The school year is returning, and with it comes the start of the new high school football season. Plus, keep up with the latest prep football scores in The Courier News sports section. The clock starts ticking for emergency workers the moment they are sent on a call.
Every minute is vital, and an unfamiliar address over the radio can mean delays.
But in the swiftly growing Fox Valley, cities and villages aren't wasting time updating mapping systems and familiarizing police officers, firefighters and ambulance crews with new areas. As in most areas, patrol officers in Kane County become familiar with existing roads and streets and try to learn new ones as they are planned and built. Ten years ago, emergency dispatchers who didn't know where an address was looked it up on a map. Now it pops up right on their computer. The city wants to make its planning process for the 2002 budget more than city officials sitting in a room deciding how much money to devote to certain projects and programs.