Mayor’s Column May 3, 2025
Rohn Bishop, Mayor of Waupun
Hello Waupun,
Greetings from Rochester, Minnesota and the National Dance Competition!
First, I’d like to congratulate Kailie Westphal for breaking the all-time hits record for Waupun Softball! Her dad, Alderman Jason Westphal, Zoomed into our meetings on Tuesday from the ballpark. I think that’s the first time an alderman joined from a live sporting event and even gave us a little play-by-play! It made our meeting more enjoyable!
In updates around Waupun: A group of high school students is working on a project to add LED lights along points of the boardwalk. They’ll be strategically located for pedestrian safety while not negatively impacting nocturnal animals.
As for the boardwalk, many of us enjoy seeing the deer, however, many homeowners are annoyed by deer eating plants, bushes, trees, and etc. The city does have an ordinance in place that you can NOT feed the deer, but they have lots of natural foods and of course enjoy living along the river and the wooded areas along it. I have been asked to look into allowing some kind of a safe shooting of deer to trim the herd; however, the shooter has to be so many feet away from any residential property, and we don’t have any locations that would allow that, so that’s very unlikely to happen. It appears living with deer, at least for those of us along the river, is a way of life, and there are some deer repellents you can buy if you want to.
I’m often asked about the unusual intersection at Main, Carrington, and Fond du Lac Streets. Why is it a 3-way stop? Why don’t you change it? How dangerous is it? These are all good questions, so I did ask DPW to look into it. What I’ve learned is that despite all the close calls at that intersection, we’ve had very few crashes. And adding a Stop sign on East Main would back traffic up past the stop light at Madison St. I am open to installing a bigger sign pointing out that it’s a 3-way stop, especially on the West Main Street Stop sign location. There has been some conversation about closing Fond du Lac St. between Franklin and Main (unlikely) I’m also curious about asking the Department of Transportation about a stop light at that intersection. Anyway, it sounds like it’s been a 3-way stop since before 151 bypassed Waupun in the 1960’s. All that being said, I still don’t know exactly why that intersection is the way it is, but the history and DOT traffic studies are interesting.
Important to know: Monday is the last day of spring yard waste cleanup, so please have your yard waste on the curb by 7am Monday.
Roof work in Waupun is wrapping up, with roof repairs to the Public Works, Hockey Rink, Baseball Complex, City Hall and the Carnegie Library. Also, the tuck pointing at the Carnegie should be finished soon. Most of the roof work is hailstorm related, as for the tuckpointing, I’m excited to have the old library building for another 106 years!
The road closure of Rock and Newton has begun, as the street reconstruction project begins.
The pool is almost ready! It’s freshly painted and the heater is just about finished, thanks to the good work of our friends at All Phase. We’ll be filling the pool in a week or so to allow the water to warm up.
The new floor at hockey rink project has begun as they’re cutting up the current floor. Come next hockey and figure skating season, we should have a nice new refregated floor, making sure my friend Morgan is able to keep on skating!
God Bless and remember to Keep Calm and Waup-on!
Mayor Rohn
