Western Wisconsin News Briefs: Bayfiield County recieves forest land as gift

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BAYFIELD - The gift of almost 400 acres of forest along the Marengo River is intended to create a community forest area for the Bayfield County Town of Lincoln.

The Marengo is a cold-water trout stream in northwestern Wisconsin. It includes carved steep-sided gorges as much as 200 feet deep. The Bayfield Regional Conservancy brought the property last month from Plum Creek Timber Company for $673,000. The expense was covered by the Wisconsin Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund and a federal grant. Residents will formally accept the gift at a special town meeting.

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The Wisconsin State Patrol says a weekend traffic stop produced evidence the person at the wheel was guilty of drugged driving. The 19-year old Eau Claire woman was arrested for driving while intoxicated with a child in the vehicle. The traffic stop happened last Saturday morning in Chippewa County. The trooper says he believed people in the car she was driving were not wearing their seat belts. The woman was taken to the county jail. The Wisconsin State Patrol news release did not specify how many children were in the vehicle at the time.

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A former pastor from west-central Wisconsin will spend 18 months in prison for molesting a boy he met in an Internet chat room for gay teenagers. 51-year-old Ervin Witmer of Owen struck a plea deal in October, when he pleaded guilty to a Dane County charge of second-degree child sexual assault. Two similar counts were dropped. Prosecutors said Witmer discovered that the boy was sexually-abused by a relative when he was younger. He then arranged to meet the teen at a motel in Madison, and officials said he had sex with the youngster after that. Witmer was a pastor at the Church of the Brethren in Stanley until 2011, when he became a district manager for a distributor of Christian books.

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