Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Sorted by date Results 1085 - 1109 of 9883
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] WAKEFIELD — The Wakefield Library board is seeking a part-time librarian as well as to fill two vacant board positions. The board announced its board member vacancies last week, and expects to post the librarian position this week. The library is temporarily closed following the resignation of library director Joel Laessig on Jan. 3, and the library board is in the process of restructuring the operation. “We are proposing a part-time librarian due to the fact that a full-time librarian with fri...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] IRONWOOD — Fans of Billy Joel will have the next best thing to seeing the songwriter in person with the 52nd Street band playing his music in a concert at the Historic Ironwood Theatre on Feb. 10. “This is a full concert show packed with hits from start to finish and features ‘spot on’ performances of the songs that made the ‘piano man’ from Brooklyn one of the top selling and beloved artists of all time. With a grand piano at center stage and a...
ONTONAGON — The Ontonagon County Animal Protection shelter is going green. During the fall spruce-up event held at the facility in October, the idea to recycle materials which were then going into the shelter’s dumpster was discussed, according to a release from Ken Raisanen, who is a cat volunteer at the shelter as well as a member of the Ontonagon Recycling Initiative committee. A proposal to begin recycling pet food containers and empty bottles from sanitizing and cleaning products was brought to the OCAP board. With the board’s appro...
By LARRY HOLCOMBE [email protected] If it's Wednesday, there's a snowshoe outing awaiting outdoor enthusiasts in the region, thanks to organizers of the Superior Snowshoe Walks. The weekly group snowshoe walks are marking their 11th season in 2022, according to organizers Sam and Anne Davey. The series of Wednesday walks are scheduled on various trails in the region. Snowshoers of all abilities are welcome. There are two roughly hour-long walks each Wednesday, both at the same trail...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] MERCER, Wis. — The town of Mercer’s planning commission updated the board of supervisors on their changes to the business park ordinances and covenants at their regular meeting on Thursday. Planning Commission board member Bob Davis said the commission reviewed the history of the business park and its ordinances and covenants. He said that two key discoveries came out of their research: the business park covenants were vague and not enforced consistently. Davis said that according to the cov...
By LARRY HOLCOMBE [email protected] IRONWOOD - The Ironwood Chamber of Commerce honored Burton Electronics Manufacturing System as the 2021 Business of the Year on Wednesday as chamber officials handed out four annual awards in a virtual ceremony. For the second year in a row, the chamber chose to hand out the awards for business, organization and volunteer of the year, as well as the Gus Swanson Educational Award, in a serious of individually recorded presentations that were to be po...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HURLEY — The Iron County Board of Supervisors held a hearing on Tuesday to prepare for applying for funds through the bipartisan deal for broadband infrastructure that was passed in Congress in early November. At the board of supervisors’ meeting in December, Iron County Development Zone Coordinator Kelly Klein said that the bipartisan deal will deliver $65 billion to help with broadband infrastructure development. Klein said that each state will receive $100 million with the opportunity to compete f...
By MEGAN HUGHES [email protected] WAKEFIELD — The Wakefield-Marenisco school board proceeded Monday with plans to install new windows across the school. At last month’s meeting, the board heard a bid from Nasi Construction with a price tag of just over $1 million to re-window the entire school. The board decided, in order to lower the cost, they would not update the gymnasium windows at this time, instead focusing on the rest of the school building. This lowered the price to $869,719, which remained $100,000 over budget for the pro...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HURLEY — Five high school students from Hurley School District were sworn into the Iron County Board of Supervisors as student representatives at the board’s meeting on Tuesday. The students were introduced to the board by Neil Klemme, 4-H youth development educator with the University of Wisconsin-Madison – Extension Iron County. “The goal of the program is to provide an opportunity for the youth to have a voice in county decision making. Our county is trying to find ways to attract and retain...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] IRONWOOD — In the Ironwood Area Schools Board of Education meeting on Monday, Superintendent Travis Powell said the latest update from the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department shows that the number of COVID-19 cases and the case rate per 100,000 population in Gogebic County are the highest they’ve ever been. Despite these numbers, the school will continue with in-person classes for now. “A year ago in November, when there were half as many cases per 100,000 as we have currently, we were shut...
By MEGAN HUGHES [email protected] WAKEFIELD — The Wakefield-Marenisco School Board discussed the continuation of COVID-19 masking policies at its monthly meeting on Monday evening. The topic of masking has been an ongoing conversation during past meetings, with concerns being raised by several of the board members about the effectiveness of the procedure. At the previous meeting, held in December 2021, the board had voted to continue the masking procedure until Jan. 20, with plans to revisit at Monday’s meeting. A vote to continue the...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HANCOCK — The Western Upper Peninsula Health Department reported Saturday that the omicron variant of COVID-19 was identified in its five-county coverage area. According to a release from the WUPHD, the variant was identified by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Laboratories in one case in Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties. “It is important to know that not all COVID tests are sequenced. With the rapid rise in case counts over the last few day...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] WAKEFIELD — Joel Laessig, who recently resigned as director of the Wakefield Public Library, will receive his sick and vacation pay. The library board held a special meeting on Thursday to determine if it should pay Laessig, who resigned Jan. 3 citing issues with the city regarding budget restraints, for the sick time and vacation time he had accumulated. In total, Laessig had 157 hours of vacation time, which will be paid at a rate of $16 an hour, which equates to $2,512 before taxes and five hours o...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] HOUGHTON — Just two weeks into the new year, there have already been 1,456 new COVID-19 cases in Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties in 2022, according to the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department. As of the health department’s most recent update on Wednesday, there have been 1,652 total COVID-19 cases in Baraga County, 2,572 cases in Gogebic, 6,132 cases in Houghton, 409 cases in Keweenaw and 832 cases in Ontonagon, for a total of 11,957 cases in the five counties. Sin...
WAKEFIELD — Wakefield is looking to shut down city hall starting next week, according to city manager Robert Brown. “We’re going to go back to a closure, probably until the peak is done,” Brown told the library board on Thursday. “The health department is saying the peak in the area is anticipated until late January, early February. So we will probably be shutting down until mid-February.” Loraine Mussatti, president of the library board, asked if that would include pickleball, which takes place in the municipal building gym. Brown said that th...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] BESSEMER — A request from the Gogebic County Sheriff’s Office prompted a discussion on the county’s employee benefits for other groups at the board of commissioner’s regular meeting on Wednesday. Gogebic County Sheriff Ross Solberg requested that his new undersheriff be allowed to continue the retirement benefits that he had as deputy sergeant. Jorge Cruz was promoted from deputy sergeant to undersheriff when the pervious undersheriff, Solberg, was named sheriff and left the other position vacant in...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] IRONWOOD - Gogebic Community College is seeking to find someone to temporarily assist with upper level administrative projects while officials look to fill the open positions of vice president of business services and the vice president of student services. The college board of trustees held a workshop on Wednesday night to discuss the idea of a short-term employee - a special projects coordinator - who would handle some of the duties that the above...
By CHARITY SMITH [email protected] WAKEFIELD — After months of back and forth conversation, the Wakefield Planning Commission voted to advance an ordinance putting stricter regulations on dogs and other pets in the city, but not limiting on the number of dogs and other pets that a resident can own. City manager Robert Brown presented the commission with four options during the commission’s regular meeting on Tuesday night. They could either leave the ordinance as is, implement stricter regulations regarding leashing and other iss...
By ZACHARY MARANO [email protected] MONTREAL, Wis. — The public works department of the city of Montreal is working hard to clear its streets after heavy snowfall last week, Public Works Foreman Mark Haegar told the common council at its regular meeting Tuesday. Haegar said they had a three-day snowstorm last week and on day four, they were already getting phone calls about the large snowbanks. Council member Ken Saari said he couldn’t believe how many complaints he received from residents regarding the snowbanks. “People don’t...
