WEDNESDAY
S eptember 16 , 2 01 5 • $1 .0 0
DAILY CHRONICLE OFF THE HOOK
A bit of acid and fat do wonders to amp up the flavor of fish / B8 HIGH
84 67 Complete forecast on page A8
daily-chronicle.com
SERVING DEKALB COUNTY SINCE 1879
LOW
Facebook.com/dailychronicle
@dailychronicle
Irene Clay dies day after home delivered By ERIC R. OLSON eolson@shawmedia.com
Photos by Monica Synett – msynett@shawmedia.com
Resident Antwan Brown, 22, and son Tamari Brown, 2, walk from the housing complex to the playground Tuesday at University Village.
Hoping for changes
University Village tenants say DeKalb council’s vote could bring needed upgrades By BRITTANY KEEPERMAN bkeeperman@shawmedia.com DeKALB – University Village resident Eve Besser has a broken dishwasher, a water damaged ceiling, a stove that can’t regulate temperature properly and hopes that the DeKalb City Council vote will lead to change. Council members approved Seattle-based Security Properties’ request to rezone University Village on Monday. The developer plans to buy and renovate the housing complex. The company plans to spend $21 million to address issues like broken appliances as well as complete interior and exterior renovations, increase security, expand the community center to include a computer lab and pay for on-site social services. “I’d like to see what things they are going to do and what will be priority,” Besser said. “I’d like to know more about it before I am happy about it, but nothing has been done right now, so it’s not like we are losing anything.” More than 85 percent of residents at the 534-unit housing complex off of Annie Glidden Road north of the Northern Illinois
The DeKalb City Council voted Monday to allow rezoning of University Village. Security Properties plans to invest $21 million in the complex. University campus receive federal housing assistance. Hundreds of children live in the complex, where a 2011 report by DeKalb’s Safe and Quality Housing Task Force found median household income was about $6,700 a year. Besser said the proposed community center would be a big help for her because she doesn’t have a computer. “My daughter is in high school and we have to figure out a way
to get to the library between color guard and babysitting and all that stuff because she needs to type papers and print them out,” Besser said. “There is the library, but that doesn’t mean we have a car to get there.” Besser said that riding the bus means a two-hour round-trip ride with her three children in tow. “Sometimes you have other things to do, like make dinner,” she said. “I can’t just send my kids
off by themselves and hope they come back at a certain time.” Valarie Redmond, a Northern Illinois University graduate, has lived at University Village for 10 years and said she thinks the access to social services is the most important part of the deal, because many people don’t have ways to get to services they need. Security Properties plans to contribute $200,000 upfront and an additional $20,000 annually for 15 years to provide social services for University Village residents. “Bringing the resources to the community will further include the community as a whole,” she said. “Having computers and Internet access to do resumes will help provide a better living condition for them and their families as well.” The issue has been in discussion since January and was challenged in court even before the final vote. On Monday, Judge William Brady denied a request to weigh in on the validity of a first reading vote by the council, which passed 4-3, with a council member absent and Mayor John Rey breaking the tie to pass the item on first reading.
See UNIVERSITY VILLAGE, page A5
KIRKLAND – Irene Clay’s died Tuesday afternoon with family members at her side reassuring her it was OK to go. She died at the home of a family friend, only a few miles from where a new house was delivered Monday to replace her longtime home in Fairdale that was destroyed in the April 9 tornado. She was 87. Irene had wanted to spend her last days in her own home, but cancer that started in her lungs and later spread to her brain was too aggressive. Many in the community had worked to to expedite the rebuilding process so Irene could be in her own home. Her daughter, Geri Hopper, said that the grieving family was grateful for the way the community had rallied behind her family. “It’s always been appreciated, and the outpouring of love and support with the tornado and mother’s illness has been overwhelming,” Hopper said. “There’s no way to put it into words, and she was very, very appreciative of everything. “I’m quite sure right now … that she’s going to see her loved ones that have passed with a big smile on her face.” Irene had lived in a house near the intersection of Brown and West streets in Fairdale since she moved to the rural community with her husband, Richard, in 1955. When the EF-4 tornado ripped through Fairdale with wind gusts of up to 200 mph, she, Geri Hopper, her husband Ron Hopper and their Labrador retriever, Isabelle, took shelter in the basement of the home. When the storm passed, their home – built in the 1880s – was one of 17 in the community leveled to its foundation. “We looked up and the sky was there,” she told the Daily Chronicle in June.
See IRENE CLAY, page A5
Monica Synett file photo – msynett@shawmedia.com
Irene Clay enjoys her weekly lunch July 13 at Kirkland Family Restaurant with a close friend. Irene died Tuesday at the age of 87 from lung cancer that spread to her brain.
Federal financial aid form to be available sooner By RHONDA GILLESPIE rgillespie@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Kishwaukee College and Northern Illinois University officials are praising the federal government’s move to make Free Application for Federal Student Aid application available to families sooner. Starting next year, families will be able to complete the FAFSA in October for the next school year. Being able to access the form Oct. 1 of an academic year, instead of in January, could help students de-
termine earlier how much in federal aid they could receive. “The 2016-17 FAFSA will become available in January 2016. But many families won’t be able to fill it out until February or March. They won’t know anything about their financial aid until late in the spring,” said Rebecca Babel, director of financial aid at NIU. The new FAFSA date would mean that when high school students, for example, begin to apply for college in the fall of their senior year, they will also be able to apply for finan-
It was huge. That means we’ve improved. Earlier in the season if we were down like that we probably would have gotten down. Cynthia Stonesifer
director of financial aid at Kishwaukee College cial aid about the same time. The federal government offers need-based Pell grants of up to $5,730 each school year, as well as subsidized and unsubsidized loans parents can take out for their students, and other higher education financing options. But qualifying for
the aid starts with completing the FAFSA, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Education. “The financial aid office would be able to begin processing for the upcoming fall semester much earlier, possibly before the end of the year
or in January,” said Cynthia Stonesifer, director of financial aid at Kishwaukee College. “Students would be able to know what they are eligible to receive in financial aid earlier, allowing for more time to plan.” Also, with changing the date, the Obama administration is allowing families to use on students’ FAFSA income tax information that they likely filed in April of the same year. This means that the tax information could be electronically imported into students’ aid application, cutting down
SPORTS
LOCAL NEWS
LOCAL NEWS
WHERE IT’S AT
Barbs defeated
Backing police
Castle Challenge
DeKalb girls volleyball falls to Kaneland in conference opener / B1
Community members support law enforcement with blue ribbons, lights / A3
Community gears up for DeKalb-Sycamore football game / A3
Advice ................................ B4 Classified........................B5-7 Comics ............................... B5 Local News.................... A3-6 Lottery................................ A2 Nation&World...................A2
on errors or the need to make changes to the form. For the 2015-16 school year, 11,527 undergraduate, graduate and law school students enrolled at NIU – 57 percent of its student body – filed a FAFSA and are receiving some form of federal financial assistance, Babel said. She said that having the date moved up could also mean that the university’s financial aid office processes fewer applications each year – mostly for students who end up
See FAFSA CHANGES, page A6
Obituaries .........................A4 Opinion...............................A7 Puzzles ............................... B4 Sports..............................B1-3 State ...................................A5 Weather .............................A8