Waukesha-area boys basketball teams in star-filled regional
It’s a star-filled bracket.
That’s one way to characterize the regional of three of the Waukesha-area boys basketball teams after looking at the WIAA postseason brackets that were released last weekend.
From the state’s best team – Germantown – to arguably the state’s best player – Menomonee Falls’ J.P. Tokoto – this portion of the Division 1 bracket has plenty of sizzle.
There’s also a familiar Classic 8 foe – Arrowhead – that is suddenly one of the hotter teams around.
Waukesha West (12-9, 7-6 Classic 8), the fifth seed in the nine-team regional, received the best seed of the three schools and will open with Tokoto (a University of North Carolina recruit) and Falls (12-9, 7-6 Greater Metro Conference), the region’s fourth seed.
» Read Full ArticleJury convicts sex offender Marth of child enticement
Waukesha - A convicted sex offender who just weeks after he was released under a judge's order from state supervision tried to lure several boys into a secluded area of a Hartland park was found guilty by a jury of child enticement.
Dennis C. Marth, 51, faces up to 45 years in prison followed by 30 years of extended supervision when he is sentenced June 29 in Waukesha County Circuit Court on three felony counts of child enticement.
The jury reached its guilty verdict Wednesday night after hearing testimony during a two-day trial and deliberating for about four hours.
According to the criminal complaint, Marth, who has a Sussex mailing address, approached several boys - a 5-year-old and three 11-year-olds - at a fishing pond in Nixon Park on several occasions July 15 and asked them to show him where railroad tracks were in a secluded, wooded area.
A nanny who was caring for children saw Marth act suspiciously, getting too close to the boys while they fished and asking them about the railroad tracks.
» Read Full ArticleArea's only Maid-Rite to open in Waukesha in summer
A Maid-Rite, the Iowa-based franchise known for its loose-meat sandwiches, will open in Waukesha this summer. It will be the only one in the Milwaukee area.
The fast-casual restaurant will open at 801 W. Moreland Blvd., in Suite C of the Moreland Commons plaza. The targeted opening is mid-July.
Vance Skinner, a Waukesha alderman, is opening the restaurant with his partner, Brendan Barrett.
Skinner said he chose Maid-Rite partly for nostalgic reasons. He grew up in Iowa, and moved to Wisconsin at 15.
» Read Full ArticleWaukesha raises home builder fees
Waukesha - It will soon cost more to build a new home in Waukesha - up to about $4,200 more, based on the Common Council's decision Tuesday to add new and higher impact fees to future development.
The city has been charging so-called impact fees since 1995 for sanitary sewer facilities and parks, both of which would be raised under the new study. In addition, new fees will be imposed to help pay for other additional public services - the library, law enforcement and fire and emergency medical services.
Aldermen voted unanimously Tuesday to revise the fees, a revision that also removes the existing $500 per acre sewer impact fee charged developers and eliminates the existing $2,100 per acre storm water impact fee. An ordinance will be drafted for council action in June.
The rationale for the new fees is based on a public facilities needs study by Ruekert & Mielke Inc., which identified about $9 million in new public improvements and $2 million in already completed projects needed to address future growth in the city.
Interim City Administrator Steve Crandell said the question is whether the council wanted current city property owners to bear the cost of future development or assign those costs through impact fees on future residents. Many neighboring communities charge impact fees, aldermen noted.
» Read Full ArticleWaukesha, Oak Creek continue talks about diverting Lake Michigan water
Oak Creek - The city of Waukesha continues negotiations with the cities of Oak Creek, Racine and Milwaukee to provide Lake Michigan water to its residents.
The Common Council on Tuesday heard a presentation from Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak on Waukesha's water needs.
As Waukesha's groundwater supply drops deeper into the ground, Duchniak explained, water quality continues to worsen. With wells already beginning to draw salt water and radium-contaminated water, the city has been forced to abandon some of its deep-aquifer wells. Even water drawn from shallow wells must be treated for iron and manganese, and recently arsenic has been detected as well, Duchniak added.
The city of Waukesha is under court order to come into compliance with the radium standard by June 2018, he said. In order to do so, the city must either treat its existing water supply or develop a new supply. After considering numerous alternatives, diverting water from Lake Michigan is clearly the most sustainable long-term solution, Duchniak said.
"We believe through all the studies that we've done, if we go a different route, we're going to be back 30 to 40 years from now, and we're going to be here asking again for Lake Michigan water," Duchniak said.
» Read Full ArticleWatch for bikers on Waukesha streets tomorrow night
As part of Bike Week, area bikers will be traveling Waukesha streets with a police escort during the Ride for Silence tomorrow night.
Waukesha names new library executive director
Waukesha - The Waukesha Public Library will have a new executive director beginning June 11 - former Princeton (Ill.) Public Library director Grant C. Lynch.
The Library Board hired Lynch to replace Jane Ameel, who retired May 1 after 27 years of leading the library. He'll be paid $91,800 a year and receive a $4,000 relocation package for his move.
Lynch spent four years as Princeton's library director, which served a regional population of about 35,000. Prior to that, while working on his graduate degree in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was director of the Community Workshop Series, a computer literacy educational program in four partnering urban libraries. Before his library career, Lynch taught Shakespeare and the classics at a rural high school in Virginia.
He is currently working on a second graduate degree in public policy and administration through a distance-learning program through Northwestern University.
The Waukesha Public Library was named Wisconsin Library of the Year last year.
Bid to reduce Waukesha County board position hits bumps
Waukesha - A suggestion that the new Waukesha County Board chairman's job could be reduced to half time as soon as this month appears to have been overly ambitious.
Newly elected Chairman Paul Decker of Hartland, a business owner who took on the chairmanship in the belief that the board would vote to reduce the job to part time, got a mixed reaction to the change Monday from the County Board's Executive Committee.
Decker himself said that in his first four weeks in the office, he's learned the job is bigger and more time-consuming than he had expected, even as he tries to bring technological efficiencies to the County Board office operation.
He's asked staff to prepare information on the leadership responsibilities and comparisons with other counties. He'll schedule more discussion at future Executive Committee meetings, he said.
Supervisor Patricia Haukohl of Brookfield, the board's vice chairman who heads the Finance Committee, said at Monday's meeting that she didn't want to see the chairman's job diminished when it should be an equal partner with the executive and judicial branches of county government.
» Read Full ArticleCatholic Memorial girls rugby team finishes fourth at national championships in California
The Catholic Memorial girls rugby team entered the national tournament as an underdog.
After all, last weekend’s USA Girls High School National Invitational Championship in Stanford, Calif., featured plenty of experienced teams that have national championships attached to their résumés and who are familiar with this stage.
The Crusaders were not one of them, as they were competing in their first national tournament. But CM showed throughout the two-day tournament that it was not going to be a pushover.
In fact, the Crusaders almost pulled off two of the biggest upsets in recent years and gave two of the most successful high school teams in history a real scare.
The Crusaders finished fourth, winning its opening-round match to West Carroll (Maryland) before dropping matches to Fallbrook (California) in the semifinals and Divine Savior Holy Angels of Milwaukee in the third-place match.
» Read Full ArticleWaukesha Public Library selects its new director
The Waukesha Public Library has found a new director.
The Waukesha Public Library Board of Trustees voted 7-2 to accept the unanimous recommendation of the WPL Human Resource Committee to hire Grant Lynch of Princeton, Ill., as their new director.
He will begin June 11 and receive a salary of $91,800 per year, and be eligible to receive $4,000 for moving expenses.
Lynch, who has served as the director of the Princeton Public Library in Illinois since 2008, replaces Jane Ameel, who retired earlier this month after serving as Waukesha’s director since 1984.
Lynch was also the director of the Community Workshop Series for the University Library System at the University of North Carolina from 2006 to 2008.
» Read Full ArticleCatholic Memorial girls rugby team at USA National Championships
Catholic Memorial will be going for gold this weekend.
The Crusaders’ girls rugby team is one of eight teams at the USA Rugby Girls' High School National Invitational Championships at the Steuber Rugby Stadium in Stanford, Calif.
CM’s quarterfinal matchup is against West Carroll out of Maryland at 10 a.m. Saturday. CM is making its first trip to nationals, while West Carroll is familiar to this stage.
This is West Carroll’s fourth straight year at nationals, but the national tournament hasn’t always been kind to them.
West Carroll has lost its opening-round match the last three years, before finishing seventh in 2009 and sixth in 2010 and 2011. Overall, they are 3-6 at nationals the last three years.
» Read Full ArticleKerry Group to cease operations in Waukesha
Kerry Group will halt its operations at a plant in Waukesha, affecting the jobs of 40 employees.
Kerry has notified state officials that it will discontinue production of dairy flavors - used in chocolate milk, cheddar cheese and such - at a leased factory at 620 Progress Ave. late this year.
Kerry bought the business as part of the larger acquisition of Cargill Flavor Systems last December, spokesman Jim Egan said. He said Kerry plans to move the operations to an existing company plant in Jackson, and that employees may be able to transfer there.
"There will be opportunities for them to relocate with the work," Egan said.
Kerry is based in Ireland, but the food ingredients and flavors manufacturer has its headquarters for North and South America in Beloit, where three years ago it opened a $50 million technical center.
Man accused of embezzling $1.46 million from Waukesha hospital
Waukesha - A Waterford man is accused of embezzling about $1.46 million from Waukesha Memorial Hospital while he was employed there.
Over a five-year period, Jeffrey A. Checker, 52, submitted invoices to the hospital from a painting company owned by his wife, Lisa, for work that the company purportedly did, according to a criminal complaint filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court.
But the hospital determined that the company, Wall 2 Wall, never did any work at the hospital. Most of the work supposedly done by the company was performed by hospital employees and not by any contractor, the complaint says.
Checker was charged Wednesday with six counts of theft-movable property. Each count carries a maximum prison term of five years followed by five years of extended supervision.
The thefts occurred between Feb. 17, 2006, and April 25, 2011, during which time more than 460 fake invoices were submitted to the hospital, the complaint states.
» Read Full ArticleWaukesha panel endorses Carroll student housing
Waukesha - Plans for a third, privately built dormitory at Grand and College Avenues for Carroll University student housing have moved forward.
The Plan Commission on Wednesday unanimously approved rezoning for the project, developed by Clysmic Properties under managing partner Alan Huelsman.
The commission also approved a site plan and architecture for the project, which includes some ground level retail space and 32 residential units for about 130 students.
Two earlier phases of the dormitory development built by Clysmic opened in 2008 and last year. The three-dorm project replaces a one-time rubber factory, strip mall and transmission repair shop.
Common Council approval is still needed for the project.
Waukesha man loses everything in Saturday fire
WAUKESHA - A Waukesha home is expected to be declared a total loss after an early morning fire Sunday.
Bob Bolda said he was in his bedroom watching television just before 4:00 a.m., when he heard the sounds of cracking and popping coming from the first floor of the two story house.
"As soon as I opened the door, there was a black cloud of smoke," Bolda says.
The man rushed out of the house and had a neighbor call 911. Firefighters said they found the home on the 600 block of Madison Street engulfed in flames when they arrived.
"It was all solid smoke, there were no flames, then when I got to the neighbors then I saw flames coming from the side," Bolda says.
» Read Full ArticleJury finds Waukesha man guilty in shootout with deputies
A Dane County jury on Friday night found a Waukesha man guilty of attempted murder for a shootout with sheriff's deputies last year at a town of Middleton motel, according to a report in the Wisconsin State Journal.
Geoffrey A. Herling, 52, was convicted of firing at deputies Michael Zach and Garrett Page on July 12 at a Town of Middleton motel.
