Thursday, December 5, 2019 • Vol. 135, No. 23 • Oregon, WI • ConnectOregonWI.com • $1.25
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Dorn asks for $1M in TIF 3 new buildings would be on Richards, North Main EMILIE HEIDEMANN Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Mackenzie Krumme
Deja Smith listens as fellow Multicultural Student Union member questions the ethics of reading the N-word out loud from books at an MSU meeting at Oregon High School on Thursday, Nov. 14.
Gaining influence Multicultural Student Union educating teachers, students about difficulties students of color still face
and backgrounds, “What have you experienced?” She didn’t have to explain her question or provide detail before seven of them immediately raised their hands. The students, all members of the Multicultural Student Union, which Monroe founded a year ago, each listed racist MACKENZIE KRUMME remarks, microaggressions and cultural Unified Newspaper Group appropriations they had witnessed or expeAs Carlie Monroe stood in front of rienced over the past week alone. One year ago, at the first MSU meeting, about 20 students at Oregon High School last month, the senior asked her fellow six students of color sat around that circle students, representing a variety of races
If You Go
The Village of Oregon is considering spending nearly $1 million to help a redevelopment project on North Main Street get started. The Dorn Plaza project – which the Village Board approved a general development plan for in 2016, and again this past May – would be located on the corner of West Richards Road and North Main Street. The plan calls for a three-phase development t h a t w o u l d ev e n t u a l l y move the current Dorn True Value Hardware and Hometown Pharmacy to another location on the
same parcel of land. The first phase would add a three-story building with 30 apartments above a 12,000 square foot retail space. The GDP is part of a three-step process called a planned district development that allows for different types of building uses and zoning variations on a single site. On Monday, Dec. 2, village administrator Mike Gracz updated the board on the village’s analysis of the project. The board took no action on the project, but rather provided some direction for how to analyze it going forward. Trustees discussed how quickly the village could and should pay the $950,000 in tax-increment financing the developer has asked for and how this project would fit in with o t h e r ex p e c t e d o b l i g a tions the village has in the
Turn to Dorn/Page 3
What: Multicultural Student Union weekly meetings When: Alternating times of 11:25 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. Thursdays Where: Oregon High School, 456 N. Perry Pkwy Info: Carlie Monroe, carlie. monroe@oregonsd.net
Turn to Multicultural/Page 12
Two openings on board this spring Odorico, Feeney will not seek re-election; LeBrun to run again SCOTT DE LARUELLE Unified Newspaper Group
When voters in the Oregon School District go to the polls on Tuesday, April 7, two familiar names will not be on the school board ballot. One of those has been on the board for most of the past for 16 years. Courtney Odorico, a former board president, and Barb Feeney will not seek re-election to their school
board seats, both told the Observer in emails in late November. Odorico was first elected to the board in 2003, representing the City of Fitchburg in Area II, and later was chosen as its president before being defeated in 2014 by former board president Charles Uphoff. She reclaimed her board seat three years later after Uphoff declined to seek re-election, running unopposed. Feeney was first elected in 2014 to represent Area II (towns of Blooming Grove, Dunn and Rutland) when she defeated incumbent Lee Christensen, and three years later ran unopposed. LeBrun was first elected in 2017,
when he defeated first-term incumbent Gwen Maitzen to represent Area IV, consisting of the Village of Brooklyn and the towns of Oregon, Montrose, Brooklyn and Union. The spring election will take place Tuesday, April 7. The election will feature candidates from the Village of Oregon and Brooklyn, City of Fitchburg and Town of Rutland and Oregon, in addition to the school board, as well as races for Dane County supervisor and a presidential primary. Email Unified Newspaper Group reporter Scott De Laruelle at scott. delaruelle@wcinet.com.
Courtesy Village of Oregon
A site plan for the proposed mixed-use development on the Dorn Hardware site.
Inside Panthers take on Golden Beavers at Kohl Center. Page 8
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