Council Approved Contract With Beaver Dam Firefighter Union
5/6/14 – The Beaver Dam Common Council Monday night approved a two-year contract with the firefighters union. The two-year contract for 2014-and-2015 is retroactive to January first and includes a three-and-a-half percent increase in each of the next two years. That increase will be offset by a two-percent increase each year in the employee contribution to their retirement fund, from three-percent to five-percent this year and then up to seven-percent next year. Firefighters will also pay more toward their health insurance, increasing from 11-percent to 12-percent during the contract. The council also approved a memorandum of understanding with the union that allows the department to create a paramedic position that is staffed during peak daytime hours, when emergency responders are busiest. The traditional shift is one-day-on, two-days-off. The new day shift would be 10-hours a day Monday through Friday. The addition of the new paramedic staffed during peak hours was first approved last fall with the city’s 2014 budget.
Beaver Dam Hires Demolition Company For Fountain Inn
5/6/14 – The Beaver Dam Common Council Monday night approved the hiring of a demolition company to raze the shuttered Fountain Inn Tavern. Corex Excavation and Construction of Sun Prairie was the lowest of four bidders at $63-thousand for the building at 203 Front Street. City Engineering Coordinator Ritchie Piltz says the building should be razed this summer when the water levels of the Beaver Dam River are at their lowest levels. After a five-year ordeal, the city acquired the century-old structure last year for $179,500. The Fountain Inn was the last riverfront building standing after a city buy-out of ten other properties following the 2008 floods. The other property owners all sold to the city and had their buildings demolished the following year. However, the feds determined in 2012 that the original buy-out process was flawed and the property owners may be entitled to additional money. That includes possible relocation costs, loss of rent, attorney fees and the pre-flood market value of the properties, not the assessed value as was agreed upon. The matter has sparked a civil lawsuit by the former owner who is suing the city for an undisclosed amount of money. The vote was 8-to-3 with one abstention.
City Façade Work Will Not Cover All Of Exposed Corner Building
5/6/14 – The Beaver Dam Operations Committee Monday night approved the color and designs of a façade that will be installed over the brick exposed following the demolition of the downtown building at the corner of Front and Center streets. The corner building at 152 Front Street shared a wall with the neighboring restaurant and required slow and deliberate demolition. The city’s Operations Committee last night approved a façade that will cover most, but not all, of the exposed brick. It was learned last night that exposed brick above and behind the main wall is not a responsibility of the city. Officials are going to inform the restaurant owners of a grant program in the city that would allow the business to cover one-third of the cost of painting or other upgrades on the portion of the building that will not be improved.
Committee To Decide On Need For Sidewalks On South Lincoln
5/6/14 – The Beaver Dam Operations Committee is going to have to decide at their next meeting if new sidewalks will be poured for the first time during this summers planned reconstruction of South Lincoln Avenue. The $660-thousand project runs from South Lincoln Avenue from Judson Drive to East Davis Street. An information meeting last month drew 20 residents. City Engineering Coordinator Ritchie Piltz says the affected property owners generally support new curb and gutter and concrete street improvements. However, Piltz says there was overwhelming opposition to the installation of new sidewalk, the cost of which will be shared with the property owner. The public can submit written comments to the city prior to the next Operations Committee meeting on May 19, when officials will decide on design options. There is precedent for city residents successfully fighting city hall. In 2009, residents along Lake Shore Drive successfully derailed city plans install sidewalks along the deteriorating street. Lake Shore Drive has not been in the city’s five-year plan for street improvements since that time.
Lawmakers Mulling Salt Appropriation
5/6/14 – State lawmakers will decide today whether to spend 27-million dollars to pay for extra road salt and snow removal costs during the brutal winter. If the Joint Finance Committee does not approve the funding, county highway officials say they’ll have to cut back on road maintenance to make up for what they spent this past season. The extra funds could be provided by an unexpected D-O-T surplus of up to 37-million dollars for the current fiscal year. Also today, the finance panel will be asked to approve a new system to make sure U-W campuses cannot sit on millions-of-dollars in surpluses like they did a year ago. That upset lawmakers who responded by freezing the university’s tuition. The finance committee will also consider a contract to have a firm administer 25-million dollars in tax money to help new Wisconsin businesses get off the ground. Sun Mountain Kegonsa — a joint managing firm based in Fitchburg and Santa Fe New Mexico — would contribute 300-thousand dollars to the state’s new venture capital fund, and raise five-million more. Half of the pot would have be invested in new companies within a year, and all of it within two years.
Deputy Tourism Secretary In Beaver Dam
5/6/14 – The Deputy Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Tourism was in Beaver Dam Monday as part of National Travel and Tourism Week. Dave Fantle discussed last year’s tourism statistics for Dodge County during a luncheon at Old Hickory Golf Club Beaver Dam that was hosted by the Chamber and Rotary Club. As we reported, numbers released Friday show that tourism spending was 5.8-percent higher last year than in 2012. Fantle also noted that business sales were up 4.9-percent. Tourism employment in Dodge County was down last year by less than a half-percent but the income of those in the local tourism industry went up 1.5-percent. State and local sales taxes generated from tourism increased 2.2-percent. Fantle says travel and tourism is a cash-generating machine for state and local governments. Those in attendance yesterday were also able to view the seasonal television commercials the state has been running directed by film makers and Shorewood, Wisconsin natives Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams.
Beaver Dam Heirloom Pepper To Get Its Own Festival
5/6/14 – There is a pepper that is known as the Beaver Dam “heirloom” pepper and for the first time ever the city of Beaver Dam plans to celebrate that connection. The Beaver Dam Pepper Festival is planned for October 4 at the Park Village Shopping Center. The Chamber of Commerce has announced the details of an informational meeting planned this Thursday for the public and business community to meet the festival planning team. The meeting will be held at the Moraine Park Technical College Beaver Dam campus from 10:30am until noon with a presentation at 11am. Contact: Diana Ogle at doandgo@charter.net or call (920) 382-6453.
Hank The Dog Not Elected To Brown Deer School Board
5/6/14 – Somebody wanted Wisconsin’s most famous dog to serve on a suburban Milwaukee school board. Brown Deer counted one write-in vote for Hank in the April first school board election. Hank is the dog who touched people’s hearts when he showed up as an orphan as the Milwaukee Brewers had their spring training in Phoenix. Nobody claimed him, so the family of a Brewers’ vice president adopted him — and Hank now has a home at Miller Park where he occasionally shows up to greet his thousands of fans. Brown Deer Village Clerk Jill Kenda-Lubetski joked that Hank will need more publicity if he wants to run for something in the future. The problem is, his write-in ballots might not be counted anymore. Governor Scott Walker signed a state new law just over a month ago in which write-in votes for Hank, Mickey Mouse, and other famous characters and people no longer be counted in the interest of saving time. Starting in August, the only write-ins that must be counted are of candidates who register beforehand. Those who die or withdraw after getting on the ballot would still have their votes counted, as normal.
