March 2023

CROSS PLAINS–Looking for a method to raise more revenue without it affecting the levy limit, the Cross Plains Village Board wants to further study establishing a transportation utility fee (TUF).

Some board members appeared to favor a TUF over a wheel tax for its potential to raise more money and involve every property owner not just residents who own vehicles.

Finance Director Bobbi Zauner said at Monday’s board meeting that the idea of a TUF comes from the perspective that streets should be funded by users like a water or sewer utility.

Regardless of the method chosen, residents would pay but Village President Jay Lengfeld said that a TUF would be fairer because it captures revenue from schools, churches and other tax-exempt property owners.

“Those not paying property taxes would pay for roads to some extent,” he said.

Unopposed Elections and Dane County Referendum Questions on Ballots

By Michelle Phillips

Several of the towns and villages in the Times-Tribune readership area will have candidates running unopposed in the upcoming Spring Election, April 4. 

In addition, two Dance County referendum questions will be included on the ballot. 

The questions read as follows:

Dane County Redistricting Referendum

Question #1: Should the Wisconsin Constitution be amended to require a nonpartisan system for redistricting legislative and congressional districts in the state?

Dane County Right to Privacy Referendum

Question #2: Should the Wisconsin Legislature adopt an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution creating a new right to privacy that would protect rights such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and interracial marriage?

Two judicial seats are up for grabs, and both candidates are running unopposed. 

MIDDLETON–Martha Jackson, 77, of Middleton was sitting in her apartment on March 14 when and intruder entered through a partial open patio door after climbing up Jackson’s balcony.

A suspect in the case, Clarissa R. Herrera, of Madison, was arrested on the scene after Jackson used a medical alert button to contact 911 according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court on March 20. 

In the complaint, Middleton Police officer Todd Dart said he responded to the call of a disturbance at the 6200 block of Maywood Ave. at 11;11 p.m. Herrera, the report alleges, was standing in the balcony door “waving her arms and yelling.” She was yelling that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted, then jumped four feet off the balcony after Dart told her not to. It was then he heard Jackson’s voice coming from inside the apartment. She was in a recliner asking repeatedly for help. 

Middleton High School is back to square one in its search for a new head football coach.

Brian Hellenbrand, the defensive coordinator at McFarland High School and a 2005 MHS graduate, was offered the position on March 24. After taking the weekend to think about the offer, Hellenbrand declined the position on March 28.

“It's disappointing,” Middleton athletic director Jamie Sims said Thursday. “We thought it was a done deal.”

Hellenbrand and Greg Spahn — the head coach at Grand Rapids (Minn.) High School — emerged as the top two candidates from a pool of 18 applicants.

The two finalists met with Sims, assistant A.D. Brad Crandall and principal Peg Shoemaker on March 22 and Hellenbrand was offered the job two days later.

Hellenbrand has never been a head coach, but has been an assistant coach in the Madison-area since 2012. Before that, he spent a year as a student coach at UW-La Crosse.