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DUCHESSES TAKE ON OREGON
ROCK FALLS, A3
SOFTBALL, B1
dailyGAZETTE Monday, April 7, 2014
SERVING ROCK FALLS, STERLING AND THE SURROUNDING AREA SINCE 1854
STERLING PARK DISTRICT
Gambling at local golf course? Not in clubhouse, top official says BY DAVID GIULIANI dgiuliani@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5525
Some park districts have approved video gambling machines for their golf course bars. But don’t expect the Sterling Park District to follow suit. The district’s executive director,
Larry Schuldt, said he wouldn’t recommend allowing video gambling at Emerald Hill Golf Course. “We serve alcohol at the golf course, but we don’t have a bar-type situation,” he said. “The alcohol we sell is for golfers. We rarely have people coming out just for drinks. I doubt the [park] board would be interested in video gaming. That promotes more of a bar setting, which we try not to do.”
Besides, he said, the bar is not open year-round. “Even if the board did want video gaming, there wouldn’t be enough business,” he said. No video gambling companies have approached the park district about having machines in its bar, Schuldt said. Last week, the Joliet Park District’s board voted for a 5-year contract with Morris-based Donico LLC to manage video gambling machines at one of
its golf courses and at two others, pending state approval of gambling applications, according to the Joliet-based HeraldReview, a sister newspaper to Sauk Valley Media. “We’ve been talking for years about how to make the golf courses more profitable,” board President Glen Marcum said. Stiff competition, he said, has made the courses marginally profitable at best. The district would shut down
the machines during high school golf meets. Last month, the Hoffman Estates Park District voted for a “1-year trial” for video gambling. Two other suburban districts, Elk Grove and Foss, have machines up and running. The only state requirements for machines are a liquor license and a clean background check. Besides Sterling, no other area park districts have golf courses.
ILLINOIS
GROUPS GIVE REAGAN HOME A SPRING CLEANING
Police, fire funds pose pension problem Prospects for solution for state are uncertain BY CHACOUR KOOP Associated Press
Photos by Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
Gretchen Bushman (left), 13, and Taylor Spellman, 11, each handle an end of an old water cooler Saturday morning, as they haul it from the basement at the Reagan Boyhood Home’s Welcome Center. The two are part of Builders Club, a Kiwanis Club middle school organization. Kiwanis members and other volunteers spent the morning giving the home and welcome center a spring cleaning, in recognition of Kiwanis One Day.
DIRECTLY ABOVE: Taylor Renkes (left), 12, and Madisyn Rubright, 12, give the carpet in the Reagan home a spring cleaning. ABOVE: Kiwanis Club member Terry Lich cleans up yard waste from around the Reagan Welcome Center.
Reagan Boyhood Home volunteer Gary Burger rakes yard debris outside the home Saturday morning.
SPRINGFIELD (AP) – After addressing Illinois’ own employee pension crisis, lawmakers now face an equally challenging task with the state’s cities, as mayors demand help with underfunded police and firefighter pensions before the growing cost “chokes” budgets and forces local tax increases. The nine largest cities in Illinois after Chicago have a combined $1.5 billion in unfunded debt to public safety workers’ pension systems. Police and fire retirement funds for cities statewide have an average of just 55 percent of the money needed to meet current obligations to workers and retirees. A bi-partisan legislative report in 2013 showed that funding levels for police and fire pensions outside Chicago dropped 20 percent between 1990 and 2010, though many are improving since the worst of the recent economic downturn. The problems – a history of underfunding, the expansion of job benefits and the prospect of crushing future payments – mirror those that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel warned about when he asked the Legislature for relief last week. In 2016, state law requires cities to make required contribution increases – in some cases, more than an additional $1 million annually – so they’ll reach 90 percent funding by 2040. If they don’t, the state will begin doing it for them, diverting grant money now used by cities elsewhere directly into the pension funds. “No community, no matter how much they love and respect their public safety officers, can pay that going forward,” Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner said. The arguments over blame also echo the state and Chicago cases. While some officials question levels of worker benefits, union officials cite recent compromises and blame cities for bad choices in shirking payments. PENSION CONTINUED ON A4
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TODAY’S EDITION: 24 PAGES 2 SECTIONS VOL. 160 ISSUE 85
INDEX
COMICS ............... A8 CROSSWORD....B12 DEAR ABBY ......... A7
LIFESTYLE ........... A7 LOTTERY ............. A2 NATION/WORLD A12
OBITUARIES ........ A4 OPINION .............. A6 SPORTS ...............B1
Today’s weather High 56. Low 37. More on A3.
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