County

CROSS PLAINS–Like most public and private sector employers, the Village of Cross Plains is dealing with an increasingly costly and tight labor market.

Replacing a program coordinator in the Parks and Recreational Department drew few applicants, including one with little job experience but insisted getting paid at the top of the salary range and five weeks’ vacation.

“I don’t even get five weeks’ vacation, and I’ve been here 16 years,” Mike Axon, Parks and Recreation director, told the village board last month.

The board told him to widen the candidate search area to include Illinois in hopes of getting an applicant who will work for what the village pays.

Village President Jay Lengfeld acknowledged that it’s a buyers’ market for job candidates as municipal positions can go unfilled or have become more expensive to staff.

CROSS PLAINS–A popular Cross Plains eatery hosted a film crew on March 22 when America’s Best Restaurants (ABR) stopped by to feature The Vessel Café. 

Owners Shaun and Krystal Williams applied to be on the show, which is streamed on the ABR website, and said they expect the segment to be released in about 6-8 weeks. 

The restaurant features breakfast and lunch items as well as baked goods and opened in 2021. 

“When we meet with them for our first interview, we were very nervous to see if we would be chosen and when we told them our history and where we got our recipes from, I think we sealed the deal!” said the Williams’.

The show filmed from 8 a.m.-12 p.m. and residents from the community came out to show their support for the restaurant, filling the space to enjoy a pastry or breakfast at the family run business.

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. 

MADISON–A Dane County judge Friday refused to grant the Town of Middleton an injunction against a resident who caused town hall to close for two days after he harassed staff about snow plowing.

Town hall closed on Jan. 18 and 19, after Samuel A. Roessler, 42, yelled profanities at Town Treasurer Megan Hughes and Town Clerk Barbara Roesslein about damage made to his lawn by a snowplow driver.

“He repeatedly told (Hughes) that he was tired of the f-ing snowplow plowing snow into his year and f-ing destroying his yard,” Town Attorney Eileen Brownlee wrote in a petition for an injunction.

Hughes testified Friday that Roessler was “swearing every other word,” during their encounter. She also said that Roessler refused her requests to “calm down,” and continued to “pace and swear…I was intimidated by this.”

When Roessler also refused Hughes request to leave, she went downstairs to the Dane County Sheriff’s West Precinct office to summon help.

CROSS PLAINS–The Cross Plains Police Department continues to set new records for service calls, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Police Chief Tony Ruesga Jr. told the village board Monday.

For instance, checking on property while the owner is on vacation, jumped from 328 in 2019 to 585 last year; checking on business properties also increased from 59 to 109 in the same time period, according to department statistics.

“A lot of it has to do with our proactive law enforcement,” and more effective community policing, said Ruesga, who became the village’s police chief in 2020.

Other increases are due to a change in enforcement emphasis. In 2019, only two cases of open or unlocked doors were recorded and that has since increased to 77.

“That’s just a matter of not checking,” he said.

Requests for information also leaped from 14 in 2019 to 185 last year, another sign that the department is providing more service in general.

DANE COUNTY–Over the past three years, testing revealed that roughly half of the homes tested in Dane County had high levels of radon. Radon is a radioactive gas common throughout Wisconsin, that can’t be seen, smelled, or tasted, even at high levels, making it an invisible threat to your health.

“Radon comes from the ground and seeps into homes through tiny cracks in basement floors,” said John Hausbeck, Environmental Health Supervisor for Public Health Madison & Dane County. “Living in a home with high radon levels can be dangerous to your health and the health of your family.”

Over time, exposure to radon in a home can cause deadly lung cancer. Because of the ways that radon and tobacco smoke damage the lungs, it can be especially dangerous for people who smoke. Their risk of lung cancer is 10 times higher than that of non-smokers.

DANE COUNTY–The nomination filing period has ended and candidates have been announced for the Spring General Election on April 4.

In the City of Middleton, Kathy Olson and Emily Kuhn will both run for mayor. Both women currently serve as alders on the Middleton Common Council, and have vacated their seats in District’s 1 and 4 respectively.

Current mayor Gurdip Brar has announced non-candidacy for the seat he held for three terms.

Alders Luke Fuszard (District 5) and Dan Ramsey II (District 7) also filed non candidacy for their seats.

Those running for alder include:

District 1: Cornell Ellerby and John Schaffer 

District 3: Katy Nelson (I) and Lucas Morgan 

District 5: Jeffrey Jackson

District 7: David Lorman

CROSS PLAINS–The village’s currently longest-serving police officer and the police department’s first point of contact for many are both retiring next month.

Officer Scott Kroetz has not only patrolled the village for the past 33 years; he has been involved in many community activities. He has presented programs on drug abuse, landlord-tenant relations and personal safety. He has also hosted bicycle rodeos, participated in scout organizations, partnered with Northwest Dane Senior Services and represented the department on the Northwest Dane Cares Coalition.

Kroetz joined the department in 1989 after working as an undercover officer for another department. He has an associate’s degree in police science and is a trained Emergency Medical Technician. 

Lisa Davis, an administrative assistant with the police department since 1994, is often the first face or voice to greet the public who have contacted the police.

DANE COUNTY–Dane County Executive Joe Parisi and Sheriff Kalvin Barrett were joined by County Board Supervisors today in calling on the Dane County Board to fund the long-debated county jail consolidation project. Under new resolutions introduced within the past few days, the county board now has two new options to move the work forward. Final designs on the jail consolidation project will be complete in the next several weeks but if dollars for the project aren’t approved by spring, bidding on construction can’t proceed, delaying the work even longer.