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www.newstrib.com | Wednesday, September 4, 2019 | 75 cents
Police chief beef
What street will you be buried on? Peru City Cemetery is getting more visits these days thanks to $400,000 in renovations to the mausoleum, where sexton Les Tieman is seen sweeping the floor. More visits mean more calls to the Peru City Clerk’s Office asking where graves are located. The city is responding with a plan to name the driving lanes within the cemetery, enabling motorists to more easily find their way around.
Tensions boil at Oglesby’s city council meeting By Brett Herrmann SHAW MEDIA
Unresolved tension between Oglesby’s police chief, police commissioner and the rest of the city council spilled over into the public forum on Tuesday night. The Oglesby council chambers were packed to the walls during the regular city council meeting where both the public and the council voiced concerns on the rift between commissioner Jim Cullinan and police chief Jim Knoblauch. “My concern is that if it is not addressed and resolved, we will have an incident that will negatively affect someone or possibly cause someone to be injured,” said mayor Dom Rivara. “We have had meetings in an attempt to identify and address and seek solutions to the issue. These were unsuccessful.” WHAT WAS THE ISSUE? What brought everything to a head Tuesday were a couple of ordinances that would make changes to policies within the Oglesby Police Department. Two of the biggest items of contention were whether or not officers should have to signal to dispatch if they are busy before taking a meal break and the number of business checks a police officer has to complete during a shift. Com missio ner C ul l i n an wanted to state officers are not required to signal if they were busy to Illinois Valley Regional Dispatch when taking a break per a handshake agreement with police chiefs from La Salle and
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Peru is naming cemetery lanes to help motorists who are using GPS By Tom Collins NEWSTRIBUNE SENIOR REPORTER
What street do you live on? Maple Avenue? Main Street? Sycamore Lane? Soon, the departed in Peru will have street names, too. Peru has quietly worked on a plan to assign names to the driving lanes inside Peru City Cemetery. It’s not a sentimental effort, but rather a practical one. The bereaved are increasingly calling the Peru City Clerk’s Office for help in finding graves and answering those questions is tricky and time-consuming. “Right now, there is no magic key, there is no map,” city clerk
Dave Bartley explained. “The goal is to have some kind of key, if you will, and naming the streets should make it easier to navigate.” By naming the narrow driving paths motorists will be able to plug street names into the GPS devices of their cars and find their way around during offhours when the clerk and sexton are not available to provide directions. The naming won’t be particularly ambitious. Wherever possible, the city will simply extend north-south roads such as Schuyler and Calhoun streets into the cemetery. Naming of
NEWSTRIBUNE PHOTO/SCOTT ANDERSON
Excuse me, can you tell me where my dad is buried? Bob Koehler, with the weed-eater, and Mike Riva, mowing behind him, can expect fewer such questions once the driving lanes within Peru City Cemetery are named. City workers are increasingly fielding calls from motorists trying to use GPS navSee CEMETERY Page A2 igation to find their way around the cemetery.
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Duckworth tours Marquis’ plant, calls on Trump to fix ethanol exemptions By Jeannine Otto
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HENNEPIN — U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth toured the Marquis Energy ethanol plant in Hennepin Tuesday and called on the Trump administration, along with her fellow senators, to take action to stop the bleeding in the U.S. ethanol industry. Duckworth’s visit, which included a tour of the plant with Mark Marquis, CEO of Marquis Energy, focused attention on the issue of small refinery exemptions. Those exemptions have been granted in
large numbers to major oil companies, including Exxon and Chevron, under the Trump administration, prompting claims from the ethanol industry and farm groups of abuse of the refinery exemption program. “Bailing out billion-dollar oil companies at the expense of American farmers goes against the goals of the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard) and it hurts the Midwest,” said Duckworth, following her tour. NEWSTRIBUNE PHOTO/TRACEY MACLEOD In June, Duckworth (D.-Ill.) Mark Marquis, CEO of Marquis Energy, speaks at a press conference following and a bipartisan group of fellow U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s tour of the Marquis Energy ethanol plant in senators introduced the RFS Hennepin. Marquis announced in mid-August that the Marquis Energy plant in Integrity Act. The bill would Necedah, Wis., was cutting production due to the impact on ethanol demand See DUCKWORTH Page A4 from the U.S. EPA’s small refinery exemptions.
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