What a year it has been!

Kim and I would like to take this opportunity to send our holiday greetings to you and to thank the countless people who have helped us make this year a huge success.

I would like to take you through a timeline of 2008.

In May we held our first annual Motor Madness, vehicle show at Village Park. While we did not get a large number of people to attend, we were very happy with the event. We have big plans for next year, more cars, more activities and more people!

Our first annual Red Hat Ladies day was a huge success, we had 30 red hatters come to town to shop and dine. They all had a blast and the most important part was that they found out what we all have to offer and have been coming back to do more shopping and dining.

We started our Waterfront Wednesday Concert Series with a great night, and then you all know what happened…the flood of ’08. The flood was an incredible learning experience for us all, we trudged through the water, sandbagged, helped organize volunteers, worked with FEMA, fought with the carp and tried to help our businesses as much as possible. We were very grateful that the damage was not as severe as it could have been.

When the waters receded we were back in business with a grand reopening night at Waterfront Wednesday and Run to the Beach. We moved the location of the Run to Village Park and even though we had about 20 cancellations, we still had the largest number runners ever with 404 participants. As we start the new decade of our Run we have changed the name and the location to Run to the Park and it will start and end Village Park permanently.

We were also very happy with the big crowds at Waterfront Wednesday drew that night and for the rest of the summer.

Taste of Lake Country continues to be our signature event bringing in people from all over southeastern Wisconsin and beyond. We again broke an attendance record with over 25,000 people attending; we sold so much beer that we never shut the taps off and the restaurants were all very happy with the event.

Our Economic Restructuring committee has been very busy this year with our new format for our Merchants Meetings. We extended the meeting invitation to the businesses on Capitol Dive and have now branded the name of The Village Shoppes of Pewaukee Lake as the name of our shopping district (www.thevillageshoppesofpewaukeelake.com).
We started a campaign to bring more awareness to our shoppes and restaurants, so be sure to visit the website to see all the businesses listed.

We began an art project this year that we hope will continue for many years partnering with the Pewaukee Area Arts Council (PAAC). We had Artists paint wood benches that were placed throughout our downtown. It was a difficult project logistically, and the flood put a big damper on it, but once the water receded and the benches were put in their proper places, people really seemed to enjoy them. Stay tuned for next year’s project!!

The Wisconsin Main Street Program celebrated their 20th anniversary this year and they honored the best of the best in 20 years. Our Old Main Street building (161 W Wisconsin Ave) won the award for best downtown project. This is something to be proud of considering over 20 years and with over 50 communities involved in the program, to win any of the 10 awards is a real honor. Congratulations to Jim Siepmann and Siepmann Realty for winning this award!

Cinema in the Sand was increased to three times this summer, but unfortunately because of the flood we only were able to show two of the movies, ironically the one we had to cancel was “Surfs Up”.

We held our 3rd Annual Ultimate Trivia Night in October and once again the competition was fierce in our sold out crowd.

We started something new this year with the Pewaukee Park and Rec department this year called Halloween hullabaloo. This weekend event was held at Wagner Park with 17 story book and cartoon characters who came to life to entertain the kids. We had the facades of their homes, castles or vehicles and the kids went to each for a treat. We had over 100 children attend in costume with their parents and grandparents.

The next day we held our Annual Halloween Fun Fest where we start with a parade through downtown and end at Village Hall. The kids then trick or treat at the downtown merchants and visit booths set up on the sidewalks.

In between all of this Kim and I have been attending Main Street Conferences and other Economic Development workshops. It is always exciting to meet with others that do our jobs and see what new ideas we can borrow from them.

Our new Village Hall is open and hopefully we will have an open house soon. It is a beautiful building and I know the village staff and especially the police dept are thrilled with all of their new space.


That is some of the highlights of our year. None of this could happen without the help of so many people…so our heartfelt thanks to the following:

Our Board of Directors
Our wonderful volunteers
Our exceptional sponsors, especially North Shore Bank who house us and is the title sponsor of our largest event (please view the complete list of sponsors on the partners page of our website)
The community for their support and for attending our events
The staff at Village Hall
The Village Police Department
The Village DPW
And especially the Park and Rec Department who has become our great partner in so many events.

Happy Holidays and we look forward to working with all of you again in 2009.