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The City of Whitewater – Department of Public Works will collect bagged leaves and yard waste the:
Week of March 31 – April 4, 2025 and Week of April 7 – April 11, 2025
*Dates may be subject to change in the event we experience accumulating snow during this time.

Yard waste is defined as leaves, grass clippings, and yard and garden debris. Yard waste must be bagged in 33 gallon or smaller biodegradable, clear or transparent bags only. Yard waste will not be collected if not properly bagged or placed in non-transparent or black bags. The City offers Bio-Bags, at the Finance Department window, in the fall only.

Please place your bagged yard waste on the curb no earlier than Saturday, March 29, (for collection beginning on March 31) and April 5, (for collection beginning on April 7). All bags must be brought to the curb by 7:00 a.m., on Thursday, April 10, for collection by City staff.

Residents may also use the compost site to dispose of bagged leaves and yard waste. The compost site, 599 N. Jefferson Street, will on open on Saturdays beginning April 5, from 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and Wednesdays, starting April 9, from 3:00 p.m. –7:00 p.m. The City will provide a loader for loading chips and compost beginning Saturday, April 5. This loader will be available on the first Saturday of each month until the site closes for the season on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.

Residents requesting brush collection should call (262) 473-0560 by noon on Monday to make an appointment for pick up on Tuesdays.

NOTICE: City Ordinance Chapter 12.08 – Street Obstructions, Section: 12.08.010 – Residents are prohibited from depositing any yard waste debris on…right of ways other than City of Whitewater designated days.

Brad Marquardt
Director of Public Works
bmarquardt@whitewater-wi.gov
For other requests, visit https://www.whitewater-wi.gov/RequestTracker.aspx.

• * * * * * *

AVISO: Recolección de hojas de primavera y desechos de jardín
El Departamento de Obras Públicas de la Ciudad de Whitewater recolectará hojas embolsadas y desechos de jardín:

• Semana del 31 de marzo al 4 de abril de 2025 Semana del 7 de abril al 11 de abril de 2025
  *Las fechas pueden estar sujetas a cambios en caso de que experimentemos una acumulación de nieve durante
  este tiempo.
  Los desechos de jardín se definen como hojas, recortes de césped y escombros de jardín y jardín. Los desechos de
  jardín deben embolsarse en bolsas biodegradables de 30 galones o más pequeñas solo en bolsas transparentes. Los
  desechos de jardín no se recogerán si no se embolsan correctamente o se colocan en bolsas no transparentes o
  negras. La Ciudad ofrece Bio-Bolsas, en la ventanilla del Departamento de Finanzas, solo en el otoño.
  Coloque sus desechos de jardín embolsados en la acera no antes del sábado 29 de marzo (para la recolección a
  partir del 31 de marzo) y el 5 de abril (para la recolección a partir del 7 de abril). Todas las bolsas deben llevarse
  a la acera antes de las 7:00 a.m. del jueves 10 de abril para que el personal de la Ciudad las recoja.
  Los residentes también pueden usar el sitio de compostaje para deshacerse de las hojas embolsadas y los desechos
  del jardín. El sitio de compostaje abrirá los sábados a partir del 5 de abril, de 8:00 a.m. a 2:00 p.m. y los
  miércoles, a partir del 9 de abril, de 3:00 p.m. a 7:00 p.m. La Ciudad proporcionará un cargador para cargar
  astillas y compost a partir del sábado 5 de abril. Este cargador estará disponible el primer sábado de cada mes
  hasta el cierre de la temporada el miércoles 19 de noviembre de 2025.
  Los residentes que soliciten la recolección de maleza deben llamar al (262) 473-0560 para hacer una cita para
  recogerla los martes.
  AVISO: Ordenanza de la Ciudad Capítulo 12.08 – Obstrucciones de calles, Sección: 12.08.010 – Se prohíbe a los
  residentes depositar cualquier residuo de jardín en las calles de la ciudad o derechos de paso que no sean los días
  designados por la Ciudad de Whitewater.

Written by Chris Lindeke | Photos by Craig Schreiner, Kyle Winter

For the third consecutive year, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater will welcome thousands of Special Olympics athletes, family and friends to campus for competition and fun.

The Special Olympics Wisconsin Summer Games, set for June 5-7, will include state competitions in cornhole, powerlifting, soccer, tennis, and track and field.

“We are so excited to welcome these talented athletes back to campus for a third straight year,” UW-Whitewater Chancellor Corey A. King said. “As an institution of access, we support and value opportunities to be inclusive of people with all abilities and skill levels. Our experienced staff and beautiful facilities will be ready to welcome everyone, and I can’t wait to join in the celebration of these athletes.”

“Special Olympics Wisconsin is incredibly grateful to have UW-Whitewater as the host for our largest state games once again this summer,” said Chad Hershner, president and CEO of Special Olympics Wisconsin. “Their commitment to fostering inclusion, excellence, and community support aligns perfectly with our mission to create opportunities for individuals with intellectual disabilities. This partnership strengthens our efforts to provide athletes with an unforgettable experience, and we are thrilled to see the Warhawk spirit shine as we come together to celebrate the power of sport and unity.”

The event begins Thursday, June 5, with the opening ceremonies at Perkins Stadium. The evening includes the parade of athletes, lighting of the torch, and remarks from leaders from Special Olympics Wisconsin, UW-Whitewater, and the community.

Competition takes place Friday-Saturday, June 6-7, at UW-Whitewater’s athletic facilities, including Kachel Fieldhouse inside the Williams Center, Rex Foster Track, the Warhawk Outdoor Tennis Complex, and the intramural fields.

Since 1997, Special Olympics has been offering free health screenings and education to Special Olympics athletes in a welcoming, fun environment as part of their Healthy Athletes program. Health Promotions, which focuses on illness prevention and nutrition, and Opening Eyes, which promotes vision and eye health, will take place on Friday, June 6. Special Smiles, which focuses on dentistry, will take place on Saturday, June 7. All Special Olympics Wisconsin athletes — including those not competing at the Games — are encouraged to attend. The Delta Dental of Wisconsin Foundation and Golisano Foundation, and the CDC make the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes program possible.

Volunteers will be needed to staff events and stations throughout the weekend. Sign up to volunteer and stay tuned to the Special Olympics Wisconsin webpage for more information about volunteer needs in the coming months.

UW-Whitewater’s Continuing Education staff hosts the State Summer Games. Last year, the department welcomed more than 12,000 visitors to campus through youth summer camps, and other events run by external partners, including the Special Olympics Wisconsin Summer Games and the Drum Corps International Whitewater Classic.

UW-Whitewater is a leader in youth safety, recently hosting a statewide Youth Safety Summit in partnership with the Universities of Wisconsin and Tree House Child and Family Center of Elkhorn.

“We are fortunate to work with a collaborative Special Olympics Wisconsin staff as well as generous partners on campus and in the local community,” said Lucas Peterson, director of camps and conferences. “Our collective goal is to deliver a uniquely satisfying experience that these athletes remember for the rest of their lives.”

 Opinion | Whitewater shows how moral panic distorts immigrant debate

• By Julien Grayer, Michael Friedson and Tabitha Whitehead | guest column Julien Grayer and Michael Friedson are assistant professors of sociology and criminology at UW-Whitewater. Tabitha Whitehead is an undergraduate research assistant at UW-Whitewater. 
• Feb 27, 2025

“Whitewater has been a focal point in our country’s ongoing politicized hysteria concerning immigration. This town of approximately 15,600 has seen a recent influx of migrants from Nicaragua and elsewhere in Latin America. This influx has captured the attention of the national media, starting with coverage of a letter in December 2023 addressed to the White House from municipal police chief Daniel Meyer.

The rhetoric of prominent politicians has framed Whitewater as a site of a social crisis stemming from crime in the immigrant community. We are given pause about this rhetoric by past research on immigration and crime.

We reviewed decades of academic articles and did not find evidence linking increases in a place’s immigrant population to greater levels of serious criminal offending. We discovered instead an abundance of findings to the contrary, indicating that greater immigration is associated with lower offending rates.

Immigrants have a 60% lower chance of being incarcerated than those born in the US, according to a recent study by Stanford University economist, Ran Abramitzky and colleagues. In Texas, arrests for violent crimes are more than twice as common among U.S.-born individuals than among undocumented immigrants, claims research sponsored by the National Institutes of Justice.

The concentration of the immigrant population may have spillover effects making a place as a whole safer. Studies have repeatedly found that crime tends to go down when immigrants move into a previously distressed city neighborhood. Immigrants often come to an area with an eagerness to start small businesses, improve their skills and attain upward social mobility, thereby enhancing demand for properties, property value and the local tax base. All of this is a formula for urban revitalization and safer streets.

In Whitewater, we have recently witnessed a burgeoning number of small businesses, many catering to the international migrant population, and a concomitant increase in local property values.

As sociologists and criminologists, we are also familiar with how crime is portrayed in media and public discourse and how these portrayals fuel fear in the popular imagination. In Whitewater, we have observed what our field calls a moral panic, or the framing of a minor or nonexistent problem that sensationalizes it into a societal crisis. A moral panic draws its power from real public anxieties about complex issues like cultural change, inflation or declines in sectors of the economy. It displaces those anxieties by blaming easily identifiable and unpopular scapegoats who lack power to resist their demonization.

Immigrant groups have been a common target for these social problem campaigns through much of U.S. history. In Whitewater, Aurora, Colorado, Springfield, Ohio, and elsewhere we have recently observed similar processes of scapegoating these groups for allegedly being a drain on public resources and for committing a litany of violent crimes. The isolated crimes that are committed by members of the groups are sensationalized and taken to represent the behavior of the groups as a whole. Latinos, being overrepresented among immigrants, are especially hard hit currently by the resulting stigmas.

As a moral panic progresses, the anxieties at its origin are amplified or, some might say, blown out of proportion. For instance, in crime-related panics like that which has transpired in Whitewater, it is typically assumed that crime and public endangerment are rising, even when this is contrary to available evidence. Official crime statistics, provided by the FBI, do not support claims of an upward trend over the past several years in Whitewater’s crime rates. We will focus here primarily on a selection of the so-called “index crimes,” which are a set of serious street crimes designated by the FBI.

Homicide, the most severe of crimes, remains extremely rare in Whitewater. The tragic killing in August of a university coed was Whitewater’s first known homicide since 2016. Four robberies (i.e., thefts by force) were reported in 2023, one more than in 2021 or 2022, but a number that was matched or exceeded in each of the five years from 2013 to 2017.

Of greater concern, regarding violent crime in Whitewater, are the 31 aggravated assaults recorded in 2020. This is more than double the average number of assaults taking place annually in the prior decade and is the highest number recorded in Whitewater during the past 40 years. But it predated — and thus was not caused by — the immigrant influx, which started in 2022.

Aggravated assault numbers have fallen rapidly since, with 18 being recorded in 2023. This translates to a 2023 aggravated assault rate (i.e., assaults per 10,000 residents) roughly consistent with Whitewater’s longer-term average.

Recent property crime figures similarly do not raise cause for concern about a crime surge in Whitewater. The number of burglaries in 2023, though greater than in either of the prior two years, were less than half the annual numbers reported a decade earlier. Auto theft remained rare in Whitewater in 2023, with just five reported for the year, half the number of cars reported stolen in 2016 or 2018. Just 120 thefts (of items other than motor vehicles) were reported in 2023, while it was typical for 200 or more thefts to be recorded annually in the early 2010s. Note that these counts include only property crimes reported to the city police, and reports to campus police are typically small in number.

An influx of immigrants, such as that experienced by Whitewater, inevitably creates possibilities and challenges. An increase in serious street crime is not one of these challenges in Whitewater. To address Whitewater’s actual challenges in a practical and proactive fashion, scarce public resources should not be wasted on imagined problems.

Saddling immigrants with the stigma of perceived criminality will make it harder for them to earn a living and otherwise adjust to their new environment. Greater difficulties in adjusting create real costs for the public and police.”

Julien Grayer and Michael Friedson are assistant professors of sociology and criminology at UW-Whitewater. Tabitha Whitehead is an undergraduate research assistant at UW-Whitewater. The Banner appreciates having the authors’ permission to republish this article.

Editor’s note: The Banner reached out to Police Chief Dan Meyer with the offer to comment on this article. We appreciate his response, which follows unedited.

“While index crimes are an important consideration when determining the safety of a community, noting solely those statistics does not paint a holistic picture. Here in Whitewater, only 3% of our calls for service ultimately result in a incident that will be tallied by the FBI as an index crime. The larger impact for our community has been the increase in overall call volume, up 90% from 2010 to 2024, with no increase in staffing during that time. That has significantly decreased our ability to proactively police. As our staff becomes increasingly reactive, we become less capable of preventing crime, and it becomes more challenging to form the types of positive relationships necessary for a highly functioning police department. Police presence or lack thereof, more than anything else, is what determines the relative feeling of safety in a community.”

Editor’s note: Per the following graph, which was provided by the police department, their calls for service were increasing significantly before the surge of immigrants into the city. It is noteworthy that the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States in 2020. Studies indicate that crime declined that year nationally overall, with the notable exception of violent crime, especially homicides. UW-Whitewater student local residency was also reduced. Our significant increase in immigration is generally believed to have begun in late 2021 to early 2022.

BLOOMINGTON, IL – Brooke Mason, of Whitewater, Wisconsin, was named to the Dean’s List for the fall semester of the 2024-25 academic year at Illinois Wesleyan University. Mason is a first-year majoring in Music Theatre.

Mason was among 827 students from 31 states and 28 countries named to the fall 2024 Dean’s List.

To qualify for the Dean’s List, students must earn a GPA of 3.50 or better during the semester, based on 4.0 for straight As.

Founded in 1850, Illinois Wesleyan is a nationally recognized, highly selective liberal arts university. The University is exclusively undergraduate and enrolls approximately 1,700 students from across the nation and around the globe. Illinois Wesleyan prides itself on producing graduates who are well-rounded, broadly educated individuals with a spirit of inquiry who can successfully adapt to the demands of a rapidly changing, complex world.

Photos courtesy of Tom Ganser

The Whitewater High School Players will be performing “The Good Doctor” in the James M. Stewart Auditorium at WHS on Feb. 27 & 28 and Mar. 1 at 7 p.m., and Mar. 2 at 2 p.m.

General seating tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for students. For more information call the box office at 262-472-8178.

Written by Neil Simon, “The Good Doctor” is charming, hilarious, sad, and touching. It consists of a series of short plays, based on short stories by Russian author Anton Chekhov. The scenes, when experienced one after another, give you a strong sense of Chekhov’s take on the human condition, embellished by Simon’s wit and pithy dialogue. The Writer is the one unifying element in the scenes, introducing and commenting on them. The audience meets a variety of characters, all of whom are immediately relatable and strikingly human.

Under the direction of Jim McCulloch, the cast includes Ian Agen, Deven Bawden, Alex Clarksen, Belle Cohen, Payton Comfort, Esterban Diaz-Gallegos, Joseph Falcon-Kienbaum, Haley Keltesch, Ameera Lin, Sam Nickelsburg, Sophia Noonan, Kia Peterson, Julian Rennels, Taylor Speerbrecher, Ava Van Daele, and Willow Vogelzang.

Members of the stage crew under the guidance of Kat Dunham include Caitlin Alford, Emerson Dunham, Calli Hartzheim, Taiya Kolb, Kara Long, Miles Nickelsburg, Ava Nygren, Joshua Nygren, Lucille Troxel and Samantha Van Daele.

Prior to the start of “The Good Doctor,” Tom Ganser’s photos of the WHS Players productions of “Cinderella” (2022), “A Murder is Announced” (2023), and “Our Town” (2024) will be shown.

Based on Arnold Lobel’s well-loved books, and featuring a hummable score by Robert and Willie Reale, this whimsical show follows two great friends – the cheerful, popular Frog and the rather grumpy Toad – through four fun-filled seasons.

Waking from hibernation in the Spring, Frog and Toad plant gardens, swim, rake leaves, go sledding and learn life lessons along the way. The two best friends celebrate and rejoice in the differences that make them unique and special. Part vaudeville, part make believe… all charm, A Year with Frog and Toad tells the story of a friendship that endures throughout the seasons.‍

The jazzy, upbeat score of A Year with Frog and Toad bubbles with melody and wit, making it an inventive, exuberant and enchanting musical for the whole family. Saturday, February 22 at 2 p.m., The Young, 930 W. Main Street, Whitewater

This is a national touring production, and the cost of all remaining seats has been reduced to $25! Tickets may be purchased here. There is a $2 per ticket surcharge for admission at the door.

The Irvin L. Young Library in Whitewater will be closing at 5:00 p.m. today, Wednesday, February 12, due to inclement weather.  We will resume regular hours on Thursday, February 13^th.

Editor’s note: The above announcement was provided by the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library.

Superintendent of the School District Dr. Caroline-Pate-Hefty and School Board Member Lisa Huempfner, City Manager John Weidl, and Police Chief Dan Meyer are set to be speakers at the public civic event to discuss their respective referendums for the April Ballot

The Greater Whitewater Committee (GWC) will be hosting a public event for the community. The GWC has asked the Superintendent of the School District, Dr. Caroline-Pate-Hefty, school board member Lisa Huempfner, City Manager John Weidl, and Police Chief Dan Meyer to present their respective referendums for the April Ballot.

This event will take place on Thursday, February 13th at 5:00 p.m. at 841 Brewhouse: 841 E Milwaukee St., Whitewater, WI 53190, banquet hall in Whitewater, WI.

The city will be presenting their referendum on an increase in the City’s annual tax levy to fund five additional police officers, a dispatcher, two cross-trained firefighters/EMTs, and necessary equipment they may need to help meet the growing needs of Whitewater. The school district will be presenting their referendums on what improvements the school needs. This includes replacing outdated heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, repairing roofs, upgrading electrical and plumbing systems, replacing windows, increasing safety and security throughout the schools, updating the high school auditorium, and expanding the Career and Technical Education space. 

Both the city and the school have prepared informative presentations that are not only beneficial to understand the April ballot better, but to connect with the community through prominent issues.

“I am looking forward to hearing what the city and school district have to say about their respective referendums for the April ballot,” said GWC President Jeffery Knight.

 About the GWC

The GWC is an action-oriented group committed to collaborating with citizens, elected officials, and policy makers to identify, craft, and implement a pro-business agenda. The agenda advances the economic, education, and social policies needed to energize and secure the Whitewater area’s economic future, as well as protect Whitewater’s quality of life. 

Whitewater Lions Club 49th Annual Fish-A-Ree

Attention all ice fishing anglers: the Fish-A-Ree is back. 2025 marks the 49th year that the Whitewater Lion’s club has hosted this popular February fishing derby in their backyard. Mark your calendar for Sunday, February 9th. Back again is the Eat-In/Carry-Out Pancake Breakfast serving hot pancakes, eggs and sausages. The Lions are also hosting an Online Auction, Bucket Raffles and 50/50 Cash Raffle. Another innovation is a live streaming of the action on the ice on Facebook. “Whether sitting in an ice fishing tent or the comfort of their home, everyone could feel involved,” says the Lion’s press release.

Pancake Breakfast:6 am-11 am
Hourly Fish Prizes: 6 am-2 pm

Online Auction from February 9th Through February 16th  – Click here.