Minocqua Votes for More Parking, Raises for Chair & Clerk
Submitted: 04/18/2013
Story By Lex Gray
MINOCQUA - Anyone who goes to Minocqua in the summer knows parking can be a hassle, especially during big events like Beef-a-rama and Crazy Days.
The town board wants to help alleviate that problem.
The board put in a $55,000 offer for a piece of property a block and a half from Oneida Street.
They want to put 20 parking spaces where a house and shed currently stand.
Development would put the total cost at $74,000.
Board chairman Mark Hartzheim thinks it will pay off.
"You don't want people to drive into your business district, not find a parking space, and decide it's not worth and go somewhere else," he said. "You want them to spend time in town."
The board asked the town to buy the property at tonight's annual financial meeting.
All five town members who attended voted yes, plus the 12 town officials who have to attend.
Also at that meeting, Tom Handrick asked his fellow Minocqua residents to increase the town chair and town clerk's salaries after their next election.
The positions aren't up for election until April 2015.
Whoever is elected will get a $2,500 raise.
That will put the clerk and chair's salaries at $44,500 each.
Handrick said the chair and clerk currently make less than the town's other 25 full-time employees.
"I believe the two positions I made a motion to raise are two of the most important positions in our town," Handrick said. "They deserve to be paid accordingly."
Politicians and public officials usually face public anger over raises.
But Handrick says the town had an opportunity to vote on this, but only five of its 5,000 year-round residents showed up.
"I'm very active in the community and always believed in the philosophy that if you don't vote, you shouldn't complain about anything," Handrick said.
Hartzheim has been the town chair for two years and hasn't had a raise before.
OWEN - A plane crash in central Wisconsin has killed one person and injured two others.
Clark County Sheriff Greg Herrick says the victim was a passenger in a Cessna 182 that was trying to make an emergency landing on a road in the town of Hoard at about 9:15 a.m. Monday.
PHILLIPS - The Price County Sheriff's Office wants to find out what it needs to do to get a K-9 officer. Sheriff Brian Schmidt believes a new dog would improve the office's ability to find drugs.
The county doesn't have its own K-9 officer. However, they do turn to other departments for help.
"What we would utilize is surrounding counties, and it is at their discretion," Schmidt said. "Like Rhinelander, we utilize their dog on occasion, maybe once or twice a year. But again, it is their dog, so they have their needs come first. So if we have our own equipment, our needs are met with our equipment."
WAUSAU - The Wausau Police Department will use a "Hero Dog" to help bolster its K9 unit.
The dog's name is Rex, and he isn't Wausau Police Officer Mark Jaeger's first K9 partner.
"My last dog, Pluto, is 12-and-a-half and he just retired," Jaeger said. "When [Pluto] saw me in the uniform getting in the squad and he didn't get to come along, he was not happy."
Rex just recently joined the Wausau Police Department, but his service to his community and his country, goes further back.
VILAS COUNTY - Vilas County finally got what it wanted. For fifteen years, the county had needed someone to act as a full-time Recreational Officer--someone to monitor public safety on the snowmobile and ATV trails as well as the lakes and rivers. Now, Vilas County Deputy Sheriff Randy Schneider will fill that role.
WISCONSIN - The Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling received a record number of phone calls to the helpline in 2014â€"14,731 to be exact. This is a 5.6 percent increase from calls received in 2013.
Some of the callers reported having to file for bankruptcy or having thoughts of suicide. The report from the Council also calculated $47,000 as the average gambling debt of callers in 2014, and $20,000 as the median debt.
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