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Tuesday, April 1, 2014
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County staff against house purchase By DEBBIE BEHRENDS dbehrends@shawmedia.com SYCAMORE – A proposed sober home for DeKalb County’s Drug and DUI Court is not off the table, but it won’t be housed at 303 E. Exchange St. During Tuesday’s meeting of the DeKalb County Board’s Law and Justice Committee, Chairwoman Julia Fullerton, R-DeKalb, read a recommendation from Administrator Gary Hanson to withdraw the resolution to purchase the house. The meeting continued with
a presentation by drug court Judge Robbin Stuckert, drug court administrator Marilyn Stromborg and representatives of the Will County Drug and DUI Court, which oversees two sober homes. Stuckert began with a discussion of the structured, tightly-monitored environment for the men accepted into the home. “Residency is limited to DeKalb County participants who already have a significant amount of sobriety, and have demonstrated a commitment
to their recovery,” Stuckert said. She provided handouts that contained a laundry list of house rules, which require the residents must be employed and pay rent, they have a curfew and daily drug testing, among others. Speaking about the sober homes in Will County were Judge Carla Alessio Policandriotes and administrator Julie McCabe-Sterr. “The more we learn about drug and alcohol addiction, the less fear we have,” Polican-
driotes said. “The same people who fought the first house came back the second time to tell us what great neighbors they were.” Many of the neighbors attended to protest the proposed location of the sober home, but their protest was based on the county’s 100-year plan. “A lot of us came here ignorant of the program,” said Kevin Mathey, an Exchange Street resident. “My main issue was crossing Walnut Street. I’m not opposed to the program.” After the committee and
neighbors all had an opportunity to speak, Stuckert invited audience members currently in the drug court program to the front of the room. “I want you to see they are people just like you,” Stuckert said of the 13 men and women who came forward. Stuckert said she hoped the presentation changed some minds about the program. “We won’t ever persuade everyone this is the right thing to do, but I hope we were able to alleviate some concerns,” Stuckert said.
Care, compassion in wild world
What’s next The County Board’s Law and Justice Committee will recommend withdrawal of the resolution to purchase the house at 303 E. Exchange St., Sycamore, for use as a sober home. The board’s Executive Committee will consider the withdrawal when it meets at 7 p.m. April 8 at the Administration Center, 200 N. Main St.
Last push for health insurance sign-up By DON BABWIN The Associated Press
Photos by Danielle Guerra - dguerra@shawmedia.com
Oaken Acres Director of Operations Christy Gerbritz directs the 1-year-old barred owl named Hamlet to perch Thursday morning at Oaken Acres in Sycamore. Halmet was transferred in July to Oaken Acres from a different facility that couldn’t properly care for him.
Oaken Acres celebrates 30th anniversary of rehabbing injured animals By ANDREA AZZO
If you go
aazzo@shawmedia.com SYCAMORE – Not long ago, Kathy Stelford was caring for hundreds of injured wild animals all by herself. Stelford is the founder of Oaken Acres Wildlife Center at 12140 Aldrich Road, Sycamore. When the center opened in 1984, Stelford was caring for 60 to 70 animals on her own each year. That changed in 2013. Oaken Acres now has a year-round employee, five seasonal employees and countless volunteers. “It’s weird to have so many people helping,” Stelford said. “I was a little anxious about it since I was used to being by myself. “It was refreshing to see these animals through these new eyes. [Other employees] were so thrilled to experience what I had been able to experience for 30 years. Most people don’t get that opportunity. I was selfish. I saved it for myself all those 30 years.” Today is the 30th anniversary of the founding of
What: “Babies Gone WILD!” fundraiser When: 6 p.m. April 26 Where: The Regale Center, 122 S. California St., Sycamore About the event: The fundraiser, which will include a bald eagle, turkey vulture and three owls, helps fund for seasonal employees in the summer. Tickets are $20 a person. To volunteer or to report an injured wild animal, call Oaken Acres Wildlife Center at 815-895-9666.
Voice your opinion A gray squirrel peeks out of its enclosure during Christy Gerbitz’s morning rounds in Sycamore. The 30-year-old wildlife rescue houses and rehabilitates wildlife brought in by the public. Oaken Acres, the only wildlife rehabilitation center in DeKalb County. The center routinely takes in more than 500 injured wild animals each year and nurses them back to health. Oaken Acres will hold its annual “Babies Gone WILD!” fundraiser at 6 p.m. April 26, at The Regale Center, 122 S. California St. in Sycamore. The fundraiser, which will include a bald eagle, turkey vulture and three owls, helps pay the
cost to hire seasonal employees in the summer. Tickets are $20 a person. Oaken Acres is also raising money to buy a bald eagle flight cage so that the center can be licensed to care for eagles. The goal is to raise $30,000 to build a 100-foot long cage. “That’s a big cage, the biggest cage we’ve ever built,” Stelford said. “We don’t have all the money we need to build it. We don’t get the license until the cage is
Have you ever rescued any injured or abandoned wild animals? Vote online now at Daily-Chronicle.com.
up.” Staff and volunteers at the center are busy preparing for the baby season, the busiest time of the year. Every year, during the months of April through September, Oaken Acres takes in hundreds of injured baby wild animals such as raccoons and squirrels. Susan Christensen, a member of Oaken Acres’ board of directors, stressed the importance of helping injured animals. She looked
back at one experience about 20 years ago when she found an injured nighthawk by the roadside. Christensen called Oaken Acres and was told to take the injured animal to Bethany Animal Hospital, 2400 Bethany Road in Sycamore. “It was nice to know there was somebody who cared about that animal, because I could have left it
CHICAGO – People who waited until the last day to sign up for health insurance poured into hospital lobbies and enrollment areas Monday, with some encountering the same kind of computer problems that greeted those who tried to be the first to participate back in October. “Some people may be getting through, but we haven’t been getting through all morning,” said Jillian Phillips, who was trying to help people sign up at a Chicago restaurant. She said that while the Illinois site is “’working great and the new adult Medicaid site is working great, (the federal site) healthcare.gov is, I think, just swamped right now.” Across the state, the latenight deadline had triggered a flurry of activity, causing places like hospital lobbies, libraries and other locations where navigators like Phillips were stationed to look a bit like post offices on the day income tax forms are due. At one site, Norwegian American Hospital on Chicago’s West Side, officials said close to 200 people had signed up Saturday and another 200 signed up Sunday, with at least a dozen people waiting half an hour before enrollment began Monday. And in the East St. Louis area, an official said that the locations where people were signed up were even busier and that by the end of the day hundreds of people in the area will either sign up or try to sign up, depending on whether they can get through on the website. For the most part, people said they waited until the last day because that’s what they typically do when a deadline is approaching. One man said he thought that by waiting some of the highly publicized computer glitches would be worked out. “And I thought that most people would have signed up already, [that] waiting this long would work for me,” said Manuel Gonzalez,
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