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Serving DeKalb County since 1879
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
BLUEBERRY SUMMER • FOOD, C1
DEKALB BASEBALL • SPORTS B1
10 tips to freshen up blueberry recipes
Coach Justin Keck returns to diamond
Otto’s turns in license, could close permanently
Nonprofit helps Iraq veteran
By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com
Photos by Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Darnell Smith, an Army veteran who was deployed overseas four times, plays with two of his three sons, Alex Smith (left), 8, and Jacob Smith (right), 13, on Tuesday at their Kingston home. Smith recently received help from Modest Needs to help him replace the transmission in his truck.
Grant aids his transition to civilian life How to help
By ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com KINGSTON – Army veteran Darnell Smith had $63 in his checking account this spring when the transmission in his 2004 Chevrolet Blazer needed to be replaced. The Kingston resident, who served three tours in Iraq and was stationed for 15 months in Kuwait, was worried. Replacing the transmission was going to cost more than $1,400, money that his unemployment benefits weren’t going to cover. And he had just accepted a job assembling grills at Weber Grills in
To donate to someone in financial need or to apply for help, visit www.modestneeds.org. Huntley, making his halfhour commute impossible. Then a friend told Smith about the Modest Needs Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to working people living just above the poverty level. Modest Needs offers a Homecoming Heroes grant for veterans waiting for their final active duty paychecks, so Smith
See VETERAN, page A4
Darnell Smith of Kingston received 13 medals and ribbons during his career in the Army.
DeKALB – Otto’s in downtown DeKalb could be closed permanently after the owner decided to surrender the music venue’s liquor license. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” owner Pat Looney said Tuesday. “I would say it’s 50/50 if we’re even going to try to open again.” Looney decided to turn over the liquor license before he was scheduled to meet with the city Tuesday for a hearing regarding the music venue and bar at 118 E. Lincoln Highway. The city noted a litany of health and safety concerns in the building as well “When, as city code that stipulates a business loses its essentially, a city liquor license after bedoesn’t want you ing closed for 120 days. “It just seemed like there, why are fighting at this point wasn’t worth it,” Loo- you going to get ney said. excited? I don’t Otto’s has been closed since January have the energy when frigid weather or the resources may have caused a pipe in the ceiling to burst to deal with that and water to flood the nonsense, to be building, which also housed Ducky’s Formal honest.” Wear. After the pipe burst the city declared Pat Looney the building uninhabitOtto’s owner able. In inspections done since January, the city found the building suffered from years of neglect and deterioration significant enough to warrant revoking the liquor license, city officials contended. The city also found three operational video gambling machines that weren’t licensed, which Looney previously said was a miscommunication with the company that delivered the machines. City Attorney Dean Frieders said city staff have met with Looney a dozen times and tried to work with him to make the building fit to operate. Frieders added the city wants to support downtown businesses, recognizing the cultural benefits of a business such as Otto’s. “We’re doing everything we can to encourage him to fix the property,” Frieders said. Otto’s staff have gutted the inside of the building under a demolition permit from the city, but the business would have to submit architectural plans before being granted permits to proceed with construction, officials have said. Looney said he’s spent at least $150,000 inside the building since January, but has no idea what it would cost to get the building up to the standards that would allow it to reopen. Outside of the financial commitment, Looney said he doesn’t know if he has the motivation to reopen. “When, essentially, a city doesn’t want you there, why are you going to get excited?” Looney said. “I don’t have the energy or the resources to deal with that nonsense, to be honest.”
House Republicans announce response to border crisis By ERICA WERNER The Associated Press WASHINGTON – House Republicans announced Tuesday they will recommend dispatching the National Guard to South Texas and speeding Central American youths back home as their response to the immigration crisis that’s engulfing the border and testing Washington’s ability to respond. The recommendations, to come from a working group established by House Speaker John Boehner, will set up a clash with leading Democrats who oppose changing U.S. law to eliminate automatic immigration hearings for Central
American kids and return them more quickly to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, where some areas are overrun by brutal gangs. With Democrats and the White House under growing pressure from immigration advocates to hold firm against the GOP approach, a solution for the growing crisis of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border is looking increasingly elusive with three weeks left before Congress leaves Washington for an annual August recess. “It’s a critical situation and if we don’t deal with it urgently but well, done right, we’re facing a crisis of just huge pro-
portions,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., who traveled to Honduras and Guatemala over the weekend with members of the House GOP working group including its leader, Rep. Kay Granger of Texas. “Time is of the essence.” Granger, Diaz-Balart and others said their proposals would include sending the National Guard to help overwhelmed Border Patrol agents, increasing immigration judges, adding assistance to Central American nations and changing a 2008 trafficking victims law that guarantees hearings for Central American youths. The law has the practical result of letting the young people stay in
the country for years as their cases move through the badly backlogged immigration courts. At the same time Republicans are working to significantly pare down President Barack Obama’s $3.7 billion emergency spending request for the border, hoping to act quickly on a smaller spending bill along with the package of policy changes. The recommendations were to be formally released later in the week, but lawmakers discussed their broad outlines Tuesday. In response, the White House, Democrats and immigration advocates called for action on a “clean” spending bill without controversial pol-
icy changes attached. “There’s already been ample opportunity for Congress to take action, and we want to encourage them to move forward with some sense of urgency,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declared that: “With this money, we can take care of the problem.” Republicans made clear that was out of the question. “What I will not do is vote for a blank check for the president for something that will not solve the problem,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has written a bill along with fellow Texan Rep. Henry Cuellar, a moderate Demo-
crat, to make some of the same changes the House working group is proposing. Granger said the average immigration case takes a yearand-a-half to five years to go through the court process, even as more than 57,000 unaccompanied children have arrived at the border since October. “That’s just not acceptable so we’ve got to change that,” she said. With Republicans refusing to support a border spending bill without major policy changes attached, and Democrats refusing to support one with them, any final outcome was unclear with November midterm elections around the corner.
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