Pewaukee Village Voice will be hosting a Town Hall Forum on Thursday September 22nd from 7:00 to 9:00 P. M. It will be held in the Community room of the Pewaukee Public Library. Click here for a flyer.

All of the elected officials have been invited and Citizens will have an opportunity to submit written questions and receive a response. Question submission sheets will be available at the meeting or you can down load one here . The question form can also be filled out on line, printed and emailed to us at Pewaukee Village Voice..

If time permits, we will also have a citizens comments section at the end of the meeting using the same format as the one used at Village Board meetings. All citizens will have to state their name and address before speaking. Comments will be limited to 3 minutes and the elected officials will not be able to respond to any verbal questions or comments.

In order to avoid a violation of Wisconsin's open meeting law, the forum will follow the following procedure.

On Thursday, September 22, 2011 Pewaukee Village Voice hosted a Town Hall Forum in the Community Room of the Pewaukee Public Library. Citizens were invited to attend and ask questions of seven Village Board members. Board members in attendance were President Tom Calder and Trustees Steve Ebling, Paul Evert, Dean Flowers, John Laimon, and Joseph Zompa. Board member Cathy Baumann was unable to attend due to a prior work commitment.

The meeting was moderated by village resident Laurin Miller who took written questions from the audience and posed them to the Board. Each member was allotted three minutes to answer.

The first question was aimed at the member’s reasons for serving on the Board. Most of the candidates cited motives such as an interest in government and a commitment to the greater good versus furthering personal goals. They emphasized their commitment to spend wisely and conservatively. Paul Evert added that he wished more people would attend the meetings and help the Board in this effort.

The issue of the merger between the Village and City came up once again with most members supporting a referendum vote to determine how the citizens felt about it and then to proceed from there. Flowers and Zompa emphasized the cost savings that could be realized from a merger, while Evert and Calder held to the belief the since the Village had its infrastructure in place and the city did not, the SUD would be a losing proposition for the Village financially. John Laimon added that a Pewaukee police officer had told him, “You have to worry about one thing, a merger.” Calder also lamented the fact that the mayor of the City has not responded to his requests for discussion and he thought there should be a citizen vote as soon as this April.

Another subject raised was whether the Village should establish a Community Development Authority (CDA), to facilitate development and redevelopment of blighted areas and empty storefronts. Calder was in favor of a CDA and said he had proposed the idea because he would like to see high end development that does not require a lot of public services, such as police and fire calls. Other members also seemed to favor the idea but wanted a clear goal established before creating another layer of bureaucracy in the form of a CDA.

Someone then brought up the state’s new Conceal Carry law and what it would mean for the Village Hall and Library. Laimon hoped they would take no action on prohibiting guns anywhere but the matter was clarified by Tom Calder who said that the Library had decided not to allow firearms and they were already not allowed in the Village Hall. Both buildings would probably be posting signs to that effect. Dean Flowers got a chuckle when he said, “You probably wouldn’t want me to have a gun.” Evert added that he was “not a fan” of carrying firearms in public places.

Getting back to budgetary and development matters, one citizen asked about extra fees to restaurants for police calls and if that would deter them from coming into the community. Most members indicated that they were unaware of any fee for Police calls, but there was a fee for false alarm fire calls. The Board members seemed to agree that this was a standard fee in most other communities. (Fact Check: According to the Village of Pewaukee there is no fee for typical police or fire calls, but there is a Police fee for false alarm burglary calls and a Fire fee for false alarm fire calls. Both fees increase on a per incident basis, with the first false alarm call at no charge.)

Another money saving topic that arose was whether the board could go from seven to five members. The board members again seemed to concur that it probably could but it would put more pressure on the board and the cost savings would not be significant. Dean Flowers said that he was thoroughly enjoying his time on the board even though the discussions were “not always the most intellectual.” This drew laughter and some red faces from board members when Zompa said, “Dean, Ouch!”

Throughout the evening the discussion returned to the topic of whether the Village or Chamber of Commerce should be funding fireworks. All members agreed that despite the importance of this event, in these times of austerity the board could simply not justify using tax dollars to pay for fireworks. They were reasonably sure that the Chamber could raise the money if they started early enough and had a well organized drive. Kathy Eckhardt, Chamber Executive Director, stated that the chamber had never sponsored fireworks and that they simply could not raise the needed $13,000 from local businesses. Eckhardt added, “We could probably raise enough for about two minutes of fireworks.” Board members challenged one another to make personal contributions and Al Hansen stood up and began taking $20 from anyone who wanted to contribute right then and there. He then left (jokingly for Las Vegas) with the $60 he collected.

The meeting ended with 15 minutes for citizen comments. Mr. Miller thanked the board members and the meeting was concluded.

Village President

The position for Village Trustee was uncontested. All three of the candidates will be on the new Board.

On Thursday, March 24, Pewaukee Village Voice sponsored its fourth annual candidate forum for Village of Pewaukee offices. This year the panel was limited to the office of Village President because the seats for Trustee are uncontested. Current Village Trustee, Tom Calder, and current Village President, Jeff Knutson answered questions from a group of about 30 citizens who attended. The event was moderated by Village resident Laurin Miller who read the questions and allowed each candidate three minutes to answer.

Many of the questions had to do with the proposed merger between the Village and the City of Pewaukee. It seemed that both candidates were open to a referendum vote on the issue but had reservations on whether citizens had enough facts at this point to make an informed decision. There were also concerns raised by both candidates about the Street Utility District (SUD) being included in the merger because the Village has a much smaller need for street maintenance and repair. Overall, even though the idea has been bandied about for some time and a significant amount of money spent on studies, the benefits to the Village with a merger have not been sufficiently explored, studied, or settled.

Also discussed was retail development in the Village. President Knutson said that Costco, Tires Plus, Taco Bell, and Aldi’s are all slated to come to the Village in the near future. When the candidates were asked, what the main distinction was between them, Calder indicated that he came down on the side of “smart development” with stringent requirements for developers. He stressed that revenue from the development had to be carefully weighed against the demand for services such as fire and police calls. Knutson thought that in this economic climate he would not ask quite as much from developers who seemed interested in locating in Pewaukee. Knutson also kindly thanked Calder for guidance when he first became Village President. Both candidates agreed that they did not want, or foresee more multifamily development in the Village.

Other questions had to do with the vacant properties in the downtown, the former Amoco station site, and the former Sentry site. Knutson revealed that there were possible plans and/or interest in both sites but declined to give details at this time. Both hoped that business owners could be helped to fill any empty stores currently in the Village.

One question had to do with the impact of state budget cuts on the Village. Calder thought it would mean about a $217,000 loss, $75,000 of which would be offset by higher employee contributions to insurance and pensions. Knutson said he was confident they could make up the difference by economizing and sited the longstanding frugality of the Village. He brought up layoffs but said that would not be something he would like to see happen. Another savings was the retirement of a Village DPW worker and the possibility that the position would either not be filled or changed to a part-time position.

A recording of the event can be found here with the title "3-24-11 Village Forum".

User: pewaukee (case-sensitive), Password: pewaukeemeetings (case-sensitive)

Pewaukee Village Voice will be hosting a Candidate Forum on Thursday March 24th 2011 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. It will be held in the Community room of the Pewaukee Public Library. Click here for a Candidate Forum flyer.

There are 2 candidates for the office of Village President. Both candidates have been invited to participate in a panel discussion. Citizens will have an opportunity to submit written questions to the candidates on the panel and receive a response. Question submission sheets will be available at the meeting or you can down load one here . The question form can also be filled out on line, printed and emailed to us at Pewaukee Village Voice. The candidates will be seated in alphabetical order by surname. Every question will be asked of each candidate on a rotation basis. The candidates are:

The next election for Village of Pewaukee officials will be held April 5th 2011. The office of Village President and three Trustee seats will be voted on. Voting hours are from 7:00am to 8:00pm.

Voters in wards 1-5 vote at Queen of Apostles School, 449 W. Wisconsin Avenue.
Voters in wards 6-10 vote at Village Hall, 235 Hickory Street.

Pewaukee Village Voice is hosting a Candidate Forum on March 24, 2011. The event will be held in the Community Room at the Pewaukee Public Library from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. Mark your calendars and plan to attend.

We have submitted a Candidate Information Survey to each of the candidates running for office. The candidate responses will be posted on the web site as soon as they become available.

Candidates for Village President - 2 year term

Tom Calder (inc. Trustee) candidate survey
504 High Street
Pewaukee, WI 53072

Jeffrey Knutson (inc. President) candidate survey
759 Glacier Road
Pewaukee, WI 53072

Candidates for Village Trustee - 3 open 2 year term seats.

Cathy Baumann (inc.) candidate survey
228 Third Street
Pewaukee, WI 53072

Paul Evert (inc.) candidate survey
327 Lookout Drive
Pewaukee, WI 53072

Dean Flowers candidate survey
459 Leanore Court
Pewaukee, WI 53072

Are you registered to vote in the village?

Stop at the Village Hall, 235 Hickory St. during regular office hours to take care of this before the elections on the first Tuesday in April. You will avoid a possible long line on election day, and it gives you a chance to see the new Village Hall.

When Asa Clark and his wife Naomi came from Vermont in 1836 to what is now the Village of Pewaukee, he built a dam to harness the lake’s power for his saw mill. His home was built on the corner of what is now Main Street and Prospect Avenue. That property is presently the location of the Joy Christian Fellowship Church. Naomi opened her parlor to students for the first school, in the winter of 1840-41.

The original school building was built in 1844 on the site of the present day Pewaukee Library. The first teacher was pail $12.00 per month, and got his room and board by living one week with each of his pupil’s families. I wonder if that would work today.

The year 1858 saw a larger building constructed of limestone from the quarries located at the northeast edge of the village. A brick school was next in 1884, and 1891 saw the first four year high school graduating class. In l898, after renovations and additions, the village took pride in having eight grades and the high school in one building.

In 1916 the Department of Public Instruction suggested that state aid would be denied if something was not done about the overcrowded school. The citizens promptly raised $25,000 for a new school. The old cream brick school was torn down and replaced with a new brick school in 1917.

By 1946, after WWII, the school district bought fifteen acres on William Steele’s hill at the end of Lake Street for $550.00 per acre, and constructed a ten room elementary school, which was at capacity almost as soon as it was finished. A new wing was necessary in 1955.

A fire with no traceable cause occurred at the high school building on Main and Prospect in the summer of 1953, forcing classes to be held in different locations in the village. With much cooperation from the community, students and faculty were able to return to the renovated school after Christmas.

Another remodeled and enlarged high school welcomed the growing school population in 1959-60. William Steele sold the school district sixty-three more acres adjacent to the elementary school in 1964 and on October 27, 1968 a two story high school was dedicated.

The school on Main and Prospect was closed in 1985, with the sixth grade moving to the elementary school, and the seventh and eighth grades going to the previously unfinished area of the high school. Fire was again responsible for the destruction of the school on Main and Prospect when it burned on November 11, 1992.

New subdivisions being built in the area warranted the construction of the Asa Clark Middle School in 1991. At this writing, the last building update was new wings at the high school in 2002-03. Currently about 2,200 students in K4 through 12 attend Pewaukee Schools on this one campus.

Information for this article was taken from the Joseph Ryan pamphlets, “Echo’s from Pioneer Trails” and “Asa Clark’s Return” and from “A History of the Settlement and Progress of Pewaukee, Wisconsin,” compiled and edited by Lorraine C. Redfield.

Secured with corner tabs in the black pages of an old album is a photo of a boy facing the camera with splotches of snow stuck to the front of his outdoor clothing. In 1930, before the days of water repellent snow suits, snow adhered well to flannel, wool and corduroy. “I must have been about four years old in that picture,” says well-known lifetime Pewaukee Village resident Al Hansen.

Hansen grew up in the village and never lived more than a block from school. His parents Alfred E. Hansen and Irene Simmons were married in 1924 and had 8 children in 10 years, 4 boys and 4 girls. Then, according to Al, “They figured out what was causing it.” The family first lived on Orchard St. and in 1935 moved to Prospect Ave.

In remembering Pewaukee in wintry days gone by, it seemed that the boundaries between traffic and non traffic areas became somewhat blurred, especially during times of heavy snowfall. One such example was the regular closing of Lake Street where it met Prospect Ave. Only delivery trucks were allowed through. This was done so that the village children, sometimes numbering 50 to 100, could gather to enjoy unimpeded and safe sledding down the entire road. On a good day you could get going on your Flexible Flyer or Red Arrow runner sled and make in all the way down to the river after turning right on Prospect and right again past the Clark House. On a really good day the old water tower might have overflowed, leaving an ice river on the right hand side for the extra daring. This practice continued on until about 1943. Most roads had at least several inches of hard packed snow during the season. No sand was used except at the intersections.

In about 1939 or ’40 Hansen also recalls ice skating with some buddies on old Hwy. 19 past the airport to Waukesha and back. “Just to see how far we could get,’ he says. An especially memorable winter for Hansen was in 1937. In February there were 20 days straight when it did not get up to 0°. At 10 years old he took a trip with his father in the 1930 Willys Knight to check on his Grandpa Hansen’s farm in Kenosha County. On Hwy. 45 the snow was piled up so high that only the very tops of the electric poles were showing. There was one-lane traffic with a wider area every quarter mile or so to allow two vehicles to pass through. On the return trip the last several miles were done with a team of horses. The cold temperatures and high winds combined to pack the fallen snow into a hard surface The snow was so hard that the horses could walk on top of it without breaking through. So extreme were the weather conditions that Ryan Road in the hollow north of Hwy. 16 where the Ryan farm was located was closed for three weeks. A bulldozer had to be used to clear it out. Of course the lake added another dimension to winter. There were memories of the ice harvest and the lake being full of people fishing. “People went fishing to eat in those days,” Hansen recalls. He himself never got into ice fishing but remembers going out on the ice in search of his father when he was six years old. “I stepped into an ice fishing hole and cried all the way home.”

There was ice skating on the Village Park pond and on the lakefront. The high school principal, Bill Raymond, taught math, science, coached sports and also took charge of winter sports on the lake. There would be a yearly county ice skating meet in front of Buroughs tavern where an oval track was cleared. It was pack racing and one of the competitors, Connie Stark, was to become an Olympic skater.

A less glorified skating memory for Hansen was at around age 12 when he was showing off for some girls. “I was skating backwards and fell and hit my head pretty hard and was kind of semi-conscious for the next 3 days. But I guess it didn’t rattle my brain too much.” In the 1930s and 40s there were many ice boats on the lake. Hansen rode in one only once but said it was quite a thrill. The boat belonged to a neighbor, Willard Bartlett. Ice boating has declined, in part because the ice does not freeze as solidly or for as long as in the past. Winter activities for teens included bobsled parties and hay rides at the homes of farm families. Basketball practice typically took place in a hay loft. Sports were very seasonal because there simply wasn’t the availability of indoor facilities and activities. Whatever you wanted to do you had to do for yourself on foot or bicycle. On the other hand, there was a lot of open space to roam and parents did not manage children’s time as in the present. In 1945 and ’46 Hansen was in Japan during the occupation after WWII. It seems even then he could not get away from snow. A couple of inches fell in Yokihama, much to the amazement of the children there who had never seen it before.

During the winter of 1947 Hansen was attending school in Milwaukee and had taken the Interurban train from there to Waukesha. A heavy snowfall prevented the train from continuing on so he stayed the night in the Waukesha Hotel in a room with nine other men. The next day he struck out for home on foot. “Every step of the way I’d go in about 2 feet, then lift that foot out and move it ahead. It was a tough walk but I was young, I could do it.”

Unable to return to school, he stayed and helped his dad on an oil delivery to Rocky Point Road at a home that was out of oil. Because of the deep snow, the truck only got in about 50’ and then he and his dad had to carry 50 gallons of oil by hand in 5-gallon buckets to the residence. “Bud Meyer, I think was out of oil, and it was cold. So we had to carry it. No extra charge,” he says with a smile and shrug.

Hansen Oil had a system of keeping “degree days” with a high/low thermometer and a magnet to determine how much oil a household had used and when a fill would be needed. The only time it didn’t predict closely was on Park Ave. when the wind was coming across the lake and those homes used a lot more fuel. No computers took over in those days, yet it was very accurate and came so close that fill trips were kept to a minimum.

Being in the oil business, the Hansen family probably had a little closer relationship with winter over the years. In 1951, Hansen remembers a temperature of -37°. The No. 2 fuel wouldn’t run out of the tank into the trucks. They had to wrap rags on wire, soak them in kerosene, light them and hold them under the pipes to get the oil to flow down. Another oil truck episode occurred in 1973 when Al was making an oil delivery in Brookfield and tried to barrel through a snow bank and the truck became stuck. The next day when he and his brother Don had it almost completely shoveled out they found that a 2’ square of snow was under the center of the truck and the wheels were an inch off the ground. In looking back, Hansen remembers working out in some pretty tough winters for 30 years. He enjoyed it but is presently glad to enjoy the great indoors during the cold months. He believes the average winter now, for whatever reason, is much milder. As for Global Warming, he simply says. “It’s there. Whether it’s man made or just natural, I don’t know.” The winter of 2007/ 2008 though, according to Hansen, “Was a good old fashioned winter.”

In 1904 the first public library was formed by a group of citizens. The village board agreed to appropriate $144.00 for library expenses and a small store building was rented. As the village grew so did the library. In 1958 the Methodist Church on Oakton Ave. was purchased and renovated. On Sunday, April 24, 1960 the new library was dedicated. Congressman Robert Kastenmaier was the main speaker.

The Pewaukee Woman’s Club has long been a strong supporter of the library. By the 1990’s the library had once again outgrown its surroundings and the search for larger facilities began. The site of the old middle school on Main Street became available and with strong community support the land was purchased and planning for a new library was begun. On September 18, 2005 the grand opening for the Pewaukee Public Library was held.

The library is located at 210 Main St. and is a joint library to serve the citizens of the City and Village of Pewaukee. The service population of the library is approximately 20,000 people. The Pewaukee Public Library is a current member of the Waukesha County Federated Library System. Your library card (CAFÉ) will provide access to over a million items from county libraries.

For more information about the local history collection call the Pewaukee Public Library at (262-691-5670) or go to the Library web site.