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Vol. 31, No. 52
December 28, 2016
The year in sports
County buys up property in Riverside Lawn PAGE 3
We look at the high school athletic highlights from 2016
Man robbed outside shopping mall PAGE 6
PAGE 22
Director hired for central 911 dispatch agency
2016
WELCOME HOME
YEAR IN REVIEW
Supervisor from DuPage County group picked for WC3 By BOB UPHUES Editor
Brookfield, North Riverside and Riverside moved closer to making a consolidated emergency dispatch center a reality with the hiring of Jason A. Rodgers as the new agency’s executive director, following a five-month search process. West Central Consolidated Communications, or WC3, will be the result of a nearly year-long joint effort involving each village’s managers, police chiefs and fire chiefs to create a central police and fire dispatch agency. All three villages will pay an equal amount to support the operation of the dispatch center, which will be a separate unit of government with its own board of directors. In addition to the three charter members of WC3, the village of McCook will pay an annual fee of $150,000 to join the agency as a non-voting member. McCook presently shares a dispatch center with the village of Lyons. The village of Forest View reportedly is also considering joining WC3 as a non-voting partner. In June 2015, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a law requiring any municipality with less than 25,000 people to join or form a consolidated dispatch center. The three village’s signed an intergovernmental agreement to create the agency last summer and paid a firm called GovHR $18,500 to conduct a search for WC3’s executive director. See DISPATCH AGENCY on page 2
WILLIAM CAMARGO/Staff Photographer
Aubree Isdale, gives a kiss to her dad, Adam, who surprised his daughter just a short time after he returned from a long overseas deployment with the U.S. Army in Kuwait on the afternoon of July 10 at Kiwanis Park in Brookfield, where Aubree was playing in the finals of a girls softball tournament. For more of our favorite photos from 2016, please turn to page 10.
Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime? 2016 was the Year of the Referendum in Brookfield
By BOB UPHUES Editor
If there’s anyone looking for nominations for a word that might best
describe 2016, perhaps “whiplash” would fit the bill. A rocky journey from start to end, 2016 saw a national presidential election right out of Barnum and Bailey, a parade
of towering figures -- from Prince to David Bowie to Muhammad Ali – shaking off this mortal coil, political upheaval See YEAR IN REVIEW on page 8
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