Lady Cavs get back in the conference title race
La Salle County has a dubious distinction with video gambling A3
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www.newstrib.com | Wednesday, October 2, 2019 | 75 cents
Little progress by union, board Mendota grade school teachers reiterate Oct. 16 strike date By Craig Sterrett NEWS EDITOR
NEWSTRIBUNE PHOTO DIRECTED BY SCOTT ANDERSON
You can’t see his face, but Jacob Aubry of rural Utica isn’t happy. Aubry stands near a large wet hole on a field he cultivates near East 16th and North 31st roads northwest of Ottawa, which he described as the soggiest of the fields he tends. On the cusp of harvest, farmers don’t need wet holes and there may be more rain on the way. This photo was taken by a drone operated by Utica Fire Protection District, which is licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
A (w)hole lot of water going on To the unsuspecting motorist, the fields look fine. But hidden behind those neat rows of corn are big, sloppy ponds By Tom Collins
NEWSTRIBUNE SENIOR REPORTER
Did your driver-ed instructor warn you against driving across flooded roads? Then it should come as no surprise that farmers aren’t supposed to run machines through standing water, either. And on the cusp of harvest, that’s a problem: Fields in the Illinois Valley are teeming with wet holes too big for harvesters to pass through. Farmers anticipate playing dodge’em at the wheel if their fields don’t dry up soon. Drive down a highway or country road and the field edges may appear healthy to the untrained eye; but farmers such as Jacob Aubry of rural Utica said deeper inside those fields are
ponds too large to cross, even in a large combine. “We farm throughout the county and it’s hard to find fields without wet holes in them,” lamented Aubry, who’s farmed about 15 years and has never seen such widespread standing water. “I personally haven’t seen such a challenging year.” Ron Chalus has been at it longer than Aubry and he’s never seen fields this soaked, either. Wet holes would be an unhappy sight under the best of circumstances, but Chalus is worried because the clock is ticking. Corn and beans aren’t quite ready for harvest but soon will be, and that means farmers have a tight window for fields to dry out before firing up the heavy machinery.
Fields were soggy even before the Sept. 27-28 deluge. The last thing farmers needed was rain, much less the weekend deluge that swelled the Illinois River by a staggering 9 feet. “This is a bad time to get 5 or 6 inches of rain,” Chalus said. “I’ve never seen water this heavy on the fields on Oct. 1 — never. “It could be a bad harvest if we get even average rain.” To avoid a bad harvest, farmers need the National Weather Service to be wrong — very wrong. Forecasters are calling for rain (60% chance) today and Saturday, and with only limited sunlight to dry out fields. Even farmers who weren’t pounded with weekend rain are eyeing the calendar a little ner-
vously. Doug Stockley farms in Earl and Freedom townships and he got 3½ inches over the weekend. That’s less than was recorded in southern La Salle County, for example, but coupled with recent rainfalls his fields also are dotted with huge puddles. He, too, needs a dry spell that isn’t in the 10-day outlook. “My soybeans aren’t ready to be harvested yet, even if it weren’t muddy, and my corn is split between almost-ready to be harvested and not ready to be harvested,” Stockley said. “I wouldn’t be able to able to get in for at least another week or two, weather permitting, and rain is in the forecast again. “This wet weather is not helpSee WATER Page A2
AG to Mendota: Where’s the answer to the July complaint? Act on July 15? The Illinois Attorney General’s Office asked the city for more information 10 weeks ago and never got any. Now, an assistant to attorney By Tom Collins general Kwame Raoul said she NEWSTRIBUNE SENIOR REPORTER wants the overdue information next week. Did the Mendota City Council Monday, a deputy attorney violate the state Open Meetings general issued a second request
Mayor said it was an oversight
TONIGHT Rain, some heavy. Weather A8
INDEX Astrology B5 Business B4 Classified B7 Comics B5 Lifestyle A7
Local A3 Lottery A2 Obituaries B6 Opinion A6
COMING TOMORROW Established 1851 No. 193 © 2019 est. 1851
OUT & ABOUT What’s going on in the area this weekend?
for information from mayor David Boelk and city clerk Emily McConville, reminding them of a July 24 request for information that was never answered. Boelk, after seeing the Monday correspondence, said the meeting was the result of an oversight and that the matter was overzealously pursued by a
former reporter. Illinois law requires any majority of members gathered in one place constitutes a meeting and therefore is subject to the Open Meetings Act. The Act requires an agenda be posted 48 hours before the actual meeting. See COMPLAINT Page A2
Secretary of state acknowledges he was on Trump call at center of impeachment probe By The Associated Press Staff
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged Wednesday he was on the July phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s president that’s at the center of the House impeachment inquiry. But Pompeo continued to push back against what he said was Democrats’ “bullying and intimidation.” The Trump administration has set a defiant tone, resisting Congress’ access to impeach-
ment witnesses, even as House Democrats warned such efforts themselves could amount to an impeachable offense. Pompeo has tried to delay five current and former officials from providing documents and testimony in the inquiry that could lead to charges against Trump. But Democrats were able to set closed-door depositions for Thursday for former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and next week for ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. Pompeo acknowledged at a
news conference in Rome on Wednesday that “I was on the phone call” on July 25 between Trump and the Ukraine president, saying that as America’s chief diplomat he was wellversed in U.S. policy toward Ukraine. But he continued to sound a defiant note on the House impeachment probe, asserting that House investigators contacted “State Department employees directly” and told them not to contact State Department See PROBE Page A2
MENDOTA — A 10-day notice of an intent to strike now faces the Mendota Grade School Board after not reaching a settlement with the teachers’ union Tuesday. “The strike date for the Association is set for Oct. 16,” Brandon Scheppers, Mendota Education Association co-president, said in a press release issued at 9:24 p.m. Tuesday. “As of this writing, no date has been set for the next mediation session. The association will be holding a meeting with its members to inform them of the most recent proposals. We are hopeful the mediator will be contacting us soon to bring us back to the table.” The full school board met in its board room in Northbrook School, the teachers union members gathered in a separate room, and the federal mediator walked between rooms during negotiations. The session lasted just under 3½ hours. SALARY AND INSURANCE School board president Sean Pappas said the board “has offered movement” in the salary schedule and is “still willing to offer” to pay 85% of the costs of insuring teachers’ family members. That insurance offer does not match the union’s request, and has not yet changed. As previously reported, the Mendota district does not pay 100% of the retirement payment into the state Teachers Retirement System, unlike many neighboring school districts, but many of those districts either pay nothing or 50% toward insurance for teachers’ family members. Pappas said, technically, the teachers could strike on Tuesday, Oct. 15 — 14 days after the board sent its offer from last night to the Education Labor Relations Board — but teachers still are using the Oct. 16 date. Pappas said the board and mediator are offering to meet Oct. 9 and 10. “The board is willing to continue to meet to resolve the strike before Oct. 16,” Pappas stated in a press release. “We are still hopeful that a resolution can be reached.” NEW ISSUE: HOW MANY PEOPLE IN THE CONTRACT? The board and MEA encountered a new obstacle in their negotiations: They do not yet agree on the number of teachers in the contract, according to press releases from both the union and the board. At one point, the mediator called together a smaller group of negotiators from the two sides, See TEACHERS Page A4
GOING PUBLIC: Board lists names of teachers, what they’d be paid under new offer. Sean Pappas
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