But Gateway proposal has a long way to go before it has a chance to become reality
By Ed Nadolski
Editor in Chief
So is Burlington one of the sites under consideration for Gateway Technical College’s proposed $15.6 million public safety training center?
You bet it is.
But don’t get too excited, Gateway officials caution, because several sites will be considered and the entire project hinges on Gateway’s $49 million funding referendum that goes before local voters April 2 (see separate story).
That said, local officials are more than willing to roll out the red carpet to convince Gateway officials build it here.
Mayor Bob Miller said recently the city would be an ideal location for the 50-70 acre center. The city is already home to the HERO (Health and Emergency Response Occupations) Center, which provides hands-on training for firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
Adding the public safety training center to the area would centralize similar programs, Miller said.
Burlington just happens to be smack dab in the middle of the three-county area Gateway serves, which is one of the main criteria the college has for the site.
However, Jayne Herring, Gateway’s director of marketing and communication, suggested Tuesday that putting too much emphasis at this point on where the center may be located is akin to putting the cart before the horse.
In order for any of the planning to move forward, voters must first approve the referendum that also includes funding for new programs and facilities as well as renovations and upgrades to existing buildings at campuses in Elkhorn, Kenosha and Racine.
She also said finding a large site that won’t disrupt neighborhoods or bump up against incompatible uses is easier said than done.
Miller said the city has such a site available and he’s now waiting to see if the referendum passes before making a further pitch to Gateway.
If the referendum is approved, Gateway will consider several sites that will be vetted by a committee of public safety and education officials before the final site is selected, Herring said.
The centerpiece of the proposed training center is a three-block simulated city – similar to a movie set – that would allow law enforcement and emergency response students to train using real-life scenarios.
The site as proposed also includes a large vehicle course where students would train to operate firefighting apparatus and other equipment.
The plan is rounded out by a 30,000-square-foot classroom and an indoor firing range.
Gateway’s current Burlington programs are considered an extension of the Elkhorn campus. The buildings that house those programs are owned by the Burlington Area School District and are leased by Gateway.
The public service training center would be owned by Gateway.
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First of all, the HERO name is an asinine self serving look who I am name. $49 million dollars in this economy is outrageous! The current facility is sufficient, we don’t need another pipe dream costing taxpayers $49 million.
Vote Yes!
The hero center is only a small part of what is needed to invest in our economy and our young people by creating a skilled work force that is the main thing businesses look for when when making decisions about locating.
Walker slashed the technical college budget and then whined about a skills gap, what a hypocrite! We need to move forward not backward.
While there may be a slight chance, it is far outweighed by the damage that the increased tax burden will cause this community.
This paper’s obvious promotion of this farse is nothing more than acting as the PR department for the Gateway bureaucracy. Put this together with the repeated PR work for the NEA and WEA, and we have to start wondering who actually pays the staff’s salaries at this rag!
Wait, a newspaper reports that a technical college is considering building another campus in the community it covers and that somehow translates into promoting the referendum? It seems to me that’s the newspaper’s job. While the mayor seems interested in attracting the safety center if the referendum passes, all the newspaper is doing is reporting on it. I guess bias is in the eye (and heart) of the beholder.
Cranley,
I agreed with the first paragraph. After that it was your same old rhetoric. How do you live day to day hating? Haters gonna hate while the rest keep winning…And Cranley keeps whining.
MaryAnn, thank you for agreeing with me in part. However, with respect to my “same old rhetoric” I offer the following:
In other action, the Joint Finance Committee advanced Walker’s proposed decrease of $35.8 million a year in state aid to the Wisconsin Technical College System – a reduction of 30%. – http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/122732019.html
“Whatever the reason is, we need to find a way to say not just offer the classes, not just have kids in the classes, but make sure they graduate and get plugged into those jobs,” Walker said on Monday. – http://www.channel3000.com/news/Walker-wants-tech-schools-to-address-skills-gap/-/1648/17644582/-/14byc3s/-/index.html
After reading this comment section, it is clear THAT bURLINGTON NEEDS ALL OF THE EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES THAT IT CAN GET ITS HANDS ON. bURLINGTON HAS AN ABUNDANCE OF IGNORANT rEPUBLICAN lEMMINGS. tHEY ARE DESTROYING BURLINGTON. WHO WOULD EVER THINK OF MOVING HERE?
here goesw our taxes again
Taxeschmaxes, do you people ever think of anything else? You get what you pay for.
Must be nice not to worry about paying taxes. The higher they go, the more I have to decide what my children can do without. I know it may come as a surprise, but not everyone in Burlington has money to burn.
It isn’t that I don’t have to worry about it, I do. It’s just that there are many things taking a much bigger bite than taxes. And they’re many many times greater than what this investment in Gateway will cost me. Furthermore, I don’t believe in having a knee jerk reaction to any tax. That’s just ridiculous simple mindedness.
Mr. Cranley is part of the liberal elite. Loaded and loves to give any extra cash he has to the government. Some people struggle to make ends meet. Sean will help these people by giving his extra cash to the government because we all know how helpful the government can be. It’s a thing of beauty. He is such a model citizen.
I was browsing the Burlington Area Progressive site. On the page about the WeVote candidates not attending the debate there is a sidebar link for the Recall Walker Pledge drive. I was wondering if there is some more info on this? I wasn’t sure if a governor could be recalled twice or if anyone wanted to. Considering he got more votes the second time than the first. Just curious
In looking at the demographics of tax payers, my backyard lays in a community of approximately 100 houses. Of those 100 houses about 55 of them do not have kids currently enrolled in the Burlington district or have never had a child enrolled in this district. I am not sure how many would be willing to support another tax for education purposes. Having said that, perhaps an optional tax might be worthwhile considering. Many companies have programs like this in place. We-Energies has the “Energy for Tomorrow” program where a customer can choose to pay extra each month to help fund research dealing with renewable energy sources. Many teenagers these days are working as well as being in school and they too are paying taxes; if this is something the future generation wants, then they can show their support for it by opting to pay the extra tax. It may take longer to fund the project this way, but it will be paid for by a community that truly supports it and will use it.
My my Nikki, what a self-centered and short-sighted bit “thinking”! So unless a family has kids, they shouldn’t support public technical education?
Do suppose any of these people might ever need the assistance of a paramedic whose not their child? How about a dental technician? How do suppose local businesses would do if they couldn’t get any of the skilled labor they needed?
If our young people can’t get training and improve themselves, how are they going make a decent living, establish themselves, start families, buy houses and cars? whose going to move the economy? whose going to pay taxes to support and maintain our infra-structure.
Hey, why not extend your thinking to the public universities? People without children in the educational process don’t need doctors or nurses, do they? How about engineers?
The problem with thinking like you do is that they don’t look beyond their own “backyard”. It leads to a selfish outlook, where people consider only themselves, where they’re victim “tax payers” instead contributing Citizens.
Yeah I think you know about as much about being a Citizen as a sausage knows about my personal finances.
I guess this is what happens when the “Me Generation” grows-up and get a voice in the democracy. Public education is there to better the society as a whole.
“Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.” ― Diane Ravitch
Imagine how much better off as a society we would be if we valued education, cared for our fellow man, and supported those in need.
I could see your point if the Burlington public schools were not at the low end of the spectrum, but THEY ARE!
I want the opportunity to send my children to schools that still remember how to teach the basics, not agendas.
Marc, perhaps this is folly on my part, but can I ask what mean by “I could see your point if Burlington Public Schools were not at the low end of the spectrum”? What spectrum? And which public schools are your referring to, K-12? Becasue the subject at hand is Gateway Technical College, which is a public institution, but only connected tangentially to BASD.
And finally, can you please provide some documentation to back up your statement. I’d take it on faith, but that often works out very poorly when trying to get at good information to form opinions on.
While my suggestion of an optionally paid tax may be idealistic it was put forth with consideration to an aging population. The demographics I used were an illustration. If my “backyard” is a typical community then many homeowners are retired, or looking to retire,have lost their jobs, and are very concerned about how to keep their homes, while have enough money to provide for basic needs. By imposing another tax it could very well drive many of them to leave in search of cheaper living thus not only reducing the number of people paying the new tax but eliminating some of the essential tax paying base necessary to sustain current much- needed services. A $49 million facility isn’t any good to anyone if no one can afford the tuition once they are done paying their taxes. With an optional tax not only do you begin to raise the necessary funds for such an endeavor, you maintain your current tax paying base, and there is incentive for people considering moving to the area because of the potential benefits of the facility as well as having more say in how their tax dollars are spent.
I have been accused of being many things, self-centered is not one of them. I have invested hundreds of hours in this community by means of volunteering, fundraising, and donations. I encourage our children to do so as well as their friends and am humbled by the knowledge that they already know how important “community” is. I may not be a lot of things Mr. Cranley, but what I AM is your neighbor. I don’t recall doing or saying anything to invite a personal attack. Think on that the next time you are in your backyard looking into mine.
Optional tax, hat a bunch of nonsense. Those older folks your referring to benefited by the educational opportunities afforded them and their generation and the strong society that those benefits produced. now it’s time to pass those benefits on to our successors.
Imagine what a poor and ignorant society we would live in if we only asked families with children in school to pay for education. I suppose I shouldn’t have to pay taxes to support special education since none of my kids needed it. I suppose I should have to support the fire department or the rescue squad because I’ve never needed them either. Heck, I’m a man why should I have to pay for women’s lavatories in public buildings.
In 1784, Thomas Jefferson put forth the Northwest Ordinance, pertaining to the northwest territories of our young Republic, OH, MI, IN, IL and WI. It set aside the 16th Section of every township for the purpose of public education. The proceeds of the sale of this land at $1 per acre was put toward funding public education. This was the first national education law in the world! Public education is a foundational value of our more perfect union, that the citizens of a Republic, a representative democracy must be educated if they are to be free to govern themselves.
THAT was forward thinking. THAT was considering way beyond the needs of himself, his family, his state and even his generation. That was the kind of thinking that made America great. Not short sighted, self-focused, narrow backyard thinking.
Besides both the construction and the expansion will create jobs, something the private sector in Wisconsin is failing miserably at. And those jobs will create demand, which is the ONLY THING that will cause the private sector to add jobs.