Thursday, November 29, 2018 • Vol. 54, No. 28 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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City of Verona
Investigation: ‘Unprofessional’ behavior at VFD Reports, interviews detail years of workplace complaints JIM FEROLIE
Photos by Mark Nesbitt
Verona Press editor
A trio of Verona Area High School graduates are playing for the Badgers women’s basketball team this year. From left, 2014 graduate Lexy Richardson, 2016 graduate Grace Mueller and 2017 graduate Alex Luehring.
Trio brings Wildcat connection to Badgers Wisconsin off to best start since 2006-07 season Assistant sports editor
Three former Wildcats spent Thanksgiving in Nashville, but they weren’t visiting family. The three – Lexy Richardson, Grace Mueller and Alex Luehring – were playing for the Wisconsin Badgers women’s basketball team in the Challenge tournament. Each has overcome obstacles and taken a different path to become a Badger. But all of them are cherishing the Wildcat connection on the Badgers this season. Mueller and Luehring were teammates on Verona’s WIAA Division
1 state championship team in 2016 before they went their separate ways – Mueller to UW Madison and Luehring a year later to UW-Green Bay. But neither played last year, with Luehring redshirting and then transferring to Madison to be near her ailing father and Mueller losing last season to injury. Richardson, who played with Mueller for two seasons and Luehring for one, earned a scholarship last year after starting out as a manager for the team and then a walk-on. Wisconsin coach Jonathan Tsipis said the Wildcat trio has brought a connection to the Badgers that makes the program stronger. “You see there isn’t one path,”
Tsipis said. “You see three kids who played in a really strong program with Angie Murphy. It was really a lot of pride to be able to put a Badger uniform on.” And now they’re together again. “It’s really exciting,” Luehring said. “I’m so happy to be here. It’s always been a dream of mine to play for the Badgers. I’m really happy to be at home. It feels even more like home with two of my high school teammates.” Luehring, a 2017 Verona Area High School graduate, is one of the first players off the bench for the Badgers, averaging the third-most
Turn to Badgers/Page 10
Hometown Holidays mingles with Jingle The annual Hometown Holidays, which runs from Dec. 7-9, opens with the arrival of Santa for a tree Schedule of events lighting at Central Park at 5 p.m. The weekend comPage 5 prises of a variety of other KIMBERLY WETHAL events, including the annuUnified Newspaper Group al chili dinner at the senior It’ll officially be the hol- center with the fire depart- and Mingle event, two othiday season in Verona as of ment, the Verona Road er opportunities to meet Business Coalition’s Jingle with Santa, ice sculptures next weekend.
Saturday events include crafts, reindeer
Inside
around the city and reindeer at the library. Le Jordan, executive director of the Verona Area Chamber of Commerce, said that weekend-long event helps Verona live up to its “Hometown USA” moniker. “I think it’s the whole
Turn to Holidays/Page 5
Turn to Fire/Page 11
Tax rate rises 3 percent Assessor’s error leads to larger increase
Inside City looking into replacing assessor
JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
Upon further review, the city’s tax-rate increase is back to 2.7 percent. Because of a “data keypunch error” by the city assessor, city residents will pay significantly more than the .7 percent increase that the city’s spending should have accounted for. Worse, that error will affect taxes for all jurisdictions for city taxpayers. City administration had hoped to persuade state
Page 12 Department of Revenue officials to allow a correction, and it was presented as such at the Nov. 12 Committee of the Whole budget review meeting. That attempt was rejected, officials revealed before the Nov. 19 public hearing. The result is an increase
Turn to Taxes/Page 12
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MARK NESBITT
An investigation into allegations of misconduct at the Verona Fire Department made earlier this year revealed “unprofessional” and “inappropriate” behavior on a regular basis but also systemic problems extending back many years. The Verona Press this month obtained a partially redacted copy of the August 2018 Riesling Group report on assistant chief Don Catenacci, which looked into specific complaints about churlish comments, unwanted touching and rough behavior. A companion report sent to a several media outlets earlier this month detailed a variety of concerns from Verona fire station workers about the culture of the department
and lacking leadership. City leaders commissioned the report after the firefighters’ union sent a letter to them in response to chief Joe Giver’s discipline of a union memb e r, s a y i n g the assistant chief had exhibited similar Giver behavior but not been disciplined. The city forwarded the investigation report to the Press on Nov. 20 after an open-records request a week earlier – the day the union called for the chief to step down. In general, the report found the facts consistent with the allegations about Catenacci’s behavior, which included rubbing the heads of other bald people, comments and questions about homosexuality and undesired touching of people’s faces. But it found varying perspectives about the impact of the behavior and