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www.newstrib.com | Wednesday, October 23, 2019 | 75 cents
‘Strong Towns’ author: Look inward toward the future
Big money to battle big issue $680,000 opioid-crisis grant will help retrain recovering users for jobs, help employers By Craig Sterrett NEWS EDITOR
PHOTOS/ANNETTE BARR, SHAW MEDIA
Charles L. Marohn Jr., author of “Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity,” addresses a large crowd Tuesday evening at Illinois Valley Community College about the importance of focusing on infrastructure to maintain community finances rather than excessive growth.
City focus should be established infrastructure By Brent Bader SHAW MEDIA
As many cities are rushing to seek future investment on the outer edge of their city limits, Charles L. Marohn Jr. is asking what’s wrong with the established infrastructure in the heart of those cities. Marohn gave a presentation to city officials and residents Tuesday night at Illinois Valley Community College about the importance of increasing a city’s focus on the buildings in its downtown rather than adding to an already difficult-to-maintain infrastructure. It’s part of his mission to share this message through his nonprofit organization Strong Towns and book with the same name. “We have created a machine that allows our cities to grow very, very quickly but is one that is costing long-term solvency,” Marohn said. HOW DID WE GET HERE AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Marohn said the trend began at the end of World War II when many cities, fearful that another depression was on the horizon due to demobilizing many people, took a page from the city of Detroit’s development book,
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Dave Lourie, vice chairman of Starved Rock Country Alliance, presents Dick Janko (right) with an award prior to the presentation Tuesday. the country where families are in ers a “bottom-up revolution,” greater debt and their wealth has which requires communities to embrace a little of the “chaotic” stagnated. in order to end with smart longterm solutions. WHAT SHOULD WE CONSIDER? He admits it can be a less atInstead of growing on the outer edge of a community, tractive option in the short-term thus requiring more roads and as new buildings and new projextended water and sewer lines ects often appear to create new and adding to a community’s lia- growth, drive the economy and bilities, Marohn said city officials make up insolvencies of the past, should consider how to make but they ultimately don’t help better use out of what already repair what’s already been built has been built and strengthen when it begins to crumble. “At some point, the backlog of the already established framework. See TOWNS Page A2 It’s part of what he consid-
OVERCOMING THE PAIN Meet a 13-year-old dealing with arthritis
LA SALLE-BASED PERFECTLY FLAWED INVOLVED “Something we’re going to be doing locally is working with Perfectly Flawed and hiring an education coordinator for them who would go out into the community and they would be working with families who are impacted, providing support, providing education to the community,” Furlan said. See GRANT Page A4
Need help, or interested in hosting a worker? Interested individuals and businesses can obtain more information by contacting Pam Furlan at (815) 224-0375, or visiting the NCI Works website at www.nciworks.org any time after Nov. 1. Furlan, BEST Inc. executive director, says BEST Inc. will be helping people in its region including La Salle, Bureau, Putnam, Lee, Carroll, Jo Daviess, Ogle and Whiteside counties.
Did Mendota school district try to ‘chill’ union activity? Union files unfair labor practice charges By Ali Braboy and Craig Sterrett
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which at the time was an innovative city and has since struggled to maintain its infrastructure. “When you take a wealthy and successful city and you spread it out over a massive area, denuding the tax base and raising liabilities to extreme levels, you get the insolvency of Detroit,” Marohn said. “Like every bankruptcy, it happens very slowly, then all at once,” he added. He further used examples such as the town of Lafayette, La., which had a population of 33,000 at the end of World War II and has since increased three and a half times to 120,000. Their water system, which used to measure 5 feet of water per person, has increased 10 times that amount, and the number of hydrants per thousand people has increased 21 times that amount. “While we’re able to grow very quickly, what we’re seeing is that we’re growing our liabilities even faster,” Marohn said. “This may be justified if we’re becoming wealthier, if we’re becoming more successful, if people are actually becoming more prosperous and are sufficient enough to be able to sustain all of this,” he added. But the town of Lafayette is mirroring the rest of those across
More than a half million dollars in state and federal funds are coming in to directly help area people recovering from heroin and opioid dependency. The grant announced Tuesday includes an award of up to $681,146 to BEST Inc. on behalf of NCI Works to hire five people to aid families and individuals in an eight-county area, and to help 30 people re-enter the workforce after going through treatment. “We’re going to be employing five positions that are going to actually be working with that population,” said Pam Furlan, executive director of Business Employment Skills Team, which serves La Salle, Bureau, Putnam, Lee, Carroll, Jo Daviess, Ogle and Whiteside counties. The funds coming in through Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity from the U.S. Department of Labor will pay for two job coaches and trainers, put 30 recovering individuals to work in the region and employ two nurses to provide patient support and to assist practical nurses at three Sinnissippi treatment centers located in Dixon, Sterling and Oregon, Ill. The Department of Labor specifically calls these funds an opioid-crisis Dislocated Worker Grant.
NEWSTRIBUNE STAFF
MENDOTA — The Mendota Education Association recently filed two unfair labor practice complaints in connection with its eight-day-old strike. The Mendota Elementary board and union will meet today, but not after some disagreements over the meeting place.
In a new unfair labor practice charge, the teachers’ union alleges the Mendota Elementary administration implied that a strike or new contract could result in the elimination of the music band program. Tuesday, the NewsTribune obtained copies of two unfair labor practice charges filed by the union Monday toward the Mendota Elementary district; the charges were filed through the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board. One charge, filed Monday, says that on or about the first week of October “The School District administration attempted to inti-
mate the Association as a whole by asking a bargaining unit member about possible changes to staff scheduling, which would in all practically, entirely eliminate the music band program … such an inquiry, made without the Association’s presence and prior discussion, was done in an attempt to chill union activity.” The teachers previously had filed an intent-to-strike notice. The other act included in that charge says that on or about Oct. 4, the district was involved in bad faith bargaining when it threatened the “staff would not make up days of pay if a strike were to occur. This was announced
without prior bargaining or any discussion with the Association whatsoever. Under the circumstances, it was intended to, and did in fact chill union activity.” The other charge, also filed Monday, says that on or about Oct. 10, the district “engaged in bad faith bargaining when it engaged in regressive bargaining. The proposal submitted by the Employer at 9:10 p.m. was regressive from the proposal submitted at 8:23 p.m., being thousands of dollars less than previously offered less than an hour before.” See MENDOTA Page A3