Letters to the editor

Wisconsin Heights School District Referendum - November 3, 2020  It’s About a District, Not About a Building    Since the Wisconsin Heights School Board approved a capital referendum question for the November 3 ballot, providing relevant information to the district’s residents has been and continues to be a top priority. We have shared information through multiple formats - social media, website, mailers, online meetings, and videos. We hope you have found these facts helpful as you make this important decision on November 3.   A current narrative circulating in our community is that by voting “no,” residents are “saving our schools.” While this would save the physical school structures, voting “no” will not save the Wisconsin Heights School District. Rather, voting no simply means that more of the district’s operating budget would need to be reallocated to those buildings rather than student learning and programming. Three years of research indicates our district will save approximately $600,000 a year in operational costs by moving to a one campus model. The cost of updating the existing elementary schools is $21 million with minimal savings of future operational costs. While the cost of a new elementary school is $22 million, there are ongoing savings to be realized in operational costs. If the term of the loan is twenty years and the district saves $600,000 in operational costs each year, over the course of the loan, the district gains approximately $12 million. This $12 million, in turn, helps reduce the amount of money needed through operational override referendums. Clearly, a one-campus proposal makes fiscal sense for the district’s long-term financial solvency.   Understandably, a great deal of nostalgia and emotion is attached to a building you may have attended, or your parents/grandparents may have attended. We encourage you to think of your children and grandchildren, how their world is very different than the one that existed decades ago. To provide current and future students of the Wisconsin Heights School District a world-class education, the research would indicate we need substantial improvements.   Our district and all schools are much more than their facilities. Our district is made up of a staff that puts forth sincere effort to live up to our motto - Every Child, Every Class, Every Day. It has now been 26 years since our district invested in learning/working environments that nurture peak performance.    The vote on November 3, 2020, is not about saving a school building. It is about a future-focused vision for a school district that has recently attained unprecedented levels of academic success. It is about making wise financial decisions to lower operating costs while also providing top-notch learning environments for all students. We implore you to cast an informed vote on November 3, 2020. Together we will continue to reach new heights!    Sincerely,  Mr. James Kartman - School Board President  Mr. Jordan Sinz - District Administrator   Arena Village ballots will have FOUR referendum questions! Count them, four! So, to cut down on any confusion for us Village residents, let’s look closely. I will not pretend for one minute to advise anybody on the three Municipal questions. They involve finances ... your wallet and village budgeting. Only you can decide whether you want EMTs, a drug-sniffing dog, streets that drain properly, a dog park, or a public safety drone. These items are complex, and the village is working very hard to provide explanations so you can make wise decisions. But the first referendum question, top of the list, is County-wide, and should be a really simple “YES.” It is just asking whether you would prefer that our voting district lines be drawn by a non-partisan process instead of the current gerrymandered mess that has made Wisconsin the laughingstock of the nation. It isn’t promising anything. It will cost nothing. It just wants to know your opinion. Everybody, in either party, surely wants their vote to be counted fairly. If you have ever once wished your district didn’t seemed locked up tight by one party or another, you will want to say YES to the first, top, County referendum question.   Peggy Peckham Arena Village.   Dear Editor,    The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is one of the great conservation successes of the last 25 years. It is a voluntary program for farm owners to take erosion-prone land out of production, plant soil-saving grasses and wild flowers, and receive an annual, guaranteed payment for a set number of years. It just about eliminates erosion and provides a dependable income for landowners. It provides great habitat for wildlife; wild pheasants hit peak numbers in Wisconsin when we had the most CRP acres and all sorts of birds, butterflies, and bees love CRP land. CRP lands reduce flooding, improve surface water quality, promote groundwater recharge, and even takes carbon out of the atmosphere.  My wife and I have some acres in this program and the annual payments have allowed us to enhance native vegetation. Our greatest reward though, is the wonder and joy our grandchildren show when we walk this land together. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress created these incentives for farmers and the environment. But we’ve lost thousands of CRP acres in Wisconsin, in part due to the Trump Administration decision not to fund the program’s incentives. It doesn’t need to be that way. In these hard days for farmers, the option of taking highly erodible lands out of production and providing some guaranteed income would really help some farmers. Improving soil health, increasing desirable wildlife species, reducing runoff, and taking an easy step to address climate change make a lot of sense to me.   Sincerely, Doug Steege Town of Black Earth landowner