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THINGS GET OFF TRAC WITH CLIPPERS’ EXIT
Happy guests? It takes good luck
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL, B1
FOOD, A9-10
dailyGAZETTE Wednesday, July 6, 2016 n SERVING ROCK FALLS, STERLING AND THE SURROUNDING AREA SINCE 1854
STATE BUDGET | LOCAL IMPACT
One gap stopped, another created State’s last-minute budget bill was good news for Sauk – but it still fell far short of college’s expectations BY CHRISTOPHER HEIMERMAN cheimerman@saukvalley.com 815-625-3600, ext. 5523 @CHeimerman_SVM
DIXON – Sauk Valley Community College factored 70 percent of state funding into the fiscal year 2017 budget its Board of Trustees will vote on later this month. It’s getting less than 28 percent – so far – via the stopgap budget Gov.
Bruce Rauner signed last week. “This is well, well under our projection,” President Dave Hellmich said. “The stopgap is good news, but it is very, very much just a stopgap.” The four-bill stopgap package will fully fund K-12 education for the whole school year. It allocated $1 billion for higher education funding, including
$114 million in base operating and equalization grants for community colleges, as well as $150 million in Monetary Assistant Program grant funds, which help with low-income students’ tuition. Sauk paid the state’s MAP grant bill in the fall, but determined it couldn’t do it again in the spring. Thanks to the stopgap money, students who were eligible for
MAP in the spring but had to pay out of pocket will be reimbursed, Hellmich said. He’s hopeful that more MAP funds will be allocated this fall. Melissa Dye, the college’s dean of business services, told him Tuesday morning that such a possibility was being talked about in Springfield. GAP continued on A54
David Hellmich
OPIOID CRISIS
STERLING
Federal drug bill gets local input Dixon chief, Lee sheriff head to D.C. to talk Safe Passage BY ANGEL SIERRA asierra@saukvalley.com 815-625-3600, ext. 5695 @_angelsierra
Photos by Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
Wheels up ... and lift-off! ABOVE: Gage Burdick, 11, catches some air on his scooter Tuesday afternoon at the skate park in Sterling. Burdick and his friend, Michael Sheats, 11, made the trip from Dixon to use the park’s ramps and rails. The park located at St. Mary’s Road and Third Avenue, behind the Duis Recreation Center, was built in 2004 and offers scooters and skaters a host of amenities, including grinding rails and boxes, quarter pipes and half pipes, ramps, and more. RIGHT: Sheats performs a tail whip on his scooter Tuesday .
DIXON CITY COUNCIL
Airport’s future could hinge on study City hires firm to look at options for operation stuck in a holding pattern of debt BY RACHEL RODGERS rrodgers@saukvalley.com 815-625-3600, ext. 5529 @rj_rodgers
DIXON – The city will begin a feasibility study on the Dixon Municipal Airport this month as it searches for a way to fill
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in a reoccurring financial hole. The City Council approved a $24,695 bid Tuesday from Florida-based QED Airport and Aviation Consultants to conduct the study, which will evaluate the airport’s operations and potential for economic growth to offset the city’s
INDEX
ABBY.................... A7 COMICS................ A8 CROSSWORD.......B9
contributions to the facility. The study is scheduled to be completed in October. It also aims to review the cost-effectiveness of the airport and whether it should remain operational.
FOOD...............A9-10 LIFESTYLE............ A7 LOTTERY.............. A2
STUDY continued on A44
POLICE................. A2 OBITUARIES......... A4 OPINION............... A6
WASHINGTON – Two local law officers are meeting in D.C. today with some of the nation’s high-level drug policy makers, including the country’s drug czar, to discuss the Safe Passage program. Dixon Police Chief Danny Langloss and Lee County Sheriff John Simonton, who made local agencies first in the state and second in the nation use the program, will meet with “several” senior White House officials seeking input on a billion-dollar drug bill. “They want to John hear about how Simonton it got started, and whether it is a model that can be pushed nationwide,” Simonton said. “It’s working in both metro and rural areas.” The names Danny of the governLangloss ment officials to be briefed were not available Tuesday, but Michael Botticelli, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, likely will be among them, Simonton said. Botticelli is a stalwart advocate of a health-based approach to addiction, and represents a shift by the government from its decades-long criminalization campaign. The Safe Passage Initiative, created by Massachusetts police to help addicts rather than jail them, was launched in Lee County on Sept. 1 and in Whiteside County on March 1. SAFE PASSAGE continued on A44
Today’s weather High 86. Low 69. More on A3.
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