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Dan Kimme Obituary (News Gazette 2/3/2008)
Tommy Martin Passes Away (News Gazette - 7/18/07)
Shots Fired - Suspect Information (News Gazette - 6/9/07)
Shots Fired at West Side Park (News Gazette - 6/8/07)
Lt Joe Gallo (News Gazette - 3/27/05)
Polar Plunge & New Officers (City News Letter - 3/05)
Lindia Hatter Resigns and 10 Hour Shifts (City News Letter - 2/05)
Officers Save Man (News Gazette - 2/12/05)
Officers to Iraq (News Gazette - 12/9/04)

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill honors police officers

Lieutenant Holly Nearing among those honored

The local chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill held a celebration last week at the Champaign Public Library to salute 27 police officers. The officers from Champaign, Parkland College, Rantoul, University of Illinois and Urbana police departments volunteered to receive 40 hours of crisis intervention training when dealing with individuals who are mentally ill. These officers were among the first in the nation to receive this training. Champaign Police Lieutenant Holly Nearing was among those officers honored. Mayor Schweighart and wife Kim also attended the celebration.

 

Champaign Police Lieutenant Holly Nearing, right, is pictured with Urbana Police Chief Eddie Adair, left, and Michele Watson, center, of the East Central Illinois Police Training Project. Nearing was honored at the evening’s celebration for completing 40 hours of crisis intervention by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

 

Photo by Pat Chapelfor the News-Gazette. Exceipted from the article “On the Town,” N-G, 10/13/04.

Man has led Carbondale’s staff since 1999

By MIKE MONSON

News-Gazette Staff Writer

CHAMPAIGN - First a basketball coach, now a police chief.

Carbondale residents might be feeling today like their city is an employment training service for Champaign-Urbana.

That’s because Champaign officials announced Monday night that Carbondale Police Chief R.T. Finney has been selected to head Champaign’s 120-man police force, starting Nov. 17.

Finney, 43, had the right combination of command experience, a stellar police career and the experience of working in a diverse Illinois city that also hosts a major state university, said Champaign City Manager Steve Carter, who hired Finney.

The new police chief, who has headed Carbondale’s 60-man police force since April 1999, will make $99,000 annually.

“Obviously, we liked the fact that he had been chief in another community for four and one-half years,” Carter said. “We were looking for someone with significant experience. The fact that he’s been chief in a diverse community with a large university presence (Southern Illinois University) also helped.”

“And I was impressed by the strong career he’s had from the time he started in Quincy,” added Carter. “He’s had a solid record of accomplishment everywhere he’s been.”

Finney worked for 17 years on the Quincy Police Department before accepting the head job in Carbondale. Carter mentioned that he was impressed with Finney’s work as supervisor of the street crimes division in Quincy, where he confronted a gang problem for three years in the early 1990s.

He later was promoted to lieutenant and became Quincy’s deputy chief in 1996.

Finney, who describes himself as a consensus builder, said he is “honored” to win the job. He was among five finalists interviewed in recent weeks.

“It’s not that often that a job of this quality becomes available,” he said. “I’m looking forward to being a part of it.”

Finney described himself as a “people person” with a good sense of humor who nonetheless expects professionalism from his department. He said he works to develop consensus within the department and the community.

“That’s the best way to problem-solve,” he said. “It’s not always easy.”

His work in Quincy in the early 1990s as head of the newly formed Street crimes unit may have been the most dramatic of his career.

“We had a pretty big influx of gangs from Joliet and Chicago,” Finney recalled. “We felt like we needed to deal with it pretty aggressively and formed the Street crimes unit.”

Finney said the unit dealt with gangs and neighborhoods at risk.

“It’s still in effect now,” he said. “I think we had quite an effect in keeping gang crime controlled.”

Another high-profile job he worked on as Carbondale’s police chief was controlling the city’s sometime raucous Halloween celebration. After rioting occurred at the unsanctioned 2000 Halloween celebration, the city began enforcing its encroachment ordinance and explicitly prohibited people from gathering in and closing the street or gathering on the sidewalks of the downtown “strip” where most student-patronized bars are located.

“It’s been very successful,” said Carbondale City Manager Jeff Doherty. “We suffered from the problems of Halloween from a community and university image standpoint. I think we turned a corner and R.T. Finney was very involved in that.”

Doherty had high praise for Finney, calling him “outstanding and very professional.” In particular, Doherty said a reorganization of the command structure to include deputy police chiefs and a stronger chain of command has proved successful.

Asked if he was sick of Champaign-Urbana stealing people like Finney and basketball coach Bruce Weber, who moved to the University of Illinois from SIU last spring, Doherty jokingly responded: “We are. But there are a lot of good people here and some of them take the opportunity to move on.”

Carter said he spent half a day Friday talking with Finney and that he signed an employment agreement then. The agreement contains initial conditions of employment and a severance clause, but is not for a specified period of time, meaning the police chief serves at the pleasure of the city manager, Carter said.

Finney, who is married and is the father of two teen-age daughters and an 11-year-old son, will visit Champaign on Monday after spending the weekend in Chicago. He’s running in the Chicago Marathon and warns local residents that he’s likely to be moving pretty stiffly. He said he’s looking forward to running in central Illinois and escaping the steep hills of the Carbondale area.

A native of Berwvn, Finney and his family moved when he was a young child to West Frankfort in Southern Illinois, where his father worked as a coal miner. His family will move to Champaign after his house is sold, Finney said.

Other finalists included James Carmody, major of field services with the Port Huron, Mich., field services bureau; Stephen Smith, police chief of the Thunderbolt, Ga., Police Department; Mary Bounds, commander of recruitment and retention at the Cleveland Police Department; and Raymond Schultz, deputy chief of the field services bureau at the Albuquerque, N.M., Police Department.

Schultz withdrew his name from consideration in recent weeks.

The nationwide search for a police chief began in May, after Jim Luecking, police chief for the past two years, announced he was retiring effective July 11. He was a 30-year veteran of the Champaign department.

Champaign interim Police Chief John Murphy did not apply for the police chief position. Sixty-seven people did apply for the job.

You can reach Mike Monson at (217)351-5370 or via e-mail at mmonson@news-gazette.com.


 

Area officers, policies strive to keep kids out of court 

“A station adjustment actually holds a kid more accountable more quickly. It would be several weeks before a kid would end up before a judge. The law now gives police the authority to set certain conditions, like curfew, public and restitution, as long as the parent agrees.”

Champaign police Deputy Chief Troy Daniels

Local authorities agree that the Rantoul Police Department was the first agency in Champaign County to really jump in and, two years ago, start using a new form of “station adjustments” under a reformed juvenile justice system in Illinois.

Rantoul’s early implementation was due, in part, to some younger officers, including Amy Milk, Shane Cook and Kevin Kaiser, who wanted to do something more than traditional, but sometimes ineffective, policing.

We were either slapping them on the hand or taking them to (the Youth Detention Center), said Kaiser, a juvenile officer, school resource officer and Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer with the Rantoul police department. “There was nothing in between”

Rantoul officials wanted to make the program work and there is no doubt it is achieving its main goal, he said.

“The whole idea is to keep the juvenile out of court,” Kaiser said

Rantoul police currently have 23 juveniles working with a station adjustment - 12 formal and 11 informal. For the year 2003, the agency has had 113 youths who successfully completed a station adjustment, including 24 formal and 89 informal station adjustments.

Kaiser said 35 youths this year violated conditions of their station adjustments. Of those 35, some were on an informal station adjustment and placed on more restrictive formal station, he said. Only 12 were charged in juvenile petitions or summons to court.

The department has about 16 juvenile officers who all deal with youth who get in trouble with the law.

“As juvenile officers, we have almost as much authority as judges,” Kaiser said “We can impose conditions on the spot. We always do curfews. We always make them write essays about theft, or battery or whatever the crime is. They have to attend school and not violate any state law or school rules. We can set geographic restrictions on them. Parents can set restrictions. We make them do up to 25 hours public service work. We do weekly activity forms so they have to be accountable themselves.

“We’ve had station adjustments for years,” Kaiser said “They just weren’t written down”.

Kaiser sees it as “a plus,” if law enforcement statewide would use station adjustments.

Champaign police began using station adjustments in the beginning of 2003, according to Champaign police Deputy Chief Troy Daniels. The agency’s record for dealing with juveniles who commit crimes has been excellent, he said

“Our goal is to do everything we can to keep the kid out of prison,” Daniels said “We have placed about 180 juveniles on station adjustments Out of that 180, about 25 are still ongoing. About 131 passed and only 25 failed.

One of the advantages of a station adjustment - compared to taking a youth to detention and going through the process of a petition to have the child declared a delinquent - is that restrictions can be imposed immediately, Daniels said

A station adjustment actually holds a kid more accountable more quickly,” the deputy chief said it would be several weeks before a kid would end up before a judge. The law now gives police the authority to set certain conditions, like curfew, public and restitution, as long as the parent agrees

Champaign police are currently using grants totaling about $50,000 to pay for staff and equipment to monitor station adjustments set by Champaign police juvenile officers and to find resources as needed for those youth and their families.

“We have to identify methods to accurately assess the causes of crimes for these juveniles and their families,” Daniels said “A lot of these kids grow up in situations that are completely chaotic. We have to find social services in the community to attack those problems and give the juveniles and their families the help they need to prevent the juvenile from getting in any more trouble.

Kate Hellenga, 37, started working for Champaign police part-time in the summer and on Dec 1 moved to full time. She previously worked at the Champaign County Youth Detention Center and is finishing her doctoral studies in clinical and community psychology at the University of Illinois. It’s her job to monitor the station adjustments and make referrals for youths with station adjustments.

Hellenga said she makes lists every week of which juveniles need to be checked for curfew compliance, community service work and school attendance. She checks the local law enforcement database to see if particular youths have committed any more crimes.

Champaign police also need to provide services more consistently and more thoroughly to help juveniles and their families, Hellenga said

“I am trying to build an in-depth assessment and screening process to see who needs extra services,” Hellenga said.

Danville police Lt Doug Miller said the three juvenile officers there, along with a school resource officer, have used station adjustments frequently. Other options include court petitions for juvenile delinquency, city court charges or, in Danville, peer court.

“We pretty much do informal station adjustments, rather than formal station adjustments,” Miller said “If the crime is serious, we can take them to juvenile court.”

Informal station adjustments can be very effective for younger juveniles, with no prior criminal history, he said.

“We deal with some of the same kids over and over again, but we also do a lot where, after we talk to them and their parents and make a deal with them, we never see them again,” Miller said.

Steve Bauer


Monticello tackle company sold to Ohio firm

Carlson Tackle, a Monticello fishing tack1e company that exclusively employed developmentally disabled workers, has been sold to Erie Deane Lure Inc. of Cortland, Ohio.

The Monticello site ceased operation about a week ago, said the company's former president, Danny Strand.

Erie Deane is moving Carlison Tackle to its home base in northeast Ohio.

They're a bigger company than we are, but they wanted to take a giant leap forward, and they love all our products," Strand said.

A retired Champaign police officer Strand owned Carlson Tackle with Randy Keith and some investors. He will help Erie Deane with the transition, then spend his second retirement traveling, Strand said.

Erie Deane is a 45-year-old, family run company started by the late Dan Galbincea, who developed and patented the original Erie Deane lure and was later inducted into the Ohio Sportsmen's Hall of Fame. His son, Dan Galbincea III, now runs the company with family members and business partner Richard Kovacs.

Dan Galbincea III is also a part-time entertainer as an Elvis impersonator who took over the company after his father's death, he said.

He and Kovacs said Erie Deane bought Carison to diversify and expand Erie Deane's product line. Erie Deane products currently cater to Great Lakes fishing, and Carison will add a line of products for inland lake fishing, Kovacs said.

The Carlson in name and its individual product names will continue under the new ownership, Galbincea said.

Also to continue will be the employment of disabled workers. Galbincca said Erie Dearie likes the idea of giving back to its own community, so it has arranged with the Youngstown (Ohio) Developmental Center to take over the Canison Tackle packaging work that had been done by five developmentally disabled workers through the Piatt County Mental Health Center.

The blister packaging machine that the state of Illinois had purchased for the Piatt County workers to use has been sold to a governmental unit in Ohio for use at the Youngstown Developmental Center, said Phyllis Usher, vocational director at the Piatt Counts Mental Health Center.

Usher said she is trying to find new employment for the five disabled workers who were with Carison in Monticello,

"But with the way the economy is, it's going to be difficult," she added.

The five employees "did a lot of growing at Carlson," Usher said. "They're ready for the next challenge."

Usher said the state will purchase another blister packaging machine for the former Carison workers to use, if the Piatt County Mental Health Center can line up similar work for them with another company.

 


Their Loss is Their Gain

Systems help Champaign officers shed weight

By MARY SCHENK

News-Gazette Staff Writer

CHAMPAIGN — As a detective with a desk job for the last seven of his almost 14 years as a Champaign police officer, Joe Johnston was aware he had let his weight get out of control.

Weighing an all-time high of 269 pounds around Christmas, the 41-year-old married father of two was disgusted with himself. He couldn't help but think, too, of his father and three uncles who died of heart attacks in their 60s.

“I didn't slide, I fell,” deadpanned Johnston.

At work, his locker was just a few away from that of a rookie, Mark Briggs, 33, who was losing weight and toning up at a rate that had his colleagues clucking.

“I always wanted to have the six-pack abs and the chiseled look. I was never able to get it with the traditional workouts I was doing,” said Briggs, who said he’s always been athletic.

Admiring Briggs’ form, Johnston asked him what he was doing to achieve it. Briggs told him he was following a regimen called Power 90, which he’d purchased through a television infomercial in April 2002. He weighed 224 pounds when he started it.

Although he said he was skeptical, Briggs ordered the tapes and after doing the workout for 90 days, dropped 40 pounds and redefined hidden muscle.

Johnston went home and told his wife Connie about Briggs and Power 90. Not exactly thrilled at shelling out $75 for the tapes, she nonetheless agreed to do the program with her husband after hearing about Briggs’ success.

They started Power 90 on Jan. 13 and within three months, Joe lost 56 pounds. Connie, already slender, lost 10 pounds and two dress sizes.

Both officers, after completing Power 90, went on to try another BeachBody.com product called Slim In 6, a six-week workout routine developed by fitness expert Debbie Siebers.

It was the results they achieved on the Slim In 6 — another 20-pound weight loss for Briggs and 26 less pounds for Johnston — that won both of them an all-expense paid week long trip to Hollywood to star in a new infomercial about Slim In 6.

“It was a blast,” Johnston said of the June 14-21 California trip, which had them working out with fitness gurus, hobnobbing with movie stars, being interviewed by reporters for Entertainment Tonight and a Los Angeles TV station, and exposing them to life as actors as they engaged in the grueling production of the infomercials.

"It was a little different than cruising around the North End,” joked Briggs, who’s been a Champaign patrol officer for two years, working 3 to 11 p.m.

Cheryl Ann David, promotions manager for the Beverly Hills-based BeachBody.com, said about 250,000 tapes have been sold. She estimated about 200 to 300 people from around the country entered the contest. Of those, Briggs and Johnston were selected as two of 18 success story standouts.

They entered the contest for the trip in April, submitting before and after pictures of themselves and their stories, which can be found on the Beach-Body.com Web site.

Although co-workers, Briggs and Johnston don’t cross paths at work that often due to different assignments and shifts.

Briggs said on Easter Sunday (April 20), he was guarding a crime scene when “I see this skinny white guy come over and lift up the tape and walk underneath. I went over to invite him out. It was Joe, the investigator coming to work the scene. I hadn’t recognized him because he had lost so much weight.”

Briggs said that encounter prompted him to persuade Johnston to enter the contest with him. They learned they had been selected on May 22.

The California experience was a first for each of the men, Johnston being a central Illinois boy and Briggs growing up in Massachusetts.

“They had me running into a 40-degree surf with a surfboard,” said Briggs, who said he’d never been to California before, let alone held a surf board.

He and Johnston both said the BeachBody folks treated them like “royalty” for their week in Los Angeles, including putting them up in a four-star hotel and buying them nutrition-conscious meals at ritzy restaurants. Connie Johnston’s trip was also paid for. Their only expenses were souvenirs, and an occasional drink of alcohol.

Johnston said their days typically started with a healthy breakfast followed by a workout in the morning. On the days they were taping the infomercial, they then headed to wardrobe and makeup before going to wherever they were to be interviewed or work out. Taping one day was at Universal Studios; another day was on Malibu Beach. They also got to see several tourist attractions.

Because they are police officers on the same department, that angle seemed to attract the attention of those producing the infomercials and other reporters who did stories on them.

“I can’t say enough good things about the company, They were so accommodating,” Johnston said.

“It was unbelievable. Any thing we needed, they took care of,” said Briggs. “In return, all they want is our stories.”

Both men, each 6 feet 1 inch tall, are also pretty excited about their new looks. While they credit the Power 90 and Slim In 6 programs for their successes, both also changed their eating habits. Each also uses the company’s supplements, although use of those is considered optional.

“What I did was get rid of all the junk food and started eating better,” said Briggs, who said after doing the Slim In 6 workout, he dropped another 4 inches from his waist and reduced his body fat from 15 percent to 9 percent. As of early last week when interviewed for this story, Briggs reported his body fat at 7 percent. He said he now eats smaller portions of food but does so six times a day.

Johnston, likewise, said he’s eating much healthier now, consuming a protein shake or bowl of cereal for breakfast and a Weight Watchers or Lean Cuisine meal at lunch, then a normal supper. His cholesterol is down 100 points and his blood pressure down by 30.

His children, Jimmy, 13, and Jessica, 11, have never seen him so slim. “I don’t think I’ve ever weighed under 230 since they’ve been born.”

Johnston said he recently picked up Jessica and overheard her tell a friend as they got off a bus, ‘That’s my dad, the skinny one in the green pants."

“She got a big hug out of that,” he said.

You can reach Mary Schenk at (217) 351-5313 or via e-mail at mschenk@news-gazette.com.

 

2 of Pàrkland Chief’s sons now Champaign cops, too


Two sons of Von Young Jr., the new police chief at Parkland College, are police officers with the Champaign Police Department, where he worked for 20 years.

His wife, Deborah, said she has had moments of worry for her husband and still has some for the two sons now working as cops.

“It’s something you learn to deal with,” she said. “It’s not something that can run your life.”

Young said he is proud of all three of his sons. (Son Robert is a heavy equipment operator in Houston.)

“They’ve asked me for advice on different things,” Young said.

“When we were all three in the department, that was a very proud moment for me.”

Chris Young, 34 and a former Navy lieutenant, joined the Champaign police in 1995. He was not interested in a police career at first.

“When your father is one, you tend to get turned off by that,” Chris said. “As you get older, your views kind of change. It’s a good job. I like trying to help people out.”

He knows that sounds a lot like his father.

“My dad has always tried to help somebody,” Chris said. “I’ve tried to do that when I can.”

Chris thinks his father has shown that “it’s the man behind
the badge, not the color of the man.”

Von Young III, 26,joined the Champaign police two years ago, deciding to apply after talking to his father.

“All I’ve ever heard about him throughout the years is that he was well-respected in the community and by his fellow officers,” the younger son said. “I would like to be like him and treat people with respect and to be fair.”

He said he’s heard people say that changes his father is making at Parkland are for the better.

“He’s not going to be retiring as soon as he thought,” Von Young III said.

STEVE BAUER
 



RESPECT FOR ALL SERVES NEW PARKLAND CHIEF WELL


College’s first black chief adds to string of firsts
By STEVE BAUER
News-Gazette Staff Writer


CHAMPAIGN — Non Young Jr. has a simple philosophy in law enforcement: Treat everyone with respect.

It has worked well for him in more than 20 years of law enforcement. He’s continuing that approach in his new job as police chief at Parkiand College.

“You can impact people’s lives if you want to,” Young said. “I've always tried to treat people fairly, tried to look at both sides of everything.”

Young, 53, retired from the Champaign Police Department last July 31 and started the next day as interim chief at Parkland. His permanent status goes into effect Tuesday.

He’s the third police chief for Parkiand and the first black chief. He has a history of Hackie Robinson-like “firsts,’including becoming the first black police officer for the city of Lincoln; the first black altar boy at his church in Jacksonville, where he was born and grew up; and the first black lieutenant for the Champaign
Police Department.

“I remember getting on a bus in Jacksonville and going to St. Louis," Young said "My mother told us four or five times to go to the bathroom before we got on the bus because we couldn't get off the bus until St. Louis,” Young said.

Many bus stations in southern Illinois at that time would not allow blacks to use the public restrooms, he said.

His mother, Essie, now 80 and remarried, raised Young, an older brother and younger sister mostly on her own. His father, Non Young Sr., was a career military man who wasn't home much. His parents divorced when he was 5 years old, Young said.

Young said he had good experiences with police officers growing up. One policeman seemed to watch out for him. When there was an opening at Lincoln, Young decided to apply and got the job in 1971, he said. He was the only black city employee at the time.

“It worked out really well.”Young said. “People treated me with respect. I tried to treat people with respect, too. That’s the way I've always done things.”

He moved to Champaign in 1974. There was a time in 1976 or 1977 when Young and another officer were shot at as they were in a patrol car, but neither one was injured.

Young said he didn't tell his wife, Deborah, about that shooting, but she learned about it from the other officer. That was just part of the job and nothing he took personally, he said.

“I've always felt it was important that I could go any place in the city of Champaign, and I didn't have any enemies,” Young said.

Champaign police Chief Jim Luecking said that when Young ~ was assigned as the lieutenant in charge of professional standards, which includes the job of investigating citizen complaints against officers, Young was respected by officers as someone who would be fair.

“That’s what came out through his whole career,” Luecking said. “He treated everybody with respect, victims and suspects alike.”

Luecking said Young’s appointment as chief at Parkland will help foster even more cooperation between the two agencies.

“He’s such a level-headed guy,” Luecking said. “He’s smart. I can’t think of a better guy that they could have picked.”

Parkiand College President Zalema Harris said college officials are proud to have someone of Young’s caliber lead the Office of Public Safety.


“His years of experience with the Champaign Police Department and his relaxed professional demeanor played a major part in selecting him for the job at Parkiand,” Harris said.

“Non Young is smart, articulate and caring, and he knows the difference between being a police officer with the Champaign Police Department and being a public safety officer at Parkiand,” she said.

A lot of the job for Parkiand officers is to educate students and staff on how to protect their property, he said.

For example, last fall, after a rash of car burglaries, Parkland police sent out a college wide email to alert staff and students.

“These are crimes of opportunity,” Young said. “We try to get people to change their behavior so there will be less opportunities. People are paying good money to come here. They’ve got to feel like this is a safe environment.”

His main goal, though, is to get people to understand that Parkland police officers are part of a service agency with law enforcement powers.

Officers also do a lot of services that many police departments no longer do, like helping people jump-start their cars or unlocking car doors when an owner has locked the keys inside, Young said. They also help faculty get in and out of locked classrooms, provide escorts and do classroom presentations, he said.

Young said he has been pleased at the attitudes of everyone he has encountered at Parkland.

“I’ve never been in a place where so many people enjoyed their jobs,” Young said.

Young said at one time he experienced a little of the burnout that so many p~ice officers encounter. He left the police department in 1984, going into sales, but returned in 1992.

“Going out and coming back refocused me,” Young said. “I was fortunate that the city thought enough of me to hire me back,” Young said.

He and his wife have also been involved in some business ventures, including a travel agency and a new antique shop, “Grandma Ruby’s Antiques and Unusuals” in Bondville. Deborah said her husband helped renovate shops for both businesses.

Young said his outside interests include woodworking and collecting pocket watches. He and his wife enjoy going to flea markets and auctions, he said.

Deborah said she’s pleased for her husband’s success in his latest job.

“He’s really enjoying it a lot. It’s a very different atmosphere,” she said. “I’m very glad he’s gone back to work. He was not ready to retire. He’s having a great time now. He’s very much a people person. I think this is the perfect job for him.”








Champaign police chief planning to retire in July

City officials begin search for replacement



By J. PHILIP BLOOMER
News-Gazette Staff Writer



CHAMPAIGN — Police Chief Jim Luecking, as promised when he took the job two years ago, plans to retire in July after 30 years with the Champaign Police Department.

City officials, in turn, have set in motion the all-too-familiar wheels of a search process to find his replacement.

"After doing this for two years, I can say it's been a great opportunity and very fulfilling, but after 30 years in the department and reaching the maximum pension level, it's time to do something else," he said.

Luecking has presided over a department that for two years has been notable for the lack of controversy it's generated, either internally or from the outside. His tenure followed that of Bill Becker, a San Diego transplant who lasted only two years in the job before being asked to leave.

Luecking said the lack of dissent from within or challenges from without is not easy to explain.

I don't know if it's excellent leadership or pure blind luck," Luecking said. "Sometimes controversy occurs despite your best efforts, and sometimes it can be avoided because you have a good professional organization in place that knows how to get things done responsibly.

"I think the measure of a chief is whether a department is in a better place than when he started. It may be my ego talking, but I think it is," he said.

Luecking has made priorities of community policing, traffic enforcement and liquor enforcement, among other things. The results are going in the right direction. Violent crime has been down on campus and city wide. So is the accident rate.

Luecking's rise through the departmental ranks was fast. He was hired in July 1973, a month after graduating from the University of Illinois. He was on patrol only a year-and-a-half before being promoted to detective, then got called out on a homicide on his first night.

He progressed to deputy police chief in 1992, a position he nearly retired from but then was asked back to serve as chief in the wake of the Becker release.

Since then, he has promoted people aggressively from within the 118-person department. He said it's a young department with only three people among the command structure with 20 or more years on the department.

"We have a lot of young, fresh ideas and a young, motivated department," Luecking said. "I think we're in good shape."

City Manager Steve Carter said he was sorry to see Luecking leaving.

"Jim has done an excellent job. I just wish we could've talked him into staying another year or so," Carter said.

The city has already started putting together a search committee, and Carter said the search with this department head opening will be more aggressive than in the past. Unlike previous searches where background checks were mostly conducted by telephone, the city initiated on-site interviews and inquiries in the case of the new library director, Marsha Grove, and it will repeat that process with the police chief search.

Carter also said that rather than simply advertising the opening, the city will be seeking out individuals, particularly people~ in leadership positions in the more progressive departments in the Midwest.

The city also will encourage applications from in-house. Knowledge of the community and knowledge of the department that city officers have certainly is valuable, Carter said, and must be weighed along with other factors.

"What we are committed to is taking the best candidate," he said.





April 1: Champaign Police Sgt. Donald Shelton assigned himself to direct traffic on University Avenue near Dr. Howard Elementary School in ChampaIgn more than a year ago. 'I saw the need, and every morning I can I come out here,' he said. Shelton is quick with a 'thank you' for drivers after he lets them proceed. He is also quick with commands to 'slow down' and reminders that the school zone speed limit is 20 mph.


Flocks find safe haven in populated areas

By PAUL WOOD
News-Gazette Staff Writer



CHAMPAIGN — Q: What do you call 300 geese smorgasbording on a field of greens?

A: Bob Soucie's lawn.

The retired Champaign police officer is running short of grass but has an excess of goose poop to deal with every day at his home on Bentbrook Drive, and there's nobody he can arrest for it.

"Years ago, geese were a pretty sight to see. When I was growing up, if you saw geese, it was a V-shaped flight high in the air," he said. "Now, it's a swarm on the ground." The Canada geese seem to like his yard because it's near one of those artificial ponds and there is, or was, plenty of the green stuff to chew on.

Soucie knows they're out there all hours of the day.

At night, he can see them sitting on the frozen pond, free from virtually any predator. Nobody wants to go out on the ice to eat them. No dogs, no coyotes, and certainly not Soucie. Wildlife experts say he'll just have to wait them out. Maybe they'll tire of the monotony of just one type of grass. Sure, they'll see greener pastures when spring brings new crops and blooms.

"There's probably nothing he can do, legally," said Pat Brown, director of the Center for Wildlife Ecology the Illinois Natural History Survey.

"The resident goose population is increasing," he said. "If they stay in a protected area, urban geese are not subject to typical sports harvest. Geese know that if they hang around residential areas, they don't get shot at by hunters.

"Geese have adapted to humans. The geese in the countryside are subject to predators on their goslings; in residential neighborhoods, you don't have many coyotes."

Steve Amundsen of the Natural History Survey says Soucie's well groomed lawn makes it too easy on the birds.

"Mowed grass is ideal for those guys," he said. "They have become more sedentary over the years."

Brown said wildlife biologists will have to address the issue, especially as populations increase to the point where they put pressure on survival.

For Soucie, though, his home just happens to provide food and protection. The hope for him is that the geese may not see Chez Soucie as a permanent resting place.

"If he hasn't had geese there before, it's unlikely they'll stay," Brown said.

Amundsen said yelling at or chasing the geese is unlikely to produce more than an angry honk in response.

"They're kind of hard to scare away," he said. "Some golf courses have guard dogs."

Soucie said he believed finding a dog that chased off geese would cost several thousand dollars, after extensive training, and he didn't want to pursue that option.

Some golf club owners have sought to take more terminal action, complaining that goose droppings contaminate water with dangerous E. coli bacteria, and want permission to kill some of them.

Chris Tollefson, a spokesman for the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, said the department has been working on a draft of a regulation that would allow killing certain "nuisance" geese for about a year.

"We've had thousands of public comments, and we hope to have a decision in early spring," he said.




To serve and protect


By DAN WENDT
News-Gazette Photo Lab Technician



When I was invited to participate in this project, I was excited because it was an opportunity to help document all that is good in our community. Because police officers work around the clock to ensure that our community is a safe place to live and because my brother is a Champaign police officer, it was easy to choose a subject for the project.

My brother, Officer Doug Wendt, has been working the midnight shift in Champaign for 10 years. The night I rode along with him began in the weight room, where he and a few other officers exercised before they hit the streets. Later on during his shift, I watched as my brother worked along with other officers to solve problems and help prevent them.

It was interesting to gain perspective on what my brother and his fellow police officers experience, and it's reassuring to know that they are always out there doing their job.




Now you see pensions, soon you won't



AUSTIN, Texas - You ain't no John Snow when it comes to pensions. Snow, our new treasury secretary, was chief executive officer of the railroad company CSX Corp. and got a platinum parachute when he bailed. He gets $2.47 million a year for life in retirement benefits. This package was based on the premise that he'd worked for the company for 44 years, even though he'd been there only 25.

Now that's creative accounting.

Plus, CSX decided to let him factor in the stock benefits he had received as regular income, instead of just salary; as is normally done. At the same c; time CSX was giving Snow this lovely deal, it was cutting the health benefits in its retirement plan fot lesser workers. Since Secretary Snow is now in charge of pension policy at the Treasury; can we look forward to similar deals for ourselves? Nope, we're in the class that gets the cuts.

The Bush administration: has a plan (those are rapidly becoming the six most chilling words in the English language) to de-improve your pension. It allows companies to switch from traditional fixed-benefit retirement plans to what's called the cash-balance pension plan. You will be unsurprised to learn that corporations just love it because it saves them millions of dollars a year, as much as $100 million in the case of huge companies.

Under the administration's proposed rules, companies can eat away at the retirement benfits they owe workers by using "reasonable" interest rates and mortality rates to calculate the value of a pension as the company converts to the cash-balance scheme. Presto: Hey; look honey, I shrunk your retirement package.

The cash-balance plan is particularly harmful to older workers, so if you've got any gray hair, you might want to "take a look at what they're about to do to you. Underf1xed-benefit plans, retirement is based on the employee's salary and years of work at the company. This gives older workers a chance to rack up benefits. When companies started switching to cash-balance plans, the AARP, the Pension Rights Center, the AFL-CIO and other groups setup a mighty holler. The Equal Em- ployment Opportunity Commission received over 800 age discrimination complaints. As a result, the IRS stopped approving these conversions in 1999.

But the Bush administration, operating on its cardinal principle-Whatever Bill Clinton Did Was Wrong-has naturally decided to reverse course. If Clinton did it, it can't be good (and what splendid results they've gotten so far), so the

new rules will give companies that convert to cash-balance plans a tax advantage, as well as giving them protection from age-discrili1ination suits. Don't you love it? The perfect Bush plan: They get to screw workers and get a tax break, and nobody is allowed to sue.

More than 200 members of Congress have written Bush asking him not to let the proposed rules become law. The General Accounting Office did a study showing that annual pension benefits of older workers can drop by as much as 50 percent under the new plan.

There is a 9O-day period for "public comments" on the proposed rules, and it might well behoove you to put pen to paper over this one. The public comment period ends March 13. You can call the Treasury Department at (202) 622-6030 to find out how to submit a comment. The Communication Workers of America Web site also has some how-to advice: It's at www.allianceibm.org/pensjon/treasuryletters.htm.

Rep. Bernie Sanders, the vermont independent, has a bill to require companies that are going to convert to allow their employees to choose which plan works best for them. The bill requires companies to provide workers detailed information that allows them to make an apples-to-apples comparison.

If you're wondering why you haven't heard much about this, let me suggest two reasons.

One is that TV news is in its one-story; Dead Diana mode: All they have time for is Iraq and the Rhode Island nightclub fire.

The second is the consequence of having all the media owned by a few giant corporations. It is not in the interest of these corporations to have such news widely reported.

Am I suggesting (gasp!) censorship? Nope, just that even though this affects millions of people, those millions are not a large percentage of the total television audience, and pension de-form is not as grippipg as war or nightclub fires. That's the way media gigantism affects news.

You can't save your pension with duct tape, so get on this Creators Syndicate

Molly Ivins is a syndicated columnist based in Austin, Texas.






Skydiver has made 582 jumps over six years


By PAUL WOOD
News-Gazette Staff Writer


Skydivers Kevin Linfinucane of Richmond Va., and Lisa Staples of Champaign relax in an airplane Monday, waiting to get the "Go" signal to jump at the World Free Fall Convention in Rantoul.


RANTOUL -Tan, tattooed, buff and pierced, Champaign police Officer Lisa Staples is never happier than when she's jumping out of a plane. Except when she's jumping out of a balloon. "It was so quiet and peaceful," said Staples, 32, of last week's balloon jump, compared to the noisy chaos of a group jump from a propeller plane.

Staples was jumping from the CASA plane Monday afternoon, the same day her equally buff boyfriend, Mark Briggs, was to do his first tandem jump, taking off with a more experienced sky diver. She has been out at the World Free Fall Convention for days, using her vacation time to work for a North Carolina company Fayard early in the day, then jump for free the rest of the time.

"1 always wanted to sky dive," she said. "When I was born, Mom and Dad used to manage a small airport in New York. I would see these jumpers and want to be like them."

Her nose and tattooed shoulders are sunburned, but Staples is otherwise no worse for the wear after 582 jumps, in her six-year career, seven over last weekend.

Staples wears less gear than most jumpers, leaving most of her upper body unprotected. But she says she's not too concerned about scrapes and bruises.

There was one time Staples broke her finger in a jump. She could have gone to a medical but that would have cut into valuable jumping time.

It didn't hurt so bad," she said.

Staples describes herself as an "adrenaline junkie." Briggs, who is also a Champaign police officer, likes motorcycles.

"I'm probably the 1 when more fearless of the two of us," Staples said. "There's not very much I'm afraid of. I like doing a job in dangerous situations - I think that's when I operate best. I'm a take-charge person.

Deputy Chief, whose Troy Daniels said; in the Staples is an excellent crime-scene technician. "She's somebody you want working on a case," He said.

Brigs said Staples' head-on approach is a plus not a minus. You probably want officers who are willing to take a risk, he says.

"We're a different breed," he said. "We’re people who run to what everyone else is running from".

As the CASA airplane takes off, the rear door open to the air, Staples rechecks her gear. About two-thirds of the temporary passengers are men, of all ages and ranging from very fit to some what fit.

The sky is full of clouds from a rainstorm that cannot will itself to rain, About 2,000 feet up the temperature in the cabin dips sharply, a relief for those wearing a lot of gear. There's a red light. When the light is yellow its time to get ready. Green means jump.

"Three seconds," Staples signals, relaying the message from the cockpit. The guy wearing the helmet that says "What's wrong with these people?" gives a thumbs-up.

Staples gets a new message: There's too much air traffic-a three-minute delay. The plane climbs to 14.500 feet, a little higher than usual.

Then the yellow light turns green and the skydivers move for the back door, all of them out in seconds in a variety of postures.

On the ground again, Staples says it was a perfect dive.

"It's amazing," she says "There's nothing like sitting (near an open door) a mile up or more. The blast of wind is exhilarating, and you're out there. Suddenly the canopy opens, and it's very peaceful, almost quiet."

Now she gathers up her chute. "This is the part we all hate - the packing."




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