The Alliance School Board has approved the district’s 2013-2014 school year calendar.

School will begin on Thursday, August 15, 2013.

Students and staff members first break will be Labor Day, September 2.

Fall Parent-Teacher Conferences will be Thursday, October 24, with fall break to follow on October 25-27.

Days off will include a five-day break for Thanksgiving, November 27-December 1, and counting weekends, December 21, 2013 through January 5, 2014 for Christmas and New Year’s.

There will be no days off from January 6 through March 3 of 2014, and then two consecutive weeks where students are only in school for one day due to parent teacher conferences and staff development days. Parent Teacher Conferences will be March 4 and March 11, with the staff development days March 5-7 and March 12-14.

A four-day Easter weekend break will be provided April 18-21, with all classes dismissed on May 16 and the Class of 2014 graduating on May 18.

Teachers will be on the job for 185 days, while high school and middle school students will attend class for 175 days and Elementary Students in class for 172 days.

The Chadron Record newspaper says the U-S Forest Service has given in to a Freedom of Information Act (FIOA) request and released the names of the 3 Chadron men facing federal charges for allegedly starting and failing to put out a fire on the Nebraska National Forest in October.

The Forest Service had announced the filing of charges shortly after the Spotted Tail Fire, but refused to identify the defendants. The newspaper responded with the FIOA request, which has led to the release of the names.

27-year old Jacob Marshall and 26-year old William Jones each face federal counts of using an explosive and leaving a fire without extinguishing it, while 26-year old Andrew Meister is charged only with leaving a fire without extinguishing it.

The Spotted Tail Fire burned 83 acres in the Nebraska National Forest between October 20th and 22nd while the Forest was still under Stage II fire restrictions. Those restrictions included a ban on the use of explosives.

Marshall, Jones, and Meister are accused of  using exploding targets during recreational shooting on the National Forest, with one of the targets starting the fire. The trio allegedly then fled the area without extinguishing the fire.

Each of the 5 charges carries a penalty of up to 6 months in jail and a $5,000 fine, but Marshall, Jones, and Meister could also be held responsible for the costs of fighting the fire.

The response to the Chadron Record’s FIOA request puts the initial estimate of fire suppression costs at $175,000…with the final cost still being determined.

 

The Chadron City Council has approved more than $44,000 in grants from the LB-840 Community Improvement Fund to fully or partially pay for four projects.

10% of the revenue from the half-cent city’s economic development sales tax is set aside for community betterment projects, reviewed by a city committee and sent to the council for approval.

Few such projects have been approved in recent years, a situation that new City Manager Wayne Anderson blames on requirements adopted by the original review committee that limit grants to paying for work already done and call for a match from the group requesting the money.

Anderson has worked with the current LB-840 panel to ease those rules and drop the requirements for a match and for a project to be funded up-front by the organization doing it.

The largest grant approved this week is a little over $14,000 to the Chadron Parks Foundation for a drinking fountain at the Roger Eaton soccer field, borders around playground equipment, wood chips for the parks grounds, and 8 “doggie deposit” bag disposal stations in several city parks.

$12,246 goes to the Chadron Arts Center for an access ramp to the building. The Arts Center group has already raised another $5,000 for the project.

The Chadron Parks Department gets $10,658 for a new backstop at the Maurice Horse Legion Field, a project being done on behalf of the Chadron Youth Baseball organization. The pipes of the existing backstop are rusting out, while the new one will be built in sections that can be repaired or replaced separately.

The final grant is $7,500 to the Cemetery Kiosk Committee for a gazebo-like shelter to protect the year-old electronic gravesite information kiosk at the Greenwood Cemetery from the weather. An earlier grant from the improvement fund covered about half the cost of the kiosk itself.

Anderson is excited about the projects and hopes to see many others move forward with the loosened guidelines on matching funds and reimbursements.

Anderson says the improvement fund still has about $113,000 available for grants, with more coming in each year. The half-cent LB-840 sales tax expires in April 2014, but the city is expected to ask voters next year to renew the tax.

 

       The committee working on a proposal to convert Chadron’s outdoor swimming pool into an indoor pool has picked an architect to design the project and work with supporters on bond issue to help fund it.

City manager and committee member Wayne Anderson says Dave Burbach and Burbach Aquatics of Platteville, Wisconsin, stood out among the  5 firms asked to submit their credentials and the 3 brought in for interviews.

Anderson says the pool committee…made up of community supporters, city officials, and Chadron State College vice president Dale Grant…liked the fact that Burbach has some 600 swimming pools to his credit and is working with another Panhandle town…Oshkosh…on a pool right now.

The committee also liked the fact that Burbach had come to Chadron early and was already familiar with the background of the situation when he addressed it. Anderson says Burbach has the drive and confidence needed for the project to be successful.

Chadron’s only public indoor pool has been in the Armstrong Building at Chadron State, but age and mechanical problems led the school to eliminate it as part of the multi-million dollar renovation and expansion of the gymnasium complex.

Pool supporters and college leaders came up with the idea of enclosing the city-owned outdoor pool as a joint project that would have the college also handle day-to-day operations of the resulting indoor pool.

Anderson says Burbach Aquatics should have a firm proposal for the project in 6-to-8 weeks, then will help supporters to put together a funding campaign. The cost of all of that to the city and the pool committee? Nothing, if voters don’t approve the project.

Anderson says there appears to be good support in the Chadron community for the pool conversion idea, or at least he hasn’t heard opposition yet.

 

The Northwest Community Action Partnership board ended up moving more quickly than expected and has hired Antonio “Hank” Martin as the agency’s new executive director. In fact, board chairman and Sheridan County Commission Jim Krotz says Martin’s first day on the job was Monday.

Martin succeeds Lorye McLeod, who left the agency this summer after nearly 6 years as executive director. He’s no stranger to northwest Nebraska. He’s a Criminal Justice and Psychology graduate of Chadron State College, and served in the local National Guard unit.

Krotz says Community Action had an excellent pool of candidates, but the board liked Martin’s experience. He’s worked in Colorado with grant-funded programs, state agencies and private industry to provide a variety of client services.

They also liked his energy and warmth. Krotz calls him “an extremely engaging and warm personality with excellent community relations skills,” the “kind of guy who can help build partnerships with other community agencies and organizations.”

Northwest Community Action Partnership is a private, non-profit grant-funded umbrella organization for a variety of state and federal programs serving low-income clients in Dawes, Sioux, Sheridan, Box Butte, and Cherry counties. Its mission is to help low-income families and individuals improve the quality of their lives and attain self-sufficiency.