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ALL FIRED UP In wake of only loss this season, C-G rolls over Jacobs in 51-20 win / C1
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District 156, teachers reach deal
Union to vote on agreement Monday; if OK’d, students back in class Tuesday By ALLISON GOODRICH agoodrich@shawmedia.com
and HANNAH PROKOP
hprokop@shawmedia.com McHENRY – A tentative agreement over contract negotiations between the McHenry Community High School Educators’ Association and the McHenry Community High School District 156 board was reached early Saturday morning, paving the way for classes to resume Tuesday.
The union will vote to ratify the tentative agreement at 3 p.m. Monday at McHenry High School West, union spokeswoman Heidie Dunn said. If the tentative agreement is ratified, students will be back in school Tuesday, she said. “We’re ready to go,” Dunn said. “Let’s get back to school.” School board President Steve Bellmore said he could not provide details on the tentative agreement “We got a tentative agreement, and
Activists, families endure threats
I’m glad to say we could put the kids back in school Tuesday,” Bellmore said. “ ... I appreciate both sides working so hard, putting in the long hours to finally get this resolved.” Gary Kinshofer, the school board’s lead negotiator, said details of the agreement will be posted on the district’s website after the union ratifies the tentative agreement and before the school board votes on it at its next meeting. “I think it was a collaborative ef-
fort to come to an agreement that both sides could live with,” Kinshofer said. Bellmore previously has said the salary schedule was the sticking point in the negotiations. The current schedule by which teachers are paid consists of a base salary, plus step increases for years of service and lane increases for academic achievement. The board had proposed stretching out the schedule by adding half-steps, which board members have said is a
more financially responsible structure in the long term. Meanwhile, Dunn has said altering the schedule that way would make the district a less attractive employer based on how long it would take for teachers to earn higher wages. Several negotiating sessions last week stretched on into the early hours of the following days, with board members having to go to work
See DISTRICT 156, page A4
NEW METRA BOARD MEMBER HITS THE GROUND RUNNING
D-155 urges respect as talks on fate of bleachers continue By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com
CRYSTAL LAKE – The latest threat came shortly before 7 a.m. the Saturday after the Illinois Supreme Court handed down its decision on the Crystal Lake South High School bleachers. A car drove past the Gurbas home and someone shouted, “Tear down our bleachers? We’re going to kill all of you,” Kim Maselbas-Gurba recalled. Since filing the lawsuit against Crystal Lake-based Community High School Kim Maselbas- District 155 over construction of the Gurba bleachers, the Gurbas have had their mailbox smashed multiple times and burned once. People on the bleachers during games will shout obscenities at them, and threats against them have been posted online, some by students and some by adults. The Crystal Lake Police Department has responded to a couple instances of property damage and has had more officers patrolling the area, Deputy Chief Tom Kotlowski said. “We’re trying to be proactive,” he said, adding that officers checked in with many of the residents along Amberwood Drive in the wake of the decision to make sure everything was OK. These past two years have been particularly hard on the Gurbas’ two daughters, one who is a junior this year and the other who graduated from Crystal Lake South last year.
See BLEACHERS, page A4
Matthew Apgar – mapgar@shawmedia.com
Former McHenry County Board member Ken Koehler, who also served four terms as board chairman, poses for a portrait Thursday at the Pingree Road Metra Station in Crystal Lake. Koehler stepped down from his elected seat to accept a new role as the county’s representative on the Metra Board.
Koehler discusses challenges, vision for troubled agency By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – Ken Koehler’s first meeting as McHenry County’s representative on the Metra Board did not start out mundane. In front of the former County Board member was a resolution to shut down the entire Metra suburban commuter rail system at year’s end unless Congress
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pushes back a Dec. 31 deadline to implement a positive train control system, a complicated and expensive nationwide safety network to prevent train-on-train collisions.
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“I had an ‘Oh-my-God’ moment. … I was asked to vote on a resolution to shut down the entire Metra system effective Jan. 1, which we all did in unison,” said Koehler, of Crystal Lake. A bill working its way through Congress would extend that deadline, at the urging of commuter and freight rail companies that are saying they would not be able to legally operate. The tab to install positive train control on the
11 rail lines Metra relies on will come in somewhere between $250 million and $350 million. Unfunded mandates are but one of the many challenges, as well as opportunities, facing the commuter rail, Koehler said Thursday in a meeting with the Northwest Herald Editorial Board. His 15 years on the County Board, including eight as its
See METRA, page A4
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