Thursday, December 28, 2017 • Vol. 53, No. 32 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1
Stories of the year 2017
Wisconsin's PRIVATE PRACTICE OF THE YEAR RECIPIENT
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City of Verona
200-acre plan comes to commission JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
File photo by Scott Girard
New Century School and Verona Area International School director Ann Princl, left, talks with an attendee about plans for the proposed new high school at one of the many outreach meetings the district held both before and after the successful $180 million referendum for a new high school and other renovations.
Spending on schools $180 million referendum topped news of mayor’s exit It’s hard to make bigger news than a six-term mayor announcing he won’t run for re-election. Yet that announcement, from Jon Hochkammer in November, did not come close to the No. 1 story in 2017 here in Verona as voted on by Press staff: the school district’s successful capital referendum. The $180 million of ballot questions was approved with flying colors in April after the work to prepare for the election was our No. 1 story last year, as well, and it could remain there as a community cornerstone moves closer to becoming state-ofthe-art. The new high school on the west side of the city will bring about changes at all levels, as a middle school and charter schools move into the old high school campus and two buildings are abandoned. But plenty of other changes came about in 2017 that helped fill out our top 10. Hochkammer’s announcement will have a major impact on the political landscape in the city after years of continuity, putting it in the No. 2 spot, and the third and fourth most important stories in Verona in 2017 had impacts on the actual landscape. At No. 3 was the Main Street closure, which forced traffic shifts and extra business promotion to update and completely redo a major road in the center of the city. Right behind it
Stories of the year 1. Referendum approved 2. Mayor stops at 6 3. Community pool decision 4. Town Hall opens 5. Main Street, streetscape 6. Festival Foods approved 7. Sugar Creek Commons 8. VACT gets new home 9. Legion National Leader 10. Basketball star’s death
is the new Town Hall, set on a beautiful six acres near Epic. Then we have some planning by the city and developers, some successful and some less so. At No. 5 are the community pool plans, which were a major point of discussion throughout the year but have ultimately resulted in a lack of actual site options. Six and seven are for future developments: the Sugar Creek Commons that could reshape West Verona Avenue and a new grocery store in Festival Foods that will soon compete with the staple that is Miller and Sons Supermarket. At No. 8 comes Verona Area Community Theater achieving its dream of opening its own space after years of fundraising. No. 9 saw a local legion
member make a national splash as she became the first woman elected as National Leader of the American Legion. Rounding out our top 10 is our community’s support system, which showed itself in a time of tragedy as a Verona family dealt with the loss of their 21-year-old son, former Verona Area High School basketball player Will Kellerman. Within a couple of weeks of his death, a memorial scholarship had received more than $120,000 in donations.
1. Referendum approved The biggest successful capital referendum in Wisconsin history was an obvious choice for our biggest story of 2017. The successful high school referendum – which passed with more than two-thirds of voters in support of the main question – culminated years of work and will change one of the central pillars in the community for decades to come as the district plans for the expected growth in the years ahead. If anyone questioned the importance of schools in the community, April pretty much put that doubt to bed. The work might have gotten even more intense after the vote. By the end of the year, the district’s architect for the project had revealed
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The Plan Commission will review the largest development proposal it’s seen in years next week when it gets a first look at a plan for the North Neighborhood. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 2, a day later than usual because of the holiday. Unlike the city’s 2-yearold North Neighborhood plan, which takes an overall, general look at how development might and should occur in a wide area – 648 acres – this plan, submitted by Forward Development Group, is actually a development proposal, and it’s full of specific ideas for hundreds of homes and apartments and thousands of square feet of retail space. The 22-page FDG concept notably does not include a spot for a school,
something that is a central feature of the city’s plan. That prompted a letter that is included in the packet from Verona Area School District superintendent Dean Gorrell complaining that the developer refused to work with the district. Under the state’s Smart Growth law, all developments must be consistent with the city’s plans. The FDG plan also does not address the need for regional stormwater management – as the entire area is in a low spot that collects stormwater from elsewhere and won’t be able to drain quickly. It has a balance of about 60 percent single-family homes, which is close to the city’s current inventory, but one alder pointed out at this month’s Common Council meeting that the city’s policy aims for closer to 70-30.
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BPNN expands service territory Food pantry will soon serve entire 53593 ZIP code HELU WANG Unified Newspaper Group
Verona’s most prolific charity organization is preparing to serve even more people. Badger Prairie Needs Network is expanding its service territory at the start of 2018 to include the entire 53593 ZIP code, w h i c h o rg a n i z e r s s a y could add another 600 clients.
BPNN executive director Marcia Kasieta said the expansion aims to reach out to the underserved rural area beyond the Verona Area School District. She said the food pantry has had to turn down many people for Kasieta food pantry because they live on just outside the VASD boundary. “We don’t want to turn
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