Bulletin

WHAT HAPPENED

• The Washington Island Trueblood Performing Arts Center (TPAC) and the Washington Island Foundation/Mosling Recreation Center (The Rec) are thrilled to announce the receipt of a major challenge grant from anonymous donors. The grant these generous donors are proposing is as high as $200,000. News of the challenge grant came through the law firm Foley and Lardner in Madison, Wis. The anonymous donors have a two-prong goal:  the first is to raise Island-wide awareness – on the part of Island residents and visitors – of the need for both current and long-term support of these two keystones of the community. The second is to encourage Island-wide financial support by their pledge to match up to $100,000 for each center. This challenge grant is restricted to building the endowment funds of each center and will go a long way to making each far more self-sustaining. If successful in meeting the challenge, each center will gain up to $200,000; $100,000 from the anonymous donors and $100,000 from matching community donations. A Joint Fund-Raising Committee (JFC) has been formed to develop plans to meet the challenge. Members of the committee include Sally Handley, Bruce McClaren, Mike Ryan and Jeanie Young from the TPAC; and Carolyn Foss, Helene Meyer, Daniel Nerenhausen and Dan Westbrook from the Washington Island Foundation/Rec. The JFC has just completed work on a brochure about the challenge grant and will be announcing specific events and plans to involve the entire Washington Island community – full-time and summer residents, visitors, guests, seniors and school children – in meeting this formidable goal.

• New Holstein School Superintendent William Van Meer, 59, died suddenly on March 5. He was the husband of Gibraltar School District Superintendent Tina Van Meer. He had been with the New Holstein school district since 2011. The district issued the following statement:  “Bill’s leadership will be missed, but his memory will be honored by continuing the mission to provide top-notch educational opportunities for our students and community,” it read.

• Former Gibraltar secondary principal Kirk Knutson has been hired by Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, Vt., as the school’s director of admissions, guidance and college counseling. He is scheduled to begin work in August.

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced the award of 15 Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grants totaling more than $8 million for projects to combat invasive species in the Great Lakes basin. The Bay-Lake Regional Planning Commission will receive $999,648 in the next two years to work with public and private landowners to remove 1,500 acres of Phragmites along the shores of Green Bay on Lake Michigan within the Lower Green Bay and Fox River Area of Concern. The project will identify and prioritize removal sites and provide training to landowners on methods to control Phragmites. The commission will work with a technical advisory and steering committee to ensure a quality and efficient process that prioritizes valuable areas for treatment and management of Phragmites.  

• Nine new communities have been added to the Emerald Ash Borer quarantine since the last update:  Kenosha County, Town of Paris (EAB has now been detected in every town, village and city in Kenosha County); Racine County, villages of Mount Pleasant, Rochester and Waterford, and Town of Waterford; Sheboygan County, Town of Sherman; Walworth County, towns of La Grange, Spring Prairie and Sugar Creek. Door County was added to the list last June when EAB was detected in Fish Creek.

COMING UP

• Andrew T. Phillips, an attorney in private practice with the firm Phillips Borowski, S.C., will be in Door County to conduct two informational programs to help members of the public, as well as municipality and county government elected officials, committee appointees and department heads, understand open meeting laws. An informative 10-part video created by the UW-Extension Local Government Center will be shared to portray real-world scenarios. Each short scenario will be followed by Attorney Phillips offering explanation and analysis. Phillips brings a wealth of professional experience to this discussion of open meeting laws from his 20 years of experience working with the Wisconsin Counties Association and numerous municipal entities. Attend one or both sessions: Monday, March 30,  2 pm, Nasewaupee Town Hall, and 6:30 pm, Sevastopol Town Hall. These educational events will last 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on questions. Both are sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Door County.

• Is anaerobic digestion a viable alternative for your small farm? Are you interested in a better way to manage organic waste? A dependable and efficient solid waste disposal system may be a positive renewable alternative for small farms and rural communities. Join the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for the presentation Organic Waste Stream Management for Rural Communities & Small Farms, where operators will share their experience operating a small farm anaerobic digester and hear. This session will discuss the concept of biodigestion, the technology used for small-scale farms, along with sustainability, and financial viability information. It will be held Thursday, March 19, at Crossroads at Big Creek
Collins Learning Center, 2041 Michigan St., 
Sturgeon Bay. The event is free, but for more meeting details and to register, visit uwosh.edu/eric/getting-it-right.