could take a number of retaliatory

See ECONOMY, page A3 See ISRAEL, page A4

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