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Net gain ... Nitz is on the rebound SHS TENNIS, B1
DON’T SPARE THE ASPARAGUS
LOCAL FLAVOR, A11
dailyGAZETTE Wednesday, May 27, 2015
SERVING ROCK FALLS, STERLING AND THE SURROUNDING AREA SINCE 1854
ROCK FALLS
Tourism group takes its first steps But technology gets underfoot along the way BY PAM EGGEMEIER peggemeier@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5570 @pam_eggemeier
ROCK FALLS – Tourism duties have been moved back to the Municipal Complex, and officials are charting a course
for the future of the new city department. But already a newly formed committee is running into rough waters, with erased hard drives and a website that can’t cooperate. The Tourism Committee is so new that a special meeting was held Tuesday to, among other things, discuss rounding out the panel’s composition. Three alderman have been named to the committee – Chairman George Logan Jr., Glen Kuhlemier, and John
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Our bigggest concern is that people aren’t getting a response to their e-mails. Robbin Blackert City Administrator
Watts. Filling out the body will be two representatives from local hotels, one from the Rock Falls Chamber of Commerce, one from the park district, and
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the director of the department, who has not yet been hired. All of the equipment has been returned and accounted for, but a computer issue is adding to the
city’s workload – and headaches. A city technology consultant at the meeting confirmed that the computers had been scrubbed clean, meaning that information was erased from hard drives, creating several problems in making the transition. “The stuff for brochures and other marketing materials is gone, so we are getting some help from Diane Bausman at Blackhawk Waterways,” Mayor Bill Wescott said. TOURISM CONTINUED ON A4
DIXON
ROCK FALLS | FATAL FIRE
‘She was an amazing woman’
Crundwell loses court battle – and her trophies
Blaze robs family of a mom, grandmother, sister, and wife
Judge orders former comptroller to forfeit goods to pay down debt
Rita Buhlman
BY KATHLEEN A. SCHULTZ kschultz@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5535 @KathleenSchul10
Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
Illinois State Police Crime Scene Investigators work at the scene of a fire Tuesday morning at 1601 E. Rock Falls Road in Rock Falls. BY CHRISTI WARREN cwarren@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5521 @SeaWarren
ROCK FALLS – Caution tape lined the entrance to the first-floor apartment at 1601 E. Rock Falls Road. Rita Buhlman, who lived in Apt. 1 with her wife, Tammy Buhlman, died Tuesday morning in a kitchen fire. Rita had just celebrated her 58th birthday on Friday. Tammy, who had just come home after her third-shift job, called 911 when she found Rita in her wheelchair in the kitchen. By the time paramedics arrived, around 6:30 a.m., Tammy had pushed Rita outside the apartment in her wheelchair. She’d had a leg amputated just a few months ago and was still recovering, said her daughter, Courtney Brickle. Bill Milby, deputy chief for Twin City Joint Fire Command, said that by the time emergency responders had arrived, the fire, which had started in the kitchen area, had burned out because of a lack of oxygen. Rita was pronounced dead at the scene by Whiteside County Coroner Joe McDonald,
whose office put out a press release Tuesday evening saying the fire started either Monday night or Tuesday morning in the kitchen. The release said preliminary autopsy results indicate that Rita died of prabable smoke inhalation and heat, and that an investigation is ongoing. The fire’s cause was not released, pending the state fire marshal’s investigation. Rita was a mother, a grandmother, and a sister. Courtney, 28, is one of Rita’s four daughters. She lives in Florida now, but grew up in the Sauk Valley. “She was an amazing woman,” Courtney said by phone Tuesday. “She’s been through a lot, and she’s overcome everything, and she always stayed strong for her kids. She was an amazing grandmother. She had a lot of grandkids. She was an awesome wife.” Two of Courtney’s sisters, 30-year-old Desiree and 39-year-old Charity, still live in this area. Samantha, 34, lives in Arkansas. Their stepsister, Tara Buhlman, is 27, and lives elsewhere in Illinois. They all have a “bunch of kids,” Courtney said. Tammy and Rita had been together for 15 years, since Courtney was just 13, she said. FIRE CONTINUED ON A4
ROCKFORD – Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell has lost her bid to keep the last vestiges of her once-impressive – and ill-gotten – equine empire. U.S. District Court Judge Philip Reinhard ordered Tuesday that she forfeit her collection of trophies and awards, her show clothes, and the remaining miscellaneous household goods and other personal items being held in storage in Wisconsin and Dixon, to help satisfy the $53 million-dollar debt she owes her hometown. The U.S. government filed a motion in December seeking to force the turnover of what it described as assets discovered as the result of further investigation by the U.S. Marshal Service after her sentencing. In her motion to keep the items, filed in January, Crundwell’s attorney, Ruth Robinson, argued that the items weren’t newly discovered – that the Marshal’s Service had known of their existence all along – and that they lacked “objective value” and wouldn’t benefit the city if applied toward Rita Crundwell’s restitution order. Crundwell The remaining assets include framed photographs of Crundwell, various pieces of artwork, about 700 trophies she won in horse competitions, a computer, her show clothing, bicycles, patio chairs, two motorized scooters, and an all-terrain vehicle. Information on how exactly the Marshal Service will dispose of them was unavailable Tuesday evening. Crundwell was arrested in April 2012 and later pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the theft of nearly $54 million from the city of Dixon over 2 decades. She was sentenced to 19 years, 7 months, which she is serving in a federal prison in Waseca, Minnesota. As a result of her crimes, which funded her rise to fame in tony quarter horse showing and breeding circles, Crundwell was ordered to pay about $54 million in restitution, of which the government has collected about $9.3 million. There also was a money judgment for about $53 million issued, meaning the government can go after about $106 million in Crundwell assets. The city also received about $30 million in a settlement with its former auditors and bank. The U.S. government has seized, liquidated and transferred many of Crundwell’s assets to the city already, about $9.3 million in all, mainly from the sale of her property, homes and horses. And so far, it has won every motion seeking payback. In January, Reinhard ruled that Crundwell’s retirement fund reimbursements – about $90,000 – should be turned over to the government for restitution. Robinson also contested the inclusion of those assets, arguing the city had already received a significant amount toward the restitution, and the $30 million settlement. CRUNDWELL CONTINUED ON A4
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TODAY’S EDITION: 24 PAGES 2 SECTIONS VOL. 161 ISSUE 119
INDEX
ABBY ................... A8 BUSINESS ......... A12 COMICS ............. A10
CROSSWORD....B11 FOOD ...........A9, A11 LIFESTYLE ........... A8
LOTTERY ............. A2 OBITUARIES ........ A4 OPINION .............. A6
Today’s weather High 81. Low 56. More on A3.
Need work? Check out your classifieds, B6.
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