Archive for Waukesha
Waukesha man charged with homicide in driving death of Vernon man
Posted by: | CommentsThis from Journal Sentinel:
Christopher M. Conner, 20, of Waukesha, was charged Friday with homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle stemming from an early morning crash Tuesday that killed passenger Michael Zippel, 23, of Vernon.
According to the criminal complaint, Conner told police at the scene that he had had five beers before driving off Cheri Ave. at Sunset View Drive in Vernon shortly before 2 a.m. Dec. 1. The car traveled down a ditch, became airborne and hit a large tree about 7 feet off the ground before coming to rest 300 feet from the tree, the complaint says.
Zippel, who was in the back seat, was thrown from the car and pronounced dead at the scene from internal injuries. Conner and passenger Lauren Thiesenhusen, 19, of Waukesha, were treated for minor injuries.
Judge J. Mac Davis set cash bail of $250,000 and scheduled a preliminary hearing for Dec. 10.
The felony carries punishment of up to 25 years in prison and up to $100,000 fine, plus loss of driving privileges for five years.
Conner was also charged with two misdemeanors – drunken driving causing injury, in connection with Thiesenhusen’s injuries and possession of marijuana, which emergency personnel said they found on him as they transported him to a hospital.
Waukesha water meeting delayed
Posted by: | CommentsThis from Don Behm of JS.
Mayor Larry Nelson has canceled a Dec. 8 public hearing and special Common Council meeting on the city’s proposed switch to Lake Michigan water.
The meeting will be rescheduled in early January to give city staff more time to complete a draft application, officials said.
Waukesha intends to seek the approval of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and each of the governors of the seven other Great Lakes states to buy Lake Michigan water.
It would cost the city around $78 million to make the switch from ground water wells to a lake supply. The price tag includes building a pipeline to discharge treated wastewater to Underwood Creek in Wauwatosa.
One piece of the application that was not done in time for a Dec. 8 meeting is an analysis of the impact to Underwood Creek’s water quality if the city discharges to the small stream.
Underwood Creek is a tributary of the Menomonee River and the waterways would return the treated waste water back to Lake Michigan, as required under a Great Lakes protection compact.
United Way in Waukesha County extends fund drive
Posted by: | CommentsThis in from the Business Journal:
With only 10 days left in its fundraising campaign, United Way of Greater Milwaukee officials said Tuesday that it is still $5 million short of its $45 million target.
The organization said it has so far raised $40,342,057, or 89.6 percent of goal. The United Way reports more unexpected losses than anticipated, specifically in the small-to-medium business sector. As a result, the campaign overall is running 1.4 percent behind last year.
The United Way campaign, which raises funds for social and human services programming that serves hundreds of thousands of Milwaukee-area residents, ends Dec. 10.
To help with its final push for donations, United Way of Greater Milwaukee is launching “Give $10. Inspire $100.”, a grassroots strategy encouraging people to give an additional or new end-of-campaign gift of $10 and to ask 10 friends to do the same.
“Today’s urgency to give translates to community results in 2010,” said Elizabeth Brenner, president and publisher, Journal Sentinel Inc. and 2009 United Way of Greater Milwaukee Community Campaign co-chair. “A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture study found that in 2008 nearly 20 percent of American households worried that their food would run out before they had money to buy more.”
Because of slow fundraising and greater need, the United Way in Waukesha County extended its campaign by another month. That campaign, however, still had more than half of its $5.14 million goal to raise with just two weeks remaining before its last day Nov. 30. In mid-November, organizers extended the campaign to Dec. 31.
La Casa opposes White Rock closing
Posted by: | CommentsAnselmo Villarreal, executive director of Waukesha’s La Casa de Esperanza, said Tuesday that he and his agency were backing efforts to stop the closure of White Rock Elementary School, a facility known for its bilingual program for Hispanics.
School District Administration is proposing to parcel White Rock pupils among three other elementary schools as part of its larger plan to move 6th graders into middle school. The shakeup would provide the cash strapped district more than $1 million in savings on building use and transportation costs, school officials say.
At a morning meeting at La Casa, Villarreal said school administration has not provided his agency nor concerned parents with details that are needed to justify the proposed closing. His support for the parents puts a powerful voice in their corner.
“The School District wants to maximize use of facilities and resources,” Villarreal said. “But what’s more important than anything else is the education of our children.”
Villarreal called the staff and the school “remarkable.”
“We cannot support the closing of White Rock,” he said. “We need to know that the great successes of White Rock will be duplicated. We don’t have answers for that and we don’t know where our children will go.”
No one from district administration or the School Board was there.
Villarreal said he sent a letter to the district last week that says he would not support the closing of White Rock.
Tony Baez, president of the Council for Spanish Speaking Inc., said the closure proposal falls into an economic strategy among school district administrators nationwide to “tighten up.”
“We’ve spent too much time building bilingual schools to let a school superintendent who basically lasts (in the district) for about three years,” Baez said. “Superintendents come and go but not the community.”
The district has held several neighborhood meetings, some at La Casa, to explain its rationale for the proposed closure, saying the school would have too few students and transportation costs could be cut because only one-third of the school’s pupils live inside its enrollment boundaries.
Parent Jose Lopez said at the meeting that he was confused by all of the facts and figures the district is using to justify the closing.
“There are so many official arguments,” Lopez said. “I get confused. I feel lied to.”
The proposal has yet to be a ted on the School Board, which reportedly is conflicted about the idea.
New Waukesha Walmart to open late summer, early fall
Posted by: | CommentsLisa Nelson, a public affairs director with Walmart, said over the holiday that the new store being built at West Ave. and the bypass should be open by late summer or early fall.
Waukesha-based Generac partners with Fiat
Posted by: | CommentsThis in from the Milwaukee Small Business Times:
Generac Power Systems Inc., and Fiat Powertrain Technologies have reached a new strategic partnership that will begin early next year, by which Fiat will supply Generac with a wide range of industrial diesel engines to be used in power generation stations designed and built by Generac.
The power stations will be capable of producing between 60 kW to 350 kW, and will use engines that will increase productivity, efficiency and lower operational costs, both companies said.
Fiat’s engines use about 37 percent less oil than its competitors’ designs and require less frequent oil and filter changes. Although Fiat’s engines are smaller than many other diesel engines used in power generation, they create more power by incorporating turbochargers and enhanced injection systems. Those designs use less fuel, while generating the same or more power than the engines designed by Fiat’s competition.
“FPT engines have many superior technology and performance advantages that Generac seeks to utilize in its gensets,” states Allen Gillette, senior vice president, engineering, Generac. “Using FPT engines will enable us to offer our customers superior products and technology. In addition, as FPT products are developed to reduce engine emissions while improving fuel consumption, they will aid Generac in continuing to meet the new exhaust emissions standards required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and providing the most innovative engine technologies on the market today.”
Generac has also launched a new hybrid electrical system for recreational vehicles. Because today’s motor coaches have all the bells and whistles and comforts of the home, they are using far more energy than ever before, the company says. The appliances and accessories that need to be powered are increasingly more sophisticated and advanced and need a dependable, clean power source.
Generac has partnered with Magnum Energy and Precision Circuits Inc. to introduce the first Hybrid Electrical System to deliver all the power needed for large RVs without having to install a larger, more costly generator.
“For more than 50 years, Generac has garnered considerable expertise in producing small engines, providing innovative and value-driven generator products for the residential, commercial and RV industries. Generac’s staff of talented engineers is responsible for creating this opportunity to expand the company’s RV product offerings, developing a cutting-edge system to answer consumer needs for a better power solution on the road,” said Bill Slavik, director of RV OEM, Generac. “This new power management system allows consumers to now have all the comforts of home without the increased energy costs.”
Amateur ball team may go to Mequon
Posted by: | CommentsIt seems there’s an interest in hosting a Northwoods amateur baseball team elsewhere in the metro Milwaukee area – Mequon.
A proposal by an owner and potential partners to bring a Northwoods League team to Waukesha’s Frame Park and build a stadium at the ball diamond there came to a halt early this year when financing fell through.
It seems the same deal is being offered to Concordia College in Mequon as was offered to Waukesha for the controversial use of frame Park.
Here’s a report from Journal Sentinel on the newest baseball proposal in which Northwoods is mentioned.
A LaCasa Thanksgiving
Posted by: | CommentsPatrick Ryan snapped these photos of La Casa de Esperanza’s annual Thanksgiving Day celebration for its youngsters in the La Escueita early childhood development program.
It captures what the holiday is all about.
Welcome from La Casa director Anselmo Villarreal
Good cheer from program director Brenda Rios
Waukesha firm gets 10.7M federal award
Posted by: | CommentsThis from Journal Sentinel’s Thomas Content:
Waukesha Electric Systems on Tuesday was awarded $10.7 million from the federal stimulus package for a “smart grid” demonstration grant.
The U.S. Department of Energy grant will fund a project in Irvine, Calif., that will create a superconducting transformer designed to improve the stability and reliability of the power grid.
Waukesha Electric was the only Wisconsin company awarded funding by the Energy Department. The agency announced 32 demonstration projects will receive a total of $620 million in funding.
The Waukesha Electric transformer is envisioned to be 50% smaller and weigh 50% less than a conventional transformer, and lead to lower power consumption, the agency said.
Waukesha Electric will contribute $10.8 million to the project, bringing the total project value to $21.55 million.
“These demonstration projects will further our knowledge and understanding of what works best and delivers the best results for the smart grid, setting the course for a modern grid that is critical to achieving our energy goals,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement.
“This funding will be used to show how smart grid technologies can be applied to whole systems to promote energy savings for consumers, increase energy efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power,” Chu said.
An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute projects that implementing smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4% by 2030, providing a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers nationwide, the agency said.
The federal agency’s decision to award one project to a Wisconsin company meant that Milwaukee-based We Energies was rejected in its application for $4 million in smart grid funding.
The We Energies project seeks to use advanced meters and distribution automation in a 9-square-mile area encompassing Shorewood and parts of Glendale and Milwaukee – including the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus.
The goal: to test technologies of what the industry has termed a “self-healing grid,” and the Milwaukee utility’s project would have deployed technologies to isolate faults and minimize the number of customers that would be affected when a power problem occurs.
We Energies, which would have contributed $4 million to the project, will not pursue the project without the government funding.
“It’s a very good project and it’s one that we felt met the criteria,” utility spokesman Brian Manthey said.
Tom Welch, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said the 32 projects were selected from a pool of 135 applications for funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
In a separate announcement last month, the federal government announced grants of $3.4 billion nationwide, including $21.5 million for three Wisconsin Power companies – American Transmission Co., Wisconsin Power & Light Co. and Madison Gas & Electric Co.
Green Bay-based Wisconsin Public Service Corp. was shut out in that round of funding.
