you’ll see a ton of community members here. Or you can come at 10:00 o’clock at night and you’re going to see a ton of community members working out. It’s really a special community.” Those relationships in Stratford run deep.“We have a relationship with every business in town,” Grell reports. “If we need building supplies, we go to our local lumber store; if we need signage, we go to Stratford Sign Company; if we need something fashioned out of stainless steel, we go to A&B Processing Systems; if we’re looking at window replacements, we go to Wausau Window, which is also in our industrial park. It would be a challenge to find a business in the Village that we do not have some sort of relationship with.” And when the community needs financial help, they reach out to Partners Bank of Stratford. “”We’ve always been a partner of the community,” says Knoll. “Our customers are our neighbors, so we want to give them our best at all times. Every person is treated as an individual. Every business is tailored to what they need.And everyone is treated with respect.”The bank has been a long-time sponsor and supporter of many of the Village’s amenities, including its sports complexes and its four-mile Heritage Trail, popular with local hikers, bikers, snow-shoers, and crosscountry skiers. “Whenever there is an opportunity, the bank steps forward.” Going forward, Grell says there’s some street work that needs to be addressed. “We have two streets that go right through our school system and both are in desperate need of maintenance,” he offers. “We’re trying to find grants to offset the costs of those expenses and from a Village perspective, our greatest need would be a building. We have a million dollars worth of equipment and some of it sits outside because we’re out of space. We’re trying to be fiscally responsible while still trying to find the dollars to improve what we already have.” Looking to the future with optimism, the people of Stratford, Wisconsin, will always find themselves in the center of things. 201 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 12 STRATFORD, WI
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