Serving the Polo Area Since 1857
POLO
Tri-County Press February 26, 2015 Volume 157, Number 23 - $1.00
Regional Victory
Toy Shows
Guest Column
The Marcos easily defeated Annawan Tuesday night to open the postseason in Erie. B1
The annual farm toy shows return to Polo and Forreston in March. A10
Ogle County Sheriff Brian VanVickle addresses commercial truck lengths on rural roads A8
Polo apartments are slated to receive upgrades By Vinde Wells Editor Although Ogle County Housing and Urban Development (HUD) were expecting to get federal funding from HUD’s Capital Fund Program, this year’s amount came as a pleasant surprise.
“It’s a Capital Fund grant. We get it once a year, but it’s about double what we usually get,” Ogle County HUD Executive Director David Ditzler said Monday. “That will help us out a ton.” A press release last week from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced
that Ogle County will receive $383,755 this year. Ditzler said the money will be used to make upgrades to bathrooms in the 30 apartments at Prairie State Apartments in Polo. Exterior doors will be replaced at 10 other sites in Polo, he said. The grant is part of nearly
$116 million awarded to public housing authorities in Illinois. The funding will allow agencies to make major large-scale improvements to their public housing units. The grants are provided through HUD’s Capital Fund Program, which offers annual funding to approximately
3,100 public housing authorities to build, repair, renovate and/or modernize the public housing in their communities, the press release said. These housing authorities use the funding to do largescale improvements such as replacing roofs or making energy-efficient upgrades
to replace old plumbing and electrical systems. Unlike routine maintenance, capital needs are extensive improvements required to make the housing decent and economically sustainable, such as replacing roofs or updating plumbing and electrical systems to increase energy efficiency.
Zeigler becomes spelling champ By Jermaine Pigee Sauk Valley Media Back and forth went Rebekah Zeigler and Lydia Cermak, the final spellers left Feb. 19 in the Lee/ Ogle Regional Spelling Bee after 24 others had been eliminated. Finally, Cermak, a sixthgrader at Oregon Elementary School, was tripped up by the word tuckahoe. Zeigler, a fourth-grader at Centennial Elementary School, Polo, responded quickly by correctly spelling lederhosen. After 28 rounds, victory, and a trip to the national bee, was within Ziegler’s reach. All that stood in the way was spelling one final word correctly. The word she was given was Borzoi, a large Russian wolfhound. Zeigler confidently stepped to the microphone in the packed auditorium of Dixon High School, and correctly spelled the word. “I feel really good about winning,” Zeigler said with a wide smile. “My mom and dad helped me a lot.” Zeigler had served notice last year as a third-grader,
the youngest grade eligible in the bee, by finishing 10th. Students in the third through eighth grades can compete. By winning this year, Zeigler, the 9-year-old daughter of Mark and Alissa Zeigler, receives an allexpenses-paid trip for two to National Harbor, Md., just south of Washington, D.C., to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee that begins May 24 and concludes May 29. She also won a $100 U.S. savings bond, a Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, and an online subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica. Statistics suggest Zeigler’s win should not be a surprise. Thirteen of the past 16 winners in the Lee/Ogle contest were girls. Nationally, since the competition started in 1983, 53 percent of bee contestants have been female. Also, of the past champions, 78 percent had participated in the Lee/Ogle bee in previous years. Finally, eight of the past nine champions have come from Ogle County. Turn to A2
Power failure hit courthouse, jail The Ogle County Courthouse was closed for a few hours Feb. 18 and visiting was canceled at the Ogle County Jail after an electrical supply line failed, causing a power outage. Sheriff Brian VanVickle said the electrical line that supplies power to both facilities failed in the late morning. The line runs under the parking lot west of the jail. “It’s been an ongoing problem from what I understand,” VanVickle said. “I talked to ComEd, and it’s scheduled for replacement.” Dave Gross, ComEd’s external affairs manager, said the policy is to replace power lines that have failed a certain number of times within a specified time frame. “We’re planning on replacing it,” he said. A generator supplied power to keep the jail running after the line failed, VanVickle said, but it could not fully power the courthouse as well.
The Ogle County Courthouse is located in downtown Oregon. File photo
The jail remained on the generator until about 7:30 that evening when a temporary repair was completed by a ComEd work crew. Gross said the crew dug up the wire and spliced it, restoring power. The courthouse was closed for the afternoon and was back to normal activity the following day. VanVickle said visiting was cancelled at the jail that day because the hole needed to make the repair was just outside the jail’s front door. He said the permanent repair will have to wait for warmer weather when the frost is out of the ground.
In This Week’s Edition...
Fourth grader student Rebekah Zeigler, representing Polo’s Centennial Elementary School, smiles after winning the Lee/Ogle Regional Spelling Bee on Feb. 19. Photo by Alex T. Paschal, Sauk Valley Media
State budget cuts could impact city By Vinde Wells Editor Local village and city officials say the state budget cuts proposed by Gov. Bruce Rauner last week would put a significant strain on their finances. In fact, one called the potential loss “disastrous.” “It would be disastrous for us if they did that,” Mt. Morris Village Treasurer Bruce True said Monday. “I don’t think the legislature is going to do it, but we have to be prepared.” In a speech Feb. 18, Rauner laid out his plan to reduce the share of state income tax revenues that goes to municipalities from eight percent to four percent for the state’s fiscal year that begins July 1. The governor’s plan is the opening round of proposals and counter-proposals that are typically introduced before the state legislature approves the final budget. In dire financial straits for the last several years, the state is currently facing an estimated $9 billion deficit.
“This is our last, best chance to get our house in order,” Rauner said during his address. While True agreed that the state must cut spending, he said Rauner’s proposal would mean a 14 to 15 percent loss of revenue for the village in the coming year. Instead of the anticipated $288,000 in income tax revenue for the year, Mt. Morris would receive only about $144,000, a substantial portion of its estimated $1 million in revenues, he said. The timing is less than ideal as well, True said. With the fiscal year for village and cities beginning May 1, local governments will have to set their budgets before they know what the final result will be in Springfield. True pointed out that with the state income tax rate declining from five percent to 3.5 percent as of Jan. 1, the revenues from that source were already going to be reduced. True said he and other village officials are currently working on
compiling the budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year and will have little choice but to cut spending since alternative sources of revenue simply aren’t available. The village is already levying property taxes and utility taxes at the maximums allowed by the state, he said. “We’re doing as much as we can locally right now,” he said. The amount of state income tax a village or city receives is determined by its population. Polo City Clerk said the city will lose $115,583 in state income tax revenue if Rauner’s proposal is approved. “That’s a significant loss for us,” she said. Currently state income tax is the city’s largest source of revenue. That revenue goes into the General Fund, which is used to pay for streets, police, parks and the city swimming pool, and administrative expenses. The estimated General Funds revenues for the year are $963,800.
“These are very important departments,” Corbitt said. “It’s going to be a hardship if it happens.” She said she and other city officials are in the beginning stages of planning the 201516 budget, which must be approved in early May. Oregon Mayor Tom Stone said Rauner’s proposal will be one of the main topics discussed March 19 when mayors from the area meet at the Steak Pit. He said the proposed cuts are just another blow to promised state funding to cities and village. “The state has been late for years on sales tax payments. It’s nothing new, but it’s definitely going to hurt if it goes through,” Stone said. Ken Williams, the city’s Finance Commissioner, said the city will lose about 10 percent of its expected revenues should the measure be approved. “The cost to the city would be $180,000 less in revenue,” he said. “In essence that’s a Turn to A11
Garbage toters damaged Feb. 16 The Polo Police Department released the following request for information on an incident resulting in criminal damage to property. The Polo Police Department took reports on Feb. 16 of damage to
Birth, A4 Church News, A5 Classifieds, B7-B12 College News, A4 Entertainment, A6
many of Moring Disposal’s garbage toters. The damage occurred in various areas of Polo. Sometime Sunday night, Feb. 15, or Monday morning, Feb. 16, someone in a dark blue colored vehicle struck numerous
Fines, B6 Marriage Licenses, A4 Oregon Police, B3 Property Transfers, B5 Recycling News, B3
Sheriff’s Arrests, B5 Social News, A4 Sports, B1, B2 State’s Attorney, B5 Weather, A2
garbage toters causing garbage to fly out of the toters with some of the toters being damaged. The Polo Police Department has plastic parts from the possible offending vehicle. Anyone having
information on a vehicle fitting the above description or information on the criminal damage to property is requested to call the Polo Police Department at 815-946-3412 or OgleLee Crime Stoppers at 1-888-228-4488.
Deaths, B4 Irene Black, Jacob M. Burke, Marion I. DeGraf, Donald Greenfield, David Petro
Published every Thursday by Ogle County Newspapers, a division of Shaw Media • www.oglecountynews.com