Serving the Polo Area Since 1857
POLO Sectional Bound Christopher Rademacher had a round of 92 at the regional Tuesday to advance. B1
Tri-County Press October 9, 2014 Volume 157, Number 3 - $1.00
Bison Arrive
Burglary Alert
The first bison have arrived at the Nachusa Grasslands. A7
Polo residents are urged to take caution after several burglaries have been reported. A2
City council will spend $77,698 on pool repairs By Vinde Wells Editor The Polo City Council gave the go-ahead Monday night to $77,698 worth of repairs that will make the city swimming pool like new. “This will be like a brandnew pool after this work is done,” said pool supervisor Terry Jenkins. “The only thing that won’t be new are
the pipes to the baby pool.” He said the work may be completed by the end of this month. Jenkins told the council last month that the filter in the baby pool has developed a leak, the drain to the main pool leaks, the shallow end of the pool has buckled, and drainage from the park where the pool is located is inadequate.
From talking with contractors, he estimated the work would cost less than $100,000. Only one alderman raised objections Monday to spending the money, but in the end voted to approve the bids. “Once again here we are spending all this money but there’s nothing we can do about water bills,” said
Alderman Randy Schoon. Schoon has frequently voiced his concern over the city’s water rates. In recent years, repairs to the 46-year-old pool have cost more than $150,000. Last spring, the city replaced the wet pit and filter room at a cost of $102,000, of which $38,000 was offset by a state grant. Fundraisers were held from
2012-13 to replace the aging bath house, a project started last month. The estimated cost is $75,000. The council approved two bids from Clearview Pools, Inc., South Beloit, one for $3,295 to dig a 400-foot trench from the pool and baseball field to the street and retile to correct the drainage issues, and another for $67,753 to replace the main
drain of the pool and to stop the leak in the baby pool’s filter. The council also approved a bid from Chester Pool Systems, New Albany, Ind., for $6,650 to fix the buckle in the main pool’s shallow end. Schoon questioned why the city council had not done the work a long time ago. Turn to A3
Neighbors aim stinging criticism at beekeeper By Vinde Wells Editor Two Polo residents had stinging comments about one of their neighbors at Monday night’s city council meeting. Connie Simonnet, 111 N. Barber Ave., and Laurie Church, 107 N. Barber Ave., complained that Mike Scholl, who owes a lot with only a garage between their houses, is keeping honey bees in violation of city ordinances. They said they have both called the police several times when they saw bees on Scholl’s property. Police Chief Dennis Christen said Tuesday that when he has responded to the calls about the bees, he Polo Water and Sewer Department employee Mike Mumford holds his son Mercer up has not found Scholl to be for a look in the microscope at the new wastewater treatment plant. City officials held violating the ordinances about beekeeping. an open house Oct. 5 at the recently completed facility. Photo by Vinde Wells Simonnet said Scholl has what he calls a wax melter on a lot he owns between her house and Church’s. She said she believes it’s really a beehive. “I don’t care what he calls
Open House
New coordinator named for Ogle County agency By Vinde Wells Editor A Rochelle man has been appointed the coordinator of the Ogle County Emergency Management Agency (OCEMA). Ogle County Board Chairman Kim Gouker announced last week in a press release that he appointed Thomas E. Richter, 58, to the post on Oct. 1. Richter will be paid an annual salary of $51,000, more than half of which is reimbursed by the state. Richter replaces Candace Humphrey, who stepped down on Aug. 15. Gouker had appointed Richter as interim coordinator on Aug. 29. Richter is a long time resident of Ogle County, and has 26 years of emergency incident related experience throughout the country, and served as part of the incident management team during the 2008 floods in Quincy. Most recently, he served as the deputy branch director for National Incident Management System (NIMS), training and exercises at MABAS-Illinois (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) and as program manager at the Illinois Fire
Service Institute. Richter said Tuesday that he is pleased to be named OCEMA coordinator. “It’s a privilege for me to serve the citizens and the county board,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the job.” He said the county and its various emergency services agencies are very well prepared for disasters and emergencies, natural or manmade. “I’m a believer in the three Cs of communication, coordination, and cooperation,” he said. He said the police and fire departments in the county are very cooperative and have good assets to respond to emergencies. Richter said he hopes to develop programs and information to assist residents and businesses in case of a crisis. Gouker said Richter’s experience will be an asset. “It is a real pleasure to have the services of a longtime professional like Tom Richter, to be able to serve the citizens of Ogle County, and to work to ensure their safety and develop the necessary preparedness for any disaster or incident that may occur in our county,” he said. “We are fortunate to have Tom here,
In This Week’s Edition...
and I look forward to working with him on that mission.” In the press release Gouker said the appointment followed “an accelerated and exhaustive search for a replacement, which brought in 19 applications, from all over the state of Illinois, and an interview of six applicants.” OCEMA is responsible for coordinating the local emergency and disaster preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation efforts of the county. The office operates to insure that the various governmental and emergency offices will be adequately prepared to deal with natural or technological emergency and disaster incidents, and to preserve the lives and property of county residents and to protect the public peace, health, and safety in the event of a disaster, Gouker said. Illinois statutes place the responsibility for the appointment of the coordinator of each county’s Emergency Management Agency with the chairman of the county board. The OCEMA office is located at 103 Jefferson St., Oregon, just south of the sheriff’s office.
Church News, A5 Classifieds, B8-B12 Entertainment, A6 Fines, B6 Marriage Licenses, A4
it, there’s bees in it,” she said. The neighborhood had no problem with bees, she said, until a few years ago when Scholl bought the lot, which is at 109 N.Barber Ave. He lives across the street at 110 N. Barber Ave. Although city ordinances prohibit beekeeping within the city limits, the council gave Scholl permission last year to have small hives, called nucs, on the property from Sept. 15 through March 15 on a trial basis. Two aldermen, Louise Hall and Cheryl Galor, voted no. Scholl asked for the nucs to raise queens for the larger hives he keeps at various locations outside of the city. He said the queens are fragile when they are hatching and require frequent tending. In March of this year, Scholl asked the council to extend the time he could have the nucs to year-round, but that request was rejected. Scholl did not attend Monday night’s meeting but did submit a letter to the city
council. The letter said that at this time of year he is finishing the honey extraction process and preparing the empty frames from his hives for winter. “After the extraction process, there is still a small amount of honey in the frames. Bees can smell honey for miles around and are attracted to anything sweet,” the letter read. “This time of year the bees are scavenging every bit of honey and plant pollen (flowers, vegetables, shrubs and herbs) they can find before winter.” In a phone conversation Tuesday, Scholl said that while the weather was still warm he was using a solar wax melter to melt the beeswax from the honeycombs in his frames. A few wild bees were attracted to those, he said, just as they are attracted to flowers in the area. In his letter, Scholl wrote that some of his neighbors would welcome honeybees.
Festival draws a crowd By Vinde Wells Editor Mother Nature showed off her Jekyll and Hyde personality traits for Oregon’s Autumn on Parade festival last weekend, but Spiderman and his friends didn’t care. The mercury hovered below the 50-degree mark
on Saturday with a raw wind and intermittent rain until late afternoon when the sun finally broke through. But that brisk taste of winter-to-come didn’t phase Spiderman, Captain America, or Wonder Woman—stolling entertainers who matched this year’s theme “Autumn of Superheroes”.
Spiderman playfully teased kids with silly string while jumping on and off barricades as he worked the crowd around the courthouse square. Zakari and Michael Owens, ages 4 and 7, Leaf River, had a friendly sword battle with Turn to A3
Festival Participants Crossroads Community Church participated in the parade Sunday afternoon in Oregon. Photo by Chris Johnson
Oregon Police, B3 Polo Police, A2 Public Voice, A9 Property Transfers, B5 Sheriff’s Arrests, B3
Social News, A4 Sports, B1, B2 State’s Attorney, B6 Zoning Permits, B6
Deaths, B5 Jean M. Messer, Del Miller, Norene J. Scott, Ronald U. Stevens
Published every Thursday by Ogle County Newspapers, a division of Shaw Media • www.oglecountynews.com