Serving the Mt. Morris area since 1967
MT.Times MORRIS January 4, 2018 Volume 51, Number 12- $1.00
Split in Dixon
Bird Count
Issue of Appeals
Oregon girls basketball team wins two, loses two at the Dixon Holiday Tournament. B1
The results of JoDaviess annual Christmas Bird Count are in. B3
Ogle County’s Board of Appeals will meet this month to review tax appeals. A2
Nash opens as warming center By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com
Cold end to the year Mike Egan, Mt. Morris, was busy blowing snow from Mounder Park on Saturday following Friday’s snow fall. Photo by Earleen Hinton
To combat the effects of frigid weather, Nash Recreation Center, Oregon, opened its doors Monday as a warming center. “Anyone needing a place to keep warm are welcome to relax in the facility at no charge,” a press release said. The facility, at 304 S. Fifth St., opens at 9 a.m. and is handicapped accessible. It has water, restrooms and several lounge areas to escape the freezing temperatures. After a balmy 15 degrees for a high on Christmas Day, Ogle County’s weather has steadily gone more frigid in the last week. Thanks to a much-touted polar vortex (just think cold, very, very cold), 2018 ushered in the coldest temperatures maybe ever, setting a record low high on New Year’s Day of -1. That was on top of wind chills dipping to -30 overnight. It wasn’t all that windy, but when it’s already -15, it doesn’t take much of a breeze. The National Weather Service offers only limited relief with expected highs of 7 through 10 degrees through Friday and lows dipping to -10. A warm-up to the freezing mark is expected on Sunday, but brings with it the likelihood of snow — so far the forecasters aren’t saying how much.
Judge denies motions in fatal boat accident By Kathleen Schultz kschultz@saukvalley.com An Ogle County judge has rejected the defense’s request to exclude Illinois Department of Natural Resources reports from evidence in the reckless homicide trial of an Oregon boater. The prejudice the reports may engender “does not rise to a level which warrants the extreme measure of exclusion,”
Judge John Redington said in his two-sentence ruling, filed Thursday in Ogle County Circuit Court. Rochelle attorney David Tess, who is representing Marc Mongan, 47, asked Redington to exclude the 149-page report and videos from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which investigated the crash that took the life of Megan Wells, 31, of Rockford. Wells was killed June 24,
2016, on the Rock River, about three miles north of Oregon when a johnboat Mongan was operating struck her as it went over the back of the pontoon boat she was riding in, throwing her overboard. Mongan is charged with one count of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol, which carries 3 to 7 years in prison; three counts of reckless homicide, each of which carries 2 to 5 years; and three
counts of reckless conduct, all punishable by 1 to 3 years. His trial is set to begin Feb. 14. At a motion hearing on Dec. 19, Tess argued that the IDNR report and videos should be excluded because they have been disseminated to the public, which could taint the jury pool and make crossexamining witnesses more difficult. By law, he said, such
investigative records are not to be released when making them public could interfere with the case, and noted that prosecutors and defense attorneys are prohibited from doing so. The IDNR released the reports and videos to Wells’ family members after they filed a Freedom of Information Act request; they subsequently were posted on the internet and sent to various media outlets. The IDNR should have
denied the FOIA request, Tess said. Special prosecutor David Neal, from the Illinois State’s Attorney’s Appellate Prosecutor’s office, agreed that the internet postings might make it harder for the court to select a jury. The IDNR, though, simply released the records to the victim’s family, and so “acted appropriately under the law,” Neal said.
Downtown Polo business will close its doors By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com A decades-old downtown Polo retail business will close its doors later this month. A sign on the front window of Charley’s Pharmacy & True Value Hardware, 110 E. Mason St., says the store will close on Jan. 13. Business owner Tom Felker said Tuesday that he is closing the store for economic reasons. “If it was making money I wouldn’t be closing it,” he said. “I would love to keep it open and I would have loved to have kept the Mt. Morris store open, too.” Felker’s Snyder Pharmacy in Mt. Morris closed in April of 2009. Felker said the main reason for the dilemma is that the companies that manage prescription drug plans set the amount they will pay pharmacies for prescription drugs and are generally unwilling to negotiate. “That has had a terrible effect on pharmacies,” he said. “You can’t have wages, utilities, and taxes going up and your income going down.” Felker also owns a pharmacy and a grocery store in Byron, a
pharmacy and Ace Hardware store in Oregon, as well as pharmacies in Dixon and other locations. Despite the Polo store closing, he said he will continue to serve the local community. “We will continue to deliver to customers free of charge on a daily basis,” Felker said. The pharmacy accounts will be transferred to the Dixon Snyder Pharmacy, he said, and hardware accounts will be handled through his Oregon store. Polo alderman Jim Busser, who formerly owned the hardware end at Charley’s, said he is saddened to see the store close. “It’s a big loss to the community,” he said. Busser bought the hardware business from Charley Haisch, who still owns the building, around 1990 and sold it back to him four years later, he said. Haisch, a pharmacist, opened a pharmacy across the street from the present store in the early 1980s, and as his business grew moved to the present location, which had been a movie theatre for many years before that. He sold the business to Felker in 1997 shortly before he retired.
In This Week’s Edition...
Longtime downtown Polo business, Charley’s Pharmacy & True Value Hardware will close its doors later this month. Photo by Zach Arbogast
Church News, A5 Classifieds, B6-B8 Entertainment, A6 Fines, B4 Library News, A2
Marriage Licenses, A4 Pine Creek News, A3 Property Transfers, B4 Reading Matters, A6 Senior Center News, A3
Sheriff’s Arrests, B3 Social News, A4 Sports, B1, B2
Deaths, B5
Maurice J. Bronkema, Shirley A. Coffman, Dean Johnson, Ruth Kramer Richards, Joyce A. Stauffer, Vicki L. Young, Richard A. Zilly
Published every Thursday by Ogle County Newspapers, a division of Shaw Media • www.oglecountynews.com