COUNTRY
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2019
Serving Marine on St. Croix, Scandia, May Township
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Scandia Elementary goes ‘Under the Stars’ for literacy, STEM night BY MATT ANDERSON EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
Focusing on math and literacy with the family, Scandia Elementary hosted its first Literacy and STEM night Nov. 21 with their theme “Under the Stars.” Organized by Academic Support Specialist, Heidi Wiberg, with help from Innovation Specialist, Justine Harren, students, parents and staff, came to enjoy hands on activities designed to enhance reading, writing and mathematic skills, that are fun and can replicate at home. “Here at Scandia, we decided to do something things a little bit differently than your traditional literacy and math night,” said Wiberg. “We decided to make this an event. We had stations set up around the school that students and parents could go through freely that focus on activities that can be done at home.” Scandia Elementary
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Candles lit for Lucia Dagen celebration Reverend Alan Hagstrom led a special service for the annual Lucia Dagen celebration at the Gammelgården museum in Scandia December 8. The candlelit service was held in the historic GammelKyrkan before the traditional Jul Fest breakfast.
CONTRIBUTED
A.J. Jones, Ben Woolford and James Marsh enjoy the Robot station.
was set up with plenty of activities for students and parents including flashlight and campfire reading, word games like Boggle and Word Jenga, robot and Mars lander stations and more. “The primary goal of these activities is to promote literacy with families and to give parents some different ideas on how to interact with their children,” said Wiberg.
“Flashlight reading can be done at home with any book, Scrabble and Boggle are great games for literacy too. It’s just a way for parents to use some of the resources they might already have to help make learning fun outside of school.” To add the math and science to the event, Wiberg reached out to SEE SCHOOL, PAGE 2
May Township, property owner, disagree over event use BY MATT ANDERSON EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
The May Township Board of Supervisors and property owner William Emison have a disagreement over how his property at 15520 Square Lake Trail, May Township, is being used. The board passed a resolution last week that Emison is in violation of town code, allegedly using the property as an event center. Emison claims the property has only been used by family and friends and
isn’t in violation of town code. Town Planner, Nate Sparks, sent a letter to the Emison property after a wedding took place in September. The letter indicated that the wedding was in violation of town code, and that a violation hearing would be held. The issues raised were the number of cars and people attending, whether or not the sale of alcohol was permitted, and whether or not goods and services were exchanged for use of the property. Emison disputed all of the board’s claims.
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“The code does not say you can’t do weddings and it should have it under conditional use permits if that is the case,” said Emison. Various issues were raised at the time of the violation hearing regarding the clarity of the May Township code and events permissible on residential property. After some back and forth on the clarity of the code, board supervisor John Pazlar attempted to simplify the argument from the board. “Understand, the general concept here is that some municipalities allow
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weddings or events and some don’t,” he said. “You can debate whether or not that should be in someone’s town code, but for whatever reason May Township doesn’t allow it… The issue is simply that if you are operating your property in that way, we are compelled to do something about it. We’re just trying to enforce our code and it appears that you operate your property in a way that is in conflict with that.” Pazlar then asked Emison, with a SEE MAY, PAGE 2
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