The City Issues

Obviously you guys need a place to vent about the city in addition to the school.

Lunar Eclipse

There will be a full lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of the winter solstice, December 21. It will be from about 1:40 to 3:00 am. The last time it happened on Dec. 21 was 1638.

The School

I need to start a topic for you school guys. You could almost have your own blog.

Hwy 23 Accident

There was a terrible accident at Highway 23 and North Street Tuesday afternoon. Two people were killed and a semi truck drive injured. The police were there for at least 8 hours. My sympathies to the families involved.

I would guess this intersection gets more accidents than any other in Green Lake county. The DOT wants to close the Lawson drive entrance into town. That is the wrong intersection. People should not be able to turn into town from this intersection or it needs an underpass for County A with no access to Highway 23. The DOT wants to make this intersection the only access to the town essentially. Big mistake.

High School Football Game

Green Lake trounced Montello-Princeton 44-0 tonight. Now lets see how the Packers do.

Harvest Fest

It was a the usual fun weekend. I heard there were more people this weekend than ever before. The book sale at the library was very successful. Tuscumbia won the waiters race. The car show was excellent. Loved the weekend.

Norton's October Fest, Oct. 9

Norton's is having an October Fest on Oct. 9 from 4-8.

Tuba Dan and Die Spiel Meisters will be providing entertainment.

It is all you can eat and drink and by reservation only. I went last year and the food was great.

Elections

By now all of you who are interested know the school ref did not pass. I found it interesting that only 19 percent of the state registered voters actually voted. Sad.

I wonder how many of you who bitch at each other on this blog actually get involved in community activities. Or is bitching on here your community activity. Do any of you volunteer at any of the community festivals? Are you on any public committees? Do you donate any money to the charities? Or is it just easier to complain on here.

Sign Ordinance

The sign ordinance would seem to be one of the simple reasons we don't have any business in this town. It is not business friendly on many levels and now they want to make it worse. In this weeks paper Robin Wallenfang says "we don't want to be the sign Nazis. We simply want to see it enforced." Like sign Nazis. We barely have any business as it is but the city will make sure what we do have won't want to stay.
As I understand it 70% of the business in town are not in compliance. Robin seem to think we are becoming Wisconsin Dells. I wish we were even close to their problems with signs.

The Half Marathon 13.1

Did anybody get a chance to run or see the marathon this weekend? I saw the end of it and there were it sure brought a lot of people to town. I meant to get a picture and didn't quite get there for a good one.

They're BACK!!!

There will be another school referendum on the September 14th ballot. I haven't seen the wording for it yet but it has to be similar to the last 2. Good Luck!

Battle of the Bands at the Park

I think the Battle of the Bands was a great success. Lots of people there anyway. I have a problem that it was to raise money for the Chamber of Commerce. What is the Chamber doing that it needs more money? The Chamber is now its own fundraiser. Great.

Chalk Street Art

Mini Tornado

Looks like we had a little wind storm hit the lake last night. There are lots of trees down on the east end and Sunnyside got hit also. I saw a few tipped over boat lifts near the inlet.

Did anybody actually see a funnel?

Street Dance August 7

There will be a street dance this saturday August 7th to support and raise money for the Green Lake/ Town of Brooklyn Fire Dept. There is a raffle where you can win $1,000 and lots of fun.

See You There!

GLO Meeting (click on the posting to enlarge it)

Band Stand Stairs

I went to the band concert on Wednesday night. It was excellent. As I was sitting on the lawn I was watching several people try to negotiate the uphill slope. some of them were older or had health problems, not to mention the humidity. They had a very difficult time trying to get up the side of the hill. Many of them were carrying folding chairs and it was tough for them to get up there. Shouldn't it be a fairly easy fix to put in some sort of stair case for them to get up there? North of the bathroom would seem to be the best spot.

Boat Show & Water Ski Show at Norton's Today

There is water skiing show at Norton's at 6:30 tonight. I hope the lake isn't too rough for them.

Public Pier Parking

I've always been under the impression that is pier, located in the mill pond is a public pier. If this is true why aren't there any signs to let visiting boaters they can park there. It would be a great help for the downtown restaurants.

Jack Taylor Death

The loss of Jack Taylor last week will have an impact on the community. Jack always ran the car show for Harvest Fest. He would go out to other car show around the state and hand out fliers for this car show. He contacted car clubs. He kept car enthusiasts aware of the car show. It made Harvest Fest special. He pretty much did it on his own. I hope there is a group out there to pick up the slack on the car show because it will be missed.

Green Lake Fireworks/Marching Band

I thought the fireworks were pretty great this year. Thanks to all of you who contributed money to support them.

I went to see the UW Marching Band this week. I think they should call it the Brass band because it isn't the whole marching band these guys do a great job. As the rain came down the lake they continued to play and then played right through the rain. I really enjoyed them.

ABA History

On June 17th at 7:00 Brad Carroll will be giving a talk at the library on the History of the ABA. His family has been involved with the conference center for many years and it should be pretty interesting.

Courthouse

I still think they should seriously consider turning the courthouse into a casino. At one time, in the distant past this lake had 3 of them. It would provide jobs, year around tourism and some life to the downtown. We need it.

I love what they finally did with the sidewalk on Mill Street. It looks great.

School Ref April 6

Well I guess the ref went down in flames with Rouse and Ferrel elected to the school board. Next?

Ripon Paper on Ref Voting

There was an article in the Ripon paper by Aaron Becker on the voting in the last school referendum. He made very good points and backed it up with numbers. I look forward the next referendum. I have a feeling it will pass this time. They school board did a very bad job of educating the public about the need for the increase, why we have such a high per student cost and renewing Ken Bates contract just before they are asking for more money. Not the best planning on their part. Have they considered any consolidation of high schools at all? I can understand a community wanting to keep a grade school in a town, but what about High School consolidation? Is this being discussed at any level or are we going to be hit with these referendums forever?

Feb 16, 2010

Tuesday is the school board primary and referendum vote. Tell your neighbors and friends to make their point of view known.

County Board Meeting on Court House Options

Last night the county board had a meeting to hear options on the old Courthouse. It wasn't really options but what the county should do with it while it houses the 40 people that it left behind while the rest of them move out to the new building. I need to look at the pamphlet they handed out. It gave money figures for the options they were looking at but I did not have copy. They did hear from the Cornerstone Project people on what they would like to do with it.

I am very leery of the Cornerstone Project. I don't really see a need for it. We live in a county with a population of 19,000. The average age is 41.5 and getting older. We are building a bike path, we have a lake. We have winter sports. Most of these things are not being utilized to their full potential now. They say they don't want or expect tax dollars but I'm doubtful of that in the future if they get the funds to get off the ground. We don't have a population to support this sort of project.

School Board Ref. Feb 16 Continued

If you haven't read last weeks letter in the Ripon Commonwealth from Nancy Burns, former administrator of the Green Lake School District try to get a copy. It is direct and to the point by someone who has been there. She makes the point that it could raise Green Lake Prop. taxes by 25 percent this year by a school district that already exceeds the revenue cap by $600,000 per year already.

As a side note about voting in the school referendum these are the voting requirements that I got from the county:

1.Must have resided in the state of Wisconsin for at least 10 days in the last year, not consecutively.


2. You may register at the time you vote at the residents polling place.

3. You will not be able to vote in the spring election where you otherwise reside (Ill, Arizona, Florida for example) and will have to re-register there for their elections.

4. If you want to vote by absentee ballot it must be in by Feb. 11 for the Feb. 16 election.

Town of Brooklyn phone number is 920-294-6600
City of Green Lake phone number is 920-294-6912
Town of Green Lake phone number is 920-398-3492

I would call your government office to double check all this.

Careful on The Ice

I heard three people went through the ice at Horner's Landing today. One was on a snowmobile. I guess they all got out OK.

School Ref. on Feb. 16 for tax increase

The current school budget is about 6.1 million for the school On Feb 16 they are asking for permission to spend more.

For the next school year that would be about 775,000 increase over the current budget.

As I understand it this is perpetual.

2010 increase would be 775,000

2011 increase would be 1.1 million

2012 increase would be 1.3 million