THURSDAY
Jan uar y 8, 2015 • $1 .0 0
TEAM CATALYST NIU’s Corral having big senior year with average 15.3 points a game / B1 HIGH
LOW
12 -1 Complete forecast on page A6
daily-chronicle.com
SERVING DEKALB COUNTY SINCE 1879
Schools cancel classes again
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UNIVERSITY VILLAGE
Big plans for upgrades
By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI jduchnowski@shawmedia.com School districts around DeKalb County have canceled school for the second day in a row with dangerous wind chills expected to linger today. All of the county’s public schools, including in DeKalb, Sycamore, Kirkland, Hinckley-Big Rock, Sandwich, Somonauk, Kaneland, Indian Creek and Genoa-Kingston will be closed today. Also closed will be the Montessori Children’s House of Sycamore and DeKalb. “We worked together with the other superintendents in the county,” said Kathy Countryman, Sycamore District 427 superintendent. “We really consider all the students we have to bus and who might have to be standing outside.” The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill advisory for DeKalb County that will last until noon, with wind chills of minus-25 to minus-30 degrees. Snow accumulation of less than half an inch is possible this afternoon, and wind chills Friday morning are predicted to be as low as minus-22. Countryman said school leaders would wait until this afternoon to consider whether classes would resume Friday. Although the wind chill will remain hazardous today, temperatures will be warmer, with a high of 11 to 15 degrees. Almost an inch of snowfall is possible this afternoon. Friday is expected to be partly cloudy with no precipitation but highs in the single-digits, the National Weather Service said. “We’ll regroup again tomorrow afternoon,” Countryman said Wednesday, “and hopefully we’ll all be in session on Friday.” On Sunday, temperatures are expected to rise to the mid20s, according to the National Weather Service.
• Reporter Daria Sokolova contributed to this story.
Monica Synett – msynett@shawmedia.com
Resident Tiara Huggins welcomes Security Properties and Evergreen Real Estate Services to DeKalb during a meeting Wednesday for University Village residents and other community members to learn more about a potential $14 million project to renovate the low-income and Section 8 housing community at Westminster Presbyterian Church in DeKalb.
Developer, management company explain ideas for apartment complex What’s next
By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Rochelle Baker would have liked to see computers and community meeting space available in the University Village apartment complex when she moved in three years ago. Now it finally looks like that is going to happen. Seattle-based Security Properties plans to purchase and complete a $14 million renovation to University Village, a 534-unit apartment complex at 722 N. Annie Glidden Road in DeKalb. On top of interior upgrades such as bathroom and kitchen replacements, the company wants to create a community room that will feature computers and allow for afterschool programs.
A public hearing is tentatively scheduled for the Planning and Zoning Commission on Feb. 11. Security Properties would like to bring the proposal to the DeKalb City Council on Feb. 23.
Baker was one of more than 80 people who attended a special meeting of DeKalb’s Planning and Zoning Commission at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 830 N. Annie Glidden Road, to listen to Security Properties’ proposal and the plan from the potential new management company, Chicago-based Evergreen Real Estate Services. “I think the village should be a
stepping stone for people to get jobs, get resources,” Baker said. “I think this is a step in that direction. As long as they do what they say they’re going to do, this is a step in the right direction.” Baker, like the residents who live in 465, or 87 percent, of the units in University Village, receives Section 8 housing assistance. Steve TeSelle, an investment manager with Security Properties, said the units would remain Section 8. The other units would remain Section 236, another form of affordable housing. The company is under contract to purchase the housing complex, which hasn’t received any substantial upgrades since it was built in three phases from the late 1960s to early 80s. Buying the property hing-
Showing off for area farmers Event in DeKalb continues today
If you go What: Northern Illinois Farm Show When: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. today Where: Northern Illinois University Convocation Center, 1525 W. Lincoln Highway Cost: Parking $5, show is free
By DARIA SOKOLOVA dsokolova@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Cory Iverson stopped at the Northern Illinois Farm Show to check on fertilizers and products that would help to grow his farm and increase productivity. Iverson, a Paw Paw farmer who grows corn and soybeans, was among hundreds of people Wednesday who visited the two-day annual farm show at Northern Illinois University’s Convocation Center at 1525 W. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb. The two-day event continues today, when University of Illinois Extension commercial agriculture educator Russ
Danielle Guerra – dguerra@shawmedia.com
Autumn Klink, 2½, and her brother John Klink, 4, of Clare, play with the controls of a Bobcat mini excavator Wednesday at the Northern Illinois Farm Show at the NIU Convocation Center. Higgings will give an update on agronomy research projects conducted in 2014 by the Northern Illinois Agronomy Research Center. IntelliFarms, an Archie,
Missouri-based company that develops technologies to improve grain bin management and yields, has visited the show for several years because it is a great way to connect with
the company’s customer base, said John Lawrence, an IntelliFarms grain specialist. “The folks that come to this show are for the most part farmers who store their grains on their own farm, as opposed to selling it to an elevator or selling it right away,” Lawrence said. Lawrence said coming to the show is a marketing effort for IntelliFarms, as the company
See FARMERS, page A4
LOCAL
A&E
LOCAL
Overnight fire
Hidden treasures Violation
Estimated $100,000 in damage to downtown DeKalb building / A3
NIU museum exhibit displays area collectors’ artifacts, artwork / C1
Gaura: DeKalb mayor’s email against ethics code / A3
es on the city rezoning the property to planned unit development from multifamily residential. The zoning change will allow the owners to maintain the current number of units and parking spaces, which current city code would not allow. Without maintaining the number of units and the zoning change, the buyers would not be able to receive tax credits from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Illinois Housing Development Authority, TeSelle and Security Properties’ Managing Director of Affordable Housing Bryon Gongaware explained. “This is for the long-term
See RENOVATION, page A4
1 surrenders in French shooting By ELAINE GANLEY and LORI HINNANT The Associated Press PARIS – One man sought in the deadly shooting at a French satirical paper turned himself in Wednesday night, and police hunted for two armed men with possible links to al-Qaida in the military-style killing of 12 people at the office of a satirical newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. President Francois Hollande, visiting the scene of France’s deadliest such attack in more than half a century, called the assault on the weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo “an act of exceptional barbarism.”
France raised its terror alert system to the maximum – Attack Alert – and bolstered security with more than 800 extra soldiers to guard media offices, places of worship, transport and other sensitive areas. Fears had been running high in France and elsewhere in Europe that jihadis trained in warfare abroad would stage attacks at home. French brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, in their early 30s, should be considered armed and dangerous, according to a police bulletin released early Thursday. Mourad Hamyd, 18, surrendered at a police station in Charleville-Mezieres, a small
WHERE IT’S AT Advice ................................ C3 Classified....................... C5-6 Comics ............................... C4 Local News.................... A3-4 Lottery................................ A2 Nation&World...................A2
Obituaries .........................A4 Opinion...............................A5 Puzzles ............................... C3 Sports..............................B1-4 State .............................. A2, 4 Weather .............................A6
See ATTACK, page A2