After two weeks of interviews, Monday night the Chaska City Council has selected members for the city’s various commissions. Twenty residents applied for the 13 open slots.

Returning to the Planning Commission are Alex Young, Leanne Ashley and Dan Keyport.

Nate Bostrom will resume his place on the Park and Recreation Board. He will be joined by newcomers Jonathan Grau and Nicholas Mason.

Molly Koivumaki will return to the Human Rights Commission along with Barb Colhapp and Tracy Pass.

By Unsie Zuege

While Principal Paul McMahan is cordial and perfectly willing to outline his career path during the past 37 years, it’s not like he’s a big self-promoter. You get the feeling he’s more comfortable out in the student commons, clearing tables and moving chairs and walking among the tables of students.

By Chuck Friedbauer

Candidate interviews for the District 112 superintendent position will be held in March, including opportunities for community members to interview the final applicants.

An initial list of five or six candidates will be determined by March 1 from applicants by the District 112 school board and School Exec Connect, the search firm contracted by the board to assist with the hiring process.

Writer: Charles Luedloff, of Dahlgren Township

When: 1888

What: Luedloff argues that replanting forests will help cool the climate.

Published: “Annual Report of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society for the year 1888.”

By Unsie Zuege

Although Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner Tom Sorel didn’t provide much new information or timetables for a Highway 212 extension or a major Highway 5 overhaul, he did communicate to the gathering of local officials and citizens that MnDOT is intent on becoming more responsive to the public, more transparent, and more visionary than it has been in the past.

By Chuck Friedbauer

A teacher contract negotiation timeline has not yet been set between District 112 and the local Chaska Education Association (CEA) teachers union.

The union will continue to gather survey information from member teachers through Feb. 5 on reasons the recent contract proposal was rejected.

CEA president Tim Griffin said the union negotiating team will review the survey results Monday, Feb. 8 and present the findings to the CEA executive board the following day.

It has been more than five years now since Chaska.net began residential service in town. The city’s wireless Internet utility has come a long way since then, as has Internet in general. And like the Internet, no one has a good idea of what exactly the future will hold for Chaska.net.

“There are decision points coming up,” said City Administrator Matt Podhradsky. “But I don’t see Chaska.net not in existence.”

By Mark W. Olson

“Amy Krouse Rosenthal is a person who likes to make things,” sums up her Web site.

She backs up her words with words, mostly of the printed variety.

She’s made books for adults (four).

She’s made books for children (12, with several more on the way).

She’s made a line of family journals (six).

She’s also made blogs and amusing online movies (countless).

With the sun shining and the temperatures more tolerable than in previous years, the masses flocked to Firemen’s Lake for the 53rd Annual Chaska Fire Department Fishing Contest.

Firemen spent the morning drilling 1,500 holes around the lake. Most of those holes would later be occupied by the 1,200 in attendance at the two-hour event.