Opinions: Celebraties shouldn't be politicians.
News: City Administration negotiates bids for water main breakage.
Sports: Leathernecks blow out the Oak hills Wolfpack 107-45.
Friday, January 19, 2018 - Vol. 118 Issue 45
Jimmy Pierson/Production Manager
By Isaiah Herard news editor
Since New Year ’s there have been rumors that Red Ox Restaurant and Lounge has closed permanently, with reports of employees filing for unemployment, however, the accusations are false and as of Jan. 9 the steakhouse has reopened for business. “We had to renegotiate our lease and after we renegotiate our lease we were able to open back up,” said Front End Supporter Ryan Dalbis. “For a few days we shut down and
then we reopened and now we’re restoring our normal lunch hours (11a.m.-4p.m.) on Jan. 30.” Owner Mark Meng said Macomb and other small towns are hard to sustain a business in because the inexpensiveness of small towns causes skepticism amongst its inhabitants when they meet higher priced items. “A lot of people think we are expensive, but we buy the topquality steak,” Meng said. “We buy black angus which is really expensive. It costs us $11 to buy a pound of beef and a pound can barely cut us one steak so
its very expensive. The people don’t know the expense on our end, but our prices compared to Bloomington and Springfield are significantly lower and we sell better quality food.” Another reason the flow of business is decreasing significantly for the Red Ox is due to the decrease in Western Illinois University’s retention. Considering the majority of their business comes from college students, reduction of students and faculty equates to less consumers. “We still depend on the college to provide our consumers,” Meng said. “When the
colleges lay off people and we slightly raise our prices the people feel we are more expensive. We can’t lower the quality, we don’t want to go that route we want to maintain our budget but it’s really hard for us.” Dalbis added to Meng’s sentiment and works to improve on the public relations aspect of Red Ox to re-establish its previous 30-year reputation. “For public relations, we’re closely following the website and the Facebook page,” Dalbis said. “We’ve made revisions on both of those and we’re monitoring it closely. We want to try and get more involved
with social media. We’ve done a first responders appreciation event and we just try to get as involved with the community as we can.” A major part of the problem is the death of Jim Gardner, who served as the previous owner of the Red Ox for over 30 years. Meng said Gardner sustained an everlasting relationship with the Macomb campus community. The community’s emotional attachment to Garner causes skepticism and hate towards Meng.
Red Ox
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Jimmy pierson/Production Manager
By Isaiah Herard news editor
With roughly 15-blocks of water main reaching about 80 years of age, Macomb City Administrator Dean Torreson developed a reconstruction plan to replace the cast iron in the city and eliminate recurring water main breakage. The City Council granted Torreson and his staff the approval to apply for bids for the two-major water main
replacement projects earlier this month on Jan. 2. “After (80 years) long, over time the cast iron in the water main just gets rotten and the pressure in the mains will pop it,” Torreson said. “You can see it gushing out of the ground sometimes and it bubbles up. There’s one local MD that lives on Franklin that had three water main breaks directly in front of his place." According to Torreson, work in the southeastern part of Macomb could be
done through September of 2018, while work on the adjacent side of town, the northwest, is expected to take place until August. “It’s about over a million dollars’ worth of work replacing old water mains,” Torreson said. “We did get a grant from the state government for about $350,000. That’ll help with the northwest part of town and then we have water main in the southeast part of town that is breaking all the time.” If he and his staff acquire the
bids, Torreson will construct replacement of old cast iron water mains in northwestern Macomb that is expected to finish in the fall. Macomb got a $350,000 federal grant for work in the northwest. The remainder of funds for the $1 million project will come from the infrastructure support portion of the city sales tax in the amount of $75,000 and the city water fund in the amount of $577,000. Torreson said the debt service portion on city water bills would have to increase from
three to five dollars per month for each customer after May 1, to reimburse the missing water funds. However, the three dollars per month debt service charge on sewer bills won’t increase this year, but could be increased in the future should the city of Macomb use a $3 million Illinois Environmental Protection Agency loan to pay for improvements to the city sewer plant.
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