Aug. 28 – Sept. 3

• Southern Door and Sturgeon Bay schools received over $700,000 in federal stimulus funds.

Southern Door will get $314,957, including $65,567 in Title I funds, $238,132 in IDEA K-12 funds and $11,258 in IDEA Preschool funds.

Sturgeon Bay schools will receive $409,888 in funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act including $95,936 in Title I funds, $299,778 in IDEA K-12 funds and $14,174 in IDEA Preschool funds.

• Former Jacksonport Fire Chief Bradley Bley was acquitted of child enticement charges after a two-day jury trial in Outagamie County Aug. 26. Bley was arrested in October of 2008 by an undercover agent posing as a 16 year-old prostitute in Kaukana.

• The Door County Board of Supervisors voted to allow the Parks Department to purchase land for parking at Cana Island. The purchase of a $1.3 million property would be paid for with grants and donations.

• Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) introduced the Predatory Lending Consumer Protection Act. The bill, AB 392, would enact a 36 percent interest rate cap for payday lending stores.

“Taking advantage of people in desperate times with no consideration of income and unaffordable repayment terms erodes worker earnings and for many imposes a high-cost debt burden that can be devastating,” Hintz said in a press release.

Wisconsin lenders can currently charge triple-digit interest rates, and the average APR for a payday loan is 542.2 percent, while the average net income of borrowers is less than $19,000.

The Wisconsin usury law eliminated in 1995 had capped interest at 18 percent. More information about the bill can be found at http://notify.legis.state.wi.us/Home.aspx.

• The UW-Madison Cross-Country team, among the best in the country, spent a week at the Parkwood Lodge in Fish Creek as part of a team training retreat. The Marquette University Cross Country team also spent some time in the county in August, camping and training in Peninsula State Park.