Verona Press The
Thursday, February 13, 2020 • Vol. 55, No. 39 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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Verona Area School District
Starting the transition KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
Goodbyes are never easy – especially when they’re for buildings with decades of education history in their walls. In three-and-a-half months, a permanent goodbye for the Sugar Creek Elementary School and New Century School buildings will happen as students walk out the doors for the last time. In the meantime, current staff are working on ways for everyone to give them a proper send-off. When the school district moves out of the buildings this summer, the 102 year old New Century School building is expected to stay standing, as it’s on the
National Register of Historic Places, but Sugar Creek’s 64 year old, 64,000 square foot home will get demolished. The district is transferring ownership of the 12-acre site containing both schools later in the year to the City of Verona, which is expected to redevelop it. Sugar Creek principal Todd Brunner said staff are working to keep the experience of moving a positive one for the students. They’re planning to do that with events that bring current Sugar Creek students and around 130 new ones who are changing schools with new attendance boundaries taking effect in the fall. Those events include a public goodbye event Saturday, Feb. 29, a reading night in March at Badger Ridge Middle School, where Sugar Creek will
Turn to Goodbye/Page 16
Commons gets $3.2M in TIF Redevelopment deal for W. Verona Ave. has taken three years JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
The likelihood of a vacant, fenced-off 10-acre area along West Verona Avenue becoming apartments, a hotel and retail shops beginning this year i m p r ove d c o n s i d e r a b l y Monday, Feb. 10. After three years of negotiations with Forward Development Group, the Common Council – a group that has changed almost entirely since the start of those discussions – agreed to pay $3.2 million to the company to get rid of soil contamination and build
public infrastructure to serve the Sugar Creek Commons site. “I’m happy to see this move along,” Mayor Luke Diaz said before the unanimous vote. “This property has been blighted for years.” Over the decades, the area had been home to a truck stop, auto repair shop, car wash and volleyball court. The truck stop, operated most recently as the Chinmi restaurant and gas station, was abandoned about seven years ago. FDG had to assemble 10 individual parcels to create the project, which features 284 apartments, 26,000 square feet of retail and a 110-room hotel and
Turn to Commons /Page 12 The
Verona Press
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
From left, Badger Ridge Middle School teacher Shayla Glass-Thompson, Gayla Bullocks, Aster Gitchel and Acaliana Greenfield talk about what it means for people of color to wear their hair without it being policed during a Black Girls Circles of Support group session on Thursday, Jan. 9.
A space of their own Black Girls Circles of Support gives students a chance to share experiences, be themselves KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
On an early Thursday morning last month, an office right off of the quiet, sleepy library at Badger Ridge Middle School was full of laughter
and music. That room, occupied by BRMS teacher Shayla Glass-Thompson and her seventh and eighth grade Black Girls Circles of Support students, are working on their projects for the upcoming Black History Month Showcase on March 6 and connecting with one another over their commonalities with one another as teenage black girls. They’re making TikToks for the showcase and researching black culture, and talking about the importance of black women to
wear their natural hair without judgement. It’s a space where the girls can be themselves and talk about their shared experiences as young women of color, Glass-Thompson said. “Just knowing that there is a space that they can go to, with girls who are like them, and be able to hang out in a space where their language isn’t going to be policed, or just their way of being isn’t policed, I think
Turn to Circles/Page 13
City of Verona
Relationships will be a priority, chief candidates say Machotka, Arnold present to public, interview with PFC RENEE HICKMAN Unified Newspaper Group
Standing before members of the public on the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 4, Dan Machotka and Matthew Arnold each made the case for why they should be the next head of
Verona’s fire department. Made to a room largely filled with the blue uniforms of firefighters, the presentations came after a tumultuous year-and-a-half in the Verona Fire Department led to the installation of Machotka as acting chief. A previous search for a new fire chief came up empty in November after the retirement of former chief Joe Giver, who had been asked to resign a year
earlier by Verona’s firefighter’s union amid complaints about work culture. The two candidates e m p h a s i z e d t h e va l u e of relationships in their presentations, with both the community and with employees and paid-oncall members of the department. That combination of career and volunteer positions, known as a combo department, is a management challenge department
leaders have faced for the past two decades. Arnold, who came armed with a PowerPoint presentation, cited several examples from his time in Pennsylvania managing people in both paid and volunteer roles, and his experience working with and in unions. “I find regardless of w h e t h e r t h e y ’r e p a i d , part-time, volunteer, paid
Turn to Chief/Page 12
The Brothers Four They have played thousands of college concerts, sung for U.S. Presidents, countless community concerts, and symphony orchestras. Truly “Americas Musical Ambassadors to the World.”
Saturday, February 15, 2020 7:30 pm Verona Area High School PAC
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Sugar Creek, NCS staffs prepare to say goodbye to buildings
300 Richard St.
Verona Area Performing Arts Series
Tickets available at: www.vapas.org, State Bank of Cross Plains-Verona, Capitol Bank-Verona or 848-2787