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Thursday, March 5, 2020 • Vol. 55, No. 42 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.50
Verona Area School District
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
From right, Xochilth Garcia, a Sugar Creek Elementary parent, serves cake as she talks with Lukas Hartberg, of Stoughton, during the Farewell to 420 Church Avenue/New Century School event on Saturday, Feb. 29, at the two school sites. Lukas’s father Darren, a 1995 Verona Area High School graduate, attended Sugar Creek in the 1980s and brought his family to see the school one last time.
One last time Current, former staff, families say farewell to district’s two oldest sites
KIMBERLY WETHAL Photo by Mark Nesbitt
Wildcats headed back to state The Verona boys hockey team celebrates after defeating Edgewood 5-2 in the Division 1 Edgewood Sectional championship. The Wildcats qualified for state for the third consecutive year. For more coverage, turn to Page 10.
Unified Newspaper Group
Many of the people who walked the halls and wandered the classrooms at Sugar Creek Elementary and New Century School last weekend had already said goodbye to the schools years or even decades before. But hundreds of people
took one last opportunity to say goodbye Saturday, Feb. 29, with the Farewell to 420 Church Avenue and New Century School event. It came exactly three months before the buildings will cease to be used for education. As a part of the process of constructing a new high school, six of 11 Verona Area School District schools will be shifting locations for the start of the 2020-21 school year, and the Sugar Creek and New Century buildings and land will be handed over to the City of Verona for
Turn to Farewell/Page 16
Town of Verona
Sarah Gaskell selected as town administrator ConnectVerona.com Is resigning as a City of Verona alder to avoid potential conflicts
“It has been my privilege to work alongside you and my fellow Alders and I am proud of the many improvements and changes that we have made possible for our community.”
KIMBERLY WETHAL
Sarah Gaskell
Unified Newspaper Group
The Town of Verona’s new administrator/planner is coming from a familiar place. On Monday, City of Verona Ald. Sarah Gaskell (Dist. 2) announced her resignation from the Common Council to take the job, which could present frequent conflicts of interest if she were to stay on as an alder. Her letter to fellow alders and staff said she will begin the job March 16. Neither Gaskell nor town chair Mark Geller responded to requests for comment Monday, March 2.
The Town Board selected Gaskell after at least two rounds of interviews over three other candidates. Gaskell, an alder since 2017, has spent almost two years as a senior development director for Boys and Girls Club of Dane County. Prior to that, she had an extensive background as a planner dating to 2005. The other finalists were Sarah Danz, clerk/treasurer of the Village of Maple Bluff; Jennifer Hanson, clerk/treasurer of the Town of Oregon; and John
Larson, director of public works at the Village of Cottage Grove. Gaskell’s predecessor, Amanda Arnold, left the town at the end of January after nearly eight years. She now works as a senior land use planner for JSD Professional Services, a civil engineering, land use and planning company that has a regional office on Horizon Drive in Verona. The town job drew 24 applicants after it was posted in December, and that was
Turn to Gaskell/Page 14
adding a paywall Print subscribers and online members will get full access JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
For more than a decade, non-subscribers to the Verona Press have been able to access most of our content for free on ConnectVerona.com. Beginning April 1, this will no longer be the case. All three websites for Unified Newspaper Group’s weekly newspapers – the
Press, the Oregon Observer and the Stoughton Courier Hub – will be behind a paywall, meaning for most of our content, readers will need a subscription. There will be exceptions, such as important breaking news, some submitted items and stories that are being covered regionally. Print subscribers will automatically get access with their $48 annual subscription, but for everyone else, the online subscription will cost $5 per month for access to all three websites.
Turn to Paywall/Page 14
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