Schools respond to budget bill

• Southern Door and Sturgeon Bay School Districts handed out preliminary layoff notices to teachers in an effort to buy time to prepare for budget cuts coming down from Madison.

Sturgeon Bay Schools announced Feb. 24 that it would serve pink slips to its entire staff in what Superintendent Joe Stutting called a measure to buy time.

“This is about buying time to make a decision,” Stutting said, until “we have real, accurate information to base decisions on, not speculation. Our intent is to hire everybody back.”

Meanwhile, Southern Door Superintendent Joe Innis said his district is in limbo.

“Basically, we’re sitting here wondering what [the budget] will mean for our district,” he said.

Southern Door has issued preliminary layoff notices to 12 full or part-time staff members.

• Door County Tourbook videos are now live on the county website at http://www.co.door.wi.gov. Six professionally produced one-minute videos cover a range of topics, including quality of life, economic development, and tourism.

The tourbook videos, which are free to the county, feature the logos and/or videos of 15 local business sponsors.

“The County is hoping to use the videos as a marketing tool to entice businesses and residents to make their home in Door County,” said County Board Chairman Leo Zipperer.

The videos were produced by CGI Communications, an internet marketing company headquartered in Rochester, NY that provides multimedia solutions and other business services to municipalities, chambers of commerce, professional trade associations and private sector businesses in the U.S. and Canada.

• Door County Administrator Mike Serpe presented his annual report to the Door County Board of Supervisors at its February meeting. The full report is available at http://www.ppulse.com.

• The Namur Belgian Heritage Foundation was awarded a $2,500 grant by the National Trust for Historic Preservation from the Jeffris Family Preservation Fund for Wisconsin. The seed grant funds will be used for the Reuse Feasibility Study of the former St Mary’s Church in Namur.