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Friday, April 13, 2018 • Vol. 5, No. 2 • Fitchburg, WI • ConnectFitchburg.com • $1
Birth of a city
Inside
Fitch-Rona Art Crawl photos
35 years ago, Fitchburg stopped being a town
Page 2 Three arrested for alleged homicide
SCOTT GIRARD
Home and Garden section
Chamber celebrates 20 years Page 15
Sports
Photo by Alexander Cramer
I spy...
Maya Farr, 9, has found the jackpot during the Easter egg hunt at Fitchburg Farms on March 31. The greenhouse was warm and filled with the sounds of kids running down the aisles of plants on the blustery morning, finding plastic eggs at every turn. The fifth annual Easter egg hunt went for four hours, with staff replacing the plastic eggs after kids found them and exchanged them for bags of candy. Kids posed for pictures with the Easter bunny or waited in line to have their faces painted. Some of the older kids decided to decorate their own mini-planters, and more than a few parents went to the check-out line with new flowers for the spring season.
Fitchburg Police Department
Crime up, but city still ‘safe’ Several Regents compete at West Relays Section B, Page 2
Schools New principal hired at Stoner Prairie Section B, Page 7
Report: Fitchburg had 40 percent rise in crime in 2017 HELU WANG Unified Newspaper Group
Chad Brecklin recalls patrolling on his bike years ago, when he felt a close connection with the community. Now, as chief of the Fitchburg Police Department, he wants to bring back that connection to help reduce crime in a city that experienced
a 40 percent increase from 2016 to 2017. That includes increases of 52 and 40 percent increase of robbery and aggravated assaults, respectivel y, a c c o r d ing to the department’s 2017 annu- Brecklin al report, released in March. Brecklin, who began as chief in January, said the overall increase of 600 more incidents was mostly driven by such trends as a 180
percent increase of vehicle theft cases, from 24 to 68, a regional problem he said tends to be a crime of opportunity – when vehicles or doors are left unlocked. A focus on the thefts has resulted in 20 arrested juveniles, Brecklin told the Star. The violent crimes, such as robberies, assaults, reports of shots fired and shootings, were mostly committed by acquaintances, Brecklin said, explaining that random violence was rare.
Turn to Crime/Page 17
When Doug Morrissette moved to Fitchburg in 1971, it was all “cows and corn” outside his and his wife’s back window. Just over a decade later, he played a crucial role in a decision that would come to shape both his neighborhood – now full of houses and families – and the city surrounding it. “It was the most enjoyable thing I ever did,” Morrissette told the Star earlier this month, sitting in the same house he and his wife built nearly 50 years ago. That “thing” was turning the then-Town of Fitchburg, with a population of nearly 13,000, into a city that has fluctuated between the second- and third-largest in the county in recent decades. Thirty-five years ago this month, the state Supreme Court issued a divided decision that enabled the switch after years of battling between the town and its dwarfing neighbor, the City of Madison. Morrissette was the town chair when residents began taking steps to make the change in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While he was no longer
Read about the state Supreme Court decision Page 16 directly involved in the government by the time the court made its April 26, 1983, decision, Morrissette still attended many of the Town Board’s meetings – as evidenced by stories at the time in the Fitchburg Star – while officials navigated the changes from a town government to a city government. He later served six years as mayor from 1993-99. Jeanie Sieling was on the Town Board at the time, then joined the first Common Council and became the city’s second mayor in 1985. Sieling recalled how challenging the transition was. “It felt like sort of having a baby and trying to teaching them everything they need to know,” she told the Star over the phone earlier this month. “Everything was in its early, early stages.” In 2018, the decision
Turn to City/Page 16
Timeline March 1980: Petition filed for referendum on incorporation November 1980: State Supreme Court votes to allow referendum in suit by City of Madison April 1981: Town referendum supports becoming city January 1982: State Dept. of Development rejects town’s request to become city April 26, 1983: State Supreme Court approves Fitchburg request to become city on 4-3 decision July 12, 1983: First election of City of Fitchburg officials July 25, 1983: First Common Council, mayor sworn in
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