Serving the Forreston area since 1865
FORRESTON Journal August 25, 2016 Volume 154, Number 18 - $1.00
Season Preview NUIC football teams Polo and Forreston are both ready to kick off the season. B1
Teeter Totter
Recycling Event
A man hopes to enter the record books with his teeter totter. A9
A free electronics recycling event will be held in Oregon on Friday, Aug. 26. B4
County prosecutors can help enforce ordinances By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com
Cardinals Pride Ryan Schoonhoven stacks Forreston Cardinals shirts on a table before the start of the annual scrimmage games Aug. 19. Photo by Chris Johnson
County prosecutors may soon be helping a local municipality with enforcing its ordinances. The county board approved an intergovernmental agency agreement Aug. 16 with the Village of Mt. Morris that authorizes the Ogle County State’s Attorney’s office to prosecute persons who violate village ordinances. Currently, as in most municipalities, the village attorney prosecutes anyone cited under the village code. However, Mt. Morris Village Attorney Robert LeSage, of the law firm of Ward, Murray, Pace & Johnson in Dixon, recently suggested that village officials pursue an agreement with the state’s attorney as a cost saving measure. LeSage said that while his law firm would be willing to prosecute village cases, because of the distance from the Ogle County court, the
attorneys’ fees would be high. In similar situations, he said, villages and cities in other counties have reached such agreements with the state’s attorney. The Mt. Morris Village Board was expected to approve the agreement Tuesday evening. Under the terms of the one-year agreement, Mt. Morris will pay the county $75 per case, and the state’s attorney can reject any case. County board member Marcia Heuer, Oregon, asked it the additional cases will over-burden the staff in the state’s attorney’s office. “They don’t anticipate a huge volume,” said State’s Attorney Eric Morrow. Heuer also asked if other villages and cities will follow suit. Morrow said he does not know. Board member Bill Welty, Chana, said he is opposed to the agreement and believes $75 per case is too little. “It’s not the county
taxpayers’ responsibility to subsidize municipalities,” he said. Board member Marty Typer, Stillman Valley, said the agreement will bring revenue into the county coffers. “If it isn’t cost-effective, we can revisit it,” he said. Mt. Morris village officials have recently been seeking ways improve the community by more effectively enforcing village ordinances and bringing offenders into compliance, especially in matters of grass length, garbage set out too long before pick-up, cars parked in grassy areas, and trash build-up. As part of the effort, the board recently hired a part-time village ordinance enforcement officer. Michael Schroeder, who was hired for the post, will not have the authority to write citations, but will instead work with residents to help them comply with village ordinances.
Smaller homes can offer sustainability and affordability By Chris Johnson cxjohnson@oglecounty news.com Living in a tiny home is not a new idea, however it is the direction some people think needs to be reintroduced to homebuyers. “Since the 1950s the average house size in the United States has increased steadily,” said Doug McWain, Dayton, Ohio. “The average floor space is increasing, however the family size is lower.” McWain was one of the presenters during the annual Illinois Renewable Energy and Sustainable Lifestyle Fair Saturday morning at the Ogle County Fairgrounds. He said homes in the 1950s averaged 1,000 square feet and today homes are more than double that. “We need to have sustainability and we need to reduce what we are using,” McWain said. “Do you need a McMansion or can you live in a small home?” Some television shows are showcasing the micro homes that are under 500 square feet, but McWain said an energy efficient small or tiny house is anything under 1,000 square feet. “You learn how to organize and be creative with smaller homes,” he said. “Do you really need all that space?” Having a smaller house built on a foundation will cost the homeowner less initially than a larger home, and will also cost less over the life of the home than a larger home. “Tiny houses do take less
to build and less energy to live in,” he said. The idea of living with what is needed was documented by author Henry David Thoreau, McWain said. Thoreau wrote “On Walden Pond,” a poem that looks at simple living and the reasons Thoreau decided to try simple living. McWain has been interested in sustainable energy efficient homes since the oil crisis in the 1970s. He built his first home, an earth sheltered home in 1983. “That home has 800 feet of living space and was built with 85 percent recycled materials,” he said. Using recycled materials from offices that are remodeling, homes that are being torn down, and ding and dent materials can save costs for homeowners. It also has an added benefit of keeping the materials out of a landfill, McWain said. “I look for places that are being demolished and ask permission to reclaim the materials,” he said. “You can find good prices on construction materials on online auction sites and Craigslist.” McWain showed a variety of examples of how people repurposed existing structures as homes. They included busses, vans and box trucks, train cabooses and Pullman cars, homes built using pallets and recycled windows. “I love this kind of stuff,”
Doug McWain, Dayton, Ohio, talks about this home with a front wall made from reclaimed windows during his presentation during the Illinois Renewable Energy and Sustainable Lifestyle Fair Saturday morning. Photo by Chris Johnson
Village of Progress will open a bakery By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com
For anyone with a sweet tooth, Oregon’s new bakery will soon be the place to go. Village of Progress (VOP) officials sealed the deal on a downtown building Monday and hope to open a bakery, complete with a drive-through window, by Thanksgiving. VOP Executive Director Turn to A3
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Church News, A5 Classifieds, B6-B10 College News, A7 Entertainment, A6 Fines, B5
Brion Brooks said the Village Bakery at 101 N. Third St., the northeast corner of Third and Washington Streets, will sell cakes, pies, doughnuts and other sweet treats, a full line of coffees, and customordered ice cream. The best part is that the new business will provide employment opportunities for developmentally disabled youth and adults in the community. Brooks said the idea for
Marriage Licenses, A7 Public Voice, A7 Property Transfers, B5 Sheriff’s Arrests, B3
Social News, A4 Sports, B1, B2 State’s Attorney, B3 Weather, A2
the bakery developed from a conversation he had a year ago with a job coach from the Ogle County Educational Cooperative (OCEC), which provides Special Education services for many area schools. She voiced her frustration, he said, at the difficulty at finding jobs in a rural community for older Special Education students. “Few large corporate employers, a below-average
income, and no convenient public transportation are big hurdles for job seekers with developmental disabilities,” Brooks said. “I thought it would be great if we could find employment opportunities in the community.” The plan grew from there. “The idea behind the bakery is to employ developmentally disabled people from the community, Turn to A3
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