The Daily Reporter articles from April 2007

The Daily Reporter archives from April 2007

Insituform: U.S. underground systems n Milwaukee decrepit.
April 2, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan As of Friday morning, the ball was still in Affholder Inc.'s court. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District was waiting for a response from the contractor it awarded a $65.4 million deep tunnel contract to on...

Minority subs say they're owed money on Milwaukee Urban League project.
April 2, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Three minority subcontractors say Gorman and Co. owes them money for work performed on the former Milwaukee Urban League headquarters. The MUL, Madison-based Gorman, and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic...

Wisconsin makes gains in ethanol production.
April 2, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Wisconsin now has the seventh-largest capacity for ethanol production in the United States, according to the 2007 rankings from Ethanol Producer Magazine. Wisconsin overtook Kansas for the spot and was the only...

Top Job.
April 3, 2007... TOP JOB/Contracts let ELKHORN/School PROJECT: Build new Lakeland School of Walworth County BIDS CLOSED: 1 p.m. Feb. 14 OWNER: Walworth County Courthouse, Elkhorn ARCHITECT: Plunkett Raysich Architects LLP, Milwaukee ...

No need to dig deep for Diggers Hotline number in Wisconsin.
April 3, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Friday the 13th should at least be a little less scary for excavators or homeowners that have to do any major digging. The horrors of rifling through the phonebook in search of the Diggers Hotline number should be...

Wisconsin sets school referendum record.
April 3, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan With a record-setting 52 school referendums on Wisconsin's Tuesday ballots, school administrators are telling voters to expect more in the future. "I would believe that our board would start looking at having an...

Financial Briefs.
April 3, 2007... U.S. manufacturing expands in March New York (AP) -- The nation's manufacturing sector expanded at a slower-than-expected pace in March, marking the second consecutive month of growth, a trade group said Monday. The Institute for...

Waukesha-based Spancrete Group Inc. buys Florida firm.
April 3, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The Spancrete Group Inc. on Friday announced its purchase of Florida Precast Industries. "The new Florida Precast Industries Inc. offers us a great opportunity for the long-term growth and future of the Spancrete...

Commentary: GIS streamlines government tasks.
April 3, 2007... Byline: Brian Dubis When geographic information system technology first made its way into the public sector, how many local government units would have thought of using GIS to organize and retrieve information about building permits or...

Kestell named to Wis. Aerospace Authority Board.
April 3, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder State Rep. Steve Kestell, R-Elkhart Lake, was appointed to the Wisconsin Aerospace Authority Board for the next three years by Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, in Madison Friday. "As a representative of...

Wis.'s Rube Goldberg Machine-Building Contest is 10 years and running.
April 4, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The rules sound a little wacky: build a machine that will complete a two-step task in at least 10 different steps. On April 27th, teams representing 25 Wisconsin high schools will gather in the Milwaukee Art Museum...

Black River Falls company fined for environmental violations.
April 4, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Hoffman Construction Co. will pay the state $100,000 for environmental violations incurred on a Marinette County highway project in 2005. The Wisconsin Department of Justice announced Tuesday it had reached a...

Principal of Bradley Tech High School in Milwaukee calls it quits.
April 5, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan Wisconsin's walleyes still have another decade before they have to worry about Ed Kovochich. The first and so far only principal of Bradley Tech High School in Milwaukee is leaving to take the same spot at Dominican...

Brookfield-based R.A. Smith and Associates Inc. engineer believes in God's design.
April 5, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle A near-death experience didn't introduce Brionne Bischke to God, but it certainly reinforced his spiritual beliefs. In March 2006, the engineer from R.A. Smith and Associates Inc. and Pastor Ernesto Cary were...

Task force on global warming created in Wisconsin.
April 6, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder It would seem appropriate that Gov. Jim Doyle would talk about Wisconsin's energy-related future to those most likely to be bringing it to the state. Doyle made a series of announcements in the University of...

Is Dover ethanol plant dead?
April 6, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Town of Dover voters rejected a $70 million ethanol plant development in an advisory referendum Tuesday and also elected a new town chairman who opposes the plant. Judging from the numbers -- both winning sides in...

Brookfield-based president of Hunzinger Construction Co. wages home-front campaign.
April 6, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The war was hitting Hunzinger Construction Co. President John Hunzinger close to home. His wife had filled their dining room with boxes and items to ship to U.S. troops in Iraq for the Soldiers' Angels care package...

Green Bay builders play fairy godmother.
April 9, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Marilyn Sherbon was going to lose her house. Bills were piling up, and the 57-year-old former flight attendant, who was severely injured in plane accidents and is now on a fixed income, couldn't afford essential...

Affholder Inc. accepts contact from Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
April 9, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan Affholder Inc. on Thursday, two days after a 399 million gallon sewer overflow, signed a $65.4 million contract with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District to build a 27 million gallon extension to the deep tunnel...

Tracking system could transform energy generation in Wisconsin.
April 10, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder The Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System could just change the game in terms of energy generation in Wisconsin. The system was just one of the initiatives touted by Gov. Jim Doyle Thursday, when he made...

Wisconsin businesses securing more federal contracts.
April 10, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The growing amount of federal contracts going to Wisconsin businesses is mostly because of the Department of Defense. In 2005, Wisconsin companies received $3.3 billion in federal contracts, ranking 37th among the 50...

Home makeover, West Allis style.
April 10, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle The east side of West Allis looks spiffier since the city increased building exterior inspections five years ago. While inspectors began their second lap of first and second district properties in February, they are...

Professional engineer says Milwaukee's Miller Park roof 'reliable'.
April 11, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle An impromptu baseball series scheduled this week at Miller Park provided a fitting example of the Milwaukee Brewers' need for a domed stadium. It also served as a perfect backdrop for yesterday's Wisconsin...

Allstate Corp. receives state tax credits in Wisconsin.
April 11, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Allstate Corp. will receive $750,000 in state tax credits to establish an express claims office in the village of Cross Plains, Gov. Jim Doyle announced Wednesday. The office will replace a call center that closed...

State Street in Madison work delayed.
April 11, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Madison will have to wait one more year for the State Street reconstruction project to wrap, but there's a lot more relief than disappointment at the news. The final phase of reconstruction, involving the 500 and...

Opposition to casino bill in Wisconsin grows.
April 12, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades Council, a longtime supporter of the Menominee Tribe's Kenosha casino plan, is opposing the idea of giving the Legislature a vote on off-reservation casinos. "The bill...

Stone Pointe Condominiums planned in Wauwatosa.
April 12, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Infrastructure improvements are not the only redevelopments coming out of Wauwatosa's State Street tax incremental financing district. Construction of Stone Pointe Condominiums, a $50 million residential project on...

Wetlands may block road construction.
April 12, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder A 30-year-old problem may soon be solved, but whether the state Legislature has to get involved has yet to be seen. State Rep. Donald Friske, R-Merrill, testified before the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources...

Madison, WisDOT paths meet.
April 13, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder It took awhile, but the city of Madison and the state Department of Transportation are now on the same page regarding improvements to Verona Road and the Beltline Highway. Originally, the state's plan called for an...

Massive shopping center planned in Kenosha.
April 13, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle It's a high-end shopping development with a mix of large and small retailers separated by through streets -- but don't call it Bayshore South. Last week, the city of Kenosha Plan Commission warmly received...

Federal funds for rural energy projects in Wisconsin available.
April 13, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Three state agencies are providing assistance for those in search of federal funding for rural renewable energy projects. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development's Renewable Energy and...

Court in Manitowoc County rules again against wind farm plan.
April 13, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Manitowoc County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Willis has ruled in favor of residents opposing a wind farm in the town of Mishicot. The April 3 ruling vacated a zoning conditional use permit issued by the county's...

Fox Valley in Wisconsin gears up to conserve water.
April 13, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The underground aquifer below the Fox Valley is losing three feet of water a year, and area planners want local governments to enact conservation programs before it's too late. "It costs a lot less to be proactive and...

Commentary: 10 historic Wisconsin renovations you need to see.
April 16, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Historical sites, for me at least, used to simply be those boring brown signs my grandma would make me read during the far, far too frequent stops on our way north to the family cabin. The sun would move closer and...

Center for Excellence places 809 grads in Wisconsin.
April 17, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan BIG STEP and the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership exceeded their own expectations by placing 809 graduates in jobs earning an average of $14.78 an hour over the past two years. "Eight hundred and nine, it's a...

Ten historic renovations in Wisconsin you need to see.
April 17, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder In Monday's issue, The Daily Reporter introduced the first five historic renovations throughout the state worth your review. Hopefully, you haven't finalized road trip plans yet, because here are the remaining five to...

Waukesha welcomes $5M boutique hotel.
April 17, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle City of Waukesha leaders are expecting a $5 million boutique hotel and restaurant to bring even more in value to the downtown district. That's why they proposed up to $2 million in tax incremental financing...

Housing for homeless, mentally ill awarded in Wisconsin.
April 18, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority put special emphasis on housing for the homeless and mentally ill when doling out this year's $10 million in low-income tax credits. "We've been making it clear...

Jackson County-based Superior Asphalt case settled.
April 18, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Monday that the Wisconsin Department of Justice settled an environmental enforcement case against a Jackson County asphalt plant for violations of state air pollution and...

Rewriting Wright: Group in Wisconsin preserving aging model.
April 18, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle All she ever wanted was to age gracefully. When she first hit the scene, there was no shortage of hype. Even nearly a century later, everyone is familiar with her creator, famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who...

Work delayed on ATC transmission line from Rockdale to West Middleton.
April 19, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder The American Transmission Company has throttled down a bit in its process to build a proposed 345-kilovolt transmission line from Rockdale to West Middleton. The ATC aimed to file its construction permits for the...

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire work not needed, Suder says.
April 19, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle A $49 million student center renovation at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire has come under scrutiny from a former student body president. State Rep. Scott Suder, who is on the Joint Finance Committee...

National Women's Law Center reports few girls pursuing trades classes.
April 19, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan Jim Heckenkamp, technical education teacher at Wisconsin Hills Middle School in Brookfield, would like to create a shop class exclusively for girls. He said girls comprise about 5 percent or 10 percent of his...

Informational meeting on 600 projects planned in Wisconsin.
April 20, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder There's going to be a lot of information to process in Waukesha on April 30. More than 600 projects valued at more than $250 million, to be accurate. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation will hold a public...

Ayres' Hanson reappointed to state architects board in Wisconsin.
April 20, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan Martin Hanson, a vice president at Ayres Associates, was recently reappointed to the state Joint Examining Board of Architects, Landscape Architects, Professional Engineers, Designers and Land Surveyors. Hanson,...

Grant for Woolrich Dairy expansion in Lancaster awarded.
April 20, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Gov. Jim Doyle announced Wednesday that Lancaster will receive $156,000 from the Community Development Block Grant-Public Facilities and Economic Development program of the Department of Commerce to provide the...

Eppstein Uhen sponsors course on BIM at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
April 20, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Architecture and Urban Planning will carry a studio course on Building Information Modeling this fall semester. Eppstein Uhen Architects of Milwaukee will sponsor...

Merits of high-speed rail touted by Amtrak CEO and mayors of Madison and Milwaukee.
April 23, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan Midwestern states that spent the past decade planning a high-speed rail system to connect their major cities screamed for more federal funding Thursday. Amtrak CEO Alexander Kummant and the mayors of Madison and...

Building industry has significant impact on global warming.
April 23, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The building industry's impact on global warming is significant. Consider this: It takes 1 ton of greenhouse gas to produce 1 ton of cement, and the worldwide cement production in 2000 was about 1.6 billion tons. ...

Westwood Aluminum, state of Wis. settle environmental lawsuit.
April 24, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Monday that the state Department of Justice settled an environmental enforcement lawsuit in Waukesha County Circuit Court against Westwood Aluminum Castings Inc. ...

DNR, WisDOT using recycled concrete for road project.
April 24, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle The state will recycle concrete from the Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Baraboo to reconstruct a highway east of the site. But don't expect the demolition of buildings for road materials to become a trend. Rather,...

Asbestos discovery delays Menards construction in Janesville.
April 24, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Super Menards just might have to wait a little longer to make its Janesville debut. Construction on the 162,000-square-foot retail center was expected to be a go following the demolition of a Ramada Inn and an...

Milwaukee Alderman R. Bauman wants to ban Zenith tech from city projects.
April 24, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman, citing concerns over the State Street Bridge project, wants to ban Zenith Tech from bidding on city projects for five years. "We want to make an example of this contractor to send a...

Wis. Department of Transportation, American Indian tribes meet.
April 25, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Tuesday was a long time coming for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the 11 American Indian tribes throughout the state. The first-ever WisDOT Tribal Transportation Conference kicked off bright and...

Neosho home remodeler charged with theft by contractor.
April 25, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle A Neosho home remodeler has been charged with six felony counts of theft by contractor in Waukesha, Washington and Dodge counties. Todd T. Devitt, owner of Total Design Co. LLC, is accused of taking money from six...

Milwaukee County takes offense to Barrett's remarks.
April 25, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway said his recent letter to Mayor Tom Barrett's office wasn't personal; it was strictly business. The mayor on March 30 sent out a mass e-mail about his plan to have the...

35 grants awarded for Wisconsin's coastal communities.
April 26, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Gov. Jim Doyle announced $1.6 million in grants for Wisconsin's coastal communities, nearly half of which is dedicated to projects on Lake Superior. The state Department of Administration's Coastal Management...

Milwaukee-based Zenith Tech not barred from city projects.
April 26, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan A resolution to bar Zenith Tech from Milwaukee projects wasn't as much about the contractor's performance on the State Street bridge restoration as it was about aldermen's concerns about delays on city projects. "The...

Interview with Charlie Hales: Member of the Madison Streetcar Study Committee.
April 26, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder Charlie Hales knows a thing or two about streetcars. Besides being a former city commissioner for Portland, Ore., he also is the project manager for HDR Inc., which goes around the country conducting studies and...

Group wants Milwaukee River corridor undeveloped.
April 26, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle A consortium of environmental groups proposed stricter zoning regulations for future developments in the Milwaukee River corridor north of downtown. The Milwaukee River Work Group, whose members include Friends of...

Wind energy gains speed in Wisconsin, nation.
April 27, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Wisconsin has 53 megawatts of wind power installed, according to the American Wind Energy Association's 2006 rankings released this month, placing the state 18th in the nation. That wattage will increase to 452...

Milwaukee City Hall EBE participation steady.
April 27, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The minority work and business participation numbers on the Milwaukee City Hall project were mostly unchanged between July and January. By January 31, crews had put 129,238 hours of work into the $59.9 million...

County Executive Dan Vrakas wants Waukesha to go green.
April 30, 2007... Byline: Joe Grundle Green continues to grow. In his State of the County address, Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas announced he formed a committee to research ways to make county government facilities more environmentally friendly....

Scoopz custard shop comes to high-crime Milwaukee neighborhood.
April 30, 2007... Byline: Sean Ryan The new Scoopz custard shop being built on the corner of West North Avenue and North 37th Street will have a huge wall of glass facing the sidewalk. There are not many buildings like that in this part of Milwaukee,...

Youth apprenticeship funding approved by Wisconsin legislative committee.
April 30, 2007... Byline: Paul Snyder The Joint Committee on Finance has been split on a number of Gov. Jim Doyle's 2007-09 budget recommendations, but there was a clear majority Wednesday in terms of work-force development. Doyle's recommendation to...