TON-12-06-2013

Page 1

1 Front Volume 140 No. 41

Friday, December 6, 2013

The Tonica News

Single Copy Cost 50¢

Local ROEs to consolidate By Ken Schroeder news@tonicanews.com

The state of Illinois is once again attempting to save money by passing a law which requires the Illinois State Board of Education to redraw the map of the state’s Regional Offices of Education. The purpose of these offices is to provide support and teacher training for various programs

throughout the state. The new map will take the current 44 regions and merge them into 35. LaSalle County will be affected as it will merge with Putnam and Marshall counties from the current regional office of Putnam/Marshall/Woodford counties. Woodford County has been assigned to the Tazewell/Mason county regional office. “As we move forward

with consolidation, we will continue to focus on service,” LaSalle County ROE Superintendent Chris Dvorak said. “The Regional Office serves in a variety of ways. First and foremost, we work for safe schools. The office trains and retrains bus drivers, the first school staff students meet to begin the day. We work with teachers for licensure, renewal and profes-

sional development; we work to make sure teachers are preparing our students to be successful in life. “Each year we walk through each building making sure schools are safe. Additionally, the Regional Office serves to provide GED instruction, truancy and homeless assistance, oversees the Regional Safe School, completes criminal back-

ground testing, works to license substitutes and paraprofessionals, facilitates ACT preparation programs and continually works to provide shared services.” There will be new regional superintendents elected next year to run each of the new regional offices. Candidates for these new regional offices must file their petitions this month. These posi-

tions are often a target of state cutbacks, as legislatures have enacted legislation in the past with no funding for them. Initially the Illinois State Legislature had ordered local county governments to design the mergers. However they also adopted a failsafe of having the Illinois State Board of Education

See Consolidation Page 4

Deer harvest numbers are down ... so far By Ken Schroeder news@tonicanews.com

This could be a bad year for deer hunting. Hunters in Illinois harvested a preliminary total of 55,708 deer during the opening weekend of the 2013 Illinois Firearm Deer Season on Nov. 22-24, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR). The preliminary harvest total of 55,708 for the first three days of the 2013 firearm season compares with the first weekend harvest of 72,111 deer during the 2012 deer season. The second portion of the firearm season will be Dec. 5-8. For the entire seven-day firearm season in 2012, hunters harvested 99,546 deer in Illinois. In LaSalle County, the drop in numbers resulted in a more than 33 percent decrease in deer harvested, with 588 deer this year compared to 887 in 2012. Weather conditions across the state are being listed as the primary reason for the drop with some parts of the state seeing rain or snow throughout the weekend and high winds and frigid temperatures throughout Illinois. In addition, the bluetongue virus has continued its three-year streak of culling the deer population. Bluetongue, also known as epizootic hemorrhagic disease, has been reported throughout the

See Deer Page 4

Tonica News photo/Dixie Schroeder

Art Foltynewicz wraps a rose bush for the winter in a Tonica resident’s yard. Foltynewicz, who owns his own business — Art’s Home Improvement and General Repair Service — isn’t all about turning a dollar. Instead, Foltynewicz said he was raised to lend a hand to those in need. Consequently, he works with area residents to help them find solutions to their home repair/yard problems, and he’s not above lending a helping hand to those in need.

‘Neighbors helping neighbors’ Foltynewicz raised to help others By Dixie Schroeder news@tonicanews.com

TONICA — Some people are born with it ... the ability to use their hands and become helpful to others. Art Foltynewicz is one of those people. Foltynewicz owns his own business, Art’s Home Improvement and General Repair Service. He performs carpentry, yard work ... the gamut. However in the course of working

in the area, he found there were some who needed help and couldn’t always afford to pay much, if anything. “What I do is for the people who don’t have the advantages that others have,” he said. “They can’t afford a lot of money, if anything, to go out and do repairs. A lot of these people are veterans.” Foltynewicz tries to work with those whose income is smaller to make projects in their homes more affordable.

Vol. 140 No. 41

He starts by explaining costs of materials, and then if available, works out a budget for those who can afford it. “Say a person has $250 for a project. Materials cost $100. I then try to figure out ways that we can get the project done,” he said. Foltynewicz has become somewhat of a resource around the area. People call him with questions on how to do certain things, and he answers them to the best of his abilities. “People will say, ‘How much

do I owe you?’ And I say don’t worry about it,” he said. “These are the people that are often swept aside. I’m not about to let that happen. I grew up in Tonica where neighbors help each other.” Foltynewicz was raised with the old Masonic belief of taking care of each other is always the best way. “If you look at the Masonic beliefs, they also come from the Bible,” he said. “So it’s the Bible’s beliefs as well.”

See Foltynewicz Page 3

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