“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz

Town Center plans advance, despite concerns - Project could reap $4.09 million in tax revenue
By Gary Achterberg - News Graphic Staff

Mequon – After being tabled a month ago, plans for the second phase of the Mequon Town Center moved a step forward Dec. 5, but not without concerns voiced by city staff.

“This is final-design approval,” Jac Zader, assistant director of Community Development, told the Planning Commission. “I just don’t want to go down a path too far … where we’re basically stuck with what we have.”

In the end, commissioners allowed the plans for the project that includes apartments, townhomes, restaurants and retail to continue – but not until imposing a variety of conditions that will assure the city’s concerns ultimately are addressed. The second phase of the Town Center project will be a massive undertaking. Its estimated value of $27.5 million will result in annual property tax income of $409,000, according to the developer. The city invested $1.5 million in the project – much of it purchasing a property to provide adequate frontage along Mequon Road. The developer estimated the 10-year return through tax income will be $4.09 million.

volunteer ∙ [vol-uh n-teer]

noun

A person who performs a service willingly and without pay.

MT Sunrise club member Tim Hamilton along with 18 fellow Rotarians volunteer at a showing of "A Christmas Carol" at the Pabst Theater.

By Bryan Smith - The Rotarian

The water, steel gray, muscled with hidden current, surges by in a steady itinerant push, making a sound like bacon lightly frying, or faint applause. Blue-black against the afternoon sky, the snowy peaks of the Cascades overlook the river’s basin. To stand on the cool, muddy banks, it’s hard to imagine the tears of heartache, bitterness, hostility, and despair that have been shed over this vital artery of the American West.

The 263-mile Klamath River, which stretches from Oregon to a remote corner of California, has been the object of a custody battle as ugly as any parental fight for a child. Indian tribes. Farmers. Ranchers. Fishermen. Neighbors. Environmental activists. Politicians. All have been locked in a stalemate so fraught that it has an unofficial title: the Klamath Water Wars.