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Serving Bureau County Since 1847
Thursday, October 3, 2013
The rights to the right-of-way Spring Valley studies property issue By Goldie Currie gcurrie@bcrnews.com
SPRING VALLEY — Spring Valley may be one step closer to gaining railroad rightof-way near the west sewer interceptor, which is needed in order for the city to build an access road to transport equipment near the site. On Monday, the council authorized an easement agreement with stipulations with Hawkeye Land Co. for $50,000. The final decision came despite questions regarding why the city has easements for every other sewer pipe in the area, but not any for the piping near the west sewer interceptor. After an attempt to locate easement documentation for the location, city officials weren’t able to locate any paperwork associated with the property until Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday — a day after the decision was approved to authorize an easement with Hawkeye Land Co., Mayor Walt Marini said Superintendent of Public Works John Schultz located paperwork for the sewer line, which could possibly mean the city already has some sort of rights to the land. Marini couldn’t say for sure if the paperwork was an easement but said lawyers from Hawkeye Land Co. and Spring Valley City Attorney Jim Andreoni were working to determine what rights the city might already have based on the paperwork. If the city already has rights to the land, they could avoid the $50,000 payment to Hawkeye Land Co. At the council meeting Monday, Marini expressed how he had gotten a bad feeling when working with a representative from Hawkeye Land Co., who originally wanted to charge the city $160,000 for the easement.
See Spring Valley Page 4 Year 167 No. 119 Two Sections - 32 Pages
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PES, Reagan and the future More time needed ... By Donna Barker dbarker@bcrnews.com
PRINCETON — Princeton Elementary School Superintendent Tim Smith is asking for more time to get things in place before making a final recommendation about what to do with the district’s school buildings next fall.
At Monday’s meeting of the PES Board, Smith said the goal of the administration team is to continue to focus on providing the best education possible for all students. The district needs a plan that creates the least amount of change, especially for the students, while still addressing the need to decrease costs in the transportation and building funds, he said. “This is an emotional issue, an important issue, and I take it very seriously,” Smith
said. “We have a number of communities that make up our school community, and every piece of that community is important to us. We are trying to do our best to understand how to use our buildings as best we can in order to offset some of our deficits.” In presenting his administrative team’s recommendation, Smith reviewed the financial issues that led to the building
See PES Page 4
BCR photo/Donna Barker
Pilot in training Jack Oester has his headphones set and ready for any incoming messages as he takes a turn inside a helicopter owned by Jonathan and Juli Mabry of Princeton. The Mabrys brought the helicopter to the Zearing Child Enrichment Center on Wednesday morning as showand-tell for the letter H. The Mabrys’ daughter, as well as their niece and nephew, are among the children attending the Zearing Center.
Honor Flight still on despite shutdown Area vets aren’t sure which monuments they’ll be allowed to see By Derek Barichello Shaw Media Service
Veterans have waited too long to cancel their once-in-a-lifetime trip planned to the nation’s capital. Despite the federal government shutdown, which has closed memorials in Washington, D.C., an Honor Flight scheduled for today, Thursday, from the Quad Cities,
including several veterans from Bureau County, will continue as scheduled, said Bob Morrison, hub director for the flight. “We talked about (canceling), but we felt it would affect too many people,” Morrison said. “So many of these men (many of them older than 80 years old) have waited so long for this day, that we don’t feel it would be fair to make them wait any longer.”
An Honor Flight from the Mississippi Gulf Coast region made headlines Tuesday when its members were initially fenced off from the World War II Memorial. The gates were eventually opened in an informal arrangement, and the veterans were allowed to see the memorials erected in their honor. Barriers will close off the World War II, Korean and Vietnam memorials during the shutdown, Morrison said.
See Honor Flight Page 4
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