Trial for B.P. Man Accused of Killing Baby Underway Track Teams Take 2nd at Mankato East Relays
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Softball, Baseball Teams Stay Busy
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ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIFTH YEAR
BELLE PLAINE, MINNESOTA, MAY 11, 2016
75¢ SINGLE COPY
NUMBER 19
The city has been provided with several conceptual drawings of the Ridgeview Medical Center and Senior Living Center from various directions, including this one (facing east) and the one shown below (facing west).
Grand March Katlin Sannan and Jacob Maresch were among 95 couples participating in Belle Plaine High School’s prom grand march Saturday in Belle Plaine High School’s south gym. Dinner and dancing at Arlington Community Center followed the grand march. Post-prom festivities were back at BPHS.
Reorganization Plans Continue to Unfold at School District
Belle Plaine School Board members got a look at how the district is reorganizing its activities and community education director positions for next year now that reductions in spending for the 2016-17 school year have been set in motion. At Monday night’s (May 9) school board workshop, Superintendent Ryan Laager outlined his plan for directors. The plan is based on Activities/Community Education Director Chad Eischens’ position as currently constructed being eliminated. Eischens’ position was eliminated during the $434,860 budget cut the school board approved in March. The board will formally OK the reorganization plan at its next meeting (May 16). Laager’s reorganization calls for Mindy Chevalier, the current junior-senior high school assistant principal, to add the community education department’s lead position to her existing job duties. The activities director work Eischens performed will be part of a reorganized position in which an existing physical education teacher also becomes the activities director. That position will reduce a full-time phy-ed. teacher with a
full-time teaching load to a parttime teacher/part-time activities director, Laager told the board. The position will be posted internally this coming week. Like Eischens did when he was first hired at the beginning of the 2015-16 school year, Chevalier will need to complete the license work to take over the community education lead spot. That work should be completed by the end of the year, Laager said. “It shouldn’t take that long because she already has her administrator’s license,” he said. The additional responsibilities will increase Chevalier’s sal-
ary slightly, Laager said. That will be doable because some of Chevalier’s salary can be shifted from the general fund to the community education budget. The split has yet to be determined, Laager said. The proposal has won the apparent approval of the city, which shares with the Belle Plaine School District the cost of community education. Laager said Mayor Mike Pingalore and City Administrator Holly Kreft have informally
City Getting Deeper Look Into Ridgeview/Lutheran Home Plans City Council to Hold Public Hearing Next Monday More plan reviews and steps are being made toward what will be one of Belle Plaine’s largest and most noticeable building projects ever, construction of which could start this summer. The Belle Plaine Planning and Zoning Commission Monday night took a look at the latest and most detailed plans for the complex this past Monday night to make its recommendation to the city council, which will hold a public hearing on just that shortly after 6:30 p.m. next Monday. The commission’s
recommendation Monday was a thumbs up. Ridgeview Medical Center plans to build a mixed-use development at what will be 165 Commerce Drive West, situated near the new overpass that is currently under construction at Highway 169 and Enterprise Drive. The most current plans call
for a 12,900-square-foot medical clinic, a 10,000-square-foot fitness/wellness canter and a three-story, 54-unit senior independent living center. (see drawings) A second phase is also on the drawing board that
City
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School District
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Pops Concert Friday Night at BPHS
The annual Belle Plaine High School Pops Concert is Friday evening (May 13) in the school’s north gymnasium. The concert is a showcase of students’ talents in visual arts, choir and concert music. FFA students are selling plants and a pie fund-raiser sale for
the band’s 2017 trip is also planned. Doors open at 6 p.m. to allow people to enjoy the visual arts. The choir and band performances begin at 7 p.m. There is no charge for admission to the concert.
Benitez Joins Vergara in Pleading Guilty to Killing Earl Olander Both Men Will Spend at Least 25 Years in Prison
Two weeks after the first of two men pleaded guilty to murdering Earl Olander in his San Francisco Township home last April, the second man accepted blame for killing the 90-yearold retired farmer. Friday (May 6) Edson Benitez accepted a plea agreement. It’s the same plea deal his accomplice, Reinol VerBenitez gara, accepted April 28. The two men pleaded guilty in Carver County District court to second-degree murder, Vergara aiding and abetting. In
exchange for the guilty pleas, the prosecution dropped three of four murder charges, including indictments on first-degree murder charges. Benitez and Vergara were sentenced to 37½ years imprisonment for killing the rural Belle Plaine man. They must each serve a minimum of 25 years before being eligible for early release. Benitez, 29, and Vergara, 35, are in this country illegally and will be deported after completing their sentences, Carver County Attorney Mark Metz previously said. The sentence they received was more severe than the state’s sentencing guidelines for the
crime. The guidelines call for a sentence of 21 to 30½ years for second-degree murder. Prosecutors cited the cruelty of the crime, Olander’s age and his being defenseless against the bludgeoning. Benitez was set to accept the plea deal late last month but then backed out. He was given additional time to think about the offer which Vergara accepted. Sentencing Vergara was delayed to use the potential of a longer sentence to compel Vergara to cooperate in the pos-
Olander
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Mail Carriers to Collect Food Donations This Saturday Belle Plaine mail carriers and others across the country will be collecting nonperishable food donations from homes and businesses when the U.S. Postal Service conducts annual food
drive on Saturday, May 14. You are asked to put you nonperishable food donation in a bag by your mail box that day. All donations will be delivered to a local food bank.
Belle Plaine native Stephanie (Schmit) Ableidinger, her husband Mac and daughters Estelle and Colette will always remember, the couple’s first child. They have turned the grief of his death into an annual toy drive for less-fortunate children.
B.P. Native, Husband Turned Tragedy into Gifts of Hope, Joy From the depths of despair to the bittersweet joy of remembering their son, Stephanie (Schmit), a Belle Plaine native, and her husband Mac Ableidinger will never fully understand why they can’t hold their son, Dane. But the couple uses their son’s death as a means to bring joy to families who don’t have the treasurers so many take for granted. They created Dane’s Closet as a means to remember and hold close the memory of a little boy who died Aug. 18, 2011 -- 111 days after he was born. Dane Ableidinger died from positional asphyxia resulting from
an unsafe sleeping environment at a home daycare in Eagan. “Everything changes when you lose a child,” Ableidinger said. She noted Dane would have started kindergarten this coming fall. “Right away, we knew we wanted to do something. We wanted it to be positive.” Dane’s Closet is intended to raise toys for children in need. The toys are donated each year at a birthday party the couple, their family and friends hold on a day near Dane’s birthday. The party is held in Eagan. The toys are then donated to organizations that help children, like Belle Plaine-based Southern
Valley Alliance for Battered Women, St. Joseph’s Home for Children in Minneapolis, Ronald McDonald House, the Lewis House, Faith’s Lodge, Sharing & Caring Hands, and Dakota Woodlands (a shelter for homeless women). This year, they received 490 toys to donate to St. Joseph’s Home for Children and Southern Valley Alliance for Battered Women. The toys are intended
B.P. Native
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