DDC-8-25-2014 by Shaw Media

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Monday, August 25, 2014

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City plans for sustainable future Members of DeKalb’s Citizen Environmental Commission seek residents’ opinions guide city leaders, businesses and residents in making the community more environmentally friendly. “The commission put together a plan to make the city of DeKalb utilize natural resources in a way that meets the current needs, but minimizes the impact for future generations,” commission chairman Bill Oleckno said. Commission members formed a 15-member citizen

By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Members of DeKalb’s Citizen Environmental Commission want to know what residents think should be the guiding environmental sustainability principles for the city. Committee members want residents’ opinions on a draft of the proposed sustainability plan, which is designed to

subcommittee to work on the plan about 18 months ago, after commission member Dan Kenney attended a conference where he learned about the city of Elgin’s sustainability plan. The plan includes recommendations for city operations, air quality, alternative energy and transportation, among others. Recommendations are proposed for short, medium and long-term peri-

ods, but don’t mandate the city make any immediate changes. Recommendations are meant to guide city leaders’ decision making. Kenney said, for instance, the plan would encourage city officials to consider bike lanes when discussing street repairs. Some parts of the plan also suggest the city use more energy efficient light bulbs in new construction or give residents information about how to use less water.

“We see there’s a need for the community to think ahead, to not only what they need for the present, but what they need for quality of life in future generations, as well,” Kenney said. A copy of the plan is available on the city of DeKalb’s Web site, cityofdekalb.com, the city clerk’s office at City Hall, 200 S. Fourth St., or at the

How to comment Mail comments to Jennifer Diedrich, 200 S. Fourth St., DeKalb; email comments to jdiedrich@cityofdekalb.com; or fax them to 815-7482090. All comments should be signed and dated and include a phone number or email address.

See CITY, page A6

63 years of memories

Layoffs raise more issues in hiring case By JOHN O’CONNOR The Associated Press

Photos by Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com

Barbara and Bob Heimerdinger will celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary today. They met as freshmen at Northern Illinois University and got married before their senior year.

Longtime DeKalb couple says football a big part of their lives By JESSI HAISH jhaish@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Barbara Heimerdinger remembers watching from the sidelines as a cheerleader as her husband, Bob, played football at Northern Illinois University. By their senior year of college, they got married because they got tired of leaving each other, even just for a day, Barbara said. She said sometimes during the games he’d get knocked down on the field and she would just cringe. “I would just think, ‘I hope he gets back up,’ ” Barbara said. Bob, 86, a former NIU Huskie All-America quarterback and lo-

On the Web For a video of Barbara and Bob Heimerdinger, visit Daily-Chronicle.com.

cal football coach, and Barbara, 83, a former instructor at NIU for almost 40 years, celebrate 63 years of marriage today. They’ve lived in DeKalb since they were college freshmen in 1948, Bob having returned from the Navy and Barbara just out of high school. Since their wedding, they have five children, 15

See COUPLE, page A3

Bob Heimerdinger (12) and the 1951 Northern Illinois University football team.

SPRINGFIELD – Gov. Pat Quinn’s unexpected move to deal with a scathing report about political hiring in his administration will not put the jobs scandal to rest as he mounts a difficult campaign for re-election. Quinn aides announced last week that the state Department of Transportation was laying off 58 people at the center of a state investigator’s findings that more than 250 people were improperly hired for political reasons at the agency over the past decade. The report found that the questionable hiring of “staff assistants” accelerated under Quinn, despite his claims to have cleaned up the practices of his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich. But the layoffs raise more questions about the administration’s handling of the issue, contradicting earlier decisions to merely reclassify rather than eliminate the positions. And they could open the state to lawsuits by the laid-off employees, something IDOT officials said they wanted to avoid last spring. “They obviously recognize they have a big problem,” said Michael Shakman, a Chicago attorney and anti-corruption campaigner who has filed a federal lawsuit seeking better monitoring of state hiring. IDOT officials said Friday that the employees would be laid off under a “material reorganization,” the same explanation the agency gave when Blagojevich, a Democrat, fired 16 employees with Republican affiliations in 2003. A jury declared in 2011 they had been fired for political reasons and a settlement gave the fired workers millions of dollars in back pay, restored pension benefits, and put them back in state jobs. The issue boiled over in April when Shakman filed a federal court petition asking for the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee IDOT hiring. He was responding to a Better Government Association report in August 2013 that detailed the practice.

See HIRING, page A6

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