WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2016
Serving Polk County’s St. Croix Valley since 1897
VOL. 118 NO. 40 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
SPORTS: OHS soccer is best kept secret. PAGE 12
Discovery Center campaign receives $250,000 The Discovery Center capital campaign announced on April 27 a $250,000 contribution from Royal Credit Union Foundation, representing a significant leap toward the campaign’s $4 million goal. The Discovery Center, a combined library and municipal center, has been designed to serve several populations in Osceola. It will provide children with more opportunities for educational learning, give teens a safe place to gather after school and offer seniors resources designed with their needs in mind. The business community will have access to meeting rooms wired with high speed internet and hub with the tools for the knowledge economy. “This is a terrific project for Osceola and the area,” stated John Sackett, president of the Royal Credit Union Foundation. “We are pleased to be in positon to help sup-
port this exacting and innovative project. “The RCU Foundation’s purpose is to create a positive impact in the lives we touch and the communities we serve,” he continued, “and the Inspire…Building a Center of Discovery Campaign offered us a chance to make a difference in Osceola, right next door to our office. The Discovery Center, with its ‘makerspace’ to inspire young learners, community rooms, library and shared common space makes this an ideal facility to meet the needs of the community and perfect project for the RCU Foundation, where our focus is on youth, education and the betterment of the community.” In recognition of the cornerstone level gift the Discovery Center will now be home to the Royal Credit Union Business and Video Teleconference Center. “This is a wonderful cornerstone level gift
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Royal Credit Union Foundation donates $250,000 to Inspire…Building a Center of Discovery Capital Campaign. Pictured: Mark Kravik, Vicki Hoehn, Gary Beckmann, Doug Olson, John Sackett, Timm Johnson, Pam Talmage, Shannon Jacobson.
from Royal Credit Union Foundation and I want to thank their leadership for making this important investment in our community,” said Timm Johnson, president of the Mill Pond Learning Foundation. Mill Pond Learning Foundation is a public-private partnership with the Village of Osceola, Osceola Public Li-
brary and the community of Osceola. The vision is to promote, raise funds for and provide project leadership in the development and construction of a new facility to replace the current library. The center will be home to an MIT Fab Lab, library, senior center, business incubator, and community spaces. The village hall, police de-
partment and other municipal spaces will sit on a separate story. “Having come from manufacturing, I understand the need to keep and create good manufacturing jobs,” said Mark Kravik, Discovery Center campaign chair. “A really good manufacturing job – tool and die, machinist, assembler – still offer a very good
middle class wage. The Fab Lab and business center will be an incubator and pipeline for quality employees.” Features such as the Fab Lab, business incubator and community spaces are “critical to our community’s vibrancy,” said Kravik. “We have a responsibility to build it and maintain it for the present and the future.”
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Sarah Rude, Austin Goff, John Rude, Sheri Rude and Matthew Rude collect trash as part of the Town of Osceola’s adopt-a-road program. The Rude family has tended a milelong stretch of road in the township for about a decade. SUBMITTED
The road well tended BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Every spring for about the last decade, Sheri Rude’s family has taken a few hours to pick up trash on the side of 110th Avenue in Osceola Township. They do it again in fall, before the snow flies. In the Town of Osceola, tending local roads is not uncommon. The town runs an adopt-a-road program, supplying locals willing to tend roads with bags and vests. Rude wasn’t exactly sure how her family felt about SEE ROAD, PAGE 18
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Walker signs a bill into law at J&S General Contracting April 26. Locally, the bill — now Act 391 — has been somewhat controversial.
Governor visits Osceola to sign bill BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Governor Scott Walker came to Osceola last Tuesday to sign legislation at J&S General Contracting. The bill (Assembly Bill 582 and Senate Bill 464), now Act 391, strengthens protections for landowners while weakening the power of local governments
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to regulate property use. The law, authored by Representative Adam Jarchow (R-Balsam Lake) and Senator Frank Lasee (R-De Pere), bars counties from passing development moratoriums and stops judges from deferring to the DNR or other state agencies when interpreting legal cases that could restrict property owners’ rights.
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The law also bars municipalities from regulating repairs to buildings in protected “setback” areas near the shore. Governor Walker said the bill “clarifies zoning regulations and makes additional changes to protect the property owners in our state,” but locally the bill has SEE BILL, PAGE 8
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