March 2, 2018. Friday E-Edition. RockRiverTimes.com.
Parks
County
Last weekend of snow at Alpine Hills ROCK FOR D — Ro c k ford Pa rk District’s Snow Park at Alpine Hills will close for the season Sunday, March 4. “It’s been a great second season, with more than 4,000 guests of all ages from around the region and as far away as Missouri, Texas, and even Mexico enjoying the park’s activities and amenities,” Operations Manager Becky Stokes Lambert said. Because of unseasonably higher temperatures and humidity, the park has adjusted its hours, and will be open 5-8 p.m., Friday, March 2. Hours on Saturday and Sunday are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Snow Park at Alpine Hills is at 4402 Larson Ave. It is divided into separate tubing and terrain park sections designed to accommodate riders of all abilities. The surface lift brings tubers and boarders to the top of the hill, so more time is spent riding down, and less time hiking up. Tubes are provided. No outside tubes are allowed. Limited snowboarding equipment is available to rent. More information is at alpinehillsadventure.com. R.
Haney responds to recent reports By Shane Nicholson Managing Editor
Inside Swedes expansion gets OK Biking, pedestrian plan unveiled
Page 2
Page 3 Youth football age will get state House vote Page 5 Trillion-dollar deficits return under Trump Page 6
ROCKFORD — Winnebago County Chairman Frank Haney has hit back at a series of reports regarding the structure of a settlement agreement with a former county administrator. Amanda Hamaker left the county at the beginning of November in what the chairman called a “mutual agreement” at the time. In an Oct. 30 report from the Register Star, Haney said that details of a separation were being worked out, but no details were provided at the time. Several board members have recently questioned the terms and nature of the contract, including some who told The Times they had never seen a copy of the arrangement prior to the newspaper publishing it last week. But Haney contends that’s not the case, and that his office followed policy in the Hamaker deal and others now being reviewed by board members and county
officials. “We followed board policy,” Haney said in an email. “Is anyone suggesting on record otherwise? If so, they are in disagreement with me, the (state’s attorney’s) office, and a long list of board members.” The first-term Republican has characterized the questioning of the Hamaker agreement as “a coordinated political attack” which he says is aimed at discrediting and derailing his office and his agenda. The chairman called the county’s budget situation a factor in this personnel decision, adding that Hamaker’s former position is being considered for a return at a lower pay grade. A bi-partisan group of county board members on Monday were “calling for more transparency in the hiring and firing of county employees,” they said in a statement. “This example, and a few others that we are looking into, has us concerned over the transparency of these types of complicated
agreements,” board member Burt Gerl said. “We think the county board should be involved and given more detail when a situation like this arises.” Hamaker’s settlement, signed Nov. 14, called for a payout of $29,999.97 in salary plus accrued benefits. Haney says he acted in accordance with county regulations and in his position as chairman. “Whether 2-3 weeks of pay or 2-3 months, is anyone asserting that I didn’t have the authority to do what I did as chairman?” he said in the email. “If so, they are mistaken.” In a phone call Tuesday, Haney reiterated that his office had taken all the necessary steps with the Hamaker deal: “The policies in place were followed. Proper communication with the board occurred.” County board members reached this week said they were continuing a review of the circumstances around Hamaker’s departure and the terms of her agreement. R.
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The Rock River Times. March 2, 2018. Friday E-Edition.
Local
A planned $130 million expansion of Rockford’s SwedishAmerican Hospital got the green-light from state regulators this week.
Swedes expansion gets OK By Guy Stephens WNIJ News
ROCK FOR D — Swedish A merican Hospital won approval Tuesday from a state agency for a multimillion-dollar expansion in Rockford that includes a new women and children’s facility. The modernization and expansion of the main hospital features a four-story tower that will become the home of its neonatal intensive care unit. Dr. Michael Born, president and CEO of SwedishAmerican, said the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board agreed that the plan for the aging hospital facility was needed. “It’s important for us to be able to develop
this expansion and modernization,” he said,“to provide a platform to deliver the world-class healthcare which we think the members of the community and surrounding communities deserve.” Rival Mercyhealth argued against the
expansion at the hearing of the Health Facilities and Services Review Board, saying it would take away from existing programs in Rockford, like theirs. Born said he was more concerned about presenting the best plan to serve the area’s residents. “My focus is to look at what the community’s needs are,” he said, “and what SwedishAmerican, a division of UW Health, can provide, rather than to try to look at this through the lens of a competitor.” Born said support from the rest of the community has been overwhelming, including from elected officials and other health systems. He said the board obviously agreed there was a need when it approved
the plan without opposition. “Nearly 2,000 babies enter the world at SwedishAmerican every year, and this new tower will allow us the most outstanding clinical resources we can provide for these newborns and their families,” Born added. “Our commitment to the entire community has always been unmistakable in our institution’s core values, and this type of investment exemplifies what we believe.” Preliminary construction work is to begin soon, with the tower expected to open in 2020. –With Staff reports
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The Rock River Times. March 2, 2018. Friday E-Edition.
Biking, pedestrian plan unveiled By Chase Cavanaugh WNIJ News
The Illinois Region 1 Planning Council released a regional plan Wednesday that would encourage increased bicycle and pedestrian traffic in the Rockford area. The plan incorporates data from many different studies and turns them into recommendations, such as connecting gaps in pedestrian and bike paths, implementing safety campaigns for cyclists, and improving the first and last legs of residential commutes. Rockford Metropolitan Agency for Planning Executive Director Michael Dunn Jr. says the plan covers a wide area — as far out as Byron, Roscoe, and Belvidere. Thus many governments would be involved in turning the plan’s recommendations into projects. “Everybody has a role in putting the plan to work and getting action items called out and to get it implemented and installed for the region,” he said. Dunn says funding for projects could come from the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program, as well as local and federal sources. However, the plan remains a jumping-off point for future projects and studies. The meeting also featured a presentation by Jason Wilde, the northern General
Manager for LimeBike. This Californiabased “tech-mobility” company has set up bike-sharing programs in cities and 10 college campuses across the country, including the University of Notre Dame.
Wilde says what makes LimeBike unique is that it uses an app for customers to find, pay for, and park bikes. This allows the company to avoid running separate docking stations. Wilde is waiting for approval
from Rockford authorities and hopes to set up shop within the next month. Read the plan here.
Alpine Bank acquisition completed By Jim Hagerty Contributor
ROCKFORD — The acquisition of Alpine Bank by Midland States Bancorp is complete, officials announced this week. Midland announced last fall that it was under contract to buy Alpine Bancorporation, Inc., including Alpine Bank & Trust, for $181 million and stock. With the deal, Midland’s assets are now $5.7 billion, including the $3.1 billion managed by Midland Wealth Management. Alpine’s history dates back to 1908, when Farmers State Bank was chartered in
Belvidere. The company, at the direction of Hugh Funderberg, later acquired a number of small institutions including Peoples Bank, Cherry Valley Bank and the Bank of Kirkland. Along the way, Hugh’s son, R. Robert Funderberg, joined the company and Alpine State Bank was chartered in 1962 followed by Belvidere National Bank in 1967. Current Board Chairman R. Robert Funderburg Jr., along with Alpine President and CEO Bill Roop, will join the Midland States Board of Directors. “At the core, we are both community
banks investing back in the communities we serve with long histories of helping generations of families with their personal, business and wealth management needs,” Funderberg said. “Our customers will be able to enjoy more services and more convenience, all delivered with the same attention to detail and personal service they have come to expect.” Based in Effingham, Illinois, Midland is led by CEO Leon Holschbach, who said no changes are on the horizon for current Alpine customers. Roop and Funderberg will serve as liaisons as the two companies
RockRiverTimes.com.
continue to integrate. “We are very pleased to welcome Alpine’s customers, employees and shareholders to Midland,” Holsschbach said in a statement. “The combination of our two companies creates the fourth largest community bank based in Illinois, with more than 70 branches to serve our customers in both Illinois and Missouri.” Midland has doubled in size since it issued an IPO in 2016. With Alpine’s in the fold, it will now have a total of 89 branches. R.
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The Rock River Times. March 2, 2018. Friday E-Edition.
Fri. Mar. 2
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The Rock River Times. March 2, 2018. Friday E-Edition.
State
Minimum age for tackle football will get House vote By John O’connor AP Political Writer
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois children could not play tackle football until age 12 under a plan a House committee endorsed Thursday after hearing personal tales of head trauma and its link to the brain disease known as CTE. The Mental Health Committee advanced the bill named for Dave Duerson, the former Chicago Bears defensive back who committed suicide in 2011 at age 50 but left his brain intact to be studied for signs of what turned out to be chronic traumatic encephalopathy. “My father, after his football career, went from a Harvard-educated, successful businessman, to a shadow of his former self,” Duerson’s son, Tregg, who like his father played football at Notre Dame, told the committee. “He became an individual who struggled with bankruptcy, urges toward physical assault and depression.”
CTE is a dementia-like degenerative disease characterized by memory loss, violent urges or moods, depression and other cognitive dysfunction. Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler who now heads the Boston-based Concussion Legacy Foundation, noted it was first identified in boxers and, beyond the gridiron, affects athletes in other contact sports and is routinely seen in combat veterans. Often blamed on concussions, CTE appears more closely associated with repeated blows to the head that are “part of the routine play of tackle football,” Nowinski said. The brain feels no pain and buffering nerve-lining isn’t fully developed until age 21, he and his colleague, Robert Stern of Boston University, told the committee. The aim of Rep. Carol Sente’s bill is to delay the trauma. The Vernon Hills Democrat explained her measure would
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“protect childrens’ brains and protect the future of football.” Opponents question whether the plan is an overreach and whether limiting tackle football would prevent or reduce instances of CTE. Duerson, who started playing tackle football at about age 10 and spent 11 years in the NFL, shot himself in the chest to spare his brain for examination. CTE can only be diagnosed after death, said Stern, a professor of neurology. He also predicted that scientists within five years will be able to identify the illness before death. The problem is, Stern said, children at risk now can’t wait for a definitive diagnostic test. He noted that laws keep alcohol and tobacco from children and lead paint was banned without precise knowledge of how much lead is toxic to children. “Yet we drop our kids off at a large field where they put on plastic helmets and facemasks and hit their heads against one
another and the ground hundreds of times a season,” Stern said. The legislation narrowly won passage to a House floor debate. “No” votes came from several lawmakers who complained that confusion over committee scheduling kept away several opponents who had indicated they wanted to testify. Dr. Cynthia LaBella, sports medicine director at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, submitted written testimony arguing there is no evidence that eliminating tackle football would prevent CTE. Lurie Hospital is taking no position on the legislation’s merits but urges lawmakers to consider alternatives to prohibiting traditional youth football. “Injuries are more likely to occur when improper and illegal technique, such as spear tackling, is used,” LaBella wrote. “As such, efforts should be made to improve the teaching of proper tackling technique and enforce existing rules.”
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The Rock River Times. March 2, 2018. Friday E-Edition.
Nation
New analysis sees return of trilliondollar budget deficits By Andrew Taylor Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Trillion-dollar budget deficits are returning next year, and $2 trillion-plus deficits are not far off in the wake of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and last month’s big budget deal, a private group warned in a new analysis Friday. The analysis, by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, says that the separate tax and spending measures, along with increased borrowing costs, promise to add $6 trillion to the nation’s already rapidly rising debt in the coming decade. It assumes that Washington continues to fail to take steps to rein in spending and that the tax cuts and budget-busting spending deal are made permanent. If so, the government’s yearly deficit would grow to $2.4 trillion in 10 years. By contrast, Trump’s recent budget plan — which relies on greater economic growth than most other forecasts and promises deep, unlikely cuts to domestic agencies — says the 2028 deficit could be brought down to less than $400 billion. The group, which advocates for smaller deficits and curbing federal benefit programs such as Medicare, warns that “these projections show a fiscal situation that is clearly unsustainable.” The Congressional Budget Office, which issues the budget projections followed by Congress, will issue its updated figures next month. Republicans controlling Congress and the White House have signaled they won’t take on the daunting task of tackling the deficit this year. Trump
is opposed to cutting Social Security and Medicare retirement benefits. Deficit hawks have long warned that the federal fiscal picture will eventually lead to a debt crisis, with government borrowing forcing up interest rates and the nation’s $20 trillion-plus debt serving as a drag on the economy. A more dovish view holds that the American economy can handle large amounts of government borrowing and debt and that trillion-dollar deficits aren’t as dangerous as they used to be when measured against the size of the economy. The official deficit cost estimate for last year’s tax cuts is $1.4 trillion over the coming decade, though that figure could be artificially low since most of the cuts for individuals expire after seven years. If all of the provisions are extended, an additional $1.1 trillion would be added to the debt. Similarly, last month’s budget deal would add $320 billion in new spending over the next two years, but it would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit if extended through 2028, the group estimates. The government spent a total of $4 trillion last year and ran a $665 billion deficit that required it to borrow 17 cents of every dollar it spent. Under the group’s findings, the deficit would hit $2.4 trillion in 2028, requiring the government to borrow about 34 cents or so of every dollar it spends. “Legislation enacted since June of 2017 has turned a dismal fiscal situation into a dire one,” the group warns. “Revenue is lower, spending is higher, deficits are larger, and the national debt is rapidly headed toward a new record.”
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