Sam Strash

Whitewater’s Common Council met on Tuesday, February 20th at the Whitewater Municipal Building for an open session of the council to discuss a variety of topics, including many in the public sector. Services such as public works and the police department led the way.

Police Department Receives Recommendation for Staffing Study

The Common Council has recommended the police department to partner with Fitch & Associates for a six-month organizational and workload study within the department. Fitch received the highest aggregate score of the three firms that submitted proposals to the city in January.

“Fitch is pleased to respond to the city of Whitewater’s request for proposals for an Organizational and Workload Study of the Police Department,” wrote Chief Operating Officer Guillermo Fuentes in Fitch’s cover letter to the city. “Modernizing and re-imagining public safety strategies and operations, while maintaining its core values and best traditions, is a delicate and complex task that many progressive communities are facing.”

“It will take the synthesis of a multitude of opinions and experiences to generate real, innovative, and meaningful change.”

Fitch has worked for clients in all 50 states and across six continents for over one thousand different clients during their 30-year history. The firm plans on utilizing their team of various individuals involved in the realm of public safety to address the needs of Whitewater’s police department.

In December 2023, the city of Whitewater requested to the common council that a study be completed in the near-term, citing an influx of 911 calls along with an increase in the population of immigrants from Central America over the past two years. The city sought to find a reputable third-party firm to address this need.

Contract Bids for Road Works

The city’s public works department is awarded three contracts to multiple construction contractors to reconstruct parts of Ann Street, Fremont Street, and Forest Avenue after the city’s public works department began accepting contract bids from companies in the area.

“We have three contracts that we are looking to award tonight,” stated Public Works Director Brad Marquardt in his opening statement.

“We have three contracts that we are looking to award tonight,” stated Public Works Director Brad Marquardt in his opening statement.

The city plans on reconstructing multiple roads in the downtown area, the cleaning of a detention basin near Cravath Lake in downtown Whitewater, and another road near the campus of UW-Whitewater. Rock Road Companies, Inc. will be tasked to reconstruct Ann Street near downtown between Trippe and Fremont streets, along with reconstructing Fremont Street between Ann and Whitewater streets. BKS Excavating, who previously worked on projects in nearby Stoughton, was awarded a contract to reconstruct downtown’s Forest Avenue between 4^th and Church streets, while RR Walton & Co., a local construction group, was awarded the task of reconstructing Fremont Street near the university campus, along with repaving Lauderdale Drive near campus, as well.

Bidding for the projects began at the beginning of the month with a budget set by the city at nearly $3.3 million for all three projects combined. The total cost is valued at just over $3 million. All common council members voted in favor of the awarded contracts.

I would consider myself an avid web user, especially when it comes to consuming news media. I’m always interested in what is happening politically around the globe and how it relates to me and our nation. Right now, I see the crisis between Russia and Ukraine as the most pressing issue on the world’s stage, so I find myself reading through articles and Twitter notifications about what is going on in that area of the world to stay informed.

The news topics I like to follow the most are politics and professional/collegiate sports. Almost all of this news come from national/international headlines and storylines, so I rarely read news from my hometown (Kenosha, Wisconsin). If I do see news from my hometown, I normally find it on Twitter or other forms of social media like Facebook or Snapchat. I still have many friends and acquaintances that live in Kenosha, so if I need to find a scoop on local news, I often turn to those people. The lone exception came in the late summer months of 2020, when the Jacob Blake news broke and entered the mainstream media atmosphere, garnering interest from all major media outlets and even professional sporting leagues like Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association.

Much of my political news comes from non-mainstream sources. A few journalists I follow for news are Steven Crowder and Jack Posobiec, as well as the website “The Daily Wire.” Most of the news I consume from these individuals and websites originate from Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, Rumble or their individual websites. I see these journalists as well-informed individuals from whom I can formulate a valid opinion with verifiable evidence to back my opinions. Most of the information I consume from these outlets comes from video/audio podcasts run by the journalists themselves and not much of their information comes from written media other than their sources.

For sports, I like to turn to networks like ESPN, CBS or Fox Sports when it comes to hard news in the sports world. For example, I first saw the reports that Tom Brady was going to retire from ESPN’s National Football League insider Adam Schefter on Twitter. But, for opinionated news, I like to listen to podcasters and YouTube creators like The Pat McAfee Show, Marc Luino, Kentrell Beecham and many more.

Almost all of my information on both of these topics, including even local news, comes from Twitter. I really enjoy using Twitter to find this news because almost all of these outlets that I have listed are “verified” on the social networking site, so I can trust that the news they are sharing is coming from them and them only, not a fake news site. Twitter is also a place where these outlets can be a little more personal with their audience. They can reiterate what they have covered or expressed as well as open new viewpoints and give immediate feedback to their audience instead of forcing them to wait for a new episode or new article to be released, which can take multiple days to do at times.

Sharon Jandrowski has endured much of what life has to offer in both the best and worst ways possible.

Having six children while running an at-home daycare does take its toll on a woman, but it gave her and her family opportunities to get to know other people’s lives and children, along with taking many trips upstate to Mauston, let alone around the country.

She has also had to endure the task of raising four of her children while fighting a genetic disorder that hindered their vision, but not their success in life: Retinitis Pigmentosa.

According to medlineplus.gov, Retinitis Pigmentosa, or RP for short, is a genetic defect composed of multiple eye disorders. RP affects how photoreceptors in the eye work, sometimes causing total blindness in adults.

Two of Sharon’s children, the late Anthony and his sister Theresa (Gilliland), have gone completely blind in their lifetime. Her other son, Timothy, and third-oldest daughter, Tamara (Frentzel), have been rendered partially blind. Timothy has tunnel vision, while Tamara can see shadows and dark hues, but not true shapes of objects or faces.

Second-oldest daughter Patricia (Strash) and youngest daughter Tanya (Kroll) have not experienced vision issues in their lives from RP to this point.

Yet, none of the four blind children went blind before adulthood, each going blind at different ages.

Each of the four blind adults have gone on to live prosperous lives of their own, “independent and able to support themselves” Jandrowski said.

Terri has been married to her husband Tracy for much of her adult life, raising three kids and now one grandchild. She has even published a memoir of her husband following a near-fatal motorcycle collision he was involved in in 1999. It is titled “In A Moment.”

Timothy is now a sports-radio show host in Milwaukee. He primarily covers the Milwaukee Brewers in a nightly postgame format following each game in the regular and post-season.

Anthony enjoyed a life filled with his many hobbies, including frisbee golf and coin collecting. He tragically passed away in 2020. Tamara now works as a member of Society’s Assets, a healthcare service to disabled persons in the southeast region of Wisconsin.

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