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SIBLINGS TO FINISH RIDE TO SOUTHERNMOST TIP OF SOUTH AMERICA
‘Adventure of a lifetime’
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Relay event aims high Local group hopes to raise $80,000 at annual walk By JEFF ENGELHARDT jengelhardt@shawmedia.com
Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Brothers Aaron Cooper (left) and Nathan Cooper, of rural Woodstock, pose for a portrait March 9 at the Woodstock Harley Davidson. On Tuesday, the brothers plan to finish riding their Enduro bikes to the southernmost tip of South America. In 2012, the brothers trip was cut short in Colombia because of a broken leg Nathan suffered in a crash there.
Woodstock brothers returning to Columbia to finish mission By JEFF ENGELHARDT
To learn more Aaron and Nathan Cooper documented the first part of their journey in detail through photos, video and blog posts. Visit www. endurobros. com to learn more about their trip and see the progress of their second venture.
jengelhardt@shawmedia.com
I
t’s time for the Cooper brothers to finish what they started. Almost two and a half years after first setting out for Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, on their Enduro motorcycles, the Woodstock brothers are ready to get back to Colombia to finish a trip that was cut short there because of a broken leg suffered by Nathan Cooper.
“[We’ve] saved up the money, and Nathan is ready to go so the time is right,” said Aaron Cooper, Nathan’s older brother. “This is the adventure of a lifetime.” With a lengthy rehabilitation process behind Nathan Cooper, 27, the brothers are eager to return to Colombia where their motorcycles have remained in the care of the same loving Colombian
family who also performed surgery on Nathan Cooper after his crash. The setback and injury has not deterred the sons of a pastor from accomplishing their mission: reach the southernmost point of South America while helping as many people as they can along the way. During the first leg of their trip through the southwestern United
States, Mexico and Central America, the Coopers made time for some charitable work helping at Mision Vida Nueva in Guatemala where they spent time with orphans. The brothers also stopped in Panama at Alouatta Lodge, a sanctuary and rehabilitation center for monkeys. With more than 3,500 miles still to go, Aaron Cooper said they plan on doing more to help the people at the places they stop. One mission Aaron Cooper knows will be on the agenda is helping the People of Peru Project – an organization dedicated to helping the 600,000 people of Iquitos, a city surrounded by thousands of square-miles of jungle with almost no infrastructure. “We didn’t get to stop and help as much as we wanted to last time because we had a set return date,” Aaron Cooper said. “We don’t have a return date this time, which is refreshing. We don’t want to be tourists. We want to participate in some of the everyday life.”
See MISSION, page A6
CRYSTAL LAKE – Christina Dilthey has 9 million reasons to make this year’s Relay for Life the biggest yet. Dilthey, team leader for Relay for Life of Crystal Lake/ Cary, said supporters of cancer research and education took a big hit earlier in the year when new Gov. Bruce Rauner announced budget cuts that would affect funding for the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program. The program, designed to give under-insured and uninsured women access to cancer screenings, would drop from about $13 million to $4 million in state support. “We were expecting some cuts, but we really were not expecting the level of cuts that were announced,” Dilthey said. “My No. 1 concern is cancer research funding as a whole, but breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women in Illinois. Taking away access to those screening is devastating.” Potential cuts to fight cancer at the state level have only inspired Dilthey to work harder on the local level to raise money for research and education. Dilthey is once again leading the Relay for Life of Crystal Lake/Cary and aims to raise $80,000 with more than 300 participants. It would be a significant increase from last year’s event, which raised $59,000 and attracted 167 participants. The 2015 edition – which officially kicked off this week – is off to a strong start, Dilthey said, adding the location change from McHenry County College last year to Immanuel Lutheran School this year
See RELAY, page A6
State’s FOIA appeal process hampered by years-long backlog By JOHN O’CONNOR The Associated Press SPRINGFIELD – After the scandal that sent former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to prison, lawmakers adopted a raft of reforms that included creating a referee to intervene when bureaucrats reject citizens’ requests for government records. Five years later, the “public access counselor” in the attorney general’s office has yet to respond to more than 2,800 appeals of Freedom of Information Act requests for information that a government
agency deemed secret, according to an analysis of records obtained by The Associated Press. That’s about one in five of all FOIA appeals submitted to the office since the law took effect in 2010. While it means the office can claim more than 80 percent of its cases closed, the AP found that nearly 1,200 of the open cases have gone unanswered for at least two years. The numbers concern legislators who pushed for the added layer of appeal, while a freedom of information advocate says delay means de-
“The intent [behind reform] was to facilitate responses to the public at large seeking information. If you have [the appeals office] overburdened, that doesn’t carry out the spirit of the law.” Sen. Kwame Raoul, Chicago Democrat nial for citizens counting on prompt government information – and who believe the records are illegally being kept secret. “The intent was to facilitate responses to the public at large seeking information,”
said Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat. “If you have [the appeals office] overburdened, that doesn’t carry out the spirit of the law.” Ann Spillane, chief of staff to Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan, ac-
knowledged the backlog but defended the bureau’s work, maintaining that, counting disputes over the open-meetings law, 85 percent of the pleas it handles have been settled. The public access counselor received a monthly average of 285 appeals on FOIA and open meetings in 2013, a number that has jumped to 349 this year , according to the attorney general’s office. The appeals are not just the domain of snooping journalists or buttoned-down law firms. More than four of five come from individual taxpay-
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ers – 2,320 of the total that remain unresolved. The bureau has 10 lawyers and is interviewing to hire as many as five more, but turnover is constant, Spillane said. And because of the budget crisis, even with a growing backlog, Spillane said the attorney general will focus on preserving the current budget instead of asking for more. “It’s not our goal for anyone to wait,” Spillane said. “In a perfect world, we would turn these around, each of
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See FOIA, page A6