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September 20, 2014 • $1.50
DeKalb...................................55 Sycamore.............................40
Westminster Christian......24 Hiawatha................................14
Rockford Christian...............0 Genoa-Kingston.................40
Kaneland................................25 Yorkville...............................41
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DeKalb City Clerk resigns via email By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI jduchnowski@shawmedia.com DeKALB – DeKalb City Clerk Liz Peerboom resigned Friday in an emotional email to Mayor John Rey, questioning whether city leaders respected her office and criticizing City Manager Anne Marie Gaura. Peerboom, a DeKalb resident who also works parttime as a village clerk in Maple Park, claimed Gaura did not share enough information about how city staff would
More online To read DeKalb City Clerk Liz Peerboom’s resignation letter, visit Daily-Chronicle.com.
fulfill city clerk’s functions since long-time Deputy City Clerk Diane Wright resigned; Wright’s last day was Thursday. She also criticized the litany of changes Gaura has implemented since she started in January. “Ever since the new city
Landfill operator settles lawsuit
manager came, it’s been really hard,” Wright said. “It’s like they don’t think the clerk’s position is important.” Peerboom said she expected someone would be appointed to fulfill the two years and eight months that remained in her term. Peerboom won a race among four write-in candidates for the clerk’s office in April 2013, months after City Council members voted to make the clerk’s position a part-time position with a $5,000 annual salary. Days
after the election, Peerboom said she intended to take on the full duties of her office, although City Council members had prescribed that the deputy clerk’s position become a full-time job that would handle most of the clerk’s duties not given to the clerk by law. Peerboom bristled, however, when Gaura’s rearrangements of staff offices after the police department moved out of city hall’s first floor left her sharing a desk with a part-time employee. She often wrote closed session meeting
minutes after-hours at city hall from that shared desk, while “interns and consultants have been afforded spacious offices,” as Peerboom wrote in her resignation email. Gaura said her main goal in moving staff offices was to ensure residents and business leaders easily found a staff member on the first floor and to help with other transitions, such as branching the community development staff out from under the public works department so the pub-
lic works department could focus on infrastructure. “If I had to do it over again, maybe it should have been done differently,” Gaura said Friday evening. “Hindsight is 20-20, but when I moved staff around, it was to make it be more efficient.” Gaura said after Peerboom emailed her earlier Friday to ask her about how the clerk’s office duties would be distributed since Wright left, she replied by detailing the staff
See CLERK, page A11
ELECTRIC ENVIRONMENT
Legal action filed after incident at elementary school By JESSI HAISH jhaish@shawmedia.com CORTLAND – The lawsuit the Illinois Attorney General’s Office filed after about 60 students and staff at Cortland Elementary School were sickened by a landfill odor ended with little fanfare. Waste Management of Illinois agreed to pay thousands of dollars to DeKalb School District 428 and area fire departments. Waste Management also must implement an excavation and odor plan, although the agreement does not constitute an admission to violating environmental and landfill standards, according to court records. The agreement is similar to promises Waste Management made to school and community officials shortly after the Jan. 14 incident. Students and staff of Cortland Elementary were treated for low-level carbon monoxide exposure, after odors from the nearby Waste Management landfill filtered in through the school’s ventilation system. In a statement from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Director Lisa Bonnett said the agency was pleased with the resolution of the case. “We are appreciative of Waste Management resolving the case by agreeing to fund supplemental environmental projects for the DeKalb Community School District and local fire departments, which will be beneficial to the impacted community,” Bonnett said in the statement. The school district will receive $6,000 to offset the cost of services provided by Aries Consulting for the air monitoring system at Cortland Elementary.
See LANDFILL, page A6
Danielle Guerra - dguerra@shawmedia.com
DeKalb’s celebrate by hoisting up the Castle Challenge trophy after beating Sycamore, 55-40, Friday at Huskie Stadium.
Thousands flock to Huskie Stadium for Castle Challenge By ANDREA AZZO
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aazzo@shawmedia.com DeKALB – After watching her son help defeat Sycamore High School’s sophomore football team Friday, Tracee Coyle wanted to see DeKalb High School’s varsity team complete the sweep. Coyle sat back in her DeKalb High School lawn chair that sat atop the bleachers at Northern Illinois University’s Huskie Stadium. She was one of more than 11,000 people who attended the Castle Challenge game, Castle Bank’s fundraiser that raised money for both schools’ booster clubs while watching the football game. “We certainly want to beat them,” Coyle said before the varsity game began. “We all know we’re here to support the same cause: To help the athletic departments. But it’s always
Monica Synett – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
DeKalb cheerleader junior Kitty Hescott and Sycamore cheerleader junior Belen Ellsworth join arms while walking out in the parade of athletes before the Castle Challenge on Friday at Huskie Stadium.
SPORTS
LOCAL
LOCAL
WHERE IT’S AT
Getting prepared
Drug court
Glidden house
Huskies ready to take on Razorbacks after a strong week of practice / B1
Two graduate from DeKalb County drug program / A3
Annie Glidden house restoration decision waits for NIU / A3
Advice ................................ C6 Classified........................D1-4 Comics ............................... C7 Local News.................... A3-4 Lottery................................ A2 Nation&World.........A2, 5-10
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nice to take home that win.” Friday marked the 15th Castle Challenge fundraiser, which was created in 2000 and has raised more than $850,000 for things such as uniforms and equipment. Both first-timers and longtime attendees were at Friday’s football game. A basketball game between DeKalb and Sycamore high schools will be held in January. NIU officials said the game attracted more people than anticipated. An estimated 11,500 were in attendance
See CASTLE CHALLENGE, page A6
Obituaries .........................A4 Opinion..............................A11 Puzzles ............................... C6 Sports..............................B1-3 State ...................................A4 Weather ........................... A12
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