WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Serving Polk County’s St. Croix Valley since 1897
VOL. 119 NO. 16 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
SPORTS: Four receive All-Region honors. PAGE 10
Local election results BY JESSICA ANDERSON INTERIM EDITOR
The presidential election, this year more than most, often overshadowed the other offices that were up for election. However, in case someone missed it, Donald Trump was announced President-Elect. The Republicans also won 239 seats in the Congressional House, the Democrats 192. Ron Johnson won a close race for U.S. Senate representing Wisconsin with 1,479,262 votes against Russ Feingold who had a close 1,380,496. For Wisconsin’s State Assembly district 28 Adam Jarchow received 12,596 votes, his opponent Jeff Peterson 7,313. In the district 10 run for State Senator Sheila Harsdorf won with 13,995 votes while Diane Odeen received 6,930. The office of Polk County Clerk was won by Sharon Jorgenson with 13,287 votes, her opponent Mary Jo Hacker 8,713. Amanda Nissen and Sally Spanel ran unopposed for County Treasurer and Register of Deeds respectively. Jeff Kemp won the office of District Attorney with 13,410 votes compared to Dan Steffen’s 8,748. The municipal offices of Wisconsin will hold election in the spring. JESSICA ANDERSON | THE SUN
Unemployment rate falls lowest of the year BY TOM STANGL TSTANGL@THEAMERYFREEPRESS.COM
The unemployment rate in Polk County fell in September to 3.4 percent, down from August’s rate of 3.8 percent. This is the lowest unemployment rate in the county all year. It is also the lowest September rate in Polk County since 1998. According to Wisconsin’s WorkNet, 24,147 people were working in the county in September. This is the highest number of employed people in the county ever in September since records were kept online 1990. There were 861 unemployed in the county in September. Unemployment rates
fell in neighboring counties as well. In St. Croix County, the rate decreased to 3.1 percent. Barron County’s unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent. In Pierce County, the jobless rate slid to 3.3 percent. Burnett County saw their unemployment rate drop to 4.6 percent. Dane County continued to have the lowest unemployment rate at 2.6 percent. Menominee County has the highest unemployment rate in the state at 6.6 percent. Wisconsin’s non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 percent, below the national unemployment rate of 4.8 percent.
Veterans Day in Osceola Osceola Middle School held a Veterans Service on the morning of Nov. 10. The service featured the Dresser Color Guard who presented the flag for the service.
Polk County’s EDC in Dresser BY JESSICA ANDERSON INTERIM EDITOR
The Polk County Economic Development Corporation (EDC) is an organization that was founded by the county board in 2004. Its purpose is to assist the communities of the county by doing what it can to help its businesses. After a test run prior to its establishment the board found that the benefits of having an organization dedicated solely to providing “technical expertise, [a] clearly defined, single point of contact, better focus, monitoring, consistency, continuity, [and] potential growth” for local businesses was important enough to create it. The executive director of the
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panied by Keri Uzpen, Branch President of MidWest One Bank in St. Croix Falls and an EDC board member since 2015, but due to a recent surgery Uzpen could not attend. To compensate and still contribute she wrote a letter to the board detailing the EDC’s, specifically Healy’s, work in the community. She wrote “Thank you, first of all, for taking the time to listen to Steve about the benefits of the Polk County EDC for your community. The Polk County EDC’s mission is to encourage and promote economic development and capital investment in Polk County in order to create and retain quality jobs, enhance our SEE EDC, PAGE 2
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EDC Steve Healy attended the Nov. 7 Dresser village board meeting to present the benefits of the corporation to the village and to ask for funding to continue this work. His presentation included multiple success stories of businesses they’ve worked with, including Schaffer Finishing and Schaffer Manufacturing, C-Aire, Julia’s Java, Berghammer Builders, MidWest One Bank, and Cardinal Accounting. Healy also stated that their “strategic goals are to promote Polk County, be accountable and communicate EDC efforts to Polk County stakeholders, serve as a key partner for local business, and facilitate new business recruitment.” Healy was meant to be accom-
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