BURNETT COUNTY
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2016 VOL. 55 NO. 7 www.burnettcountysentinel.com $1.00
TIME TO ‘FALL BACK’ : Daylight Savings Time ends — set clocks back one hour Saturday night.
North Ambulance conundrum
Is it as easy as staffing the A&H station?
negotiating ambulance service for the entire county, and that group is once again taking center stage as the current four-year contract expires at the close of 2017. The current contract stipulates any changes to the document must be made known six months before the contract ends — in everyday terms, it means the association must have a new contract negotiated or notify
BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
SIREN—Is the solution as easy as staffing the A&H ambulance station? A casual observer at Thursday’s Burnett County Towns Association meeting could come away with that opinion, but there’s more to it than one meeting. The Towns Association is charged with
SEE NORTH, PAGE 6
Offender does the right thing — pleads to crime Spooner man gets additional two years in prison for causing mental harm to a child BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
TODD BECKMANN | SENTINEL
Trick or treat Scooby-Doo, a.k.a Trystan Wethern, took advantage of the Trunk-or-Treat event at the Webster Fairgrounds Monday night to load up on Scooby snacks. More photos on Pages 16-17.
The sentence was handed down on Wednesday in Burnett County Circuit Court. William O. Cauley, 32, who had initially been charged with repeated sexual assault of a child and incest stemming from a Nov. 1, 2014 incident with his 11-year-old daughter, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge as part of a plea agreement with the prosecution. Cauley waived his preliminary hearing, but took the plea deal to avoid going to trial.
SIREN—A Spooner man who is already serving time in the Jackson Correctional Facility for possession of child pornography charges had two years of prison time added to his sentence for causing mental harm to a child.
SEE CAULEY, PAGE 7
It’s not Chicago, but electors can ‘vote early’ BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
SIREN—Presidential elections draw the biggest voter turnout of any election cycle. The 2016 contest, with such polarizing candidates, could be the biggest election turnout in recent memory. Even though Election Day is slated for next week, that’s not stopping voters from heading to the polls early, by way of absentee ballot, and casting their vote. “People love the convenience of it,” Wanda Hinrichs, Burnett County Clerk, explained. According to Hinrichs, eligible voters may cast a ballot by mail-in absentee ballot or in-person absentee ballot. To vote early, an eligible voter simply needs to contact his or her municipal
clerk and tell them they want to vote early. “The last of our municipal clerks got their ballots by Sept. 16,” she continued. “Those ballots could be issued right away — in fact, we already had requests for ballots so there was a waiting list.” Hinrichs said the legislative wrangling over the voting restrictions was worth it. “Since the restrictions have been lifted, there are a lot more days and hours people can schedule a time to vote,” she pointed out. Regulations governing in-person absentee balloting previously limited the days and hours to the two weeks prior to the election, Monday through Friday, and then only from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. But those restrictions were struck
down in August by the 7th District Court of Appeals. “It was hard to schedule a time with your municipal clerk in that 10-day window,” Hinrichs observed. “Now, there is more time for voters to take advantage of the eased restrictions.” Of course, those ballots, both the in-person and mail-in ballots, are not counted until the polls close Tuesday night. The on-again, off-again Voter ID legislation is on-again and is in place for Tuesday’s election. “It might delay the voting process a little,” she said of the absentee balloting. “But I haven’t gotten any irate calls.” SEE VOTE, PAGE 2
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