2021 Year in Review: Sept. – Dec.
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The final four months of the year contained some of the biggest news of the year. Check it out.
v27i35 Sept. 3-10
Woolly the Mammoth, a life-sized sculpture created by artist Carl Vanderheyden, was transported from Edgewood Orchard Galleries in Fish Creek to his new home in Sturgeon Bay’s Bayview Park; a new affordable housing and retail project will soon be under construction in Baileys Harbor; local veterans talked about their tours of duty in Afghanistan following the United States’ withdrawal from that country; the Gibraltar School District discussed the possibility of moving to a nut-free school policy to protect students with nut allergies; and June room-tax receipts showed a continued record boom in the lodging industry, with growth of 43% above the same month in 2019.
v27i36 Sept. 10-17
The Door County Board of Supervisors approved the creation of two K-9 units for the Sheriff’s Office and adopted a land acknowledgment statement that recognized the peninsula as the ancestral homeland of specific native American tribes; and Door County United Way announced its most ambitious campaign goal of $775,000, following a record year of giving in 2020.
v27i37 Sept. 17-24
The Village of Egg Harbor adopted a parking ordinance change; Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) introduced a bill that would appropriate funding to repair the Potawatomi State Park Observation Tower; a group working on Baileys Harbor playground improvements received approval from the town board to raise funds for the project; and jumping worms, an invasive species, announced their presence on the peninsula.
v27i38 Sept. 24-Oct. 1
From Summer Resort to Summer Housing
Sister Bay Bowl’s Paula Anschutz began a project this month that includes moving cottages once destined for the wrecking ball at the old Little Sister Resort to a new location for the repurposed use of affordable housing.
Fincantieri Sprucing Up Streetscape
The shipbuilder released conceptual designs for a streetscape project that will take place in 2022 to add landscaping, fencing, trees and an interpretive site for maritime history along 3rd Avenue from Jefferson to Iowa streets.
School Boards Mandated Masking for Most
School boards continued to struggle with pandemic safety guidelines, walking the line between public-health advice and parents who wanted mask mandates to end. As of this date, all schools still largely had universal masking directives in place, with some mask restrictions eased for older students.
v27i39 Oct. 1-8
DCMC Unveiled Plans for Sister Bay Medical Clinic
First revealed during a Sister Bay Plan Commission meeting this week, the $14.5-million, 30,000-square-foot medical center in Sister Bay is slated for a November 2022 opening.
County Mapped New Districts
The Door County Board of Supervisors approved the preliminary maps that charted its 21 district boundaries for the next 10 years. From this point, the maps went to municipalities to draw their new wards; they were returned; and the supervisors approved the final maps in November.
v27i40 Oct. 8-15
Kwik Trip Coming to Sturgeon Bay’s East Side
Rumors turned to reality this week when the Peninsula Pulse confirmed that Kwik Trip would present formal plans later in the month to the Sturgeon Bay Plan Commission. By year’s end, the company was well on its way to obtaining the approvals it needed to build a store and car-wash development on six different parcels of land on Egg Harbor Road where Malvetz Furniture and Floor Covering is currently located.
The Door County Budget Project
We released a project that was a year in the making that accumulated all the 2020 budgets of Door County’s 19 municipalities – plus the County of Door – as a baseline for moving forward, and also as a source of data to compare budget items. We released some of those comparables in this issue to accompany the online report.
Sister Bay Released First Formal Capital Improvement Plan
The plan will be updated annually as part of the village’s overall budget process. We reported in the following issue on the three highest-ticket items listed for the next five years: street improvements, a new ice rink and a new government center.
New Partnership Bridging Housing-Affordability Gap
Door County Habitat for Humanity and the Door County Housing Partnership announced their new partnership and first homeowner: Melissa Krueger and her children will purchase the home being built at 803 N. 6th Place in Sturgeon Bay. The home would be completed by year’s end.
v27i41 Oct. 15-22
The Gibraltar Town Board would ask residents during a Nov. 15 town meeting to approve a purchase of $3.5 million for the Holiday Harbor Waterfront Cottages and its docks to add to the town’s dock slips, a purchase the voters would approve; the Village of Egg Harbor approved additional parking and a storage facility for One Barrel Brewing; and we reported on the security features included in the $16.8 million Sturgeon Bay schools project and shared the living legacy of Carl Scholz.
v27i42 Oct. 22-29
A feature film with Craig T. Nelson was being filmed in Door County; Packers running back AJ Dillon, through his social-media posts, has been sharing his love and advocacy for Door County; the City of Sturgeon Bay, having purchased the 19-acre Zak property on Shiloh Road for $580,000 to fill in an industrial-park gap, announced its intent to put the residential portion of the property up for sale; the new county district boundaries caused the City of Sturgeon Bay to eliminate nine wards; lodging establishments set a record high for nights filled in July; the city neared finalization of its 2022 budget, with a small decrease in the property tax; and Coborn’s announced the purchase of Tadych’s Econofoods.
v27i43 Oct. 29 – Nov. 5
Kwik Trip’s plans for its Sturgeon Bay site continued to move forward; we shared the personal journeys of those who have traveled through Treatment Court as a preview to the forum that would be held at the Kress Pavilion in Egg Harbor; Department of Natural Resources conservation warden Mike Neal of Baileys Harbor received the First Responder of the Year honor for the 1st Assembly District; the City of Sturgeon Bay revealed more housing plans; schools were relaxing pandemic guidelines; and dialing the area code for all numbers became required because of a new national mental health 988 hotline, similar to 911.
v27i44 Nov. 5-12
Ship launch.jpg
Fincantieri Launched New Freighter
The ceremonial launching of the 639-foot-long freighter Mark W. Barker at the Sturgeon Bay shipyard broke the hiatus of a laker not having been launched in Great Lakes waters for almost 40 years.
Egg Harbor Fire Chief Stepped Down
After more than a year of controversy surrounding his appointment to the position, Egg Harbor Fire Chief Andy Staats stepped down from his leadership role, as did his wife, Ashley Staats, whom Andy Staats had appointed to lead the department’s EMS crew. The joint town and village department is now looking for a new leader, with the deadline for applications set for January 2022. The couple’s resignation letters indicated that animosity and rivalry within the department were responsible for their abdication of their leadership roles.
v27i45 Nov. 12-19
Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the Reading Readiness bill, authored by Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), that would have overhauled how elementary schools work with young children who struggle to read; the Town of Gibraltar dropped its lawsuit against Alibi Marina, but it still intends to push the company to remove its dock; and a hearing was held on the bill that would appropriate funding to repair Potawatomi State Park Observation Tower, but an email from Evers office indicated the repair is still mired in disagreement.
v27i46 Nov. 19-26
Washington Island Residents Voted to Repair Tower
Town residents gathered to vote in favor of purchasing an acre of land associated with Mountain Park Lookout Tower and to authorize the borrowing of $273,100 to fix the closed tower and repair some town roads.
Candidate Filing Period Opened Dec. 1
The candidacy filing period for local elections in April opened Dec. 1, with a deadline of Jan. 4. All 21 Door County Board supervisors are up for reelection, as are seats on boards with five or more members and all school district boards.
Liberty Grove Considered Adding Garbage-Collection Services
The town began investigating the feasibility of offering garbage-collection and recycling services for all town residents.
Front-yard RVs Caused Concern in Baileys Harbor
The town started looking into the possibility of regulating RVs that are parked on residential properties and used as living spaces.
New Salaries for County Board Supervisors
The Door County Board of Supervisors adopted a new salary structure based on an annual salary of $7,500 versus per diem rates.
v27i47 Nov. 26 – Dec. 3
The Town of Liberty Grove and Village of Sister Bay settled a long-standing dispute over the ownership and operation of the Sister Bay Wastewater Treatment Plan; the state’s new redistricting maps will now be decided by the courts after Gov. Tony Evers vetoed those passed by the Legislature; after four years, two moves, and many twists and turns, construction on the Door County Granary project got underway this week.
v27i48 Dec. 3-10
Two of Six Deer Hunt Accidents Happened in Door County
Wisconsin’s gun deer hunt season ended with two of the state’s six gun-related accidents occurring in Door County.
Rejuvenating Our Workforce
We released a video intended to help recruit seasonal workers and help allay the labor shortage challenging local businesses.
County Passed $81.6 Million 2022 Budget, Paid Off Justice Center
The budget includes a 2% increase in expenses, but a decrease of 2.34% in the property-tax levy. The decrease was attributed in large part to the debt the county paid off on the Justice Center.
In other news, the City of Sturgeon Bay began drafting fence regulations; the Granary project announced a matching fundraising campaign; Scandia Village celebrated 40 years of service; and parents pressed Gibraltar to end masking while the district also took the first steps toward a 4-year-old public kindergarten program.
v27i49 Dec. 10-17
Fincantieri’s vice president and general manager, Todd Thayse, prepared to retire Jan. 10, 2022, as Gulf Coast shipyard professional Craig Perciavalle settled into the position; and the spring elections for county board seats began to shape up with some new people taking out candidacy papers and some longtime elected officials deciding not to run.
v27i49 Dec. 17-24
All Door County Schools “Exceed Expectations”
On the recently released state school report cards for the 2020-21 school year, all Door County school districts exceeded expectations, though some learning – as revealed by standardized test scores – slipped during the pandemic.
DCMC’s Dr. James Heise: ‘They Didn’t Need to Be Here’
Door County Medical Center admitted the highest number of COVID-19 patients at one time since the pandemic began, stretching the hospital’s resources thin. The majority of the hospitalized patients were unvaccinated. With only 25 beds total, 10 were occupied by the COVID-19 patients.
United Way Received $3.5 Million for Child Care Expansion
United Way of Door County was one of 12 entities granted millions to develop long-term solutions to the state’s labor shortage. The nonprofit will use the money granted by Gov. Tony Evers to expand affordable, high-quality child care at centers in Sister Bay and Sturgeon Bay.
Gibraltar Schools Moved to Mask-optional Policy
The new policy started Dec. 20 for older students and will begin Jan. 4 for younger students. Parental permission must accompany all students who unmask.
Door County Getting Slice of Opioid Settlement
Door County is among the municipalities that will receive a slice of the national opioid settlement with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three companies that distributed opioid painkillers while addiction and overdoses skyrocketed in the nation. Door County stands to receive nearly $800,000, though as much as 25% of that would be used to pay attorney fees.
