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Thursday, April 18, 2019 • Vol. 137, No. 39 • Stoughton, WI • ConnectStoughton.com • $1.25
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Courier Hub The
Officer’s use of force has been questioned before Suit claims arrest 3 years ago started with harassment ALEXANDER CRAMER Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Amber Levenhagen
Laura Anderson begins applying paper mache to the frame of the Earth, part of the plastic monster display that will be featured at the Earth Day Expo and Syttende Mai parades.
A plastic monster
Sustainability project highlights recycling, overconsumption monster, and it hit me like ‘yeah, that’s kind of what we’re doing,’” Anderson said. The project will be unveiled during Earth Day Expo April 27 the Sustainable Stoughton Earth Day Expo and will be featured in the SytPage 7 tende Mai parades. The plastic monster will be stationary during the expo but will be pulled organization, jumped into the project on a flatbed attached to a Nissan Leaf during the parade, if the test runs immediately. “I think what really struck me was go well. Anderson said they want to Nicholas’ initial idea of having this Turn to Plastic/Page 7 Earth being eaten by a big plastic
Inside
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When Yolibeth Fitzgibbon’s son, Nicholas, approached her with a concern about the overuse of plastic, she decided to take it to Sustainable Stoughton. That concern was discussed during a volunteer appreciation dinner last fall, and members of Sustainable Stoughton came up with an idea to create a symbolic plastic monster. Laura Anderson, a member of the
Everyone ‘welcome’ at SUMC, church says Local church discusses inclusion after global vote AMBER LEVENHAGEN Unified Newspaper Group
Rev. Cathy Christman was on a “working vacation” when she spent a week watching the livestream of the United Methodist Church special General Conference session. Following the vote that
a ffi r m e d t h e c h u r c h ’s ‘We won’t ask you about your gender, we position on disallowing won’t ask you about what happens in the LGBTQ c l e rg y a n d bedroom, we won’t ask you how much marriagmoney you make or why you wear what es within the church, you wear. We’re going to simply say, ‘What Christman do you need and how can we help?’’ had to prepare for how – The Rev. Cathy Christman she would l e a d h e r Christman church service – and how she would Sunday. the Commission on a react to that vote – at T h a t s p e c i a l s e s s i o n Wa y F o r w a r d , w h i c h Stoughton United Method- was held from Feb. 23-26 ist Church that following to act on a report from Turn to SUMC/Page 14
Courier Hub
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City of Stoughton
Policy: Time to start ‘reining in’ debt City’s finances healthy, finance director says
ALEXANDER CRAMER Unified Newspaper Group
The city’s finances are in good shape, and officials have been working on policies to keep it that way and improve the situation going forward, finance director Jamin Friedl told the Hub last week. Amendments to the city’s debt management and
tax-increment financing policies got the approval of the Common Council at its April 9 meeting. Those include limiting the a m o u n t o f Friedl new debt the city will issue, what proportion of taxes should be used to pay for debt and labeling pay-as-you-go TIFs the city’s preferred funding
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AMBER LEVENHAGEN
A Stoughton Police Department officer who is being sued for allegedly using excessive force received what the department called “verbal counseling” months later for his use of force in another incident. The lawsuit against Officer Christopher Stachel stems from a September 2015 incident at a Kwik Trip on the west side of the city. It claims Stachel used excessive force when he took the plaintiff to the ground after the man declined to present identification. The action is working its way through the federal court system, with a jury trial scheduled for late 2019. The legal team for the plaintiff, Brian Doyle, 30, of Stoughton, announced
its experts at the end of March, including his treating physician following the incident in question and a retired police captain who now serves as a consultant for law enforcement issues. The Hub has requested personnel files for Stachel and reports of all incidents related to his personnel file, as well as reports from the plaintiff in the case. The police department has turned over part of that request but opted to hold some back and redact others because of the ongoing litigation. The SPD declined to release the full report on the incident with Doyle because it is involved in ongoing litigation. Police chief Greg Leck declined to comment or confirm whether Stachel was disciplined for it. An expert witness hired by the plaintiff notes in his report filed with the court March 29 that Leck had testified the officer’s actions were considered within