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Home Sales Drop 22 Percent in Door County

• Wisconsin ranked 26th in the nation in beach water quality in the Natural Resources Defense Council’s annual review. Just six percent of Door County’s water samples exceeded maximum bacterial standards in 2008, well below the state average of 14 percent. Kenosha County had the highest exceedance rate at 32 percent. Door County had the 4th lowest exceedance rate of 13 Wisconsin counties on the Lake Michigan or Lake Superior shorelines.

• Door County home sales dropped 22.2 percent in the second quarter of 2009 from the same period a year ago.

• Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle announced he will not seek a third term next year. Doyle’s decision paves the way for a wide-open race in 2010. It’s believed that Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and U.S. Rep. Ron Kind will run on the Democratic ticket, and former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, and Mark Todd are running as Republicans.

• The Door County Coastal Byway Workgroup met Aug. 18 in Jacksonport with Rob Burke of the UW-Extension. The group worked on visions and goals for protection and promotion for the byway project.

• The Door County Information Systems Committee rejected a proposal by Norlight Communications to extend fiber lines on the peninsula. The project would have cost at least $10 million to start, with a total price tag of about $30 million, and would have extended fiber cable lines to individual homes in core parts of Sturgeon Bay and possibly Sister Bay. Local wireless providers had expressed concerns about the government subsidizing an outside competitor largely to duplicate existing services.

• The Sister Bay Village Board approved the issuance of bids for the new park shelter building at the Sports Complex. Bids are due Aug. 26 and details are available at the village intranet site at http://intranet.sisterbay.com or at the Sturgeon Bay offices of Henry Isaksen.