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F AMILY O WNED & O PERATED S INCE 1869 Stoughton • Madison • McFarland Deerfield • Sun Prairie • Waunakee
Thursday, November 1, 2018 • Vol. 137, No. 15 • Stoughton, WI • ConnectStoughton.com • $1.25 adno=37202
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City of Stoughton
Going with the flow
Officials optimistic about whitewater park’s future ALEXANDER CRAMER Unified Newspaper Group
Photos by Amber Levenhagen
The Stoughton High School Norwegian Dancers perform during Destination Stoughton Weekend. The dancers performed in the Community Building after judging Halloween costumes, before they headed out to Main Street to join the community for downtown trick or treating.
Dancers lead Destination Weekend The Stoughton High School Norwegian Dancers performed Saturday, one of the highlights from Destination Weekend. Hundreds flocked to Main Street and the downtown area on Friday and Saturday for the annual event of shopping, trickor-treating and Norwegian pride. The dancers judged Halloween costumes and participated in trick-or-treating with the community before and after the performance on Saturday. The featured event for the weekend again this year was the Wisconsin State Rosemaling Association’s holiday bazaar at the Stoughton Fire Department.
Though the city has missed out on a million-dollar grant to pay for a whitewater park in 2019, officials remain optimistic the Yahara River recreational amenity will stay on course. City leaders left a postmortem meeting with representatives from the state Department of Natural Resources Oct. 15 optimistic the park – and the DNR grant – still has a future. The city’s 2019 budget, still being discussed, has earmarked around $100,000 to pay for engineering work agency representatives told Stoughton it wanted to see done. A whitewater park is something like a skate park for paddlers. The current concept is to install rapids and other water elements in a roughly 1,000-foot stretch of the Yahara River downstream of the Stoughton Dam and under the Fourth Street bridge for paddlers to test their mettle in the churning water.
Dan Glynn, Stoughton’s parks director, wrote the grant application and has been shepherding the project through the grant approval process. He said the park would be the first of its kind in the state, different from the one in Wausau, and the DNR is being conservative to make sure the project is successful. “I don’t blame the DNR,” Glynn said. “It’s (a) conservative (decision). If we were in a state where it’s been done, and they have experience, it would’ve been more of a known thing.” There are many of these parks around the country, according to an economic-impact study of the project by the University of Wisconsin-Extension that Glynn solicited and co-authored. The $2.2 million grant application, which would be split 50/50 with city funds, calls for nearly 2,000 feet of trails along both sides of the area, seating areas for public viewing and a site to rent canoes and kayaks. It also envisions businesses that would cater to the target audience by selling things like sunscreen or a view of
Turn to Park/Page 12
Stoughton Area School District
‘Innovation Center’ gets a boost Wahlin Foundation donates $250K; board to revisit project Monday
– Amber Levenhagen
On the web More photos from Destination Weekend:
ConnectStoughton.com Jasmine Napier, 4, wears a Sally costume from Nightmare Before Christmas.
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– including approval by the Stoughton Area School Board – the project already has a nice head start on possible fundraising. Last week, the district announced a $250,000 comSCOTT DE LARUELLE mitment from the Wahlin Foundation, the fundraising Unified Newspaper Group arm of Stoughton Trailers, W h i l e t h e r e i s m u c h which is the largest gift in work ahead to start a pro- their history, said Fab Lab posed district-community Stoughton adviser Mike “Innovation Center” project Turn to Innovation/Page 4
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