Top Stories April 2nd

CARE Continues to Gather Opinions on Detachment

4/2/09 - A Fox Lake area citizen’s group has raised $4,000 as part of their efforts to keep the elementary school open. Last month, the Waupun School Board approved more than $1-million-dollars in cuts including the closing of three elementary schools. Concerned Area Residents for Education member Ann McCarthy says they’ve hired an attorney who plans to file an injunction to keep the district from selling the elementary school right away. A survey was also sent to city and town of Fox Lake residents asking them their opinion on detachment and McCarthy says around 85-percent of the responses have been in favor of leaving the district and keeping the school open. CARE will be holding another meeting on April 21st to discuss the issue further.

Mayville Child Found with Aid of New Technology

4/2/09 - An 8-year-old Mayville boy, who was reported missing early this morning, was found, in part, by a new technology in Dodge County. Late last year the Board of Supervisors approved implementation of a reverse 9-1-1 system called Code Red that allows for authorities to call residents automatically if there is an emergency. This morning it got its first test after parents reported their son missing in Mayville. Soon after Dodge County Communications Director Pat Ninnman put out an alert within a seven-mile radius of the boy’s home. Emergency Management Director Joe Meagher says one of the people who got a call talked to her kids about the missing child, and through that, they were able to learn the missing boy had talked about moving in with a fellow classmate. Within 13-minutes the county was able to put out a cancellation of the alert when the boy was found at the friends home by police. Meagher says not everyone was happy with the call but of the 6,000 people that received the message only three complaints came in. For more information about the Code Red program and to add your cell phone number to the county’s list you can visit: Code Red or the Dodge County Sheriff's Department


Maysteel Details Closure

4/2/09 - It could be several more months before production stops at Maysteel in Columbus. Tom Funk, Vice President of Human Resources, tells us that they are still working their way through the process of consolidation with their plants in Allenton and Menominee Falls and don’t have all the particulars iron out as of yet. He says their first step was to notify employees, customers and vendors of their consolidation efforts and now they will take the next steps in the transition. They will be moving the plant “cell by cell” starting at the beginning of May and that is expected to continue through July or August. Funk says the size of their Allenton and Menominee Falls locations is nearly 400,000 square feet and that played a large part in their decision to close down the Columbus plant, which is around 63,000 square feet and could consolidate much more easily into the other facilities . Funk says their intent is to bring as much of the workforce from Columbus as they can to their other two locations, but he says it’s too early to tell how many workers that could mean. The closure affects 90 employees. For those that don’t make the transition, Funk says they will provide outplacement services and severance packages. Maysteel is a contract metal fabricator for a variety of products. The opened their Columbus plant in 1986.

Federal Stimulus Cash Coming to Area Schools

4/2/09 - Wisconsin schools are about to get the first dispersal of federal stimulus cash. The state Department of Public Instruction will soon dole out 365-million dollars. About 220-million is for special education programs. The rest will help low-income students. Agency spokesman John Johnson says it will take a few weeks to determine exactly how much each district will receive but initial projections indicate Beaver Dam will receive about $280,000-dollars, Columbus could see around $75,000, and Watertown is expected to get about $354,000. U-S Senate Democrat Russ Feingold says Wisconsin public schools will get a total of a billion stimulus dollars for special-ed and low-income programs. They’ll also be used to expand teacher training, and prop-up lower-performing schools. Feingold says all but 55 of the state’s 426 school districts have enough low-income students to get the Title-One stimulus money.

The following list lays out the projected amounts local districts could get.

Beaver Dam, $281,382
Columbus $75,884
Dodgeland $70,535
Fall River $44,740
Horicon $69,018
Hustisford $32,613
Kewaskum $98,597
Lomira $59,158
Markesan $146,031
Mayville $86,462
Randolph $47,782
Waupun $153,964
Watertown $354,192

Jacobson Retiring From Historical Society

4/2/09 - The Dodge County Historical Society is looking for a new curator. Mary Beth Jacobson will be retiring this spring after four years in the position. There is also a search underway to replace longtime board member Pat Lutz, who is moving out-of-state. The Dodge County Historical Society is located in the former-Williams Free Library in Beaver Dam and was established in 1938.

School Board Candidates Differ on QEO

4/2/09 - On Community Comment yesterday we spoke with three of the six candidates vying for the three open seats on the Beaver Dam School Board. Erin Broome, Bob Castro and Dan Feuling all provided different answers when asked their opinion about the state’s QEO. The Qualified Economic Offer limits annual salary and benefits increases to 3.8% if the school board and union are unable to come to agreement. Erin Broome says the QEO should be repealed and educators that are performing at a high level should be paid what they deserve. Dan Feuling says the QEO is important and he would not want to see it repealed, especially given the current state of the economy. Bob Castro says you can’t separate the QEO from the property tax caps that affect all districts. We continue our election coverage on Community Comment this afternoon when we welcome the second half of the school board panel. Del Yaroch, Gary Spielman and incumbent Marge Jorgenson join us for the hour beginning at 12:35pm this afternoon on WBEV 1430AM.

Sun Prairie Police Investigating Death

4/2/09 - A 24-year-old Sun Prairie man is in jail for allegedly killing a resident of his apartment complex. The suspect called 9-1-1 yesterday to say he was injured, and both a police car and an ambulance responded. While the officer was tending to the person, somebody else in the apartment building told the officer about a body. That body was a 31-year-old man found face down in a parking lot. The suspect reportedly confessed to the murder a few hours later. Authorities are not saying yet how the victim died – and they’re not saying how the suspect was hurt. He faces a possible charge of first-degree intentional homicide. Sun Prairie Police are still investigating. The apartment building is about 50 yards from elementary school which kept kids inside for recess while the case was being investigated.

Residents Getting Taxes Done Earlier this Year

4/2/09 - Wisconsinites continue to get their taxes done earlier. State Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin says about one-point-six million residents have filed their returns – about 200-thousand more than at the same time a year ago. The average refund is 664-dollars. Some experts say the tight economy is causing people to claim their money earlier. Eighty-two percent of returns have been filed electronically. And if you haven’t filed yet, Ervin suggests you do it on-line before the April 15th deadline. It’s free – and it’s easier this year, because the Internet form more closely resembles the one that’s filed on paper. Meanwhile, the Revenue Department also reminds businesses of a major new tax change. Last month’s budget repair bill extended the sales tax to custom pre-written computer software. The new law nullifies a Supreme Court ruling from last year, which said custom business software was not subject to the state sales tax. The case had punched a 265-million-dollar hole in current state budget.

Woman Follows GPS onto Snowmobile Trail

4/2/09 - G-P-S won’t always point you the right way. That’s what an Oshkosh woman learned this week, when her satellite navigation unit sent her onto a snowmobile trail – where she proceeded to get stuck. Langlade County sheriff’s deputies said the woman was going from White Lake to Laona on Tuesday, when her G-P-S sent her car onto a road that forked into the snowmobile trail. She drove on the frozen trail for several miles and then tried to turn around. But she got stuck, and a foot-and-a-half of snow soon built up around her car. Deputy Keith Svoboda said it took a while for officers to find her in the deeply-wooded area – and they needed heavy equipment to move the car. She spent the night at a motel. Here’s the moral of the story, as Svoboda puts it. “People shouldn’t believe everything those things tell you.”

Powerball at $126M

4/2/09 - The Powerball jackpot is at 126-million-dollars for the next drawing on Saturday. Nobody won the top prize last night, and nobody from Wisconsin won the 200-thousand-dollar second prize. The jackpot is above 100-million for the third time this year. Saturday’s cash option is about 69-million-dollars – which goes to a single winner who chooses to take the whole prize now instead of 30 annual installments.

EMS District Lines Examined in Columbus Area

4/2/09 - Proposals for a new Ambulance Service in the Columbus area may lead to changes in EMS District lines. The Township of Fountain Prairie on the northwestern edge of the City has drafted letters of intent to leave the Fall River Fire District and join Columbus in their contract with a “to be selected” commercial Ambulance provider. At this week’s Fall River meeting the town of Fountain Prairie presented a letter stating their intent to leave the District at the end of the 2009 contract year. Village Clerk Marie Abegglen said the Village and the Townships of Otsego and Courtland were not ready to change their EMS service. Abegglen said that District Chair Harlan Baumgartner did not rule out consideration of sharing EMS services. The Village of Fall River and their District partners would be losing their current municipal EMS if they agreed to join with the Columbus District in contracting with one of the four commercial vendors offering to provide Ambulance Service to the area. Meanwhile, the two Districts’ remaining Townships and the City of Columbus will be discussing recommendations to enter into contract negotiations with LifeStar Ambulance Service of West Bend to provide a Paramedic level of service for the realigned EMS District. The issue will be brought before the Council of the Whole on April 14th.

Lake Delton Half Full

4/2/09 - Efforts to refill Lake Delton have reached the halfway point. Water has been returning to the popular tourist attraction since December, and lake levels are expected to be back to normal in the next few months. Melanie Platt-Gibson with the Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau says the lake is on track to be back to normal by the Memorial Day weekend. A breach in the shoreline last summer caused almost all of the water to drain from Lake Delton, devastating the many resorts and businesses that rely on the lake.