Ogle County Newspapers / oglecountynews.com • Friday, January 15, 2021
OGLE COUNTY NEWS
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BUILDING UPDATE
Polo votes to make a new offer on building $175,000 offer has yet to be accepted BY JEFF HELFRICH
jhelfrich@shawmedia.com The Polo City Council voted Monday to make a $175,000 offer on the CedarStone building at 610 S. Division Ave. The city was under contract to purchase the property for $229,000 late last year before the deal expired due to the building being tied up in bankruptcy proceeds. In recent weeks the city looked into leasing or buying other locations closer downtown due to opinions heard from citizens. At its Jan. 4 meeting, Dustin Finkle addressed the council and offered to build a city hall that the city would lease at 107 W. Colden St. The council also discussed purchasing and tearing down the Daws buildings at 108, 106 and 104 W. Mason St. and building on the site. “We got costs for those and they were unattainable,” Mayor Doug Knapp said. “When we looked at fig-
Earleen Hinton/Shaw Media
The Polo City Council has made a new offer to purchase the former CedarStone banquet hall at 610 S. Division Ave. for a new City Hall and possible police station. The property is currently tied up in bankruptcy proceedings. ures on going the leasing route, we thought we’d get friction with possible unions. [Finkle] building it for us to lease is kind of a gray area. The lease wouldn’t have gone towards a potential purchase price.”
The leasing route would have cost the city around $25,000 a year, according to figures thrown out at a recent meeting. The Daws route would have cost $120,000 to buy those buildings before demolition.
Knapp said he’s unsure if the CedarStone offer will be accepted. In the latest offer, the city opted for a later closing date in May. Previous offers were set to close within a month. Knapp said the city wants to make sure everything is in line, especially if there’s bankruptcy paperwork left to do on the seller’s side. The city has discussed multiple options of paying for CedarStone, including all of it coming out of the general fund, splitting the cost between all funds and taking out a loan. Knapp said he doesn’t anticipate the city will take out a loan. The city plans to send its engineers to Cedarstone to do an inspection in coming weeks. At the Jan. 4 meeting, Alderman Justin Grobe said he’d heard that there may be another buyer for the building to potentially put a business in it. Knapp said he’s unsure of that. “It is for sale and we didn’t want to be challenged on it,” Knapp said. “Maybe we went into it too quickly the first time. We’ll have more caution this time.”
SPORTS COLUMN
It’s not looking good for prep football, basketball L
ast week, the IHSA and IESA (junior high) met with the Illinois Department of Public Health and a representative from the Governor’s office. The purpose of the meeting was to determine the feasibility of getting sports up and running. The IHSA and IESA presented its case for reintroducing sports. It also asked the public health department to lower the risk level on some sports. “We believe that there is both data and science that validates the idea that we can safely conduct sports,” said IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson. “We have seen it work in other states and believe it can in Illinois if we utilize the mitigations provided by IDPH and the IHSA SMAC. Students are already leaving or participating outof-state on weekends. We believe that competing for their high school remains the safest venue for participation.” All IHSA sports remain on pause at the moment. Low risk sports may not begin until the state returns to Phase 4 in the All Sports Policy. The IHSA Board of Directors are scheduled to meet again this week. Basketball and football, long the primary sports for the IHSA, are considered high risk and look to be in big trouble. As Anderson says, “With the calendar shrinking, putting together a puzzle that allows for all
COMMENTARY Andy Colbert
sports to be played becomes increasingly improbable.” Indeed, time is running out. Football blew it when they opted to move the season to spring instead of playing in the fall like neighboring states did. Likewise with basketball being shelved. “We have seen it work in other states and believe it can in Illinois if we utilize the mitigations provided by IDPH and the IHSA,” Anderson said. “Students are already leaving or participating out-of-state on weekends. “We believe that competing for their high school remains the safest venue for participation.” Back in October, basketball and other winter sports were given the green light by the IHSA to begin play. Shortly afterwards, the plan was changed to make it a school-by-school decision after pressure
from the IDPH and Governor Pritzer. On Nov. 17, winter sports were put on a “pause” by the IHSA will no timetable for starting up. If the IHSA truly believes it can conduct winter sports like other states are doing, why aren’t they? Because there are political and legal ramifications in this state that have stymied the IHSA, who are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. The IHSA is making every effort possible on behalf of the student athletes of Illinois and credit to them for doing so. Even in a normal year, this organization feels tons of pressure. Bottom line, it ain’t looking good folks. January 2021 isn’t any different than the start of the school year in August. When football was postponed, decision-makers in Illinois gambled on COVID-19 being less of a problem later in the school year. Wrong. One ray of hope is that baseball, softball, and track could be contested, much the same way low risks like golf and cross country were in the fall. Other activities are medium and high risk and on shaky ground. That would be some sort of poetic justice, in that those three spring sports didn’t get a chance last year.
