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POLO
Tri-County Press July 6, 2018 Volume 160, Number 10 - $1.00
Polo Softball Updates
Butterflies Fly
Burns Home Added
From a week of rain to a week of heat, games resume for Polo Softball. B2
Monarch released at dedications for Serenity Home & Hospice B1
Polo gains a ninth site on the national register after the W. W. Burns home is accepted. A2
Evanston youth mission lends a helping hand By Zach Arbogast zarbogast@oglecounty news.com Prayers were answered when a church youth service group from Evanston arrived to help fix up a home for sale last week. When Judith Wakenight died in March, her cousin Carrie Schier wasnât sure what to do when she became executor of the estate at 410 S. Congress Ave. The house needed to be cleaned out and fixed up before it was ready to sell, and the task was daunting. âWe had to clean it up, had debt to pay, and were thinking âwhat can we do?ââ Schier said. After finding herself in a bit of a hole, someone reached down a ladder â several someones, that is. Fourteen kids and three adults from the Evanston United Methodist Churchâs junior high youth group came to the Polo house on June 26, spending the rest of the week cleaning up, scraping old paint, and putting on a fresh coat of paint. âItâs been just a wonderful project,â said Mike McGuire, a former Polo resident, who helps organize the youth group for their yearly missions. McGuire keeps in touch each year through Dave and
Laurie Sherrick, decadeslong friends who keep him informed of service projects around Polo that could use some helping hands. The Sherricks often reach out to Schier, like they did this time, and the timing couldnât have been better. âThey asked me âdo you know of anyone in need of service?â and I said âyou know, I sure do,ââ said Schier, referring to the situation of the Congress Avenue estate. The group helped out in Rockford for several years, but McGuire said he wanted to build better personal relationships. âWeâd do the work in Rockford, and weâre glad we could help, but it often felt like we werenât building very good individual relationships with those we served,â said McGuire. âWe tried moving it to a smaller, more rural area like Polo, and the response has been a lot better.â James Ogunbola, a summer intern for the church, accompanies the kids on the mission trips, and said coming to Polo is quite a bit different from the suburbs theyâre used to. âComing from affluent suburbs like Evanston, so coming to Polo is interesting, because itâs so different from where weâre from,â said Ogunbola. âPolo has
Front to back: Kirby Cox and Grant Aaron, 12, and Sam Diener, 13, paint the side of a home on South Congress Avenue on June 28. The Evanston United Methodist Churchâs youth group traveled to Polo to help a family in need, cleaning up and repainting the home. Photo by Zach Arbogast
been extremely welcoming, and itâs one of those small cities where everyone knows everyone, which is a wonderful, pleasant vibe.â In spite of the sweltering heat, Ogunbola said the youth bonded over coming together
to help, and getting to know a little bit about Polo, even staying on a nearby farm owned by McGuire. The house was surrounded on all sides, with some kids on the ground level painting the front, while others were
lifted on scaffolding doing the upper parts of the house. Polo Alderman Randy Schoon provided a Skyjack 600 series 4x4 scissors lift for the group â a boon McGuire was eternally grateful for. Despite the pressure
initially being on, Schier was simply thankful for help arriving when it did. âThese kids are awesome; Iâm not sure what we would have done without them,â said Schier. âThis was an enormous blessing.â
City council not happy with Oregon Street By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com Emotions ran hot Monday evening as Polo officials hammered out what to do about street work they consider unacceptable. At a special public meeting before the regular city council meeting, Mayor Doug Knapp and several aldermen voiced their dissatisfaction to engineer Matt Hansen, from Willett, Hofmann & Associates, Inc. Dixon, over the paving done on West Oregon Street last year. âSomebody has to be responsible for this stuff. Itâs not the cityâs fault,â said Alderman Randy Schoon told Hansen. Knapp agreed. âFischer didnât step up and take responsibility. Civil didnât take responsibility. Willett & Hofmann didnât take responsibility,â he said. âI want to see fairness, and fairness isnât going on.â Fischer Excavating, Freeport, was the contractor on a $933,000 project to replace sewer and water mains on Maple Avenue and Oregon
Street, install new water services on Oregon Street, and rehabilitate the lift station on South Congress Avenue. Civil Engineering, also of Freeport, was hired to pave the eastbound lane of West Oregon Street which was torn up to do the work. Since the project was completed last fall, aldermen have been receiving complaints from residents who live and drive on the street. The westbound lane is also scheduled for repaving, but the work has not yet been done. Hansen explained the problem is that the eastbound lane is incorrectly sloped. He said the street should be gradually sloped from the centerline to the gutters to allow for drainage, and the slope should be constant throughout. However, the lane slopes too steeply from the center to the parking lane, and then slopes more gradually than it should toward the gutters. In addition, Hansen said the manholes on the street are lower than the pavement rather than flush with it, as they should be.
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Alderman Troy Boothe said both Fischer and Civil are capable of doing higher quality work. âItâs all about money,â he said. Schoon said he doesnât want either company hired to pave the westbound lane. In the end, Hansen suggested hiring the two companies. âWe can go back to them and say the city is willing to award you the contract for the westbound lane, but youâre going to have to correct the eastbound lane for nothing,â he said. Hansen said he will mail written notices to both companies and will withhold the final payment for the project until the problem is resolved. The westbound lane is not part of that project and will cost another estimated $89,000. âWe have to do it anyway,â Knapp said. Alderman Jim Busser also brought up a problem with water standing on the pavement on the Maple Street portion of the project. âThereâs a problem there, too,â he said.
Chamber Chatter, A8 Church News, A5 Classifieds, B5-B8 Entertainment, A6 Fines, B4
Pieces of the Black Hawk Statue have fallen from the right elbow of the iconic statue. Photo by Earleen Hinton
Even with grant, $300,000 still needed for Black Hawk repairs By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecounty news.com Even with a state grant on the way, the Black Hawk Restoration Team has to raise the better part of $300,000 for repairs to the areaâs best known landmark. The $350,000 state grant approved recently by the Illinois General Assembly, is a matching grant, which means private donors must come up with an
Library News, A3 Marriage Licenses, A4 Pine Creek News, A3 Polo Police, A2 Property Transfers, B4
equal amount, or in this case slightly more than that, to fix the Black Hawk statue at Lowden State Park. The grant is a 51-49 match, and the 51 percent must come from private sources. At a meeting Monday morning that included State Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon), Restoration Team Chairman Jan Stilson said the estimated cost of the repairs currently sits at $600,000.
Sheriffâs Arrests, B3 Social News, A4 Sports, B2
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The fund for the statueâs repair has $59,000 in it. Demmer was on hand to answer questions and to present official copies of the resolution that released the grant money to Stilson and Oregon Mayor Ken Williams. The grant was approved in 2009, but remained tied up by state budget woes until last month.
Deaths, B4 Dorothy F. Foy, Beverly J. Groenewold
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