BURNETT COUNTY
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2015 VOL. 54 NO. 2 www.burnettcountysentinel.com $1.00
ACCIDENT-FREE: Leon Miller begins 50th year of driving bus in Grantsburg. P8
Association nets grant for fire hall BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
be five pumps for normal gas and a separate island for three diesel fuel pumps.
TOWN OF DANIELS—By no means are they out of the woods but the Siren Fire Association breathed a big sigh of relief last Tuesday night when it got the news they had officially secured a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the state for the construction of a new fire hall in Siren. “Mike (Huber) put a lot of time into getting the grant,” Cory Scheidler, Cedar Corp, told association members at their meeting. “It was push, push, push.” Huber, the chairman of the Town of Daniels, agreed he had put a lot of effort into securing the grant, including numerous phone Scheidler calls to the state’s department of administration, the ones who issued the grant. He also had a hand in the income survey some fire district residents had to fill out. “In order to even apply for a CDBG, we have to conduct this income survey,” he explained earlier this year. “I had put so much time into this thing, I got a little choked up when I heard about our association getting the award.” But with an estimated $1.2 million price tag on its new fire hall, the association quickly turned its attention to securing the remaining $700,000. “As long as 10 percent of the project cost is covered with local funds, the association is free to seek other grant options,” Scheidler noted. With that news, Darwyn Brown, association chairman, assigned DuWayne Wiberg, chairman of the Town of Siren, to research financing possibilities with the Polk-Burnett Electric Cooperative as well as Bremer Bank. “We need someone in charge so it gets done,” Brown, also the chairman of the Town of LaFollette, explained. Scheidler liked the sound of that news. “We’d like to see the association get all its financing set by October or November,” he said. “The earlier you have your financing ready, the earlier you can advertise for bids.” He said that was huge because he has already seen construction costs increase on similar projects. “I’ve seen costs that are up between five and 10 percent,” Scheidler clarified. “We will look at the estimate for this project and come back with a firmer number.” Regardless of that number, it won’t change the amount of the CDBG grant. “You could spend $2 million on your hall — the CDBG will cover the first $500,000 and anything extra is on the association,” he pointed out.
SEE GAS, PAGE 7
SEE HALL, PAGE 6
GOOB COY| SENTINEL
Celebrating the season Grantsburg celebrated their sesquicentennial during the annual Grantoberfest on Saturday with a huge crowd coming out to take part in all the festivies. Above, Norah Bjelland smiles for the camera while getting her face painted in a dalmation design by artist Audrey Lauer. More photos from Grantoberfest on pages 16 and 17.
Creating a better Log Cabin Store BY TODD BECKMANN SENTINEL
DANBURY—If things go according to plan, the Log Cabin Store and Eatery in Danbury will be pumping the first tank of gas from its new convenience store/gas station in late November. Hard to believe if you were to drive by today. “They’ve been moving really fast,” Kelly Martin, general manager, said of the contractor and sub-contractors on the job. “They just set the rafters a couple weeks ago.” The whole project, earth-moving-wise, started about mid-July. “We’ve been planning for this for a couple of years,” Martin pointed out. “We knew we had a definite need for more gas pumps, we
TODD BECKMANN | SENTINEL
Construction is progressing quickly on the Log Cabin’s new convenience store.
couldn’t expand where the pumps are now so our only option was to find a new place to relocate them.” That new location is on the buildings west side — where there will
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