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“Where Fillmore County News Comes First” Weekly Edition
Gophers win state wrestling title Pages 28-31
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Monday, March 10, 2014
So much snow... no where to put it
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Volume 29 Issue 25
Lanesboro discusses parking at Church Hill page
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County adopts updated priority listings of bridges page
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Canton l Chatfield l Fountain l Harmony l Lanesboro l Mabel l Ostrander l Peterson l Preston l Rushford l Rushford Village l Spring Valley l Whalan l Wykoff
Village sticks with road option, waits for input By K irsten Zoellner kirsten@fillmorecountyjournal.com
Royal and Stephanie Anderson’s home located in Peterson, Minn. was engulfed in flames on March 1 from a fire originating from a gas heater. Photo by Angie Rodenburg
Local fire departments battle March 1 house fire By A ngie Rodenburg angie@fillmorecountyjournal.com
It’s not often that the Rushford Fire Department gets a call for a house fire, and that’s the way they like it. Unfortunately, the Rushford Fire Department received such a phone call at 12:52 a.m. on Saturday, March 1 from the residence of Royal and Stephanie Anderson. Stephanie Anderson called 911 after receiving a phone call from her husband Royal as she was just getting to Rushford after a night out with friends. As she drove up to her house she could see the smoke. “When you’re watching your
house on fire, it seems like it takes forever for the fire department to get there,” said Stephanie. In reality the fire department was able to respond in six minutes. Royal had been home and was sleeping when their dog Nollie came in the bedroom seeming to need to be let out. When Royal went to let out Nollie, he saw that the back porch was filled with smoke. “She’s a real hero,” said Stephanie about their quick acting dog. Royal was able to get out of the house safely. However, the Andersons were concerned when they couldn’t find Royal’s brother, Riley, who had been
staying with them. They were relieved to soon find that he had not been home. With everyone safely out of the home, Nollie included, the firefighters were able to get right to work putting out the fire. Not long into fighting the fire the Houston Fire Department was called in to assist. The old house was built with a balloon style construction that allowed the flames to easily move from one part of the house to another. They not only had to fight the fire in the rooms, but in between the ceiling and the floors. Houses today are not built this way in See HOUSE FIRE Page 12
Having received detailed road management and improvement recommendations and plans, the Village moved forward the discussion of a potential $1 million bonding on an improvement option. At a Tuesday, February 24 special meeting, the council debated the merits of paving various roads and what impacts the upgrades could have financially for the city, both immediately and in future maintenance. Original consideration to get all needed street work done, which includes resurfacing and paving of heavily traveled roads, amounted to $3.25 million, but the council quickly dismissed a plan of that magnitude. Last August, the council instead selected 14 potential street areas which included portions or all of Cooperative Way, Whitemore, Prospect, West Goodrich, Plummer, East Goodrich, Meadow, Aspen, Village Drive, Money Creek, Nordic
Road, Ridgeview, and Highway 43 to Laura Lane. At that time, the council considered bonding not to exceed $550,000, but dismissed the idea later in the year in favor of in-depth engineering analysis to be done on County Line Road and waiting for a thorough road study to be completed on all areas. Recommendation to the city from financial consultant Mike Bubany, suggested the city seek the maximum bonding this year for selected road projects. Project scope can be reduced, but bonding cannot be increased once roads are selected and brought forth at public hearing. The city was presented with a third option at the Tuesday, March 4 meeting, which would put County Line Road back in the mix, increasing the bonding an additional $299,000. “We hashed it out then, now we’re hashing it out again,” cautioned Councilor Dennis Overland. “We jumped in kind of quick and See VILLAGE Page 13
Fragmented support for NTC’s request to get state bonding that the NTC “will create a significant and positive impact on karen@fillmorecountyjournal.com the local economy and general A resolution was adopted welfare of the city, the region, at the Preston City Council’s and the state of Minnesota” was March 3 meeting to reaffirm its approved with a simple majority. support of the National Trout Councilmen David Collett and Center (NTC) building project. Robert Maust voted nay. In 2012 a unanimous resolu- The resolution of support is to tion was approved stating that be taken to the state legislature the City of Preston will serve in an effort to be included in the as the fiscal agent for the bond- 2014 state bonding bill. The ing requested from the state NTC is requesting $3.5 million for the NTC. A resolution to to be used to acquire the site, to reaffirm this support and stating See PRESTON Page 23 By K aren R eisner