12 Days of Patch: April

Waukesha Patch’s one-year anniversary is Dec. 28, 2011. It’s been an action-packed year here in Waukesha and we are proud to bring you the 12 days of Patch. Each day, we will bring the most popular stories of each month for Patch readers to vote for their favorite each month.

On our anniversary, Dec. 28, we will present the top 12 reader’s selection for the community to pick the top story of 2011.

April 2011 (Voting ends at 1 p.m. Dec. 20)

The message that a vandal left on a Waukesha church’s siding was strong and it might not go away for a long time.

“Act more like Christ and less like Christains,” the red paint reads on the side of the church.

But, because of the material of the church, there appears to be no easy way to clean off the graffiti. The church has even gone as far as contacting Graffiti Effacers but it is unlikely the organization will be able to clean up the paint, said Jane Fryda, pastor for

“We are having troubles finding a way to clean it off,” Fryda said. “… My fear is at this point we may have to replace portions of the siding.”

Bystanders gathered along the tracks, questioning what happened. One young woman, when learning that a man had been killed, gasped and put her hand over her mouth to mask the shock.

"I feel really bad," that woman, with a tear in her eye, remarked to a friend as they stood on the sidewalk.

Another Waukesha woman, Perla Perez, who lives on East Main Street, said she didn’t see the collision but heard the train honking its horn before the crash.

“It looked like the train was going to derail,” Perez said.

In a stunning development that instantly changed the race for the state Supreme Court, a county clerk's error on election night added 7,582 votes for incumbent Justice David Prosser over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg.

The additional votes almost certainly will give Prosser the victory in the heated race for the high court. As of early afternoon Thursday, Kloppenburg had been ahead in the race, according to totals compiled by the Associated Press.

With Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announcing she made an error on election night, which flipped the results of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race to favor incumbent Justice David Prosser, some residents are asking questions as to how often this happens.

But for Nickolaus this isn’t the first time she has found herself embroiled in controversy.

In 2010, Nickolaus and Waukesha County Board Chairman Jim Dwyer and county Department of Administration officials feuded about an audit of her election system. The audit stated Nickolaus is keeping election results on a personal computer as opposed to a county system.

Barbara Brzenk, Joe Como and Karin Sue Rajnicek were elected to the Waukesha School Board for the next three years.

Incumbent School Board Member Kurt O'Bryan was defeated by 276 votes compared to the third place position. The four candidates were seeking election to the three seats that were up for election.