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Rock Falls wins home games
LOCAL GRAD, WIFE NEAR NEPAL QUAKE
SPORTS, B1
DIXON, A3
TELEGRAPH Wednesday, May 6, 2015
SERVING DIXON AND THE SURROUNDING AREA SINCE 1851
DIXON | ROADWORK
On the road to recovery River Street’s long-overdue fix is on the way, thanks to Crundwell money BY BRENDEN WEST bwest@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5529 @BWest_SVM
DIXON – City officials say the public wants River Street fixed now. So instead of waiting for federal funds for the project, the city’s newly elected leaders plan to dip further into Rita Crundwell recovery funds to get the project done. Finance Director Paula Meyer and Mayor Li Arellano Jr. spoke with Illi-
nois Department of Transportation officials Tuesday afternoon. After those talks, Meyer said city officials would have the estimated $3.4 million resurfacing project funded entirely through recovery dollars. The outgoing City Council’s term ended Monday. The previous members had designated $2.4 million in recovery money for the project, with the rest relying on federal funds. However, Arellano and others on the new council said they were mak-
ing River Street “priority one.” They voted 5-0 Monday to authorize the use of settlement proceeds in the event that federal dollars wouldn’t be available in time to do the work. After Tuesday’s discussions, Meyer confirmed that the federal process would take too long to serve Dixonites. “You need a year to 2-year head start to use those federal funds,” Meyer said. Dixon, like other cities, receives an allocation based on
population. “We were going to tap into that and use that, but [the federal government] has all of these approval processes.” At Monday’s meeting, Arellano described those process as “hoops to jump through” and that it better served residents to make sure the River Street project is completed this year, as opposed to being backlogged for lack of federal funds. ROADWORK CONTINUED ON A11
Li Arellano Jr. Mayor and city council are making River Street “priority one.”
ROCK FALLS
CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT
City’s former tourism arm waves good-bye
RIGHT: St. Mary’s School students (from left) Daniel Welty, Brooklyn Arjes, and Adeline Lohse wait to offer bouquets Tuesday to a statue of the Virgin Mary in celebration of the May Crowning in Dixon.
City gets $584,000 check as part of out-of-court deal
BELOW: St. Mary’s School eighth-graders Mary Powers and Ethan Partington place a crown of flowers on the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary on Tuesday. The crowning marks a month-long celebration of the mother of Jesus in Christian religions.
BY PAM EGGEMEIER peggemeier@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5570 @pam_eggemeier
For more photos, see page A11 and saukvalley.com Photos by Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com
ROCK FALLS – The office has been closed and the website taken down at the Rock Falls Convention and Visitors Bureau. A settlement agreement was recently signed between the city and its tourism arm, in effect dissolving the CVB and quashing a lawsuit the city had filed to regain reserves from the local hotel/motel tax. The settlement terms called for the return of the money the city had given to the CVB when an agreement was first signed in 2008 to delegate all tourism functions to the nonprofit organization. Last year, the city decided Bill not to renew the agreement, and Wescott it expired Sept. 30. There Mayor Bill Wescott said the city Mayor: were no has received a check for $584,000 financial from the CVB. The city will also improprieties get the monthly hotel/motel tax at CVB, but a lack of revenue, which is about $160,000 accountability. a year. The city has not yet received an accounting report that is called for in the settlement agreement. “We haven’t received the accounting yet, but the check has been deposited into an interestbearing account,” Wescott said. The city had said the CVB’s shortcomings in financial transparency had been an issue in the city’s break with the tourism group. “I’ve always tried to make it clear that the city doesn’t believe there were any financial improprieties,” Wescott said, “but we had no financial accounting from them since this started, and no idea of how much money they had.” ROCK FALLS CONTINUED ON A11
SILVER CITY
In Sterling, boxcars are full of history and heritage BY CHRISTOPHER HEIMERMAN cheimerman@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 5523 @CHeimerman_SVM
STERLING – Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch said her brothers wondered whether anyone would show up for her presentation. Whether Sterling still
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gets a lot of snow. And if, when it did, the crazy Mexican children still made toboggans out of trash cans. There was a clear-cut answer to the first question when the retired Army lieutenant colonel, a self-described human rights activist who also dab-
INDEX
bles in education reform (she founded Educational Achievement Services in 1994), took the podium Tuesday night at Centennial Auditorium. About 150 people were in the crowd, and waited with baited breath to hear the stories of her family, residents of the boxcar
ABBY ................... A8 BUSINESS ......... A12 COMICS ...............B6
CROSSWORD....B11 FOOD ........... A9-A10 LIFESTYLE ........... A8
community that stood near Northwest Steel and Wire Co. in the 1950s. She mixed in humor. And seconds later, she’d get choked up while discussing the struggle that galvanized a community which refused to let poverty define them, but rather unify them.
LOTTERY ............. A2 OBITUARIES ........ A4 OPINION .............. A6
“They taught us to believe tomorrow would get better,” she said, her voice cracking a bit. But the coldest chills came when she asked if there were any members of the audience who were descendants of the boxcar children. SILVER CITY CONTINUED ON A2
Today’s weather High 81. Low 58. More on A3.
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