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Editor’s note: The following announcement was provided by the City of Whitewater Urban Forestry Commission.

City of Whitewater, Wisconsin Arboretum At Starin Park Grand Opening Announcement

On Friday, April 22nd, 2022 at 2 p.m., the Arboretum At Starin Park (AASP) will be unveiled during the City of Whitewater’s Earth and Arbor Day celebrations! The event will begin with a welcome from the city’s Chair of the Urban Forestry Commission, Sherry Stanek under whose guidance the effort was initiated to establish the AASP in 2020. The City Manager, Cameron Clapper will deliver remarks and a City Resolution. This will be followed by the City Parks & Recreation Director, Eric Boettcher who will discuss the work that is to be accomplished here in 2022.

The initial landscape designs will be ‘unveiled’ by Landscape Designer Danielle Bell of Native Roots Landscape Design of Glendale, Wisconsin. These designs will give everyone a look at what our first steps will be at developing micro-climate areas representative of Wisconsin’s various growing areas. The goal is to establish the plantings for a welcome center and the first three of these micro-climates in 2022, as part of planting 150 trees and shrubs in the Arboretum this year. Ultimately, these micro-climate areas will be part of a nearly one mile path that weaves around and through the nearly 35 acre Starin Park.

Our Wisconsin DNR Representative, Olivia Withun, will be at the park to award the City Forester, Brian Neumeister, the city’s 2022 Tree City award and also a Tree Campus award to Sustainability Director for UWW, Wes Enterline who has been a valuable partner to our efforts. In the last couple of years, Wes has had two arboreta accredited on campus, The Salisbury Arboretum and The Chopp Arboretum and has been an invaluable resource for Urban Forestry members.

On Arbor Day, Saturday, April 30th, the Urban Forestry Commission will be holding a Children’s AASP Day from noon until 2 p.m., featuring many tree activities that will help kids and adults learn about the importance of trees and also birds in celebration of World Migratory Bird Day (May 17th this year). We will have a bean bag Migratory Bird Toss game, our Who’s A Snowy Owl selfie station, tree ring counting, tree cookie crafts, a wingspan banner where families can see how their ‘wings’ compare to birds and many other fun activities. We are offering snacks that are all derived from trees, and even more importantly, lots of fun!

This year will also be the UFC’s first year offering a Community Tree Sale! Native trees will be available for purchase by community members on Earth Day, April 22 from 1 to 6 p.m., April 23rd from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., on Arbor Day, April 29th from 1 p.m. until 6 p.m. and April 30th from 10 a.m. until noon at AASP’s lower shelter in Starin Park. The purpose of this sale is to get native, high quality, air pruned trees into the city’s tree canopy where they will thrive.

This work is being undertaken with the generous support of local sponsors and the award of a $25,000 Wisconsin DNR matching grant as well as community volunteers and would not be possible without each and every one of them.

For more information about all of these community events, visit the Arboretum website at www.ArbAtStarin.org. We look forward to seeing you at The Arboretum At Starin Park!

Phi Delta Theta, Delta Zeta, and Congregational United Church of Christ sponsored an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 2 at Starin Park. Perhaps some of the children returned for the “rescheduled” hunt the following Saturday, but as depicted in these photos by Tom Ganser a number of families braved the weather for the first hunt.

Our thanks to Tom Ganser for also braving the weather and for sharing these photos.

Editor’s note: The following information was provided by Fort Community Credit Union.

Fort Community Credit Union (FCCU) is pleased to announce Deanna Ugalde, Credit
Resolution Specialist, has earned the designation of Certified Credit Union Financial Counselor (CCUFC).
This certification requires participants to complete the Financial Counseling Certification Program (FiCEP)
offered by the Credit Union National Association (CUNA). The program involves self-study, online learning, and
rigorous testing with the aim to identify financial challenges and provide effective intervention not typically
offered by for-profit financial institutions.

Ugalde joins FCCU’s team of Financial Coaches whose goal is to help members reduce loan delinquencies, raise
their credit score to qualify for better rates, and improve their overall financial wellbeing.

“This certification will allow Deanna to provide actionable advice and create practical payment plans that suit
a member’s individual financial needs.” said Staci Schoenrock, Director of Credit Resolutions at FCCU. “I’m
proud of the hard work Deanna has put in these past few months in preparation of her final exam.”
Individuals with the CCUFC designation are required to recertify every three years to ensure their financial
counseling knowledge is current.

Steve Watson shared the following photos that were snapped on his Sunday morning walk on April 3.

Our thanks to Steve Watson for sharing these great photos.

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By Al Stanek
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com

The Whitewater Common Council approved entering into a $26,000+ contract with the public safety consulting firm Public Consulting Group LLC on Thursday, April 7.

The contract calls for “professional skill and expertise in the realm of fire and EMS operations” as the City begins data collection in advance of a potential referendum asking taxpayers to approve additional taxing authority to maintain and expand fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Those services are currently provided by the mostly volunteer Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. (WFD, Inc.).

The action was taken just two days after voters in nearby Fort Atkinson approved a somewhat similar public safety referendum by an unofficial vote of 1293 to 1127.

The 52.39% majority vote is expected to result in an increase of $82.22 per $100,000 of assessed property value according to a quote from Fort City Manager Rebecca Houseman LeMire in the Daily Jefferson County Union. Other recently passed public safety/EMS referenda have estimated tax increases per $100,000 of assessed value as low as $43 according to a 2021 WBAY-TV article.

The Fort Atkinson plan includes adding police officer positions in addition to firefighters and paramedics. Whitewater has not indicated that any increase in police staffing would be envisioned in its anticipated referendum.

The City of Whitewater and WFD, Inc. are in the process of developing a Memorandum of Understanding that would likely result in Fire and EMS services becoming a full fledged city operation. The potential cost is expected to push the city beyond a state imposed local property tax limit which would require voters to adopt a referendum authorizing increased taxing authority.

The League of Wisconsin Municipalities (LWM) reported Wednesday that a total of eight Wisconsin municipalities conducted local public safety/EMS referendums on Tuesday. They included the Cities of Algoma, Seymour, Washburn and Fort Atkinson along with the Villages of Browntown, Butler, Melvina and Pleasant Prairie. WLM reports that seven of the eight referendums passed. The nearby City of Milton recently announced plans for a possible future public safety/EMS referendum.

“Wisconsin is the only state in the country that funds these critical services solely by property taxes,” according to a statement attributed to LWM Executive Director Jerry Deschane in Wednesday’s statement on public safety referendums. “No other state places such an overwhelming majority of the local government and school funding burden onto the property tax,” he added.

In other Common Council news a no-cost settlement with a construction industry group was approved. A lawsuit over bidding the dredging contract for Cravath and Trippe Lakes argued that the contract should have been rebid after initial bids came in well above projected costs. The settlement requires the city to stipulate that future dredging contracts exceeding $25,000 are to follow public works construction bidding requirements.

The City’s position was that dredging was not “construction” but “maintenance” and therefore didn’t require a formal process. Outgoing City Council President Lynn Binnie stated that, “If we would have had to follow construction bidding requirements the dredging could not have been completed in the 2021-2022 winter months which would have delayed the project even further.” Common Council members were told that the refilling of the two downtown Whitewater lakes is rescheduled for completion this summer with stocking of fish on target for this year.

Binnie was honored by an unusual mid-session adjournment of Thursday’s Common Council meeting to allow council members, staff and citizens to share a cake commemorating his 14 years of service which included the past two years as Council President. Binnie, who is actively involved in other civic duties including Kiwanis and The Whitewater Banner, chose not to run for reelection.