Verona Press The
Thursday, July 26, 2018 • Vol. 54, No. 10 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
30 Years Experience, Call Today!
608.575.3290 bdawson718@tds.net barb.restainohomes.com
Serving Home Buyers & Sellers
Barb Dawson Realtor
adno=581923-01
City of Verona
Lincoln St. apartments win in revote JIM FEROLIE
Inside
Verona Press editor
A controversial plan to put 90 apartments on Lincoln Street next to an old neighborhood got a key approval Monday. T h e Ve r o n a C o m m o n Council voted 6-1 in favor of the general development plan after listening to 40 minutes of public comment mostly against the project. The GDP approval essentially guarantees its developer the right to build the project despite there being a final approval step remaining in the planned-unit development process. The plan, by developer John Dohm, who owns Prairie Crest apartments on the south side of the city, is the same as the one alders
City negotiating on high school access road Page 3 voted 5-3 against in March. It’s a single, L-shaped building on the 3.2-acre lot where sump cleaner manufacturer Cecor had been for decades – one side abuts the Military Ridge State Trail, and the other hugs Lincoln Street. The project’s design was modified significantly since it debuted a year earlier, in deference to
Turn to Apartments/Page 13
Council interviews 2 alder candidates Vote planned for Aug. 27 JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
After hearing from the two people who applied for the District 1 alder vacancy Monday, the Common Council will have a month to think about it. Local veterinary clinic
practice manager Robert Feller and bank teller Christine Posey each spoke briefly, with alders asking only a few questions. Far more information was in the applications each submitted, with nine questions about themselves, the community and their beliefs. Posey, a native of Verona,
Turn to Alder/Page 14
Inside Get to know some neighbors in your community in our People You Should Know section Page 7 The
Verona Press
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
Front left, Mary Ruth Marks trains with the horses she’ll be competing with next week. Her three assistants, Isabelle Kunze, Maysn Prucha and Hannah Guenther, will be going with her to Goshen, Ky., for the final qualifying competition for the Fédération Equestre Internationale’s World Equestrian Games from Aug. 3-5.
Pulling together
Verona driver to compete at World Equestrian Games qualifier KIMBERLY WETHAL Unified Newspaper Group
Verona equestrian Mary Ruth Marks will have had a lot of help to get to Kentucky next week. Her son Russell Marks started a GoFundMe page to improve her equipment; her sister purchased a Zilco driving harness from New Zealand for her; and her third-grade friend Adrianne Gear Hall sent her $1,000 for a wagon. All of it was needed so she can be among the six elite drivers competing in the Aug. 3-5 combined driving competition in Goshen, Ky. – the final qualifying round before the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) World Equestrian Games. In what she calls “a rich-man’s game,” where her competitors are significantly better off financially, the help from the community around her was key. That help also included a clinic with the driver Marks considers to be the No. 1 horse driving clinician in the world, Netherlands native Bram Chardon. Her longtime supporter Dale Houston, paid $1,000 a day to make that happen. “(Chardon) said (to me), ‘The thing is, I go to other people’s places and they’re all about, “look at my
‘This is kind of like a last hurrah.’ – Mary Ruth Marks gorgeous barn, look at my gorgeous horses, look at how much money I have,’” she said. “He said, ‘You’re all about the horses. And you can drive.’ “He changed my life,” Marks added. The United States Equestrian Federation elite athlete won’t make it past the qualifying round with her Russian Arab-German pony crossbreds – to compete in the FEI World Equestrian games in Tryon, N.C., a driver has to clinch two qualifying scores, the first of which Marks would have already needed to secure prior to the Kentucky event. But she is looking to have no timing or jumping errors in the cones portion of the event, improve her dressage scores and “scare a few people in the marathon.” “This is kind of like a last hurrah,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to quit when I’m done with this season, but I might.” Marks, a native of Jackson, Miss., was introduced to the sport of driving through a combination of her sister’s
father-in-law’s collection of carriages – he had the longest privately owned public stable in the country – and pleasure driving’s popularity within the state. After moving north, Marks competed in her first combined driving event in the 1980’s in Sauk City to do “something different.” “I went to that first competition and didn’t have all of the right equipment,” she said. “But that’s never stopped me before.” Now, decades later – she’ll turn 70 during the World Equestrian Games – Marks is the only competitor at the games who’s bred, raised and trained her own horses, she said. She manages the personalities of her herd animals – one a “ditzy blonde,” one an overachiever, one who’s sort of lazy and the last who’s laziest of all – by being the “alpha male” atop the carriage, she said. She’s got her own 40-acre farm just southwest of Verona’s city limits where she’s been doing cone lessons alongside other drivers, and will continue to train each day until they leave for Kentucky. “We’re not going to win,” she said. “We’re beyond winning. We don’t have enough time left.”
Turn to Equestrian/Page 16
EXPERIENCE THE UPTOWN LIFESTYLE
608.441.9999 avanteproperties.com
VISTA APARTMENTS
OPENING SUMMER 2018
5120 E Cheryl Parkway, Fitchburg, WI adno=578802-01