Local Columnists

The only way for Illinois to avoid a fiscal apocalypse is to create a powerful, independent board that would administer bitter budget medici…

Greg Locascio always had it in the back of his mind to become a teacher, although he took a detour into journalism and then long-haul trucki…

Much of DeKalb County, and particularly the communities of DeKalb and Sycamore, is an area in transition. For decades, the biggest business …

In considering the plight of tenants in apartments throughout DeKalb, it helps to also consider the pressures facing the city’s landlords.

Two weeks ago, at the conclusion of our City Council meeting, I stated that we as a City Council are entrusted to do the right thing. At the…

Government gets a bad rap for being inefficient or wasteful. A lot of the time, it’s a deserved criticism. One only need look at the pension…

I visited my brother and his family in Oregon in September 2016, a little more than a year after the state’s ballot measure legalizing marij…

After my column about the DeKalb City Clerk flap two weeks ago, I received mostly negative feedback for “trivializing a serious issue” and a…

It looks as though DeKalb will welcome recreational marijuana sales within its limits after the City Council said it would support such a mo…

Editor’s Note: The following column is the remarks DeKalb Mayor Jerry Smith made at Monday’s meeting of the DeKalb City Council.