Whitefish Bay Week in Review: April 10 to April 16

In case you missed it, here are some of the top headlines on Whitefish Bay Patch in the last week.

The Whitefish Bay School District's projected $2.1 million loss in state aid in 2011-12 may be managed without cutting teachers or increasing class sizes, district officials say.

Preliminary projections show the district is within $300,000 of closing a , as proposed under Gov. Scott Walker’s biennial budget, according to Mary Gavigan, district superintendent.

The preliminary data show the loss in state aid could be offset, in large part, by more than $1.7 million in wage and benefits cuts, primarily through salary freezes and increased employee contributions to pension costs, and by an $82,000 increase in district revenue.

Parking may be a little trickier for those visiting Silver Spring businesses over the next two months, as crews are digging into the first of two municipal parking lots slated for reconstruction this spring.

The reconstruction project, which will remove and replace the existing storm sewer, lighting and pavement in the two parking lots, began yesterday in the north municipal lot behind and . The reconstruction of that lot is expected to be completed near the end of May.

Once the north lot is substantially complete, crews will begin work on the south municipal lot behind . The Winkie's lot is expected to last about four weeks, with a contracted completion date of June 24 for both projects.

Whitefish Bay Police are investigating a string of seven garage break-ins in the last week, most of which were due to unlocked garage service doors.

Four of the thefts occurred the night of April 6 or the morning of April 7, with three occurring later that week. The most significant property loss was on the 4800 block of North Cumberland Avenue, where a set of Taylor Made golf clubs was stolen.

This week is National Library Week, and as part of the national theme of "Create Your Own Story @Your Library," the Whitefish Bay Public Library is undertaking a project that compiles firsthand accounts of the village's history to create a historical multimedia scrapbook.

The goal of the history project is to collect and share interviews with people about their experiences of the Bay. They can be childhood memories of special events or people, stories about your neighborhood, tales of Bay traditions; Anything that will help to tell the story of life in the Bay for future generations.

To participate, go to the library's website to fill out the interview form and the deed of gift. Both must be returned to the library by April 30.

The Whitefish Bay High School Forensics team is sending a record eight students to the National Catholic Forensic League championships in Washington D.C. on Memorial Day weekend.

The students qualified individually through a tournament at the Milwaukee Archdiocese level, where they competed with other Milwaukee area schools. The top 30 entries qualified for the national competition, and seven of those entries were from Whitefish Bay High School. Only Brookfield East High School had more qualifiers.