More sand mine buzz at GC school board meeting

GLENWOOD CITY — The Glenwood City Board of Education held its meeting this past Monday night where the board discussed more information about the proposed sand mine in front of several community members.

Currently, the Board is working on a letter to write and send to Alex Blackburn, the Land Use and Conservation Specialist of St.Croix County. They are waiting on the aid of an attorney to help write the draft of the letter before it is sent. The letter will address the Board’s concerns about the proposed mine, including air quality and monitoring, transportation during busing hours and all-around protection for the students and staff.

Community member Barry Peterson spoke during community comments and reminded the Board that as of right now the County has deemed the sand mine application as “incomplete” and once that it is deemed complete, there are 90 days that the Board of Adjustments has to make a decision.

“I would advise that the Board ask to use those full 90 days instead of rushing into this thing,” said Peterson.

Also during community comments, coach Shane Strong and football players Nick Mrdutt, Matt Schouten and Austin Moe presented the Board with a signed “We Are GC” hanky placed in a picture frame. This memento of the 2012 state championship journey will most likely hang above the trophy case.

In other news, Tim Johnson said in his administrator’s report that he recently took some time to visit two area science labs in the River Falls and New Richmond high schools. Since the visit, several changes have been made to the project plan for our science labs that look to be strong improvements.

In other business, with graduation in the near future, it was time to discuss scholarships. The Board approved one Dorothy Kuhn Family Scholarship for $300, 11 Russell Meyer Scholarships at $1,000 each, two Class of 1950 scholarships at $500 each and one Topper Partnership Foundation Scholarship at $550.

The Board also approved a scholarship of $300 from the Matson Miller Post 330 of Wilson, Wisconsin and a Tim O’Meara Memorial Scholarship for $500. Both of these appear to be annual scholarships that will now be awarded.

Lastly, the Board approved the girls’ hockey cooperative with River Falls and the boys’ hockey cooperative with Baldwin-Woodville for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years.