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Thursday, August 22, 2019 • Vol. 135, No. 8 • Oregon, WI • ConnectOregonWI.com • $1.25
‘Full speed ahead’
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Oregon Observer The
Library fundraising starts in earnest with $500k head start JIM FEROLIE AND EMILIE HEIDEMANN Unified Newspaper Group
because of precautions he took to seal the perimeter of his home when he moved in. Now, Lake Barney, a glacial kettle that prior to flooding issues spanned 30 acres, has expanded to 800 acres and has raised the water table around Brown’s home to the west, also encroaching on the property of his neighbors. Its growth has encapsulated smaller lakes all the way to County Hwy. D, more than a mile to the west.
The more ambitious projects are coming with bigger checks and bigger challenges. The Oregon Public Library capital campaign is Oregon’s third major community fundraising project in as many years, and it has kicked off with the same sort of eye-popping support as the Oregon Youth Center in late 2017 and the Oregon Area Food Pantry a year earlier. Now armed with a $500,000 donation and concept plans for a two-story, 33,000 square foot facility on North Main Street, the library is culminating six months of planning and feedback with an all-out effort to meet or exceed its $4 million goal. It started two weeks ago when its architect presented a draft set of plans and renderings to the village’s Planning Commission. After getting positive comments from a joint Library Board and Village Board meeting Monday night, the library posted the new plans to its website to begin the transition from Way what library director Jennifer Endres Way called the “quiet phase” of fundraising into a more public phase. If fundraising goes well, Way said she hopes to start construction in 2021 and open in 2022 and turn the building into more of a community gathering place. The plans include three cost tiers within the same building footprint with an estimated range between $10.7 million and $12.1
Turn to Flooding/Page 7
Turn to Library/Page 12
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
John Brown, Town of Oregon resident, sits in what’s left of his basement. A rising water table forced him to take action last fall, when he filled the basement with around four feet of concrete to prevent water from collecting. His basement, previously a little more than eight feet tall, has been reduced to around four.
Under pressure
Lake Barney flooding damaging homes, changes ecology Unified Newspaper Group
Town of Oregon resident John Brown battled the rising water table on his property last fall – and nearly lost. After moving to Oregon 20 years ago, the 79 year old isn’t interested in moving. And when the flooding got bad last October, he didn’t think his home would sell anyway, given the condition the
rising water table left it in. So he sunk $20,000 into repairs to keep the house livable. “It was just a plain disaster,” Brown told the Observer while sitting in his basement-turned-crawlspace on Aug. 2. “I’ve never been through anything like it in my life.” Until last year, his 1860s-era home on County Hwy. D just south of County Hwy. M had no water issues, perhaps
Three guns, vehicle keys taken in Monday morning burglaries 3 homes in Bergamont neighborhood entered SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
Three long guns and at least three vehicle keys were taken during three burglaries in the Bergamont neighborhood Monday morning, the Oregon Police Department reported. In a Facebook post Monday afternoon, OPD asked residents in the areas of Winged
Foot Drive, Inverness Street and Nicole Circle to check any security camera footage and forward any video of suspicious activity. “We know from past criminal activity that these criminals are stealing vehicle keys from residences and coming back at a later time and stealing the vehicles,” the post states. “There were three reported vehicles thefts around the Madison area last night alone.” The guns taken were two rifles and a shotgun, OPD chief Brian Uhl told the Observer in an
email. The post encouraged residents to “secure your homes and vehicles and to remove valuables from plain sight.” “At least one of the residences were in fact secured but entry was made by prying open a back patio door,” according to the post. “Some of these homes were burglarized while the residents were sleeping inside so be mindful these criminals are becoming more emboldened primarily because of the lack of consequences they face from our
criminal justice system.” OPD replied to a comment asking the department to support the latter part of that statement with a link to a November 2018 article in The Capital Times detailing the challenges in the Dane County juvenile justice system. Uhl wrote in an email to the Observer that it was “still an active investigation so we can’t really say much more.” Contact Scott Girard at ungreporter@wcinet.com and follow him on Twitter @sgirard9.
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KIMBERLY WETHAL