Serving the Mt. Morris area since 1967
MT.Times MORRIS March 31, 2016 Volume 49, Number 5- $1.00
Antique Show
On the Trail
85 Years Old
The Oregon Woman’s Club hosts its annual antique show this weekend. A10
A father and daughter start hiking the Appalachian Trail. B1
The Mt. Morris Public Library will celebrate its 85th birthday next month. A2
Lack of state budget hurts health services County dept. makes staff cuts By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com The Ogle County Health Department is definitely feeling the pinch caused by the failure of Illinois lawmakers to agree on a budget for the current fiscal year. “Without a doubt we’re feeling the effect of the budget impasse,” Ogle County Health Department Administrator Cindy Bauling said Monday. Local state certified health departments receive funding for public health though the Local Health Protection Grant (LHPG). None of this funding has been paid to local health departments
Cindy Bauling
since the start of the state fiscal year last July when the 2015-16 fiscal year began. According to the department’s annual report, that amounted to nearly $80,000 in the 2014-15 fiscal year, almost 10 percent of its total revenues. Other state funding has been significantly reduced as
well. Especially hard hit was funding for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Nutritional Program, which served nearly 3,200 last year. “It’s ironic that the services for the care of the most vulnerable aren’t being funded,” Bauling said. The situation became crucial a few months ago. “December became our tipping point,” Bauling said. “In January we made changes so we could pay our bills.” Those changes included unpaid furloughs for Bauling and two other staff members, as well as a resignation and three retirements. Those taking one-week furloughs along with Bauling included Joanie Padilla, Director Health Education Turn to A8 Three-year-old Kate Nobis reaches for an Easter Egg Saturday morning at Dillehay
Egg Hunt
Park. Photo by Chris Johnson
Final Community Arts Legacy statue set in place By Chris Johnson cxjohnson@oglecounty news.com The final Community Arts Legacy statue that depicts Oregon founder John Phelps and his French guide now stands in downtown Oregon. Officials from inBronze Foundry with help from the Oregon Street Department, placed the new art work behind the Oregon Coliseum on March 18, where the old city pool used to be located. A skid loader was used to raise the relief sculpture from a truck and place it on its limestone base, which was installed last fall. Jeff Adams, inBronze owner, said a test fit was being done before epoxy was used to secure the bolts permanently. Sidewalks will be installed this spring to provide a walkway to view the sculpture and additional landscaping will be completed. Work will be completed in time for a planned June
dedication. The statue, created by artist Steven Carpenter and cast at inBronze Foundry, Mt. Morris, depicts Phelps and his French guide as they canoed south down the Rock River and first stepped foot on the shore where Oregon is now. Phelps was a soldier in both the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War 20 years later. He founded Oregon and claimed 40 acres between Oregon and Mt. Morris in 1834. The statue completes CAL’s goal of 10 in 10 — 10 pieces of sculpture in 10 years, a vision of the late Dick Adams, Jeff’s father. The first CAL sculpture, “From the Waters Comes My Bounty” by Ray Kobald, was placed at Kiwanis Park in 2005 and later moved to Oregon Park East. Other CAL sculptures are 2006 “Agriculture, Mother of Civilization” by David Seagraves at the Ogle County Judicial Center, 2007
inBronze owner Jeff Adams, left, and Oregon Street Department Superintendent Mike Bowers slide the new sculpture of John Phelps into place March 18. Photo by Chris Johnson
“Cornball” by Howard Russo at the Oregon Coliseum, 2008 “The Bountiful Bench” by Christina Murphy at the Oregon Public Library,
2009 “Solar Reef” by Andrew Langoussis at Oregon Park West, and 2010 “Making Hay” by Daniel Ingebrightson at Stillman
Bank, Oregon, 2011 Harvest Hunter by Matthew Donovan at Nash Recreation Center, 2012 “Working the Land” by Robert Pulley at the Oregon
Park District’s Community Garden, and 2013 “Soypod” by Pamela Lee next to the Oregon Post Office.
Renovations will make Oregon library ADA compliant By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecountynews.com Despite some dust, a few stacks of lumber, and a little disarray, Oregon Public Library Director Andrew Dettman is enthusiastic when he describes all the changes being made at the historic library. The most obvious is the nearly completely elevator shaft tucked into a corner on the northwest side of the century-old building. Masons continue to lay bricks on the outside of the cement block structure that will make the library compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards.
“We’ve been battling the ADA issue for a long time. Accessibility has been an issue for our library and patrons for decades, and these renovations will make it easier for everyone to take advantage of the services the library provides,” Dettman said. The entire project is expected to be done sometime in May. The elevator will take patrons to all three floors of the library, eliminating the need to use the stairs out front. An entry way will be built around the elevator shaft, and designed to blend with the original brick exterior.
In This Week’s Edition...
Church Bells, A5 Classifieds, B5-B10 Entertainment, A6 Fines, B4 Marriage Licenses, A4
Handicapped accessible restrooms are being added in the basement as well. Besides the elevator and handicapped accessible restrooms, another part of meeting ADA standards will be lowering the book stacks and increasing the space between them. The building is a Carnegie library, built in 1908 with money donated by Pittsburg businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The ADA projects are part of a bigger plan to make $500,000
Library News, A3 Oregon Police, B2 Public Voice, A7 Property Transfers, B4 Sheriff’s Arrests, B3
in renovations to the library and address at least some of the space issues the library has dealt with over the years. The plan includes keeping the original flavor and design of the library as much as possible. In fact, one feature, torn out decades ago, will be restored. In the large front room, a large photo shows where a fireplace once was on the west wall. Dettman said the photo has proved valuable in making the restoration authentic. “We’re trying to get it back as close to the original as possible,” he said.
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The photo shows a statue on either side of the fireplace serving as end caps to decorative pillars. Dettman said both were found in the library’s third floor art gallery. Only one of the two paintings shown in the photo has been found. That was also upstairs in storage, and Dettman is hopeful that further searching will reveal the other there as well. So far, he said he has been unable to determine exactly when the fireplace was torn out, but believes it must have been sometime in the 1920s or early 1930s. Turn to A3
Deaths, B4 Kent H. Ross Julia Aiken