Gas Pains

Tom grew up in Milwaukee, bartended in Wauwatosa in the '70s and moved here in 1984.

Commentary, observations and musings about the outdoors, life in general and maybe Tosa politics and personalities will be the order of the day. He savors a lively debate as much as terrific cooking.

Gas Pains Buys a Bleacher Seat

Gas Pains, Mayor Didier, Public Policy

For any of you who haven’t had an opportunity to wander over to the Tosa Town Square lately there have been some animated discussions about a variety of topics – including the critical discussion of when some of us are going to meet next to tip a few.

One of the discussion threads is centered about the topic of the Hart Park athletic facilities. Specifically - where did the money go????

I confess to a personal bias on this issue as I have an affinity for Hart Park.  I live practically adjacent to it and my lovely wife has faithfully served on the Parks and Forestry Board for a number of years.  I just so happen to pay attention to matters concerning the Park and know more about it than the average Tosan.

I think Hart Park has a great deal of potential and the replacement of the failing athletic facilities seems, at least to me, a good start.

Sure – If my buddy Jerry Stepaniak was Mayor and doing the same project all sorts of conservatives would be throwing a fit over his big-spending liberal ways. But he’s not the Mayor – Jill Didier is the Mayor.  And if the conservative establishment wants to sit this one out because someone told them to keep their traps shut over the Mayor’s spending I’ll just take it at face value. They’re suffering from intellectual dishonesty.

Getting back to our big spending Mayor – I happen to like nice things in my community so I’m behind her on this project. I consider myself a model citizen who doesn't mind spending a few bucks to have a nice quality of life and stuff like a state-of-the-art athletic field that will be around for decades is a sound investment.  If I wanted a lower quality of life I would move to Brookfield.

Nonetheless, I hope it doesn’t stop with just the athletic facilities. There’s more to the Park that remains incomplete.

A nice fella in the Mayor’s office informed me that the turf, west bleacher stands, and press box are installed.  This week we should see work begin on the east stands.  The track is the next major component. 

The project is on-schedule. Tosa East plays Marquette University High School in a football game on September 18.  A ribbon cutting ceremony is planned for halftime.

About the bleacher seat -

$25,200 was raised by means of selling 126 bleachers at $200 apiece.  Roughly 66 percent of those donations came from individuals, 18 percent from community organizations, and 16 percent from local businesses.

Additional sales continue at $250 so far raising $2,050 in donations for the second phase.  These will be engraved at the next opportunity to uninstall the benches and send them up to the Green Bay factory.  The $50 increase compensates for the additional cost to ship the benches.

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