Classmates in the News

Bureaucratic bridge battle ends with local winners
WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL
January 16, 2007

For 31 months, it was a bridge too expensive, a bridge too isolated, even a bridge too short.

Finally last week, Crawford County highway officials got the news that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has decided it is a bridge "eligible for replacement."

As officials pointed out in appeals and applications, even a letter to President Bush, they had no choice but to replace it two years ago. Now the county and town of Clayton will get up to 87 percent of the $140,000 they spent to replace an old timber bridge after a flood in May 2004.

Highway commissioner Dennis Pelock called it a "hard- fought battle," and he is still puzzled why FEMA denied appeal after appeal for what he said should have been a routine approval. Read more.
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