Friday 11/16/18
16 November 2018 News
Ripon Considers Joining Lakeside Municipal Court
Ripon Police Chief Bill Wallner this week gave the Common Council a lot of good reasons why the City should join the Lakeside Municipal Court. The City is the last municipality in Fond du Lac County that hasn’t joined the municipal court. It goes through the County Court system to prosecute municipal ordinance violations. Wallner says the County charges the City $5 for each case plus there is the cost of an officer’s time for making the trip to Fond du Lac, overtime if needed and the County is considering charging another fee for the Corporation Counsel’s handling of initial cases. Another benefit for the City is that court would be held at the City Hall once or twice a month. Wallner says bond for the cases in Fond du Lac County court are $178, but would only be $98 in Lakeside Municipal Court. There would be a $1,500 start up fee for software to make sure the City and Lakeside Municipal Court’s system can communicate, but Wallner feels they will make that up in the first six months. Lakeside Municipal Court handles court cases for all the municipalities in Fond du Lac and Green Lake counties. If the Council approves his recommendation before the end of the year the City can join the municipal court in February.
County Sales Tax Meeting Scheduled In FDL
Fond du Lac County officials have scheduled the meeting in Fond du Lac it will hold for people who would like to know more about the County’s half percent sales tax. The tax is due to sunset in December of 2021. But the County is considering extending it beyond that date depending on residents’ input. The tax was originally created to help finance a $50 million loan that kept Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac. But it has also been used to help finance the upkeep of County highways and economic development. The meeting in Fond du Lac will be on Monday, December 17th at the City-County Government Center in Rooms F, G and H. Prior to that on Wednesday, December 5th there will be a meeting at the Ripon City Hall. Both meetings will run from 6 to 7:30 pm. Two meeting have already been held about the sales tax in Campbellsport and Waupun.
Preliminary Hearing Scheduled For Embezzlement Suspect
A preliminary hearing is scheduled next month for a 64-year-old Mt. Calvary woman accused of embezzling from the Fond du Lac County American Legion. Donna Wilhelms was back in court this week for an adjourned initial hearing on a felony theft charge. According to the criminal complaint Fond du Lac Police learned Wilhelms was taking checks out of the American Legion account and depositing them into a credit union account she had set up. She then allegedly drew cash out of the account for personal use. At the time she was the County Treasurer for the American Legion. Police believe she took nearly $7,500 from the Legion. She’s free on a $5,000 signature bond. Her preliminary hearing is on December 21st.
Winnebago County Gets Mental Health Grant
Winnebago County is among 15 counties in Wisconsin receiving $20,000 grants from the state to enhance mental health crisis intervention services. The Department of Health Services awarded the grants for projects designed to address local needs, including staff training, partnerships with law enforcement and schools, and new electronic systems to collect and share information on clients. The counties are expected to complete their projects in six months. Counties that show improvement in the quality of local practices are eligible for a $5,000 bonus payment.
New Administrator Hired For Dodge County Nursing Home
The Dodge County Board this week approved the hiring of a new executive director for the county-owned nursing home in Juneau. Deanna Wilson will start at Clearview Nursing and Rehabilitation on January 2nd. She succeeds Jane Hooper who is retiring at the end of the year. Hooper has been the Clearview administrator for 13 years. Wilson has 21 years of management experience in long term care, assisted living and memory care.
Wine Walk Drew More Than 500 To Ripon
The Wine Walk held in Ripon a couple weekends back drew 510 participants. Ripon Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jason Mansmith says it is a popular event and helps retailers with sales as we enter the Christmas shopping season. “So we had just over 500 people join us for Wine Walk a few weekends ago. Twenty-two locations that participated. Close to 49 wines for people to sample. The event sold out about three weeks before we actually had the event.” He says many of the people who shop during the Wine Walk return in the coming weekends to shop because they had such a great time in Ripon. He estimates about 60 percent of those participating in the Wine Walk come from out of town. The next Wine Walk will be on Friday, April 12th.
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