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December 10, 2008 |
Prairie du Chien Common Council last night discussed whether to fund the Fort Crawford Museum, the St. Feriole Island ball park and the Hoffman Hall pool, but the decision was tabled for more information and input. Council also, after previous rejections, approved the appointment of B.J. Halvorsen to the Harbor Commission.
After last week approving a 7.9 percent levy increase which would add another $38,000 over the originally proposed 2009 budget, council discussed how to best use the money, and the possibility of using some of the room tax, 70 percent of which by law goes to promote tourism, to fund Ft. Crawford and the ball park was also proposed. That 70 percent is currently used to fund the tourist center.
Jaaren Riebe said the tourism center received $131,000 in 2007, an d he made a motion to reallocate some of the funds to give the museum $7,000 and the ball park $8,000. Funding for those programs was cut from the 2009 budget. After a suggestion that the tourism council be consulted about the potential impact on their programs, the motion was tabled.
Council also discussed whether or not to fund the Hoffman Hall pool on a trial basis. Riebe proposed that the budget be amended to include $18,000 for the pool, to be revisited at the end of the first quarter.
New figures on the pool, he said, indicated that expenses and income were close enough to be considered a wash. Mayor Karl Steiner, however, said the figures do not include utility expenses, which are high.
Council members Frank Pintz and Joe Ruskey, both members of the Finance Committee, opposed the proposal. Said Pintz, "We made tough cuts in the city budget. Now we’re throwing in money you aren’t sure will cover it." Ruskey added that without the energy figures the pool numbers were inaccurate. Ruskey favored putting the money in the contingency, which is already lower than recommended. "Maybe we can make adjustments after the first quarter," he said.
City Administrator Jim Gitz said he will be meeting with the state officials to discuss the utility bills. The city purchases its heat for Hoffman Hall from the plant at the prison.
Decision on any budget changes was tabled until the next meeting.
Stating that he had been "publicly humiliated by things that aren’t true," a belligerent B.J. Halvorsen appeared before council to protest his rejection as an appointee to the Harbor Commission. He said council was treating him unfairly.
Halvorsen had been recommended by the Harbor Commission and the Mayor, but council had rejected his nomination three times previously, stating that they had questions and would like him to attend a meeting to answer the questions.
Halvorsen said he is self-employed and has an office on Beaumont Road and lives just outside of the city limits. He said he had not been able to attend previous council meetings because he was taking EMT classes.
Pintz suggested to Halvorsen that "when you’re looking to be appointed it’s not a good idea to tell people how to do their job," and suggested that instead he tell council why he was qualified to be on the commission.
Halvorsen said he had many degrees and one of those involved planning. He said he has drawn up some plans for the Harbor Commission.
Ruskey said the intent was never to humiliate Halvorsen, but the mayor kept bringing it up and council still had unanswered questions.
As Halvorsen continued to press for reasons why he wasn’t appointed, Riebe said there was some question about his job performance as a part time employee at Hoffman Hall. Kathleen Hein said she had questions over expenses for his training, since he didn’t attend all of it.
Halvorsen said he had been unable to work at the times scheduled, and that he missed part of his training due to transmission problems with his vehicle, but did complete the training elsewhere.
Council member Karen Solomon moved that council reconsider the appointment. Solomon said she was taking the position that "if he has an attitude it will be the Commission, not the council, that has to deal with him on a regular basis."
The appointment was approved with Hackett and Riebe casting the dissenting votes.
In other business:
•Council approved a resolution for a State Trust Fund Loan for $960,370. The loan will be used to convert capital projects that have been paid out of the general fund to long term financing. The money will go back into the general fund and will also repay some TIF projects. The interest rate is 4.25 percent over 10 years.
•At the recommendation of the Finance Committee, council approved renewal of the audit contract with the current company for $12,800.
•Final payment was approved to Eastern Iowa Excavating for road improvements on Prairie and Cass Streets for and $48,935. Terry Meyer, co-manager of Public Works, said those were the final figures.
This is the last in a series of articles about how the ministries of some area churches have changed to meet the needs of the people they serve as well as cope with a shortage of priests or ministers.
Area Catholic churches are not the only ones having to come up with creative solutions in ministry. Beginning July 1 of this year, six Methodist churches in the area became one charge, or ministry, called Faith Alive, served by one pastor, Mary Ann Floerke. Prior to that, Floerke had served the West Grant Charge, composed of Bagley, Patch Grove and Mount Hope (where her mother grew up) for four years as a part time pastor, while Bloomington, Beetown and Cassville were served by another pastor, Karl Goodfellow.
During that four year period, Floerke and Goodfellow had already started working together, inviting people from all the churches to attend the same functions, and in June of 2005 they started rotating their preaching among the six churches. Last spring they put together a plan for "blending" the two charges, and it went into effect July 1 when Goodfellow was transferred to another charge. Floerke, whose main residence is in Platteville, also stays part time at the parsonage in Bloomington.
Since it would be physically impossible to conduct services at all six churches every Sunday, Floerke covers two churches each weekend while lay speakers serve the other four churches. She performs all funerals and weddings. The lay speakers are all volunteers who, she said, do an excellent job but receive little or no reimbursement.
To promote unity and fellowship, there are quarterly gatherings which involve all the churches. The churches are all quite small, she said, making it difficult to maintain individual choirs, but there is a joint choir which sings at church events.
At this point, she said, the congregations are composed mainly of older people. "All of these little villages," said Floerke, "suffer from the fact that there are no jobs. Once the young people leave high school, they’re gone." At present, there are no programs for high school students, and the only church to offer a Sunday School program is Cassville. To remedy that, there is a Thursday night "family church" held at Mt. Hope, geared to young families. They eat a meal together, sing songs and have a story and lesson. There is usually some activity for the family to do together at home. As the children in this program grow older, she hopes they will form the basis for a more comprehensive children’s program.
She is also offering a confirmation class, the first in several years. "I’m hoping this class," she said, "will lead to something more with the youth."
The churches have yet to develop a plan of ministry, which they are required to do in the coming year, "It is good timing for us," she said, "because this is really what we have to be doing anyway. It will force us to look at where we need to start."
One thing she feels strongly about is keeping the individual churches open if at all possible. The Bagley flood, she says, demonstrated that. "During the flood we opened the church and served meals there, and people came from all over to help out. It reaffirmed the value of keeping these churches in the little towns."
Floerke said that although the churches like all of the lay speakers, they would like to have their pastor present every weekend. Still, she says, "they truly understand it’s the way it has to be."
The future, she said, is wide open, and there are many options. "We just want to work together to see where God leads us," she concluded.
Now that the snow and ice season has arrived, Crawford County residents would probably be glad to know that the county is doing well in terms of its road salt supply. While some counties in the state have come up short, Crawford County was able to find salt suppliers.
"We’re in pretty good shape," said Highway Commissioner Dennis Pelock, "if we have a fairly normal winter."
Pelock said that Crawford County started out this season with 2,780 tons of salt for the county system. The county also does roadwork for the towns of Wauzeka, Bridgeport and Haney as well as the villages of Steuben and Bell Center.
Crawford County also started out with 4,600 tons of road salt for the 187 miles of state highways that run through the county. The county has a contract with the state by which the state pays the county for maintenance of these state highways.
While Crawford County has a decent salt supply, the cost for the salt was quite a bit higher than it was last year. Pelock noted that salt cost $39 per ton last year. This year, he purchased salt from some vendors in Iowa for $60 per ton and for $140 per ton.
"We were unable to get salt through North American Salt," said Pelock. North American Salt had been the county’s normal supplier, but Pelock said that they claimed that they had a shortage this year.
Unfortunately, the vendors in Iowa raised the prices quite significantly. Pelock said that he topped off the supply of salt that the county already had on hand. He said that he purchased about 500 tons at $60 per ton and 300 tons at $140 per ton.
The county uses a sand-salt mix on the county system for snow storms. They spread salt only for an ice storm. Pelock said that the county has 10,400 cubic yards of sand-salt mix for the county system.
Pelock said that the county will use between 180 and 200 tons of salt per snow storm. He estimated that somewhat more than 200 tons were used for the storm of Dec. 8-9.
"We’re going to monitor our salt carefully," said Pelock. "We’re going to watch this real closely so that nothing is getting wasted."
Pelock said that some counties in the state are having problems, and so the state may have a "reshuffling" of salt whereby the counties that have a good supply may give up some salt to other counties and get reimbursed in return.
Pelock noted that another problem facing the Highway Department is the fact that it will be taking a 9.9 percent cut in operating expenses due to the county’s budget. This translates into $200,000 less for planned projects.
"Things are tight," he said. "But, the main thing is that we’re going to provide safe roads. That’s our main objective."
December 8, 2008 |
Three Catholic parishes to merge
This is the second in a series of articles about how the ministries of some area churches have changed to meet the needs of the people they serve as well as cope with a shortage of priests or ministers.
As of 2010, the Catholic parishes of St. Mary’s in Bloomington, St. Mary’s in Glen Haven, and St. John’s of Patch Grove will no longer exist as separate entities. They will be merged into one large parish with a name as yet undetermined.
The driving force behind the merger is the shortage of priests within the Catholic church. In the Madison diocese, as in most parts of the country, the number of retirees each year exceeds the number of priests ordained.
The person at the center of all this planning for change in the Bloomington area is Father Bart Timmerman, pastor of St. John’s and of St. Mary’s Bloomington.Father Bart, as he prefers to be called, explained that the path to change began about three years ago when the diocese undertook a comprehensive planning process. The churches in the diocese were organized into clusters so they could, within certain parameters, plan their own future. Cluster members examined several models, and the group chose the merger model.
In this model, the Bloomington, Patch Grove and Glen Haven parishes will merge into one larger parish of approximately 500 families, with all of the parish functions, including finance, combined. The fourth member of the cluster, St. Charles in Cassville, will remain a separate parish, but be ‘linked’ to the larger parish. It will retain its own school and its own budget, but will most likely share a priest with the new parish. At present, the four parishes are served by two priests. Father John Norder serves Glen Haven and Cassville.
Father Bart acknowledged that the whole process is far from ideal, but the changes are necessary, and he is thankful the bishop has given the churches the opportunity to help plan their future. He anticipates that merging finances will be the most difficult. "People take ownership of their parish, and it will be hard to see each parish’s liabilities and assets combined into one."
Even though the three parishes will merge, he wants to keep the individual churches open if at all possible. He pointed out that each parish has existed for over 100 years. St. John’s was founded in 1845, three years before Wisconsin became a state, St. Mary’s Bloomington in 1899 and St. Mary’s Glen Haven in 1864.
The bishop will make the final decision, but, said Father Bart, "Each church has a history and a tradition; it is a family and cannot be ignored, no matter how big or small. We can’t just close the doors on something like that." Indeed, the goal identified by the cluster group is "To successfully merge and become an even more united parish community without cluster parishes losing their identities, history and members."
Of the four churches in the cluster, Bloomington is the most centrally located and, next to Cassville, which will not be part of the merger, the largest with 320 families. With its Catholic school, it could be argued that it alone should remain open. However, the people in Bloomington have not pushed for that. "They want all the churches to remain open and they really want to work with the other communities," he said. "That’s an impressive thing to me."
Father Bart told of the hours spent and the stacks of paperwork generated during the planning, and he knows there will be much more work to come. Deacon Pat Jozefowicz, he said, has been "a tremendous help and is the champion of the implementation committee." He said he is grateful for Jozefowicz, the other committee members and all the other parishioners who have worked to bring about the merger.
Members of all three to-be-merged parishes voted for the new name, choosing from a list of six suggestions. Holy Trinity was their top choice, followed by Holy Family and St. Isidore, who is the patron saint of farmers and laborers.
These three top choices have been forwarded to the bishop, who will make the final decision.
There is still much work to be done before the merger takes effect, and some of it will be difficult. Still, Father Bart believes there is potential for many good things, as befitting the theme of the merger process, "Better Together."
One of the goals of merging is to strengthen the Catholic schools. "The Bishop," said Farther Bart, "is very clear that he wants the Catholic schools to be expanded and continued."
In addition, the people will be working for a common goal and combining resources so that services are not duplicated; by working together they can also strengthen all their programs for youth and adults.
He cautions too, that people must keep in mind the spiritual side of their planning: "We are placing ourselves in God’s hands and asking God to send us the Holy Spirit who can show us the way to be a family of God."
Council approves 7.9 percent levy increase, up from proposed 5.9 percent
It was a long and stressful evening last Thursday as residents presented eloquent pleas for restoration of funds to the Fort Crawford Museum and the St. Feriole Island ball fields and council members wrestled with a decision over a levy increase. The final decision was to increase the levy from the 5.9 percent recommended by the finance committee to 7.9 percent. The tax rate will be $29.92, up slightly from last year’s rate of $29.63. Taxes for an owner of a $100,000 house would thus be $2,992.
During the public hearing portion of the meeting, several people spoke on behalf of the Fort Crawford Museum and the St. Feriole Island ball fields.
Eric Temte, president of the Prairie du Chien Historical Society, asked the city to consider restoring at least part of the $6,800 it received last year. He said the city had over 4,000 visitors this past year, but visitor fees supplied only about one fourth of what was needed. Temte said they plan to increase admission fees and continue fundraising efforts, but he does not see how they could continue to operate as they have without city help. Fred Huebsch, Historical Society board member, said that history and the river have made the city famous, and it’s important that history be interpreted for people.
Tom Farrell spoke on behalf of the St. Feriole Island ball park. He said when the ball park was started it was a partnership between the baseball organizers and the city. He said the ball park brings in people from out of town who spend money in the city. Last year, the city provided $8,000 for support of the ball park.
Council member Frank Pintz suggested that in lieu of funding, the city provide mowing services for the park. Tim Baxter, however, said that would do little to cut costs. "We can take great pride in the ball park," he said, but added that the park is not a profit-making venture and needs extra funds simply to break even.
Nick Gilberts, who works for the street department, also addressed budget issues. Gilberts said that under the terms of the proposed budget, his job would be cut. He said that the law requires the city’s aquatic park have a certified operator, and he is the only certified operator. City Administrator Gitz said that there is another employee on leave who may not return, and in that case Gilbert’s job would be safe.
Jim O’Meara asked how much the city receives from room tax fees, 70 percent of which must by law go to the promotion of tourism. City Administrator Jim Gitz said it was around $150,000, and that 70 percent of that has been turned over to the tourist center. He added, however, that it wouldn’t necessarily have to go there, as long as it was used to promote tourism.
Council member Kathleen Hein said she felt a case could be made that some of that money go to the Historical Society and the ball park in that they also promote tourism.
Council member Jaaren Riebe agreed, suggesting that a portion be budgeted for those groups. Riebe, who is also Park Board chairman, said he would like to see more clarification on the pool numbers. Gitz said there appears to be a $30,000 gap between costs and income on the pool. That figure, he said, does not include utilities, which have been separately budgeted.
Levy increase
Although the recommendation submitted for consideration by the Finance Committee contained a 5.9 percent levy increase, the city had just learned of a $38 state credit beginning this year for every property on which there are improvements. That credit would make it possible to raise the levy without appreciable increase to residents’ overall taxes.
Council member Becky Hackett said she favored increasing the levy so the city had more money in the contingency fund in case of emergency. For every one percent increase, Hackett said, the city would gain approximately $19,000. Gitz said that before a decision was made, he wanted council members to keep in mind that if they add things back into the budget, the only way to pay for them is to increase the levy. He said the budgeted contingency fund of $65,585 was lower than it should be, and added that there was no guarantee the city plan to bill the library for services rather than reduce its budget would work.
According to state law, the city must fund the library at no less than an average of the funding provided for the past three years. Non-compliance could mean expulsion from the Southwest Wisconsin Library System, which provides most of the library’s materials, database, cataloging and interlibrary loan services. It could also result in reduced funding from other sources. City Attorney Tom Peterson said it is the opinion of the Wisconsin Municipal League that this can be done, but it is controversial. Library Director Nancy Ashmore said the library was more than willing to do their share of budget cutbacks, but she had been told that the action suggested by the city would not be approved. If expelled from the system, she said, the library would become little more than a reading room.
Frank Pintz thanked all who worked on the budget proposal. "It was a difficult budget and many hard and unpopular decisions were made," he said, and moved that the budget be adopted as originally proposed, with an amendment billing the library for services rather than cutting its budget. The motion died.
Former city planner Garth Frable, currently doing consulting work for the city, said that the city’s economic plan has shifted in recent years to include quality of life issues which would entice people and companies to move to the city. The ball park and historical society, he said are part of the quality of life, and he would favor using the levy increase to give money to the ball park and museum and keep the Hoffman Hal pool open temporarily. "Once you close something," he said, "you lose your customer base.
Hein agreed, saying she thought the money could help fund other things which need help, and she’d also like to discuss reallocating some of the room tax.
Gitz recommended the council approve the levy and budget that night and discuss amendments to the budget at a later meeting this month.
Council member Pintz said he felt the budget should be approved as recommended, and he was disappointed that council would consider raising the levy. "The idea was to be more responsible with the budget," he said.
Council member Karen Solomon countered that it was prudent to use the new information they had received. "We can’t just throw information out because we made a decision based on old information," she said.
The motion to approve the budget with a 7.9 percent levy increase was approved with Pintz casting the dissenting vote. The approval also carried an amendment to add a line item entitled rent and support services to the library budget, with such services to be budgeted at $30,000. The library allocation of $317,606 would remain intact. The impact would be to require the library to pay $30,000 for support and services.
The total budget as presented by the finance Committee was for $6,511,968, an increase of 109,500 over last year. Gitz said the increase is due to rising expenses such as health care, fuel, salt and utilities. In addressing the cuts, especially to programs such as the Hoffman Hall pool, the museum and the ball park, Gitz said "the issue is not desirability but affordability. If we don’t have a budget designed to afford amenities, we can’t do them." He added that with the increase in the levy it may be possible to add some of this back into the budget.
Council will discuss amendments to the budget at a special meeting Tuesday, Dec. 9, 7 p.m. at City Hall.
