The Oregon Police Department was shocked to learn it lost its second-in-command last Friday when Lt. Karey Clark died unexpectedly of natural causes.

Clark, 38, joined the department in 2001 and worked his way up to lieutenant in 2011, becoming “the glue that held the department together,” interim chief Dale Burke told the Observer.

“(Former) Chief (Doug) Pettit was gone a lot, both a result of his statewide duties and then later on with his health issues,” Burke said. “So Karey was running the department a lot of the time. Even since I’ve been here … I counted on and depend upon Karey to keep the department going when I’m not here and to be that stabilizing force.”

Burke had worked with Clark when Clark interned at the University of Wisconsin Police Department. Burke was the personnel lieutenant and said Clark provided him “instant credibility” when he arrived to take over for Pettit last year.

“He and I were close, and I’m going to miss him,” Burke said, his voice cracking.

The McFarland Police Department offered to patrol the village Wednesday so OPD officers could attend Clark’s funeral services, Village President Mike Gracz said.

OPD Detective Sgt. Jenny Pagenkopf, who had worked with Clark since 2005, said she was “grateful” to have worked with him and learned from him.

“Very rarely in law enforcement (does) one officer ever say to a supervisor that they are the person that made them a better cop and I told him that,” Pagenkopf said. “If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have become the cop I am today.”

She described her longtime colleague as “humble” and dedicated to his family, as he was married and had three children under the age of 10.

“He always made you feel like he truly cared,” she said. “He was a very genuine compassionate person. He was that type of man that, in meeting him, he had that strong exterior, but as you got to know him you learned that he just was this genuine, good family man.”

Burke said Clark had been one of the most “upbeat” around the station as officers tried to move past the controversy left by Pettit and the village investigation that cast a shadow for much of last year.

“The department has been through a lot in the last seven or eight months,” he said. “Everybody was in the process of getting through that and past it, and everybody was pretty upbeat around here.

“This just was completely out of left field. We’re still reeling, but we’ve got each other to lean on. That’s important.”

Burke also asked the community to continue its support for the department through this challenging loss.

“We have really appreciated the community support that we’ve received over the last seven months through what has been a very difficult time,” he said. “It’s going to be even more important in the coming months that that continue as a result of this.

“(The officers have) been beaten down as much as anybody can be beaten down, and we couldn’t continue without the support of the community.”

Pagenkopf said each officer has had to take a “deep breath” as they walk into the department knowing he’s no longer there.

“He was the soul,” she said. “He always reminded us of what was most important in life.”

Unified Newspaper Group reporter Bill Livick contributed to this story.

The Town of Oregon will hold its caucus to nominate candidates for the spring election Saturday, Jan. 17.

The caucus allows attendees to nominate potential candidates, though those candidates still must agree to run.

Five elected town positions will be on the April 7 ballot: Town Board Chairperson, two Town Supervisors, Town Assessor and Town Constable.

The caucus will start at 2 p.m. at Town Hall, 1138 Union Road.

In the event of bad weather, a snow date is set for Saturday, Jan. 24.

The Village Board approved a cost-sharing agreement with Dane County Monday for repaving a bad section of Janesville Street near its intersection with Wolfe Street.

The village and county are sharing in the $133,000 cost of the resurfacing project, which is scheduled to take place this summer.

“We’ve got the construction set to happen between July 6 and Aug. 27,” said public works director Mark Below. “I tried to schedule it so it didn’t interfere with Summer Fest and the July 4 weekend, or the start of the school year.”

The project, which was accelerated to deal with a road that became extremely bumpy during last winter’s hard freeze, will also include utility upgrades along the roughly quarter-mile stretch.

Village administrator Mike Gracz included $90,000 to the village’s 2015 budget for reconstructing the rough stretch of pavement. He also included $150,000 to replace outdated water mains in the area.

Dane County has jurisdiction over most of Janesville Street – also known as County Hwy. MM.

The county plans to fix the street from about halfway between South Perry Parkway and Wolfe Street east to in front of the Kwik Trip on Janesville Street. The work will include the Janesville Street-Wolfe Street intersection.

“The village will pay for their share, and the county’s going to pay for their 22 feet of the road – 11 feet in each direction from the center,” Below explained. “This project is just between the gutters – basically just a pavement replacement, with the exception that we’re putting that water main in.”

Below said the water main in the construction area will be replaced while the street is torn up.

He said two mains – one dating back to the 1940s and another installed in 1978 – are undersized need to be replaced with a single 12-inch main.

The street section is notorious for its large bumps caused by frost heave when air temperatures are very cold.

A resolution authorizing the agreement will be introduced to the Dane County Board of Supervisors next week, according to a county release delivered Tuesday morning.

The release also said the county and village have begun discussing “a more comprehensive, collaborative approach to upgrading” other county streets in the village limits, such as County Hwy. CC and the rest of MM.

In the release, Village President Steve Staton said the cooperation of the county was “a significant factor in the Village being able to move forward in a timely manner.”

The board also authorized the village to hire Town and Country Engineering, in the amount of $8,500, for engineering work related to the Janesville Street water main replacement.

TIF 2 streets

The board also authorized Below to begin the bidding process for street paving projects in the village’s Tax Increment Finance District 2 on the village’s north side. 

The TIF 2 expenditure period ends in September, village officials said. That means while the district will continue to pay for the debt service until it closes or is paid off, the project must be finished by September to be a TIF expense and not a village expense. TIF includes tax payments to the school district and other jurisdictions.

Streets scheduled to be repaved include Braun Road, from Market Street to Main Street; West Richards Road, from Market Street to Main Street; Market Street from Netherwood Street to Braun Road; and Netherwood Street from the railroad tracks west to 350 feet west of Alpine Parkway. 

Gracz told trustees that the project contractor “will have to come up with a good detour plan and signage” for the project. 

“We won’t let them work on all the streets at the same time,” he added.

Below reiterated that point Tuesday with the Observer: 

“The contractor is going to set this up so that we don’t shut down that end of town,” he said. 

Soden Drive transfer 

The board also authorized the village to transfer jurisdiction of about 350 feet of Soden Drive, in front of Prairie View Elementary School, to the Oregon School District. 

Below said there will be a public hearing to notify the neighbors of the change, which would take two-to-three months to implement. School officials requested the transfer in order to improve safety during times when parents drop off and pick up their children. Soden Drive leading up to PVE will remain a public street.

Village officials made a few decisions related to the Oregon Police Department at Monday’s Village Board meeting, including an extension on interim chief Dale Burke’s contract and approving his request to return five M-16 rifles to the federal government.

Burke’s original contract limited him to staying at the department until June 30 to ensure things run smoothly until a successor to former chief Doug Pettit is hired. However, the department had to absorb a shock earlier this month when Lt. Karey Clark unexpectedly died.

Village administrator Mike Gracz suggested the contract be open-ended.

“We felt that to provide some comfort to the employees at the police department, we should amend the contract in case we haven’t found a new chief by June 30,” Gracz explained. “If he has to stay an extra month or two, he’s willing to do that. But he’s not willing to stay forever.”

The village hired Burke to lead the police department last May after former chief Doug Pettit decided to take a leave of absence. Pettit retired Sept. 1 and now faces two felony counts of tax evasion for allegedly failing to report income he earned in 2010-12 for off-duty work at the now defunct Union Sports Club.

The rifles were part of a host of military-grade equipment the department acquired for free between 2004-12 through the federal 1033 program.

Burke wants to get rid of equipment that isn’t being used by the department. Only the rifles have to be returned, he said; other unused equipment will be donated or discarded.

“The rifles will go back to the 1033 program, and they (the feds) will distribute them to other agencies,” he explained. “I’m not running a storage facility here. If things aren’t being used, we’re not going to keep them.”

Other things the police department acquired under the program include backpacks, helmets, camouflage coats and cold-weather pants.

In board discussion prior to voting, Trustee Jeff Boudreau said he would like to see clothing donated to the needy or homeless.

The board also approved Burke’s request to sell three patrol rifles – which were not acquired through the federal program – and use the proceeds to purchase a new patrol rifle.

“The rifles that we’re getting rid of were the original group of patrol rifles that we purchased in early 2000s,” he explained to the Observer Tuesday. “Those are just old and need to be replaced.”

Including planning and construction, the Oregon Rotary Bike Trail has been some four years in the making.

And it will be completed this year.

The Village Board voted unanimously Monday to complete the final two segments of the 3.1-mile trail on the village’s north side this summer. It also decided to spend an additional $160,000 to pave the trail instead of leaving it with a crushed limestone surface.

The village will spend $555,876 to finish constructing the trail. It built the first segment – a 1.8-mile stretch from Alpine Parkway to about halfway to Fish Hatchery Road – last year at a cost of $333,413.

The total project cost is estimated at $889,289.

Funding for the trail is coming from a variety of sources, including two Dane County grants, funds the village received from American Transmission Company, money pledged by the Town of Oregon and the Oregon Rotary Club, and money the village plans to borrow.

“Doing both sections this summer just makes total sense financially,” Village President Steve Staton told the Observer on Tuesday, noting that the village received a low construction bid and that prices for asphalt are relatively low but not likely to remain so.

“I think it’s exciting for the community,” Staton added. “It will eventually connect our downtown and our community to Madison.”

Accepting low bid

The village received 10 bids for the last two phases of construction and opened them last Tuesday. 

Meise Construction’s winning bid of $332,000 was less than half the highest bid. It was about $63,800 less than the total cost to build the final two segments because it does not include the cost of engineering, nor the amount the village included in a contingency fund.

“You always add a contingency when doing a public works project like this,” explained village administrator Mike Gracz.

Public works director Mark Below said he won’t know when construction will begin until he has a pre-construction meeting with Meise, but he expects it would begin in May and take about 75 days.

Meise built the first segment of the trail last fall.

The decisions were unanimous (with Eric Poole and Jerry Bollig absent) but took some discussion to bring all trustees on board. 

Trustee Darlene Groenier complained that village streets are in rough shape and noted that not everyone would use the bike trail. She also objected to spending extra money to pave the trail. 

“If we’re going to borrow money, I think we should take care of our streets first,” she said.

Staton responded that the village budget this year includes some $600,000 for street improvements. He said the village spends money on other services not everyone uses, like the senior center and library. But he said there’s strong support among village residents to build the bike trail.

“In our survey we did as part of strategic planning, 70 percent of people said they agreed or strongly agreed we need a trail into Madison,” he argued. “So there’s widespread community support for building the trail.”

Trustee Jeff Boudreau said he’d like to have the trail paved because gravel erodes quickly, and the trail would require extra maintenance from public works.

Below agreed, saying, “If it doesn’t get paved now, who knows when it’ll get done, and it’s high maintenance unless it’s paved.”

Groenier then said she would vote to do both segments and pave the trail as long as village streets are also a priority.

Pushing the plan

Staton first proposed building the trail in 2011. He noted at the time that Dane County had an interest in connecting local communities via a trail system and that the village could tap into the plan by building a trail of its own.

Along with the health and recreation components, the trail could bring more visitors to the village and be an economic boost for local business, he said.

He noted the Badger State Trail near Purcell Road is about halfway between the Village of Oregon and Paoli, a hub of cycling in the county. From there, it’s an easy ride into Madison on a pave trail, and vice versa.

The key would be the Town of Oregon or Dane County deciding to connect Badger State with the village’s trail.

Residents in subdivisions like Raven Oaks and others would then have a direct route to the village on a bike trail.

“This has the potential to have an impact on a lot of people in our area,” he said. “With the paving, it means that all those people who ride road bikes will ride our trail. It’s a great trail. People are going to love it once they get out there and use it.”

A Dane County judge this month shot down a lawsuit against the village of Brooklyn from a former village employee fired in 2010.

Bob Anderson, who was Brooklyn’s public works director for more than two decades, sued Brooklyn, village president Nadine Walsten and village clerk Carol Strause in March 2013 for an undisclosed amount.

Anderson claimed Walsten and Strause sabotaged his 2012 application to become public works director in the city of Darlington and that Walsten damaged Anderson’s reputation with false, negative public comments about his job performance.

But Dane County Circuit Court Judge Rhonda Lanford issued a summary judgment Jan. 9 in favor of the defendants. A transcript of the oral ruling was not available at press time.

Attorney Lori Lubinsky, who represented the defendants, said Judge Lanford “found in our favor in virtually all if not all of the defenses we raised.”

Jessica Kramer, Anderson’s attorney, said in an e-mail Monday that she was “disappointed” in the ruling but declined further comment, including whether Anderson plans to appeal.

The ruling could conclude a five-year saga that began when the village board reprimanded Anderson in 2009 and ordered him to improve his performance. After a probationary period, the board voted 5-2 in December 2010 to fire Anderson for what it deemed “unprofessional conduct” that included allegations of fudging time sheets and missing key deadlines for testing village wells.

Anderson disputed the claims, as did supporters who felt he was unfairly targeted because of a personal feud with Walsten. Anderson later unsuccessfully challenged Walsten for village president in April 2011.

The next month, a judge for the state’s division of unemployment insurance ordered the village to continue paying Anderson $363 a week in unemployment. The judge in that ruling found no evidence that Anderson “was grossly negligent” in his duties or engaged in “misconduct” before his firing. Nearly two years later, Anderson filed the most recent lawsuit.

Insurance covered all of the village’s legal fees for the latest lawsuit, Strause said in an e-mail.

Efforts to fire or discipline Anderson between 2009 and 2011 cost the village more than $22,200 in attorney fees, plus $9,438 in unemployment payments. Both costs came from the village’s general fund.

In the latest ruling, Judge Lanford ordered Anderson to repay the village court costs totaling nearly $5,000, mostly for transcriptions of witness depositions. Anderson is currently public works director in New Lisbon.
 

Town of Oregon voters will have two contested local elections to vote on in April.

Incumbent Town Board Chairman Darryl Weber will face Town Sup. Wayne Ace to win his seat back. Two years ago, Weber won a coin toss to retain his seat after he and challenger Chris Johnson tied in the election.

Tom Wiedenbeck and Andy Blomstrom will both run for the Town Assessor position, as well. Blomstrom is the incumbent in that race.

Ace and Fred Clark, Jr., will also both run again for their supervisor seats unopposed and incumbent Gary Wackett will run again for the Constable position.

Others were nominated for town supervisor positions at the Jan. 17 town caucus, but refused the nomination.

The election will be April 7.

The eastern half of Dane County snowmobile trails opened Monday following the first major snowstorm of the winter this weekend.

The Dane County parks department announced the opening Monday, and said the western half of the county could open as early as Wednesday. “Spotty conditions” on the western trails led officials to keep the trails closed, but the snowfall that was forecasted Tuesday might have been enough to open them. The southwest quadrant was slated to open Feb. 4, but the northwest area remained closed.

The snowmobile trails in the Southeast and Northeast quadrants were opened, as well as Glacial Drumlin State Trail. The northeast section is bordered by Hwy. 51 on the west, while the southeast quadrant runs from Hwy. 14 east to the county line. The quadrants are bisected by Interstate 94. 

Despite the openings, a section of State Corridor Trail #38 will be closed west of the City of Stoughton until further notice. 

“With the 7 to 8 inches of new snow, I know the snowmobiling community will be excited to hit the trails,” said Duane Meyers, president of the Council of Snowmobile Clubs. “This is the first time the trails have been open this season, so we remind trail users to use caution. There will be uneven terrain, potential open water areas in the marshes and waterways and the open areas will be windswept with minimal snow.”

Snowmobilers are also reminded that a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources snowmobile registration is required to ride on the trail system. 

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office reminded riders that the majority of the snowmobile trails are on private lands, so all users must stay on the marked trails. Venturing off the trails is considered trespassing and riders may be issued citations.

Drive sober

Agencies statewide are also teaming up to curb drunken driving and riding on snowmobiles.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation, the DNR and the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association are teaming up to install attention-getting gas pump toppers at convenience stores around the state warning of the dangers of drunken snowmobile riding and impaired driving.

More than 350 gas pump toppers will be installed this winter to reminder riders to stay sober on the snowmobile trails. 

"Educational efforts to combat drunken driving, like the pump topper messages, are helping to reduce deaths and injuries from traffic crashes,” David Pabst, director of the WisDOT Bureau of Transportation Safety said in a news release. “Although we’re making significant progress in reducing drunken driving, too many people are still getting behind the wheel when they’re impaired. About one out of three traffic deaths in Wisconsin is the result of an alcohol-related crash. Drunken driving crashes needlessly kill and injure innocent victims nearly every day.”

The gas pump toppers are being used because many drivers and snowmobilers use convenience stores to refuel and purchase supplies for their rides. 

Police Chief Dale Burke informed the Village Board Monday that he appointed Sgt. Dave Elsner to serve as acting lieutenant until a permanent replacement for the late Lt. Karey Clark is chosen.

Clark had been the Oregon Police Department’s second-in-command and died suddenly and unexpectedly Friday, Jan. 9.

Burke also told the board Monday that he would create a process for selecting a new lieutenant quickly so that the department has stability. He said that process has not yet been determined, but he hopes to have it in place by the end of the month and make the promotion by about the third week of March.

He told the Observer on Tuesday that four sergeants from within the department will seek the position: Dave Elsner, Brian Lehmann, Matt Wagner and Jennifer Pagenkopf.

Burke feels all are well qualified and said he has no reason to seek outside candidates.

Burke said he made the temporary appointment because the police department is a “very hierarchical organization and it’s important for the people in the department to know that when I’m not here, there is somebody else that’s in charge. Right now that is Sgt. Dave Elsner.”

He added that does not mean that Elsner has an advantage over the other sergeants.

“I’ve had this discussion with each of the sergeants that this doesn’t carry any additional weight or authority,” Burke said. “They’re still going to be on even footing, and the process will be the primary determining factor in who becomes the next lieutenant.

“I’m not a seniority guy,” he added. “I don’t believe that just because you’ve inhabited some space on earth here longer than somebody else that that entitles you to a position of leadership. So the process I expect to be competitive and I expect that the best man or woman will win.”

Promoting one of the sergeants will create a vacancy that Burke plans to fill quickly. He said employees within the department sent a message “to both myself and the village leadership … that they really wanted some stability, and they wanted it sooner rather than later.

“That’s why we’re moving ahead quickly to backfill these positions. They need to know we’ve got people in place and they can keep doing the work that needs to be done.”

Elsner’s temporary appointment became effective Feb. 1.

In other business Monday, the board approved a request to close part of South Main Street, beginning where it intersects Janesville Street, on March 30-31 for an art fair downtown. The group 14 South Artists is organizing the event.

An Oregon police officer checking on the welfare of a 22-year-old Oregon woman ended up with a cut hand after a Feb. 3 struggle at her home.

The woman, Danielle Rago, has been charged with felony resisting an officer causing substantial bodily harm to officer and attempted battery of an officer and misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

The officer first responded to Rago’s home after finding a car in a ditch at the corner of Market and Braun Roads, according to a criminal complaint filed Feb. 6 in Dane County Circuit Court. While investigating the incident, he contacted Rago’s father, who told the officer the vehicle was owned by his daughter and registered to her boyfriend, according to the complaint.

The officer went to the woman’s residence, where he found her asleep and attempted to wake her up, the complaint said. 

When she awoke, the officer stated, he smelled intoxicants and she stated no one cared for her and she did not wish to live anymore. She then reached for a bottle of vodka, which the officer grabbed away before she could drink, according to the complaint. 

While the officer called to arrange counseling for Rago, she ran to the kitchen and reached for the block of kitchen knives. The officer and Rago’s father attempted to grab her arms to restrain her, though she was able to hold knives in each hand. 

After taking the woman to the floor in restraint, the officer noticed blood on the floor and observed cuts on his left hand. 

A second officer arrived at the scene and detained Rago, though she struggled with him and EMS personnel as well while the first officer received treatment for his cuts, which required three stitches, according to the complaint.

Rago is next scheduled to appear in court March 2. If convicted on all counts, she faces up to nine years in jail and $16,000 in fines.

The restoration and improvement of the Oregon Pump House will continue after several additions to the property were approved last week by the Village of Oregon Plan Commission.

The commission approved plans to install outdoor lights on the building, as well as a new sign.

Energy-efficient gooseneck style lighting will be installed on the building’s roof and will illuminate the front of the building. The gooseneck-style lights are similar to other buildings downtown, including Peaceful Heart books and gifts and Firefly Coffeehouse. The lights will be either red or black, village documents show.

The building will also get a new sign advertising the Oregon Welcome Center. The two-sided, 3-foot-by-5-foot sign will be installed along Janesville Street. The sign is designed by Lundgren Sign Service and will be surrounded by decorative plantings.

Two homes in the Town of Oregon were damaged recently in separate fires.

No injuries were reported in either fire, which happened Jan. 28 and Feb. 3.

The first fire was reported in the afternoon by a neighbor along Sugar Hill Road, according to a news release from the Dane County Sheriff’s Office.

“The 911 call originated from a concerned neighbor who  noticed smoke and flames emanating from the residence,” Sgt. Ira Simpson said in the news release. “The fire is believed to have originated in the rear of the home, and is not believed to be suspicious at this time.”

None of the residents were home at the time, however, several pets were killed in the fire. The home was considered a total loss with a damage estimate of around $225,000.

Oregon, Stoughton, Verona, McFarland and Belleville Fire Departments responded to the fire.

The second fire happened around 10:30 p.m. along Bellbrook Road, Dane County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Chris Nygaard said in a news release.

“The preliminary investigation indicates the fire originated from a vehicle parked inside the attached garage,” Nygaard said. “The occupants smelled smoke and safely exited the home.”

The home suffered smoke damage, and the garage portion and two vehicles were considered a total loss of about $150,000. 

Responders from Oregon, Brooklyn, Belleville, Evansville and Albany all helped put out the fire.

The fire is not considered suspicious, Nygaard said.

Significant street repairs scheduled to take place this summer on the village’s northwest side will cost about half as much as village officials had anticipated.

The Village Board on Monday awarded a contract to Payne and Dolan for street work on West Netherwood, West Richards, and Braun roads and Market Street. The board accepted the company’s bid of $218,659 for the project – barely more than half the estimate of $431,892.

The money to pay for the work is mostly coming from the village’s tax-increment financing district, TID 2. It also includes the $117,205 cost to repair West Netherwood Road, which is not in the TIF district but will be covered by Lycon Inc.

TIF gathers property taxes from all overlying jurisdictions, including schools, to facilitate development that would not have otherwise occurred.

In a previous agreement, Lycon had agreed to a one-time payment to the village of $150,000 for street maintenance on Netherwood Road. Village officials sought the agreement in anticipation of heavy truck traffic with the opening of Lycon’s Ready Mix production facility in the Alpine Business Park. Lycon opened its plant last year.

Public works director Mark Below said the streets need new pavement, and Payne and Dolan “is going to set this up so that we don’t shut that end of town down.”

“It’s work that needs to be done, but the TIF expenditure period ends in September and so it needs to be done before that,” Below added.

After the expenditure period of a TIF district ends, the village may continue to use the combined revenues to pay off costs incurred by the district until the district closes (up to five years later) but cannot charge further expenses to the district.

Other work planned for this spring and summer includes replacing a water main on Market Street, and replacing another water main on West Netherwood Road from Market Street to North Main Street.

In other business 

The board also approved Pantherland Express’ request to sell food and beverages in village parks during athletic events. 

Owner Ben Cowan will be required to obtain the proper permits and provide proof of insurance, and the motion unanimously approved by the board prohibits Pantherland from selling items during softball, baseball, and soccer tournaments, when nonprofit vendors are present. In making her motion, Trustee Jeanne Carpenter said she did not want Pantherland, a for-profit business, to compete with clubs and other nonprofit organizations. 

Cowan told the Observer he plans to sell food and beverages from a golf cart to parents attending games.

“We’ll be selling water, healthy snacks, soda, candies and chips,” he said. “We want to give parents an outlet for something to drink and eat while their kids are out there playing.” The board also granted Cowan a temporary license to sell beer during the annual Alumni Hockey Tournament at the Oregon Ice Arena, which runs May 7-10.

• The board also approved hiring Mante Lawn Care to provide services for the village cemetery in the amount of $20,629 for two-year contract. Mante submitted the low bid; the next lowest bid was $35,860.

Two prominent local businessmen asked the Village Board for $80,000 in taxpayer assistance Monday to help them build a new two-story structure on a vacant lot in downtown Oregon.

Jeff Groenier and Mark Mortensen recently purchased the lot at 120 N. Main St. next to the Firefly Coffeehouse. They hope to construct a 4,000-square-foot building with 2,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground level and two 1,000-square-foot apartments above.

They made a formal request Monday for the tax-increment financing, and the board later discussed it in a closed session. TIF is a form of taxpayer assistance that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects. It combines revenues from all taxing jurisdictions on projects that would not exist “but for” the use of the TIF.

The business would be located in an existing downtown TIF district that can remain open until 2032. 

The men estimate that the village would recover the TIF contribution in 12 years, but say they can’t make the numbers work to finance the project without the village’s help. On Tuesday, village administrator Mike Gracz told the Observer the board asked him to provide more information before they make a decision.

The pair has met with village staff a few times in the past month. Their letters to the village claim extra work would have to be performed to prepare the site for construction. 

Extra excavation would have to occur to remove fill and items buried when the original building burned. The building also would require new sewer and water laterals, and the site would be more expensive to build on because it’s nestled between two existing buildings and there would little space for staging the construction, they said.

Groenier and Mortensen said their estimated rental income would support of a project of $355,000.

They purchased the lot for $45,000 and estimate the building would cost $390,000 to complete. That puts their actual project cost at $435,000 – about $80,000 more than their financing allows.

One common justification for TIF is putting projects in desirable areas that are more expensive to build on than a typical greenfield. The site has been vacant for more than 25 years after the previously existing building burned to the ground.

Groenier and Moretenson estimate rental revenues of about $43,200 annually, while expenses would total about $47,820.

With the TIF, they could reduce those expenses to about $40,000 per year and make the project financially feasible, they wrote in emails to village officials.

They’re requesting the $80,000 in assistance upon completion of the building, which they hope to begin this spring. The village would receive initial tax increments in 2017, Groenier and Mortensen said.

They said total real estate taxes would amount to an estimated $8,760 per year, based on 2014 rates.

Groenier is the owner of Concepts in Architecture, based in Oregon. Mortensen is the owner of All-Color Powder Coating LLC, also located in the village.

The Oregon Observer won six awards from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s convention last week, including four first-place honors.

The Observer took both first and third place in the highly competitive feature category, with Scott Girard’s story about a gay couple’s marriage during the change in law, while Anthony Iozzo took first place in sports page design and Iozzo and Jeremy Jones won the sports pages category. Bill Livick’s business coverage took first place. 

Scott De Laruelle also took second in reporting on local education. He was also second in a different circulation category for the Stoughton Courier Hub, a sister publication within Unified Newspaper Group. 

The WNA recognizes winners in six categories – daily and weekly newspapers of three sizes each – in its statewide competition. The Observer this year was in the smallest category of weeklies, F, with a circulation below 2,000. The Hub and another UNG publication, the Verona Press, are in the middle category of weeklies, E, with circulations of 2,000-3,500. 

Another UNG publication, the monthly Fitchburg Star, is not eligible because it has free circulation. All four publications are collaborative efforts among the entire UNG staff.

UNG’s three weekly news publications earned a total of 17 awards this year, including eight for first place, after earning 13 total last year. 

Girard’s feature, “Love in Limbo,” detailed the agonizing wait for a local couple to find out if their marriage – first authorized by a court and approved by the county, then held up by a lawsuit – would stay legal. The sports pages, by Jones and Iozzo, detailed exuberant victories from a soccer team and a wrestler.

Livick’s business coverage included a local printing company’s second request for taxpayer assistance in three years, the retirement of a bank’s co-founder and the culmination of a local businessman’s two-year effort to build a new restaurant.

The Press and Observer swept the two lower categories in business, with the Press winning the E category.

De Laruelle’s stories looked at some new educational methods, like personalized learning, “supersized” kindergarten classrooms and “flipped” classrooms that focus on in-schoolwork, rather than homework.

The Observer’s third-place feature was a combined effort by author Livick, photographer Jones and page designer Victoria Vlisides, following a local historical society’s uncovering of a treasure trove in a home that had been willed to them.

The Observer won five awards each of the past two years, including first place in business coverage and local education last year and second in features. 

Jacob Bielanski has joined the staff of Unified Newspaper Group.

The Wisconsin native comes to UNG from New Orleans, where he reported for the St. Charles Herald-Guide weekly and The Times-Picayune.

Bielanski’s position is a new one for UNG, created to add to our coverage of Fitchburg for our year-old Fitchburg Star publication. He will fill a variety of roles in our newsroom and will assist with the reporting and production for all of UNG’s publications – the Star, Oregon Observer, Verona Press and Stoughton Courier Hub.

Prior to moving to Louisiana, Bielanski, a 2012 University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate, operated as a freelance journalist, reporting for BRAVA and Madison magazines, among others. He will be moving back to Madison with his wife and 6-year-old daughter, where he hopes to rekindle his love for brewing beer. 

Bielanski said tentative plans have been made to keep chickens.

There’s been more progress at the village’s historic pump house in the past year-and-a-half than in the previous 100 years. And it’s just a few months from being ready for the public.

Built in 1899 and on the state and national Registers of Historic Places, the pump house in downtown Oregon was neglected for years before Randy Glysch moved to here more than two years ago and began a campaign to raise funds and restore the small, two-room building.

Last year, Glysch proposed turning the structure into a welcome center – an idea the village’s Historic Preservation Commission and Board of Trustees fully endorsed.

His initial goal was to raise $40,000 for the restoration. Glysch has now raised more than $56,000 and has lots of ideas to continue the campaign.

“I just wrote a grant for the Madison Area Master Gardener Association for some money for landscaping,” he said Tuesday.

At a Feb. 18 meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission, Glysch – who is a commission member – discussed plans to replace the building’s leaky roof, re-pour the front steps, alter the building’s sign that’s being built, and demolish and re-pour the concrete floor.

On Tuesday, he told the Observer about other progress, including installing new steps leading to the basement, painting the interior and installing a “gorgeous” walnut floor in the back room.

The latter is being provided by Sergenian’s Floor Coverings at 10 percent above cost, Glysch said.

Genesis Painting has offered to paint the interior, and Lundgren’s Sign Service is donating materials and labor.

Local businessman Gary Gorman – whose company renovated the historic redbrick schoolhouse for its headquarters – has pledged financial and material help.

“We met with Gary’s people today,” Glysch said Tuesday. “They came and needed to get a materials list for some stuff that they’re going to do. Part of what they’re going to do is put some new steps down to the basement.”

Glysch said he’s gotten about $30,000 of in-kind labor donated in addition to the $56,000 for the project.

Mostly that’s come from emailing and calling people and explaining the project. He seems a bit surprised at how receptive people have been: “People want to be part of this.”

Last month, the Village Board approved Oregon High School student Fred Richards’ proposal to demolish and help re-pour the front concrete floor as an Eagle Scout project.

Glysch said he’s sold 65 or 70 pavers as a fundraiser for the front walkway. Each has been engraved and will be installed this spring.

After discovering leaks in the roof Saturday, Glysch said he contacted the village and public works director Mark Below. Below was able to get a tarp in place before Tuesday’s snowfall. 

“We’ve done some work on the inside – all the electrical work has been done, and we put a new subfloor in the back,” Glysch explained. “We don’t want that stuff to be getting wet.”

Glysch had planned for a May 2 grand opening, but thinks the date will be pushed back a few weeks. No replacement date has been determined yet.

The thought of bringing a full-service hotel to Oregon continues to generate interest.

On Monday, the Village Board approved funding to analyze the potential for taxpayer assistance for a hotel to be built on Park Street on the village’s south side, near the Hwy. 14/138 interchange. 

Developer Michael Lindner, of GrandStay Hotel and Suites, did not appear at the board meeting but has been discussing the possibility of building a hotel with village officials and Oregon Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Judy Knutson for nearly a year.

The board agreed to pay half of the $2,500 cost and Lindner has offered to pay the other half to have the village’s financial adviser determine if the hotel would pass the “but for” test for tax-increment financing before discussing the project with the Village Board.

TIF is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects by providing initial funding and later capturing property tax revenue from all taxing jurisdictions (the city, the county, MATC and the school district) of the newly developed property.

Per state statute, the funding can be provided only if it’s determined that the project would not be feasible “but for” the TIF assistance.

Knutson told the board Lindner has discussed building a 70-room hotel with a swimming pool and a 4,000-square-foot conference/banquet center. The hotel would be built on about three acres near the intersection of Concord Drive and Park Street on the village’s south side.

About 20 percent of the rooms would be “extended-stay suites.” The project was “enhanced” – upgraded in scope – following “input by local business leaders in the community that provided evidence of localized demand for a variety of hotel room types as well as need for group functions ranging from company meetings to weddings and other social events,” Lindner wrote in a memo.

“Providing a marketable meeting and conference center will escalate the status of the hotel and thus place the Village of Oregon on a list among meeting destinations in Wisconsin.”

He noted that “development begets development,” and that the hotel would stimulate other building projects in TIF District 4.

The developer estimates the hotel would be a $6 million project and generate 22-28 full-time equivalent positions “plus a substantial number of temporary positions for unemployed and under-employed.”

In the memo, Lindner estimates the hotel would generate more than $388,000 in property taxes and $440,000 in hotel taxes in the first five years of operation.

In discussing the prospect of a hotel in the village, Gracz said this is the furthest that such a project has progressed in the village. He said in the previous discussions with a developer about building a hotel, the developer wanted the village to be a major investor in the project, and the Village Board at the time rejected the idea.

Gracz said there have been a number of reasons why a hotel has not been built thus far, including a lack of investors.

That doesn’t appear to be a problem this time around, Knutson suggested. She said the developer has gotten so much interest from investors that he decided to increase the size of the project. But whether this project moves forward might depend on the analysis of the TIF request.

“We want a banquet room and a hotel in the village,” Knutson told the board Monday night. “There’s 53 weddings this year at Bergamont.”

Knutson said the company is building hotels in three other Wisconsin communities, including Mount Horeb, but that they are “not competing” for a hotel in Oregon.

“Mount Horeb is rolling out the red carpet for them,” Knutson told the Observer. “So I want to make Oregon as inviting as possible.”

A report from a hotel feasibility study conducted in 2012 for the village found that a 70-room hotel in the Village of Oregon could bring in nearly $2.4 million in room and food and beverage revenues in its third year of operation and could generate $130,000 annually in room taxes.

The room tax figure is considerably higher than what Lindner estimates in his board memo. His estimate was about $88,000 in the third year of operation.

Inn Development and Management Group LLC issued its report in November 2012 and estimated that within five years after opening, a hotel here could draw “approximately 17,370 lodging room-nights,” create 25 to 33 FTE jobs and have an overall “positive economic impact to Oregon from retail sales.”

The Village Board on Monday authorized the village to hire a consultant to assist in the search for a new chief of police. 

The board voted unanimously to hire Sue Riseling, of Decision Makers LLC, to lead the search for a new village police chief. Riseling, Chief of Police at University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1991, runs her consulting business on the side.

Her contract with the village is effective March 2-Dec. 31, 2015, although village administrator Mike Gracz said he hopes the village will have a new police chief in place by mid- to late summer.

Riseling will charge $125 per hour for her services. The contract caps the fee at $5,000.

The board had included $10,000 in the village’s 2015 budget to hire a recruiter to conduct the search, but in December the board authorized Gracz and interim police chief Dale Burke to perform the work instead. At the time, Gracz explained that Burke had persuaded him that it wouldn’t be necessary to hire a consultant.

Gracz told the Observer on Tuesday that he and Burke decided it would be good to bring in an outside party to work with and advocate for police department employees. He noted that Riseling is known and respected by most police officers in Dane County, and it’s important that members of the police department feel that they have input in the hiring process.

In introducing Riseling to the Village Board, Village President Steve Staton said she would screen applicants, conduct interviews with all police department employees to “find out what they want in a chief,” prepare reports following the interviews of employees and applicants, attend police department staff meetings, and report to a joint meeting of the Village Board and the Police Commission. 

“She’s going to help us select the candidates and interview them,” Staton said.

He told trustees that he and Gracz brought Riseling to meet with members of the police department last week.

“We asked them for feedback, and they were genuinely excited about having her involved in the hiring process,” Staton told the Observer Tuesday. “It went well.”

The village hired Burke, a retired administrator who worked for the University of Wisconsin-Madison police department for more than 31 years, in June to serve as director of law enforcement for Oregon Police Department after former chief Doug Pettit went on indefinite personal leave.

Pettit retired Sept. 1 after serving on the department for almost 39 years. In December, the Wisconsin Department of Justice announced that Pettit was being charged with two felony counts for filing false tax returns.

The DOJ said Pettit submitted tax returns to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue for 2010, 2011, and 2012 that did not include income he’d made providing security services to private businesses, including the Union Sports Club. 

Village officials unsealed the only bid received last week for installing railroad crossing gates and electronic signals at the Braun Road entrance to the Alpine Business Park.

Public Works director Mark Below said the bid was submitted by CDL Electric, out of Kansas, in the amount of  $183,054.

The village has $225,000 budgeted for the project, which a hearing examiner for the Office of the Railroad Commissioner ordered over the village’s objections. 

Funding for the work will come from tax-increment financing, in the village’s TID 2 account, meaning it won’t affect the tax levy in the near future. 

Below said he expects the Village Board to award the contract to CDL Electric at its March 16 meeting. He expects work on the project to begin in early May and take about a week to complete.

“It’s the last piece to that puzzle up there, and then once they get that in, the village is out of the railroad business, period,” Below said.

The rail line became deactivated in 1997, and two years later the village and the City of Fitchburg purchased about 10 miles of track to prevent them from being converted to a bike trail.

The municipalities sold the line last year to the Wisconsin River Rail Transit Commission, which has leased the tracks to Wisconsin & Southern Railroad. The company will run two or three trains per week from Madison to the Lycon Ready Mix concrete plant in the business park.

Below noted that CDL Electric is also installing crossing signals at Irish Lane and McCoy Road in Fitchburg.

“They’ll be working their way down the track this summer,” he said.

Village officials initially objected to the railroad commissioner’s order that the village install gates and flashing lights at the Braun Road crossing. Village administrator Mike Gracz and Below felt installing crossbucks and stop signs would be sufficient, given that Lycon plans to use only two or three trains per week for its production plant.

Also, trains running on the line will be restricted to traveling at 25 mph, and 20 mph when nearing Braun Road at the Alpine Business Park.

In denying the village’s objection, the railroad commissioner noted that the Braun Road crossing would have three sets of tracks because of a spur off the main line that will extend into the business park to Lycon’s production facility.

“The presence of multiple tracks is one of the key factors warranting the installation of automatic flashing lights with gates,” the commissioner’s office wrote in a letter to the village.