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The Putnam County
Volume 146 No. 34
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Putnam County’s Only Newspaper
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Wednesday, April 23, 2014
County OKs courthouse repairs By Ken Schroeder kschroeder@putnamcountyrecord.com
HENNEPIN — With the final estimates being lower than earlier anticipated, the Putnam County Board approved a four-year project to repair structural problems on the Putnam County Courthouse at a total cost of approximately $200,000.
“Although these are estimates, I was particularly pleased with what the cost would be for those four years,” Putnam County Board Chairman Duane Calbow said. “Although it’s still a decent sum of money, it’s nothing like anticipated. I think spreading it out over four years makes it manageable.”
The vote for the renovation was four to one with board member Willie Holmes voting no. Holmes has previously stated during his years working in the courthouse he saw more problems which may not be easily repaired. Holmes believes the money would be better spent building a new courthouse, citing
what he sees as a continual cycle of repairs for the building. The Putnam County Courthouse is the oldest functioning courthouse in the state and marks its 175th year in service this year. In other action, the board: • Passed a resolution raising fees for jurors.
Grand and petit jurors will receive $15 a day, up from the previous $8. Mileage costs were doubled from 25 cents to 50 cents. These changes were already planned in this year’s budget, but the board saw a need to put the fees in writing for the circuit clerk’s office. • Appointed John Ehrhardt as a McNabb
Fire Protection District trustee. Ehrhardt fills the position vacated by the late Jim Goldasich. John Cimei and Brad Grasser were also re-appointed to the board. • Awarded the county cemetery mowing bid to Countryside Lawn Care at a cost of $155 for all three cemeteries per mowing.
Smoking in the park? Verda: ‘It’s not enforceable’ By Ken Schroeder kschroeder@putnamcountyrecord.com
GRANVILLE — The Granville Village Board met the Putnam County Health Department and the Community Partners Against Substance Abuse (CPASA) halfway at the village board meeting April 15 when it voted to pass a resolution discouraging smoking in Granville parks. Becky Piano, director of the “We Choose Health” program at the health department, had asked for an ordinance banning smoking in the parks; something the board was not willing to do. “When you originally approached us, you were asking us for an outright ban on smoking in the park,” board member Randy Borio said. “I’m very reluctant to just outright ban smoking in the park. If we ban completely, you and I are sitting in the park, you light a cigarette, and I call the police. When Chief Moore comes down, you won’t have a cigarette. It’s an unenforceable ordinance. If someone is rude enough to smoke in the park, me telling them not to is not going to change a thing.” With the resolution, the village will allow the group to put up signs discouraging smoking in the parks. As a result, the village was presented with a plaque
See Smoking Page 4
Putnam County Record photo/Ken Schroeder
Eggs-citing! Toddlers start collecting eggs during the Easter egg hunt in McNabb on April 12. The hunt was sponsored by the village of McNabb, McNabb Fire Department and Putnam County Emergency Medical Services.
Not hog-wild about pig farm By Ken Schroeder kschroeder@putnamcountyrecord.com
WENONA — A crowd of more than 300 people filled the Wenona Fieldcrest School April 17 to express their views on a proposed corporate hog farm planned for Marshall County, with many residents from neighboring Putnam and LaSalle counties in attendance. The Illinois Department of Agriculture hearing — which lasted six hours — drew supporters and opponents of the Sandy Creek Lane farm in an often heated discussion of the merits and flaws of building the farm outside Wenona, just five miles southeast of Magnolia.
The birth-to-ween farm has been proposed by Veterinary Medical Center (VMC) Management Corporation from Williamsburg, Iowa. VMC spokesperson Nicholas Rippel is originally from Toluca and explained the animals would be housed in three large buildings that would be constructed to store up to one year’s waste of the estimated 20,000 pigs in the project, approximately 10 million gallons. Waste would then be spread over 1,200 acres of farmland as fertilizer. Rippel said the environmental and odor impact would be minimal.
“The facility will have deeppitted barns with no open lagoons,” Rippel said. “The birthing barn will be cleaned between each birthing unit. We’ll have tree buffers, and the nutrients we use for feed eliminate a lot of the smell. This is really more about misunderstanding and misinformation, and we’re trying to get the true information out there.” Lostant resident and geology instructor at Illinois Valley Community College Mike Phillips disputes Rippel’s claim, noting U.S. Department of Agriculture soil maps show the land unsuitable for manure spreading
Vol. 146 No. 34
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and gravel, and sand formations could be missed by soil borings and, therefore deflecting manure leakage toward Sandy Creek. “I used to make my living investigating hazardous waste sites, so when I saw they were going to put in a facility that’s going to have somewhere between 5 and 10 million gallons of hog waste stored in the basement, I became concerned,” Phillips said. “That’s exactly the kind of thing that I used to have to investigate because those things leak. Our
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815-875-3347 • fax: 815-875-2012 Contact Lou Anne Kenwick at lkenwick@colonialhrc.com www.colonialcarecentre.com