BURNETT COUNTY
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2016 VOL. 54 NO. 18 www.burnettcountysentinel.com $1.00
FUNDRAISER: Casinos come to aid of seven year-old cancer victim. P2
The search in Siren is on BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
SIREN—If all goes according to Hoyle, Siren Schools will have a contract signed with a new district administrator by the end of March, if not sooner. That was the upshot of the special Siren School Board meeting Monday night. Why the hurry? “It’s important to get this going,” Roger Foegen, Search Services consultant with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB), the organization the board has contracted with in order to find a district administrator. “If we could get this done by the end of March, you’d be ahead of the game.” In addition to signing a “not to exceed” $8,000 contract with WASB for the search, the board approved the time line for the search, which includes releasing the initial posting yet this week. “It gets the first blurb out there — it lets potential candidates know you have an opening,” Foegen said of the initial posting. “It talks about the size of the school, the population it serves, the fact there is a large native population and other basics about the job.” SEE SEARCH, PAGE 6
COURTESY OF BURNETT COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT
No injuries On Tuesday, Jan. 5, a neighbor on Norman’s Landing Road noticed the flames, came to the property and proceeded to call 9-1-1 when he observed the shed on fire. Property owner Joseph Mulroy was not believed to be inside the structure at the time of the fire. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
Creating a law enforcement dialogue BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
SIREN—Dubbed an “educational opportunity,” the top-ranking officials from the five law enforcement agencies within Burnett County will be invited to a public safety round table discussion as part of the county’s monthly public safety committee meeting on Feb. 4. If the invites are accepted, Webster Police Chief Mike Spafford, Grantsburg Police Chief Jeff Schinzing, St. Croix Tribal Police Chief Frank Taylor, Siren Police Chief Chris Sybers and Sheriff Ron Wilhelm will discuss the issues of the day in an open forum. “We want the committee members to hear, as well as each agency, what the priorities are in each jurisdiction,” Nate Ehalt, county administrator, explained. “We want to know how the village and tribal police departments help the sheriff’s office and how the sheriff’s office helps the village and tribal police departments.”
Jerry Pardun
Jerry Pardun, committee chair, sees the round table as a chance for the police chiefs and the sheriff to work together but Sheriff Ron Wilhelm doesn’t see it that way. “To be totally honest, I was blind-sided by the article in the paper,” he said, referring to a December article in the Inter-County Leader. “I don’t know what the issue is — we’ve never closed our door to any agency.” But Pardun reasoned that was
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some of the impetus behind the meeting. “This round table could easily clear up some of those misunderstandings,” he pointed out. The sheriff agreed. “My predecessor wanted to shut down the local police departments and I have no interest in doing that,” Wilhelm remarked. “But I do get the feeling they want to micro-manage us.” The round table could go a long way in settling those differences. In fact, it could be a lot like the chiefs meeting the sheriff had scheduled later that day. “With all that said, I see it as a good effort to get better information between the five agencies,” Pardun reported. Ehalt agreed. “The intent is not to ‘slam’ anyone but rather for each agency to see what the priorities are and how the departments can support and help one another,” he reiterated.
Now what? BY MEG ROD SENTINEL INTERN
GRANTSBURG —“It’s a cross between a beautiful piece of real estate, because it’s on the Wood River, and an opportunity since it’s so close to downtown Grantsburg,” Glenn Rolloff, the Village President, described about the town’s new space where D & J Manufacturing used to reside. What was left of the structure was west of Pine Street, and was torn down in December 2015. The rich history of the D & J consists of many business transitions from when it was built at the turn of the 20th century. It began as a starch factory, which remained into approximately the 1950’s-1960’s. Rolloff determined that the next business must have been the Rolite company, which belonged to Leo Hagginson and manufactured crank-up, portable campers. The building itself went through various renovations — wood buildings were attached, as well as a few metal buildings and storage nooks. “Leo got out of the business I believe in the late 1960’s, then it became a part of Copy Cat fireplaces and wood burning stoves,” Rolloff recollected. A couple of decades later, the building became what most people knew it as in modern times — D
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