Bike and helmet checks to be offered in Oglesby

Your children will put quite a few miles on their bikes this summer.  You can have their bikes checked out during the Oglesby Police Department’s bike rodeo.

It starts at 10am Saturday at the Dickinson House with bike and helmet checks.  There will also be a bike skills course and a K-9 demonstration at 11a.m.

Kids who participate in a family bike ride to The Rootbeer Stand will receive a free ice cream cone.

Man accused of having ecstasy

Ecstasy, it’s a drug you don’t hear about often but it’s still out there.  A man from Nebraska that was stopped by the La Salle Police is accused of having approximately 5,000 ecstasy pills in his car.

Mose Howard was arrested Friday for unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.  It’s a super class X felony.  Howard was being held in the La Salle County Jail.

Six months after fire, clean up on hold at Westclox

It’s been half of a year since you could see flames and smoke billowing from the old Westclox factory.  The fire has been out for a while and one of the teens accused of starting the fire has already pleaded guilty and been sentenced.

But a pile of rusty metal and charred bricks remain in the middle building that used to house a plastic recycling operation.

Sam Macaluso a member of the LLC that owns the Peru Trade Center, the group that has been redeveloping the building for a mix of businesses.  He says they’ve been fixing the roof and other things that were damaged by smoke and heat.  He says the area with the debris hasn’t been cleaned up because an investigation by insurance adjusters continues.

Macaluso says they’re getting areas of the front building ready for new renters.

Frank Taylor is Peru’s building inspector.  He says the clean up is taking longer than he had thought it would.

86 year old man receives probation for sex abuse plea

An 86-year old man from Ottawa will avoid prison after admitting to a sex crime.

Doyle Smith was sentenced Thursday to four years probation after pleading guilty to aggravated sex abuse.  He will also have to register as a sex offender and be labeled a sexual predator the rest of his life.

Smith admitted to fondling a young girl last year.

Mautino Idea To Fund State Parks Is Shot Down

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – A plan wrote up by State Representative Frank Mautino to raise money for deteriorating state parks has been rejected by the Illinois Senate.

The bill would have added a $2 fee on license plates to raise money for the state Department of Natural Resources. The Senate vote Friday was 33-21, but the measure needed 36 votes. Republican Senators Sue Rezin and Darrin LaHood voted no. In the House, Represenative Mautino voted for the license plate increase but Pam Roth said no.

The license plate increase was seen as an alternative to charging a state park’s entrance fee.