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DUCHESSES TAKE ON OREGON
ROCK FALLS, A3
SOFTBALL, B1
TELEGRAPH Monday, April 7, 2014
SERVING DIXON AND THE SURROUNDING AREA SINCE 1851
DIXON | WASTEWATER TREATMENT
City to study new use for facility Budget, Main Street merger also on agenda BY MATT MENCARINI mmencarini@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5529
DIXON – During a work session before its regular meeting tonight, the Dixon City Council will hear a presentation about a potential new use for its wastewater treatment facility.
Lance Schideman, an assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Illinois, will talk to the council about a pilot plant that could turn human waste into algae and then into oil, Mayor Jim Burke said Friday. In December, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said its researchers had turned algae into crude oil. If the technology of turning human waste into algae proves true, Burke said, municipalities across the country will want add those plants to their current
wastewater treatment facilities. “The end game, if it’s feasible, is to make the wastewater treatment facility a source of income,” Burke said. “That would be the real endgame.” Burke said he and other city officials have had several meetings with Schideman and others involved with the technology. The mayor wanted to get the City Council involved, he said, and then cautiously proceed with discussions. FACILITY CONTINUED ON A4
To attend The Dixon City Council will meet for a work session at 5:30 tonight in City Hall, 121 W. Second St., on the second floor in the Council Chambers. The regular City Council meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. Go to www.DiscoverDixon.org or call City Hall at 815-288-1485 for an agenda or more information.
ILLINOIS
GROUPS GIVE REAGAN HOME A SPRING CLEANING
Police, fire funds pose pension problem Prospects for solution for state are uncertain BY CHACOUR KOOP Associated Press
Photos by Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
Gretchen Bushman (left), 13, and Taylor Spellman, 11, each handle an end of an old water cooler Saturday morning, as they haul it from the basement at the Reagan Boyhood Home’s Welcome Center. The two are part of Builders Club, a Kiwanis Club middle school organization. Kiwanis members and other volunteers spent the morning giving the home and welcome center a spring cleaning, in recognition of Kiwanis One Day.
DIRECTLY ABOVE: Taylor Renkes (left), 12, and Madisyn Rubright, 12, give the carpet in the Reagan home a spring cleaning. ABOVE: Kiwanis Club member Terry Lich cleans up yard waste from around the Reagan Welcome Center.
Reagan Boyhood Home volunteer Gary Burger rakes yard debris outside the home Saturday morning.
SPRINGFIELD (AP) – After addressing Illinois’ own employee pension crisis, lawmakers now face an equally challenging task with the state’s cities, as mayors demand help with underfunded police and firefighter pensions before the growing cost “chokes” budgets and forces local tax increases. The nine largest cities in Illinois after Chicago have a combined $1.5 billion in unfunded debt to public safety workers’ pension systems. Police and fire retirement funds for cities statewide have an average of just 55 percent of the money needed to meet current obligations to workers and retirees. A bi-partisan legislative report in 2013 showed that funding levels for police and fire pensions outside Chicago dropped 20 percent between 1990 and 2010, though many are improving since the worst of the recent economic downturn. The problems – a history of underfunding, the expansion of job benefits and the prospect of crushing future payments – mirror those that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel warned about when he asked the Legislature for relief last week. In 2016, state law requires cities to make required contribution increases – in some cases, more than an additional $1 million annually – so they’ll reach 90 percent funding by 2040. If they don’t, the state will begin doing it for them, diverting grant money now used by cities elsewhere directly into the pension funds. “No community, no matter how much they love and respect their public safety officers, can pay that going forward,” Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner said. The arguments over blame also echo the state and Chicago cases. While some officials question levels of worker benefits, union officials cite recent compromises and blame cities for bad choices in shirking payments. PENSION CONTINUED ON A4
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TODAY’S EDITION: 24 PAGES 2 SECTIONS VOL. 163 ISSUE 238
INDEX
COMICS ............... A8 CROSSWORD....B12 DEAR ABBY ......... A7
LIFESTYLE ........... A7 LOTTERY ............. A2 NATION/WORLD A12
OBITUARIES ........ A4 OPINION .............. A6 SPORTS ...............B1
Today’s weather High 56. Low 37. More on A3.
Need work? Check out your classifieds, B6.
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