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Gov. Tony Evers signed Executive Order #150 ordering the flags of the United States and the state of Wisconsin to be flown at half-staff tomorrow, Wed., Dec. 29, 2021, in honor of firefighter Stephen M. Smith of the Vandenbroek-Kaukauna Fire Department, who lost his life in the line of duty after contracting COVID-19.  “We extend our sincerest sympathies to Steve’s wife and kids, his friends, and his colleagues as they grapple with his tragic loss,” said Gov. Evers. “To those who knew him, Steve was a good friend and someone who cared deeply about others, and he will be missed by the many whose lives he affected.”  On Mon., Dec. 20, 2021, at the age of 54, Smith passed away after contracting COVID-19 in the line of duty. Smith was a dedicated firefighter at Vandenbroek-Kaukauna Fire Department, who will be remembered for his dedication and service to others. The funeral liturgy will be held on Wed., Dec. 29, 2021, in Kaukauna.  Executive Order #150 will be in effect from sunrise to sunset on Wed., Dec. 29, 2021, and is available here.

Sheriff Knudson is pleased to announce that the Rock County Sheriff’s Office will offer a Snowmobile Safety Education Course on January 22, 2022, at the Rock County Fairgrounds, 1301 Craig Ave, Janesville, WI 53545.

Anyone born on or after January 1, 1985, is required to complete this course to legally operate a snowmobile in places open to the public within the State of Wisconsin.

Class size is limited to twenty-five (25) students. After completing the online enrollment form, you will receive a confirmation email with information on the mandatory in-person registration meeting.

Enroll online at: https://www.co.rock.wi.us/sheriff-snowmobile-education
Snowmobile Safety Education Course:
Class #3
Mandatory Registration: January 10, at 6:00 p.m. @ Rock County Fairgrounds
Class: January 22, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. @ Rock County Fairgrounds

There is a class fee of $10.00 per student, which will be collected at the in-person
registration meeting. The underage student and a parent or legal guardian must attend the mandatory registration meeting in order for the student to take the course.

Please direct any questions to Deputy Eric Cisneros at eric.cisneros@co.rock.wi.us.

By Lynn Binnie
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com

Reflecting on the early years of The Black Sheep restaurant, Tyler Sailsbery admits that he was scared for months. “The first time we had a party of 40, I was thinking, ‘we can’t feed 40,’” he recalled. “It’s mind blowing and now the largest we did was breakfast and lunch for 1600 – 3200 meals in about five hours — out of this kitchen and our catering kitchen!” Tyler clarified that the latter was referring to the vehicle that Black Sheep has served from at such locations as Staller Estate Winery and Duesterbeck Brewing Co. When you work in a kitchen, Tyler said, you use your arm to write reminder notes on rather than your hand, since you’re washing your hands so much. “The first year this whole part of my arm [pointing from his wrist to past his elbow] was full of notes; I eventually learned how a calendar worked…my personality shifted and I learned along the way to be able to organize things which seemed impossible at first.”

Relative newcomers to the Whitewater area may not realize that at one time Sailsbery’s drive to always be trying something new resulted in operating two additional restaurants: Casual Joe’s, which he owned, and the restaurant at what was then the Whitewater Country Club. Two of the establishments were open seven days a week, and the other, six days. Tyler said he hadn’t stopped to think about how many people’s livelihood he was responsible for those days until 88 employees showed up for the Christmas party. Eventually he had to learn to be content with what he had and not be working on the next thing. In fact, he felt he needed to have a narrower focus, so ultimately he sold Casual Joe’s, discontinued the country club relationship, and last year he closed his first business, nomoredorms.com.

Due to being in a college town, Tyler said, a restaurant will always have a challenge with labor turnover, but then again, “we have a consistent supply of labor.” In the average restaurant, seven out of ten employees leave every year, so he feels grateful to have maintained a two to three year average tenure. Tyler feels lucky that his staff was willing to work for him to help make his dreams come true. In the early days he had to hire people who didn’t care about food and help them care. By the fifth year they started attracting people who cared and wanted to grow. “Now people who apply want a future in culinary – not a job but part of their education and growth,” Tyler shared. Restaurant workers are generally considered “unskilled labor,” but he sees his staff as being very skilled.

The pandemic, of course, has presented a major challenge to all restaurateurs. The Black Sheep adapted and turned its catering vehicle into a food truck, but even still, in 2020 their business was down over 50%. Fortunately 2019 was a good year, and “the second half of 2021 has been good to us because the food truck caught on and now everyone wants that. We’re making up for the weddings that we didn’t have and we realized we had to build the second little food truck which will soon be licensed,” Tyler stated. At the height of the pandemic, from March through June of 2020, he and his staff prepared over 6000 meals and made them available to anyone in our community who needed them. Now the restaurant business is beginning to return towards normalcy, although still with more takeout than before, and the new Fairfield Inn’s referrals have brought new first-time guests.

What does Tyler feel have been some of the biggest accomplishments? He’s enjoyed some television appearances, including “Joe Pera Talks with You” on Adult Swim/Cartoon Network, and a cooking competition he recorded during the month of June, 2021 that will be shown on TBS. Full Service magazine named him one of the 40 chefs to watch. But he seems to light up the most when he says, “I think that I got to change how people ate in Whitewater and I think I gave other restaurants the confidence to start because they saw that something like this could be successful. Twelve years ago we had supper clubs, ‘Greek’ restaurants, fast food, and pizza. I got to say ‘if you’re a chef or interested in food you can succeed’…I think that was pretty cool.” In about the fourth year of the restaurant they had a “throwback week,” when they featured their original menu. One couple came in and said that when the Black Sheep first opened the food was really weird, so they liked that the food was now more normal. Yet it was the very same menu the couple would have experienced originally. “The world has changed,” Tyler commented. “When we first had lamb orzo pasta on the menu, no one wanted to try it. Finally the wait staff started telling diners that it’s my favorite dish, and many found that they liked it.”

Whitewater native Jay Stinson was hired in mid 2021 primarily to manage the “front of the house” and its relationship with the “back.” Though Stinson had some background in food service, in recent years he’d been in sales with Grainger and Stanley Black & Decker. He always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and wanted to be a good, fair businessman, and someone who gives back to the community. He knew that Tyler had done a lot for the community, especially during COVID-19, and wanted to have mentors like him. Consequently when he learned Tyler was selling the business, “I was bummed out but I saw an opportunity to have a great mentor and take over a business that was already really beneficial to the community and something that I would be proud to carry on.” That became a reality with the help of the Community Development Authority and First Citizens State Bank, and Jay will become the owner with the new year.

Jay’s interest in the “back of the house” originated initially from the realization that he needs to know what to do if a chef is unable to report to work, but the more experience he’s gotten with the food preparation, he says the more fun he’s had. He worked with the staff in developing the last two menus, and does not plan to make any major changes in the cuisine. Among the Black Sheep’s creative initiatives, Jay anticipates continuing cooking classes – whether live or virtual – and hopes to plan some more joint events with other downtown restaurants.

Why did Tyler decide to sell his restaurant? It first crossed his mind early in 2020 when things shut down, but then he got so busy with the free meals that the thought just went away. He sees himself as a rather spontaneous person, a trait which has been stifled by the demands of the business. Ultimately he got more downtime to think during the pandemic. Ten years seemed like a good year to be done, especially when he heard that the average restaurateur lasts seven years in the business. He looks forward to not being the person who has to tell some of the staff that they can’t take a day off for something special because there were too many requests. Tyler’s last night will be New Year’s Eve, and a very special menu is being planned for his final hurrah. As of Christmas the 5:30 and 7:00 seatings were essentially full, with some openings at 8:30. Then Sailsbery will be in North Carolina to see his parents and his sister and family, followed by a cruise with them. On February 1 he’s off to Thailand as his home base to decompress. Why Thailand? He visited there once for four days on a last minute decision, and though he really enjoyed the country and the cuisine, “it doesn’t make much sense to spend four days getting to a place in order to spend four days there!” Since Thailand only allows visitors to stay for thirty days at a time, he’ll be making side trips to experience some other countries. Then he’ll be back to Whitewater briefly in May to assist his former staff in launching their busy catering season, as they’ve committed to more weddings in eight days than ever before. It’s only then that he’ll concentrate on envisioning his future. Recently he took flying lessons in Palmyra, which he really enjoyed. When he was attending UW-Whitewater he was a flight attendant for Midwest Airlines. “They told me I’d get tired of those chocolate chip cookies, but I never did,” he admitted. Since he loves to try the cuisine in different areas, piloting would facilitate that, and he surmises it could be an interesting new career.

Meanwhile, a relatively young Jay, whose ambitiousness could easily remind one of Tyler a decade ago, looks forward to his new adventure, as the restaurant reopens on January 4. He’s grateful that the experienced staff, except for Tyler, will still be on board. Head Chef Tim Franklin, for one, has already assisted in developing 22 new menus. “I encourage everyone to come in and give me feedback as we get into it,” Jay said. “I want The Black Sheep to continue to be an important place for the community, and for our diners to feel that they have a piece of it. People go out for an experience. Especially after COVID, people want to not just go out for a meal; if they’re going to go out they want to have a positive experience. That’s something I’m going to continue to strive for.”

[From Wikipedia) American Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966 during the aftermath of the Watts riots^[2] as a specifically African-American holiday.^[3][4] Karenga said his goal was to “give blacks an alternative to the existing holiday of Christmas and give blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and their history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society.”^[5] For Karenga, a major figure in the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the creation of such holidays also underscored the essential premise that “you must have a cultural revolution before the violent revolution. The cultural revolution gives identity, purpose, and direction.”^[6]

According to Karenga, the name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning “first fruits”.^[7] First fruits festivals exist in Southern Africa, celebrated in December/January with the southern solstice, and Karenga was partly inspired by an account he read of the Zulu festival Umkhosi Wokweshwama.^[8] It was decided to spell the holiday’s name with an additional “a” so that it would have a symbolic seven letters.^[9]

During the early years of Kwanzaa, Karenga said it was meant to be an alternative to Christmas. He believed Jesus was psychotic and Christianity was a “White” religion that Black people should shun.^[10] As Kwanzaa gained mainstream adherents, Karenga altered his position so practicing Christians would not be alienated, stating in the 1997 book Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture that “Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday.”^[11] Many African Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa do so in addition to observing Christmas.^[12]

After its initial creation in California, Kwanzaa spread outside the United States.^[13]

Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba – the seven principles of African Heritage). They were developed in 1965, a year before Kwanzaa itself. These seven principles comprise Kawaida, a Swahili word meaning “common”.

Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the principles, as follows:^[14]

1. Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
7. Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

The City of Whitewater provided the below ordinance regarding snow and ice removal requirements. If you’d prefer the “Cliff notes” version, if there’s a public sidewalk on your property you must remove all snow and ice no later than 24 hours after a snow or ice event. If ice can’t be removed, you must keep it sprinkled with sand or salt. If you fail to do so, it may cost you a minimum of $100 for the city to have the snow and/or ice removed.

SNOW AND ICE REMOVAL REQUIRED
Whitewater, Wis. December 10, 2021
12.20.020 Snow and Ice Removal Required.
The owner, occupant, and person in charge of any building or lot fronting upon or adjoining any sidewalk shall
remove all snow and ice from the sidewalk no later than twenty-four hours after a snow or ice event. When any
ice is so formed on any sidewalk that it cannot be removed, then the responsible party shall keep the same
sprinkled with salt or sand. If any such owner, occupant, or person in charge refuses or fails to comply with the
provisions of this section within the time aforesaid, the city manager or an appointed representative may
remove such snow or ice and the cost thereof shall be charged at a rate of one hundred dollars per hour, with
a minimum charge of one hundred dollars. Work lasting more than one hour will be billed an additional twenty-five dollars. Any subsequent snow removal, which takes place within six months of the prior removal, will be
charged at a rate of one hundred fifty dollars per hour, with a minimum charge of one hundred fifty dollars.
Work lasting more than one hour will be billed an additional twenty-five dollars. If the city contracts the service
out for snow and ice removal, the city shall bill back to the property owner the cost, for any labor, equipment,
and material necessary to remove the snow and ice from the public sidewalk the rate of the cost of the
contracted service, plus a ten percent administrative cost fee, or, at the city’s discretion, the street
department’s going rate for time, materials and equipment. The cost of such removal shall be reported to the
city clerk in writing with a description of the premises, and such costs shall be and become a special tax and
lien against the premises, and if not previously paid shall be inserted by the city clerk in the next ensuing tax
roll as a special tax against such premises; and such costs may, in the discretion of the common council, be
collected by suit against the owner or occupant of the premises.
(Ord. 1474 §1, 2001: Ord. 1193 §1, 1990: Ord. 983 §54(part), 1982; Ord. 901 §1, 1978: Ord. 862 §1, 1976:
prior code §6.01(8)).
(Ord. No. 1846A, § 1, 11-8-2012; Ord. No. 1993A, § 1, 2-4-2020)

The image on the homepage, “SUC55941” by bigwibble6 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Gov. Evers Announces $18 Million to Help Wisconsin Families Pay Water Bills

Rent and utility assistance programs still available for households in need

Gov. Tony Evers announced on December 22 that $18 million in funding is available through the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) to provide water utility assistance to Wisconsin families. The program was authorized as part of an emergency effort to respond to COVID-19 and marks the first time that these water assistance funds have been made available for Wisconsin residents.  “We know Wisconsinites are stretched thin with businesses facing supply chain challenges and Wisconsin families seeing costs in their everyday lives go up, and we want them to know that help is available, especially now during the winter season,” said Gov. Evers. “These critical funds will help alleviate some of the financial stress families are facing and ensure that folks have the resources they need to make ends meet.” To date, $86,176,302 in benefits have been provided to 20,096 households for rental, utility, and other housing assistance needs through the Wisconsin Emergency Rental Assistance (WERA) program, and since the start of the heating season in October, the Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program (WHEAP) has issued benefits to 74,765 households totaling $41,027,864. The average heating and electric benefits are $392 and $182, respectively. “We want to make sure folks in Wisconsin know that you can get help with paying for water, energy, internet costs, and rent,” said DOA Secretary Joel Brennan. “No one should be left without heat or means to pay their bills during the holiday season.”  The Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA) is working with Energy Services, Inc. (ESI) for LIHWAP application intake. Eligibility is based on household income, household size, and the household’s water and utility burden. Residents may be eligible if they earn 60 percent of the state median income level or less. Eligible applicants for LIHWAP first need to apply and qualify for WHEAP. Wisconsin residents interested in applying should call 2-1-1 or 1-800-506-5596.  “We want folks to know that anyone who meets the income guidelines and needs help should apply for water, energy, or rental assistance,” said DOA Division of Energy, Housing, and Community Resources Division Administrator Susan Brown. “You can apply even if you haven’t had COVID-19 or gotten sick. So many families have lost hours, wages, or had their costs increase for the basic things they need to live during the pandemic. Many individuals and households can qualify and should call 2-1-1 or 800-506-5596—don’t wait.”   Rent and additional utility assistance is also available through the WERA program. The DOA has partnered with Wisconsin Community Action agencies and ESI to accept applications and distribute rental, internet, and utility assistance. Residents of Brown, Dane, Milwaukee, and Waukesha counties and the cities of Madison and Milwaukee can apply directly to their local government’s rental assistance provider. Wisconsin residents who wish to apply should call 2-1-1 or visit the DOA website for more information.