For the first time ever, calls to the Woodstock Fire/Rescue District last year exceeded 5,000. That means call volume has more than doubled – 107 percent – since 2000, Capt. Karen Bush reported last week to the WF/RD Board of Trustees. Bush’s activity report for 2018 showed monthly calls ranged from a low of 373 […]
Voters had to choose from among 10 candidates in 2017 for four seats on the Board of Education for Woodstock School District 200. The choices will be easier in 2019. Only three candidates filed for election to the three seats that will be on the ballot in the April 2 consolidated election. When these same […]
After working four months without a contract, firefighters have ratified a new 3-year contract with the financially strapped Woodstock Fire/Rescue District. The district’s board approved the contract just hours later the same day last week, and terms became effective immediately. The contract was unchanged from the tentative agreement rejected July 6 by Woodstock Career Firefighters […]
On their way last Sept. 9 to a training session with the McHenry County Sheriff’s SWAT team, two tactical EMS personnel heard a call that diverted them just before 7:30 a.m. A motorcycle had collided with a car, and the rider had been thrown from his bike at Raffel Road and Route 120. So the […]
Woodstock’s traditional fireworks display – reliably set on the Fourth of July – will come on a Wednesday this year. Fireworks provider this year is the Mad Bomber Fireworks Productions, a multistate operation headquartered in LaPorte, Ind., with a Chicago-area office in Elgin. “We are a full-time pyrotechnics company, 24/7, 365 days a years,” the […]
Woodstock has a target date for opening a countywide facility for the homeless west of the city – October 2019. For everybody concerned, it can’t come soon enough. Mayor Brian Sager announced the tentative plan during a City Council meeting last week, when a standing-room-only crowd debated for 3½ hours on whether the city should […]
New ordinances will give Woodstock police new tools to address “inappropriate behavior” by the homeless this summer, Mayor Brian Sager promises. “I don’t want to say ‘aggressive,’” the mayor said during a forum on homelessness last week at Woodstock Public Library. “Police will have a ‘strengthened position.’” About 75 people attended the scheduled 90-minute forum […]
Larry Lough is editor of The Independent and reports local news.
Janet Dovidio has been a freelance correspondent for The Independent for eight years.
Susan W. Murray wrote for The Independent, covering various beats, from 2005 to 2008.
Tricia Carzoli is a freelance writer and photographer that on community news.
