Thursday Nov. 26, 2015 Vol. 3, No. 38 Hot news tip? Want to advertise? Call (309) 741-9790
The Weekly Post
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Elmwood ups school tax levy 1.38 percent
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LORADO TAFT SCULPTURE
Black Hawk Restored
By BILL KNIGHT
ELMWOOD – The Board of Education on Monday approved a 7-cent increase in its tax levy, but the 1.38-percent hike from 5.2804 per $100 assessed valuation last year to 5.3537 is still below the rate of inflation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this week reported that the 12-month percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers for “all items less food and energy” is 1.9 percent. “We’ll be helped by the increasing Equalized Assessed Valuation,” said Inside Superintendent Chad Brimfield’s School Wagner. Board approved a Raising the tax levy four-cent tax hike from $5.28 per $100 and is pondering equalized assessed valraising school uation to $5.35 would lunch rates. See cost the owner of a Page 12. $120,000 home about $2,118 or some $28 more than last year. Uncertainty with state funding has led to greater reliance on property taxes, which now make up more than half of all revenues, and there’s widespread concern about the state freezing property taxes. But for now, the District’s financial situation is solid, according to a recent independent audit. The Board unanimously OK’d a $4.2 million tax levy request, with Board Secretary Bill Frietsch absent. Breaking down the levy request by funds, the largest increases are in the Education and Tort immunity funds, both of which would go up about $60,000, and in Operations & maintenance, which increases $10,000. The dollar totals are about $2.4 million in Education; $400,000 in Operations & main-
Iconic Taft statue getting facelift
For The Weekly Post
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Happy Thanksgiving!
The Weekly Post office will be closed Thursday and Friday (Nov. 26-27) as we celebrate Thanksgiving. Ad deadline for the Dec. 3 issue will be Monday (Nov. 30) at noon.
By BILL KNIGHT
OREGON – It was 105 years ago this Sunday when Elmwood native Lorado Taft supervised the delicate pouring of massive amounts of concrete into the 48-foot mold of his ambitious concrete statue, “The Eternal Indian.” The sculptor and crew of assistants and laborers were nervous because such a project hadn’t been tried, and temperatures were plummeting. Today, the effects of a century’s weather – plus a few repairs that inadvertently caused problems – have made the imposing figure better known as the Black Hawk statue the subject of another ambitious project: its restoration. Overlooking the Rock River 125 feet below a wooded bluff, the project stalled that day, when weather turned frigid. Taft “had this idea of building a monument to the Native Americans who had preceded him,” said Dale Hoppe, director of the Lorado Taft Field Campus complex yards from the statue. “Taft’s crews started pouring in November and the concrete froze. So they went down to the Schiller Piano Factory, which is For The Weekly Post
“The Eternal Indian” is barely visible last week, shrouded by scaffolding and planks. A piece of tarp blown from the protective covering by high winds this month is tangled in a tree. Photo by Bill Knight.
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Farm Bureau sets transmission line meeting By BILL KNIGHT
BRIMFIELD – The Peoria County Farm Bureau has scheduled a meeting for 1 p.m. Dec. 2 at the Brimfield American Legion hall to explain the eminent domain process and how landowners along the route of the Spoon River Transmission Line can negotiate a better easement with land agents, according to Peoria County Farm Bureau manager Patrick Kirchhofer. For The Weekly Post
Laura Harmon from the Illinois Farm Bureau’s General Counsel’s office will make the presentation. Harmon, who in July spoke at a meeting hosted by the Knox and Peoria County Farm Bureaus, plans to explain eminent domain and how to incorporate landowner priorities into an easement. Area landowners in the path of the proposed 345,000-volt transmission line recently received an Ag Impact
Mitigation Agreement (AIMA) from the Illinois Department of Agriculture. The letter is the agreement between Ameren Transmission Line Company of Illinois (ATXI) and the Illinois Department of Agriculture, which established standards and policies that ATXI will follow as it builds the power line across agricultural land to connect the Sandburg Continued on Page 2