2003: The Year in Review
New Ulm
JANUARY
7 -- City Council approved revised Historic Preservation ordinance allowing the Catholic Diocese to demolish St. Mary's Parish school and convent if it desires.
9 -- The City issued 513 permits worth $26.8 million, making 2002 the city's biggest building year.
17 -- A fire of unknown origin caused $24,000 damage to New Ulm's new skate park.
20 -- New Ulm attorney Thomas P. Donnelly received the City's Human Rights Award.
24 -- AMPI added a 30,000-gallon silo to its butter plant to help handle record amounts of cream being processed.
29 -- Demonstrators opposed to the war in Iraq held signs aloft at the intersection of Broadway and Center streets.
FEBRUARY
4 -- New Ulm's City Council approved a capital improvement plan that calls for spending $2.9 million in 2003. It will be funded in part by a $1.9 million bond issue.
7 -- Residents opposed to the re-routing of County State Aid Highway 27 in west New Ulm presented petitions bearing 21 names to the mayor at a "listening/visiting" meeting.
11 -- Blizzard conditions shut down schools and made driving hazardous in and around New Ulm.
12 -- Heritagefest officials reported a $62,000 loss from the 2002 event which was beleaguered by heat and high humidity.
15 -- About 50 protesters turned out for an anti-war against Iraq rally in German Park.
18 -- Seniors protested the dropping of "Senior" from the Community Center name during the City Council's debate on renaming sales tax referendum buildings.
21 -- A $1.5 million federal grant to complete an environmental impact statement for expanding U.S. Highway 14 from North Mankato to New Ulm to four lanes was announced.
25 -- The Hermann Statue was lifted from its place high atop the monument and lowered carefully to the ground where it will reside temporarily beside the monument.
The Public Utilities Commission picked Minnesota Limited, Inc., to build New Ulm's 4.8-mile natural gas supply pipeline that will link up with Hutchinson Public Utilities' pipeline.
27 -- District 88's school board awarded a $51,240 contract to metro-based MEP Associates for removing and controlling mold growth in district buildings.
MARCH
1 -- Forty-degree weather, German chants and ample amounts of ale attracted nearly 5,000 to the 2003 Bockfest.
4 -- The City Council took the first step in setting up an adult-use ordinance by having an ordinance drafted along the lines of Mankato's adult-use ordinance.
8 -- Snow and wind failed to shut down the 2003 Farm/City Ag Show which drew nearly 100 vendors in 140 booths.
15 -- After four years of planning, the new New Ulm Civic Center with its two ice rinks opened for public use.
17 -- Although weather was gloomy and foggy, the 37th annual St. Patrick's Day parade started and ended as it always has -- going the wrong way on Minnesota Street.
21 -- The 23rd annual Home and Self-Improvement Show provided as connection with New Ulm's past as it featured heritage preservation information.
25 -- The Public Utilities Commission recommended approval of a service territory swap with Brown County Rural Electric Association which would affect about 90 NUPU customers and drop electric revenue by .8 percent.
26 -- Gov. Tim Pawlenty named New Ulm interior decorator Christine Carmichael to the Governor's Residence Council.
27 -- The City sold $2.2 million in capital improvement bonds and $1,165,000 in tax increment refunding bonds at record low rates of 3 and 2.9 percent, respectively.
APRIL
1 -- The City Council decided to not acquire the tax-forfeited George's Ballroom property from Brown County.
2 -- Sophomores' writing test scores at New Ulm's high schools tracked closely to scores recorded in 2002 as all schools were above the state average.
11 -- The City Council approved a lowering of employment level in MTS Systems' development contract so the firm could be bought by Parker Hannifin Automation.
12 -- Brown County Veterans Council adopted Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery Brigade so soldiers and their families can receive assistance while the soldiers are on active duty or during training.
15 -- The City Council dipped into the city's reserves to ease the budget-cut bite on the Park and Recreation Department and the Public Library, the hardest hit departments.
16 -- New Ulm 8th graders scored higher than state averages in reading and math scores, bucking a statewide downward trend.
18 -- New Ulm's Police Department reported the city's crime rate reached a four-year high in 2002.
22 -- Gary Gleisner, New Ulm's city clerk/treasurer for nearly seven years, was selected to be the New Ulm Public Utilities' new utilities director, a job that had been vacant for several months.
29 -- With a low bid of $1,573,703, M R Paving & Excavating, Inc., beat out two other contractors to do the city's 2003 utility, street and alley improvements.
MAY
4 -- The Minnesota River Scenic Byway Committee announces a new federal designation for the roads that are included in the byway in hopes that the improvements that come along with the designation will boost visits to their towns.
5 -- An attempted arson at a lumber yard in Arlington raises suspicions that a serial arsonist is on the loose, despite authorities' repeated statements that there is no evidence linking the attempt to fires in Winthrop and Gaylord.
10 -- New Ulm High School baseball coach Jim Senske put himself in an elite class Friday night when his Eagle baseball team topped Park Center 5-1 in the first game of the New Ulm Invitational Baseball Tournament. The win was the 700th of Senske's career -- a plateau never before reached by a Minnesota high school baseball coach.
23 -- Thunder, a nine-month old German shepherd dog, begins life as New Ulm's first police K-9 unit following graduation from the Ramsey County academy in Shoreview.
25 -- The Minnesota Historical Society announces the closings of both Ft. Ridgely and the Lower Sioux Agency as a response to budget cuts.
29 -- City police departments and county sheriff's offices see a spike in the number of people applying for concealed-carry handgun permits thanks to a new law that went into effect on that day.
30 -- The mothers who successfully raised $11,500 to keep the Lincoln Park pool open run into some confusion with city administrators, who say they have never dealt with that issue before.
JUNE
1 -- New Ulm High School baseball coach Jim Senske caps a 40-year career, in which he won 707 games, including 26 South Central Conference titles and the 2002 Class AAA state baseball championship, with a loss to Hutchinson.
3 -- 28 year-old James Robert Ketcher of Springfield is sentenced to almost 30 years in prison for the September murder of 79-year old Edwin Saffert.
5 -- Condemnation proceedings begin for the city of Hutchinson's 90-mile natural gas pipeline project with hearings in Nicollet County District Court in St. Peter, attracting the attention of many concerned local landowners.
7 -- Like many cities around Minnesota, New Ulm city officials learned they would have to do with less state aid during their budgeting processes for 2004.
11 -- Representatives of local and county government met with preservationists, historians and officials with Minnesota Historical Society met in Redwood Falls to discuss ways to raise the money needed to sustain Ft. Ridgely and the Lower Sioux Agency through the fall.
13 -- Many people, including former patients and staff of the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center, gather in the hospital's graveyard for the dedication of new grave markers that replace the original, numbered graves given to the patients by hospital staff.
19 -- Many county and city officials meet in St. Peter to hear about Job Opportunity Building Zones, a new economic development initiative encouraged by the state legislature to stimulate jobs in greater Minnesota.
20 -- Rev. Jon Anderson, pastor of Christ The King Lutheran Church in New Ulm, is named bishop of the Redwood Falls synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
25 -- A tornado ravages the town of Buffalo Lake at 7:30 p.m., downing power lines, ripping the roofs off several houses and causing minor injuries to residents.