Find What You're L King for in the Fairbury
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE FAIRBURY JOURNAL-NEWS Your Community. Your Paper. WWW.FAIRBURYJOURNALNEWS.COM WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019 1 SECTION | VOL. 127 | NO. 19 | $1.50 Funding For Additional County IT Explored By Gordon Hopkins Jefferson County IT (Information Technol- ogy) director Brad Eisenhauer has requested a full-time assistant. Sheriff Nels Sorensen has confirmed the need for an additional IT Spe- cialist. However, funding has not yet been deter- mined. One possible method of offsetting the cost being considered is sharing the position with the City of Fairbury. Sheriff Sorensen and City Administrator Colin Bielser spoke to the Jefferson County Commissioners about the issue during the meeting of July 16. County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock asked, “Is there any other sources of revenue that could help pay for it?” The Sheriff said, “That's why I invited Colin over.” County Com- missioner Michael Dux asked, “How much interest or need is there from the City at this time?” Bielser said, “I think there's some interest. Right now we contract with a company out of Beatrice (Net- Brad Eisenhauer FYI Center work Consulting Services, Inc.). This option would, more that likely, be more expensive for the city, but the Car Smash question is, you know, will the service and the responsiveness be better every single step?” “There is some advantage in sharing infra- Fundraiser structure,” Bielser noted. “You guys already Photos by Nathan Heuer/ help us with the video cameras and things like fairburyjournalnews that.” “It looked like the approximate cost for the Family Bonding Time— county was around $80,000 for this position,” (Above) Ben Schwartz Schoenrock said. This cost is only an esti- delivers a crushing blow mate and covers salary and benefits. “What to a vehicle during the FYI we would probably want to see is about what Center’s Car Smash day on portion of the total capacity would be devoted to the City of Fairbury, and then what the city Friday afternoon. For a fee, would pay for whatever that estimated portion people could use a hammer, is.” sledgehammer or a variety “I've talked with Homer (Ward, Mayor of of other objects to vent Fairbury) a little bit,” Bielser said. “Obviously I their frustrations and raise need some ballpark figure.” “I'd like a ballpark figure as to what the City funds for the FYI Center is paying right now,” Dux said. “I guess I'd lie of Fairbury. (Right) Archer to see that before I make a decision. I think Schwartz takes after his the need is out there for a second IT. I don't father and gives the vehicle doubt that at all, but there has to be a need to a good whack. be able to help pay for this.” New Diversion, Attendance Support Program Up And Running By Gordon Hopkins attendance support program will from jail to here and do a drug called AdventFS, which provides Beginning July 1st of this year, address truancy issues. test.” learning services over 300 gov- Jefferson County’s new Diversion On July 23, Jefferson County People enrolled in the Diver- and Attendance Support pro- Commissioners toured the new sion and Attendance Support grams are officially up and run- offices being used by the new programs take a series of online PROGRAM ning. programs. classes provided by a company see , page 2 Previously, Jefferson County en- In addition to Don Cook, the tered into an interlocal agreement County employs two case co- with Seward County to provide ordinators, Peggy Galloway for services for diversion and atten- Diversion Services and Heather dance support, but that agree- Watson for Attendance Support ment officially ended on June 30 Services. Galloway began her new of this year. County Attorney Joe position about a month ago. Wat- Casson was tasked with creating son started last week. Both are new programs to be administered also being crossed trained. Gallo- by Jefferson County. Don Cook, way pointed out, “There is a lot of Program Coordinator for CASA overlap between the attendance (Court Appointed Special Advo- stuff and the Diversion stuff.” cates), was tapped to oversee the “The good thing is, too. We’re new programs as Director of Jef- saving the county money,” Cook ferson County Diversion Services. said. A diversion program in the Galloway added, “Exactly, by criminal justice system is a form not putting them in jail.” of sentence in which the criminal Cook explained how the pro- offender joins a rehabilitation gram works. “For drug related program, which will help remedy cases, the jail notifies me that Photo by Gordon Hopkins/fairburyjournalnews the behavior leading to the origi- they have somebody that the Talking Points—Peggy Galloway (left) of the new diversion services program in the county, nal arrest, and avoid conviction judge has authorized for pretrial along with county commissioner Michael Dux (center), Heather Watson of the attendance and a criminal record, for both release. So we go interview them, support services and Don Cook, coordinator of the new county diversion services program, adult and juvenile offenders. The fill out paperwork. They come talks over the program at the new office space downtown. TODAY INSIDE THE JOURNAL-NEWS Local News 2 | Deaths 3 | Opinion 4 | Lifestyles 5 | Sports 7 | For The Record 8 | Classifieds 9 | Public Notices 10-11 Page 2 The Fairbury Journal-News News Wednesday, July 31, 2019 Farmers Cooperative Major Donor To Local Pantries Farmers Cooperative, headquartered in need. Farmers Cooperative is happy to invest Dorchester, raised $67,000 to support local in our local communities to make this hunger food pantries and school backpack programs grant. in southeast Nebraska and northeast Kan- Nearly 50 million people in the United States sas. Funds were raised from the company are facing issues of hunger. Facts show that employee Christmas party totaling $27,870. 1 out of 6 households have hunger issues These funds came from the live auction, silent at some point in time. Many of these house- auction, raffle and were matched by Farm- holds have children who need nourishment for ers Cooperative management along with the proper physical and mental development. Board of Directors. The money raised from Dennis Kenning, Sales and Marketing Man- these events were then matched by the Land ager at Farmers Cooperative said, “Our com- O’Lakes Foundation, CHS Foundation and pany’s slogan is ‘Investing in our Owners Suc- Nutra Blend Feed to support local hunger cess’ and we believe this slogan also extends programs. into investing in the communities that we The southeast Nebraska food pantry dona- serve. Our company has a deep sense of com- Photos by Timothy Linscott/fairburyjournalnews tion included $26,000 to help 14 community munity and we recognize the ongoing problem Everyone Was Czech Dancing—The Wilber Beseda Dancers food pantries in 13 southeast Nebraska coun- of hunger in rural America. We would like have been entertaining in the area, including Fairbury nurs- ties. The Blue Valley Community Action in to thank all those who help with our hunger ing home facilities. The dancers, led by Dirk Altman, will be Fairbury will receive $3,000 to serve those in program.” performing this weekend at the annual Czech Days celebra- tion Aug. 1-4 in Wilber. PROGRAM From Page 1 ernment agencies across the United States. transition from the Seward County programs “Same thing with Deshler,” she added. “Odell Classes include corrective thinking, substance to Jefferson County, “All of the people that has none. Period. So why is Fairbury just out abuse, traffic safety, bullying, truancy and were in the Seward program have now signed of control?” others, depending on what behaviors resulted Jefferson County documents that they’re in The Diversion and Attendance Support pro- in the participants enrollment in the Diversion the Jefferson County program now.” grams will be collecting data on these trends. or Attendant Support programs. Galloway noted, “We’ve already had some “Cook said, “Those are the statistics we are go- Galloway said, “They have to sit through- leave the program. Two of them were because ing to come up with. It’s just going to take us out the classes. I took them earlier this week they actually did the program like you’re sup- a bit of time. Talking to the people. Talking to because I wanted to see what they were. You posed to and two of the were because they the different school districts. We’ll have some have to pay attention, because you have to an- just kind of blew it off. So they went back to good information by this time next year.” swer questions before you can move on to the the County Attorney.” “We want you to know that, we as a Board, next part of the test.” While consistency during the transition is are 100 percent behind this. The efforts that Computers will be available at the Diversion important, some changes to the programs will you put forth in here, it will change people’s and Attendance Support offices for partici- be made. One of those changes will be the lives. And people that were going down a bad pants that do not own a computer or do not emphasis on money management for partici- path, or getting ready to go down a bad path, have internet access. pants. Casson noted that, “In Seward’s pro- because of your efforts,” said Schoenrock. “It’s There are consequences for not following the gram, the money management class is man- going to make a different in these people’s rules set by the program. Cook said, “We’ve dated for bad check cases or theft cases.