WEEKEND $1.50
Breaking news at Daily-Chronicle.com
Serving DeKalb County since 1879
Saturday-Sunday, June 7-8, 2014
FROZEN FRENZY • LIFESTYLE, C1
CLASS 3A ROCHELLE SECTIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Film’s fame prompts tourism, product sales
Clutch hitting key to Spartan’s postseason run Sports, B1
Input sought on DeKalb fiscal 2015 budget plan
Summer fun has begun
By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com
Photos by Danielle Guerra - dguerra@shawmedia.com
The paratrooper ride was running Friday on the first day of Malta Days. The event runs through Sunday and is DeKalb County’s first festival of the season this year.
Festival season takes hold in DeKalb County By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com MALTA – After trudging through a long, cold winter, Olivia and Cody Moses could not wait to bring their two-year-old daughter, Autumn, to Malta Days. “I saw ‘carnival’ and I was like, ‘We’re going,’ ” Sycamore resident Olivia Moses said. “It makes me excited about all the summer festivities.” The whir of carnival rides and smell of freshly fried funnel cakes at Malta Days means the start of summer festival season in DeKalb County. The festival opened Friday, ushering in what promises to be months of tilt-a-whirls, cotton candy and live entertainment. The ninth annual Malta Days, which runs through Sunday, features a carnival, beer garden and a handful of bands. Attendees also will find a petting zoo, food, crafters, a 5K run and a community church service. Malta comptroller and festival volunteer Debbie Lang touted the event as an occasion that brings the community together. “Saturday is like a homecoming,” Lang said. “It’s kind of like a family reunion.” About 15 volunteers organize the event, which draws about 1,000 people every year, Lang said. The Lions Club and the Village Board assist in planning, while about $5,000 to pay for musical acts is found elsewhere. “Basically, we count on our local businesses to pay for the bands,” Lang said. The 79th annual Genoa Days is next on the summer festival schedule, beginning Wednesday and running through June 14. The event kicks off Wednesday night with the crowning of the king and queen, recent high school graduates who each receive $1,000 scholarships. “It’s a huge deal,” said Genoa Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Cortney
Friends Jeena Crones (from left), 10, Rhiannon Flink, 9, and Makayla Knutson, 10, all of Malta, ride the sidewinder during Friday’s first night of Malta Days. Firefighter Erica Nelson said planning for the event starts in January and ramps up What is your favorite local festival? Vote online at about a month before. “Mid-May is when you really start scramDaily-Chronicle.com. bling,” Nelson said. “You start feeling that crunch.” Many local communities feature their Strohacker said. “It’s an honor for these kids own summer festivals, such as the Kingston Fest and Kardboard Boat Regatta; Waterman to be recognized.” The Genoa-Kingston Fire Department Summerfest and Tractor Show; and the Sycputs on Genoa Days, which features music, amore Steam Show and Threshing Bee will a parade and carnival rides that Strohacker said draws more than 5,000 people to Genoa. See FESTIVALS, page A7
Voice your opinion
“It makes me excited about all the summer festivities.”
DeKALB – Residents will have a chance to weigh in on the city of DeKalb’s budget during Monday’s City Council meeting. Aldermen will hold a public hearing before giving their initial approval of the $79 million budget that starts July 1 and runs through June 30, 2015. Final approval will come at the June 23 meeting. Barring any changes, the city will spend $35 million from its general fund while bringing in $34.5 million. The city will have $5.4 million in reserves, or 15 percent of annual expenditures, which is 10 percent short of its 25 percent goal. The $543,753 general fund deficit is tied to the city using $607,000 from its general fund to make a balloon payment for a bond the city issued more than a decade ago to build hangars at DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport. City officials explored refinancing the bond over a 13-year period instead of paying off the debt, but decided against it because would it cost the city an additional $163,000 in interest. The balloon payment was among a handful of issues the city confronted during a series of workshops this year. Other problems include rising pension costs. The city collects enough in property taxes to cover $3.5 million in pension costs, but that leaves $571,000 that must be paid using money from the general fund. The city uses about $4 million from its general fund to support other funds, including pensions. Some of the possibilities for solving the financial issues that aldermen explored included raising taxes or fees. Those discussions will continue after the budget is finalized, Assistant City Manager Rudy Espiritu said. “We anticipate [discussions] still happening,” Espiritu said. “It will happen after the budget has passed because those are long-term issues.” Sixth Ward Alderman Dave Baker said he trusted City Manager Anne Marie Gaura’s budget and saw it as a living document that the council likely would tweak in the coming months. “I think it’s a sobering experience that everyone has to realize the local economy is not growing at the same rate as the costs of personnel and doing business as a city,” Baker said. The city’s organization also will change under the proposed budget, including outsourcing services in the city’s building department and hiring two part-time property maintenance inspectors. Further, the city will add a management analyst and a community development director while cutting its ties with a lobbyist and economic development consultant.
If you go What: DeKalb City Council meeting public hearing on the proposed budget. When: 6 p.m. Monday Where: DeKalb City Hall, 200 S. Fourth St.
Olivia Moses Sycamore resident
World honors D-Day’s fallen, 70 years on By GREG KELLER and ELAINE GANLEY The Associated Press COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France – It was a day of pride, remembrance and honors for those who waded through blood-tinged waves, climbed razor-sharp cliffs or fell from the skies, staring down death or dying in an invasion that portended the fall of the Third Reich and the end of World War II. It was also a day of high diplomacy for a Europe not completely at peace. After 70 years, a dwindling
number of veterans, civilian survivors of the brutal battle for Normandy, and 19 world leaders and monarchs celebrated Friday the sacrifices of D-Day, an assault never matched for its size, planning and derring-do. The events spread across the beaches and lush farmlands of Normandy, in western France, had an added sense of urgency this year: It would be the last grand commemoration for many of the veterans, whether they relived the anniversary at home in silence or were among about 1,000 who crossed continents to be pres-
ent despite their frail age. For President Barack Obama, transmitting the memory of their “longest day” means keeping intact the values that veterans fought and died for. “When the war was won, we claimed no spoils of victory – we helped Europe rebuild,” Obama said in a speech at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. It is the site where 9,387 fallen soldiers rest under white marble tombstones on a bluff above Omaha Beach, the bloodiest among five beach landings by U.S. and British troops.
“This was democracy’s beachhead,” he said, assuring veterans that “your legacy is in good hands.” F-15 jets flew over the cemetery in missing-man formation, a 21-gun salute boomed and taps sounded. The day of gratitude drew royals including Queen Elizabeth II of England, who dined at the French presidential palace in the evening, and AP photo the king of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, as well as World War II veterans of the U.S. 29th Infantry Division (from left) political leaders from across Hal Baumgarten, 90, from Pennsylvania, Steve Melnikoff, 94, from Europe. German Chancellor Maryland, Don McCarthy, 90, from Rhode Island, and Morley Piper,
See D-DAY, page A6
90, from Massachusetts, attend a D-Day commemoration Friday on Omaha Beach, western France.
Weather
Inside today’s Daily Chronicle Lottery Local news Obituaries
A2 A3-4 A4
National and world news Opinions Sports
A2, A5-6 A9 B1-4
Advice Comics Classified
C6 C7 D1-4
High:
82
Low:
60