Verona Press The
Thursday, June 27, 2019 • Vol. 55, No. 6 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1.25
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Verona Area School District
Switching schools could get complex Board talks middle school options, including moving students year early SCOTT GIRARD Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
Adele Radke turns the butterfly sprinkler toward her friend Norah Wasvick, left, as they play on the splash pad at Fireman’s Park on Tuesday, June 25.
‘Glad it’s here’
Fireman’s Park opens with new splash pad, beach upgrades KIMBERLY WETHAL
After a $3 million renovation, including the addition of two splash pads, the park opened for the season Jill Radke and Brandy Wasvick both Friday, June 21, two days later than brought their children to Fireman’s previously anticipated. City officials explained that project schedPark for the first time this week. “We’ve been watching for it to ules were slowed due to subzero and icy weather in January and February open,” Radke said Tuesday.
Unified Newspaper Group
and a damp spring that at times either closed the site or at minimum slowed down construction. And even when it did open, weather wasn’t cooperative. Rain forced the beach to close early Friday and Monday, and rain appeared to dampen
Turn to Fireman’s/Page 12
City of Verona
Sugar Creek Commons TIF deal gets scrutinized JIM FEROLIE Verona Press editor
A year-old deal, in principle, to spend several million dollars of taxpayer money redeveloping a part of West Verona Avenue that has already been torn down is getting some additional financial scrutiny. T h e Ve r o n a C o m m o n Council met in closed session Monday to review an analysis of the project provided by the city’s financial adviser, Ehlers. It spent
more than an hour discussing that, as well as an unrelated negotiation and had nothing substantive to announce afterward. “Negotiations are ongoi n g , a n d w e w i l l h ave updates when we have news,” was all Mayor Luke Diaz said. The project has been in the works for more than two years and contains 284 apartments in five buildings, with first-floor retail in two of them totaling 26,000 square feet, plus a The
Verona Press
120-room hotel and convention center. It would replace what had been 10 separate properties containing an abandoned truck stop, an auto repair shop, a car wash, a volleyball court and some older apartments. The city created a tax-increment financing district, TID 9, in September 2017 specifically for the project. The TID project plan authorizes spending up to $5.4 million on infrastructure, teardown and site pollution cleanup, among other
Fifty-four students are entering sixth grade this fall at a school that’s different from their anticipated attendance area school, once new boundaries go into effect in fall 2020. The Verona Area school board plans to decide how to handle that over the next few weeks. It will be the easier of two discussions on how much flexibility it can allow parents of students for whom a change of schools might be imminent. Later this summer, after it sets the new attendance area boundaries for elementary school students, the board will discuss policies for students who would change elementary schools after this transition
year. That will be a much higher number than those changing middle schools – 177 in the option with the fewest changes – and with six years in elementary school, any grandfathering would have a longer phase-out period. After a 45-minute discussion on the policy for middle schools Tuesday, June 18, the board wasn’t ready to decide the middle school option. Board members asked for more d a t a o n h ow va r i o u s options would play out and planned to further discuss the topic Tuesday, June 25. B o a r d m e m b e r To m Duerst, who had children in the district when the last major redistricting took place, discouraged the rest of the board from overcomplicating the decision on who should change schools, and said, “If the parent handles it well, the child will handle it well.” “I would strongly encourage we keep this s i m p l e ,” D u e r s t s a i d .
Turn to Boundary/Page 9
Inside Photos from the Wisconsin Triterium Triathlon
things, for what is expected to be a $30 million to $40 million set of buildings. The first two phases (the hotel and mixed retail/ apartment buildings) have gotten final plan approvals, and developer representative Ron Henshue told the Press Monday night contractors are ready to go as soon as an agreement is signed. Henshue, who waited in
Page 11
Turn to Commons/Page 10
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