We get by with a little help from our friends

"I guess sometimes, there aren't just enough rocks."  Forrest Gump

If you're a fan, you know what I mean

What A Difference A Year Makes

A year ago about this time there was a bit of a cloud over 220 Stout Street. It wasn't as ominous as, say, the shadow monster above the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana of Stranger Things-fame but it definitely cast a dark shadow over the city. Mainly, we were looking at a $150,000 shortfall in the 2017 budget. Primarily driven by the dramatic increase in the cost of health insurance, the budget committee had recommended to the council that Chetek's PD be reduced by one full-time officer to right the ship, as it were. At the November 2016 meeting the council endorsed that recommendation but in order to prevent one of our younger guys from being laid off, then Chief Mark Petersen offered to retire. As Ernest Lawrence Thayer would put it, there was no joy in Mudville as we approached the new year.

What a difference a year makes, however. At the city council meeting this coming Tuesday, the council is expected to endorse without any significant changes the proposed 2018 budget which includes, among other things, a 3% pay increase for our employees (last year we were only able to offer a 1% increase). We received high marks at our annual audit last month and insurance costs have leveled off a bit. It's true our garbage utility rates will be going up but that is driven largely by the county who this past summer essentially “fired” the management firm who had run the Waste-to-Energy facility since its inception in the 1980s and made it

Maybe I'm overstating it but things are looking up

officially a county operation. Barron County Administrator Jeff French has made it no secret that if we're going to continue to operate the only county-run incinerator in the entire state we'll have to pay for it. (It's still a good deal, though, than the alternative – burying our trash in a hole that is certain to leak one day.) The new garbage truck the city recently purchased will allow us to continue to provide residential garbage service but allow the second man who otherwise would be working on the truck to tend to other projects around town. And while the Central States issue is still a bitter pill to swallow we are closer to the end of that matter than to the beginning. So, all in all things are looking up as we approach 2018. 

The 2018 budget hearing will be held this coming Tuesday, November 14, at 5:30 pm, a half hour before the monthly council meeting, and is open to the public.

There are no words

Gone before their time

It's been a difficult year for Chetek. The tornado this past May and Owen Knutson's untimely death a week later and then the tragic, violent deaths of Brenda Turner and her 17 year-old daughter, Natalie, a member of the same graduating class of Owen, just last week. How much can a little town take, right? Of course, we are not the only city to suffer tragedy in recent months – Las Vegas, Manhattan, and sadly, Sutherland Springs, Texas just this past Sunday – to name three. But as all of us know when you live in a small community you feel these losses more acutely because if you didn't know, say, Owen or Natalie, you probably know someone who did. And given the circumstances of these losses it feels, especially for those directly affected, as if life has kicked them directly in the solar plexus and left them gasping for breath.

#Unite4Chetek Campaign

I know I shouldn't say this in polite company but "flippin' awesome"

I don't know whose idea it was but just last Thursday, students, educators and members of communities all over northwestern Wisconsin wore purple in our honor. If you use social media you already know about this as throughout that day and the weekend that followed countless pictures from Chippewa to Shell Lake, from Bloomer to Spooner, were posted of people young and old donning purple as a sign of unanimity with us as we grieve. I know I speak for all of us when I say we are overwhelmed by such a demonstration of love and concern. It is, perhaps, one of the first best things to come out of such a grievous loss and as mayor I simply want to convey my heartfelt appreciation.

I think of that scene in Forrest Gump when Jenny returns to the dilapidated farm house of her youth, the place where she had experienced so much pain and suffering at the hands of her father, in anger she starts to grab for rocks to throw at the house. When she can't find any more in despair she falls to the ground and begins to weep. Quietly, Forrest sits down beside her in her grief and you hear his poignant voice-over, “I guess sometimes, there just aren't enough rocks.” All of you who wore purple this past Thursday did what Forrest did for Jenny – you wept with us. One of the Bible's admonitions is to “mourn with those who mourn”. And somehow this little kindness of wearing one of our school colors in our honor becomes a very big thing after all.

We will get through this. As the old ones are wont to say, “This too will pass.” But how comforting to be reminded that we are not alone as we go through this. Like the words Billy Shears wrote but the Beatles sang out, "We get by with a little help from our friends."

The list of the schools and communities that I am aware of who participated in the #Unite4Chetek campaign (forgive me if your town is not listed here):

Barron

Cumberland

Prairie Farm

Durand, Arkansaw

Ladysmith

Cameron

Flambeau

Bloomer

Maple

Bruce

Eureka Illinois

New Auburn

Spooner

Cornell