Thursday, February 8, 2018 • Vol. 53, No. 38 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1
Wisconsin's PRIVATE PRACTICE OF THE YEAR RECIPIENT
adno=555081-01
Verona Press The
NEW LOCATION! LOCATION! NEW
608.848.6628 608.848.6628
Two more auto thefts Total up to 3 already in 2018 SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Alexander Cramer
Kenneth Anderson in the machine room at Badger Car Wash. Anderson turns 100 on Feb. 2 and works at the car wash every morning.
Still on the job at 100 Anderson has been driving, working daily since he was 12 ALEXANDER CRAMER Unified Newspaper Group
Kenneth J. Anderson turns 100 years old Feb. 8, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. His eyes are clear and stories strong enough to make the whole room laugh, and he still comes to work every day at 7:30 a.m. “Work never killed anybody,” Anderson said with a smile. He
drives his electric wheelchair the three blocks to the Badger Car Wash on West Verona Avenue every morning, the same place he’s worked for 33 years. Bob Hanson, who owns the car wash, jokes Anderson still has 10 years to go before retirement. Anderson grew up on a dairy farm outside of Mount Vernon, born the same year World War I ended when bacon cost 53 cents per pound and a construction worker earned 57 cents an hour, according to the Bureau of
Labor statistics. When he was 12, his dad fell ill, so he stopped going to school to keep up the farm. “Well, either my sister quit school or I did,” Anderson said. He never did go back, working the 88 years since. The year he quit school is also the year he learned to drive. He got his license driving a 1927 Ford Model T. He remembers going to dances as
Turn to 100/Page 12
Chamber adding tourism position JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
Verona is on its way to having a tourism coordinator. The position, which would be overseen by the Verona Area Chamber of Commerce but funded by hotel room tax money, is
envisioned as a person who would create and run new tourist-oriented events and help land existing ones to boost Verona’s “image as a destination for business Jordan and leisure travel.” It could also have a hand in the chamber’s marketing efforts for the community. T h e c i t y ’s To u r i s m
Commission approved a $280,000 tourism budget for the chamber for 2018 at its Jan. 30 meeting, with unanimous support for the position. The hope is to have it filled sometime around April, but it still needs adjustment on its salary level and job duties before the chamber posts for it. The position would work closely with the commission, which was created last year to oversee Verona’s growing room
tax fund. The city collected $40,000 in room taxes in 2007 and almost 10 times that much in the first three-quarters of last year alone, and just over half of its collection goes to the commission. Receipts of the 7 percent tax are expected to continue growing throughout 2018, as the city’s biggest hotel, the 136-room Hyatt Place, opened in May. As a result of that
Turn to Tourism/Page 13
Turn to Cars/Page 12
City of Verona
NW plan returns to council Feb. 5 Height, density language changed, other areas tweaked JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
If You Go What: Council review of Northwest Neighborhood plan When: 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 5 Where: Verona City Center, 111 Lincoln St. Info: City planning director Adam Sayre at 848-9941
The Northwest Neighborhood plan is back. After getting dozens of comments and going back and forth between the Common Council and Plan Commission at two public hearings, it’s in what some city leaders hope is its final which meets at 7 p.m. Monform. It’s skipping the com- day. mission this time, going Turn to NW plan/Page 12 straight to the council,
The
Verona Press
Snow Shoveling Hurts! Call us Today and We’ll Fix You Right Up! Dr. Joe Beyler
We accept Dean Care, Private Insurance & Cash 115 ENTERPRISE DRIVE, VERONA • 845-8860 ReinenBeylerChiro.com
Dr. Steve Beyler
adno=556251-01
Room taxes will fund efforts to create, run new events
Two more vehicles were stolen in the City of Verona last week, bringing the total to three already in 2018 and four in 32 days. Verona Police Department Lt. Dave Dresser told the Press in an email two of the cars have been recovered, but the first one stolen this year, on Jan. 26 on Carter Court, has not been found yet. Dresser noted that the most recent thefts – Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 – showed a new pattern. “In the last two days the suspects have started targeting Verona during daytime hours, whereas previously most of this activity was occurring at night,” he wrote. In the Jan. 31 theft, the suspects were first observed at 10:52 a.m. the previous day on Maple Road inside a garage. On Wednesday, Dresser said, they were seen a few blocks away
on Ashton Drive inside a garage at 12:54 p.m. and eventually stole a car from Amanda Way around 3:35 p.m. That vehicle was eventually found abandoned on Grace Street. The next day, an SUV was stolen from a garage in the 1100 block of Hemlock Drive, in the same northwest part of the city as the other thefts. Dresser said that vehicle was recovered in Madison over the weekend. Dresser added that there were reports of thefts from vehicles overnight Wednesday, as well, including one in which a window was broken out, but said that sort of damage is “rare.” “We know there are multiple groups targeting Verona and other communities,” Dresser said. “We know they are often driving cars stolen from other communities and they frequently change vehicles.” He also pointed out that “cars are being stolen daily from neighboring communities,” mentioning that the