Waukesha has been in the national and international headlines for half the year after two young Waukesha girls were charged as adults with trying to kill their fellow middle school classmate after allegedly stabbing her 19 times and leaving her for dead.
It was all, they said, to prove themselves worthy to a fictitious Internet horror character named Slender Man.
The court cases that have followed for the suspects have largely focused on the girls' competency. Developments in both of their cases will again be a focal point in 2015 as the legal proceedings continue. This story, along with many other newsworthy stories, made up Waukesha NOW's top 10 news stories of 2014.
1) Stabbing case captures nation's attention
A horror movie came to life in Waukesha on the morning of May 31, 2014. A 12-year-old girl has a sleepover to celebrate her birthday and invites her two friends over all while she and one of the guests — another 12-year-old — are plotting to kill the other guest.
They looked at executing their plan the following day in a wooded area to please Slender Man, an online character, who they said they planned on living with in a mansion in northern Wisconsin.
The eerie news brought international and national media outlets to Waukesha to cover this story as the legal cases for the two suspects, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, have been ongoing since they were charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. Multiple hearings, including looking at the girls' competency, have taken place in advance of their preliminary hearings in 2015.
2) Obama comes to Waukesha; Scrima no-shows
Two days after he delivered his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama visited Waukesha's General Electric Gas Engines facility where he discussed boosting the economy with more specific job-training skills such as those found at the Waukesha manufacturing plant.
While here, Obama also signed a presidential memorandum to initiate an across-the-board review of all of America's federal job training programs. While local and state politicians were in Waukesha, then-Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima skipped the event, saying he wanted to stay nonpartisan. Scrima also created a stir when he called Obama and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker political extremists.
3) Shawn Reilly wins mayoral seat
After winning the four-person mayoral primary in February, all signs pointed to Reilly, a longtime Waukesha municipal attorney, becoming the new mayor of Waukesha.
Two months later, Reilly, who ran on a campaign slogan of "No Drama, Just Work," outdistanced himself from Scrima to become the city's new leader. The fight was an expensive one, with each candidate spending close to $20,000 in the race.
4) Kramer's trying year ends with jail sentence
Rep. Bill Kramer's year went downhill fast after the state representative from the town of Waukesha was first accused of sexually harassing two women at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., in February.
Once those allegations surfaced, he was stripped of his title as Assembly majority leader by his fellow Republicans. Shortly after that, Kramer was charged with two felony counts of second-degree sexual assault for an incident that occurred at a Republican Party event in 2011.
Meanwhile, Kramer decided to not run for re-election in the fall. While he pleaded not guilty in May, he pleaded no contest in October to reduced charges of two misdemeanor counts of fourth-degree sexual assault. In November, he was sentenced to five months in jail.
5) Clarke Hotel gets new ownership, revitalizes pub
The outlook for The Clarke Hotel in downtown Waukesha at the beginning of the year was not very positive. The restaurant and bar were still vacant and the hotel was owned by the bank after it went into foreclosure. However, that all changed once Harp & Eagle Ltd., a company that owns multiple Irish-themed inns, restaurants and pubs in the state, bought the hotel for $1 million in May.
The company put life back into the property by reopening the bar and restaurant within three months and remodeled the inside. The eatery was renamed The Clarke Irish Pub, resembling County Clare in Milwaukee, one of Harp & Eagle Ltd.'s many properties.
6) Turf fields finally installed at high schools
It was a long road, but the Fields of Many Dreams project was finally realized in 2014. The project installed turf at the three public high schools as well as Catholic Memorial High School and Carroll University.
An agreement with SC Waukesha, a local soccer club, helped the project, which had been struggling to raise funds, get to the finish line. Construction took place this summer at the schools and the fields were ready in the late summer or early fall.
7) Future commercial development planned
Multiple commercial developments received approval in 2014, all of which could change the landscape for two areas on Sunset Drive. A year after gaining preliminary approvals, the common council made way for a Meijer supercenter to come into the city on the corner of Tenny Avenue and East Sunset Drive.
Not far from that future development is the long-suffering Kmart property. However, in late 2014, the city approved a redevelopment plan for that site that includes multiple retail tenants.
Moreover, on the west side of Sunset Drive, the Shoppes at Fox River continued to grow with the opening of Hobby Lobby. And not long after it opened, the council approved plans for a major expansion at the site that will also include multiple commercial tenants.
8) City can't meet radium compliance deadline
In November, city officials recognized that the preliminary steps in just having its application for Great Lakes water approved have taken longer than anticipated and that Waukesha would not be able to meet the court-ordered radium compliance deadline of 2018.
With the city still finalizing the Environmental Impact Statement with the state's Department of Natural Resources, the city was now going to ask for an extension on its radium compliance deadline. The city hopes to have a final EIS issued in the early part of 2015 before it is submitted to the eight Great Lakes states for approval in late 2015.
9) Shared employee health clinic opens
Waukesha County Director of Administration Norm Cummings called the shared health clinic between the city of Waukesha, School District of Waukesha and Waukesha County "monumental."
It involved three government entities forming an agreement to partner on a cost-savings medical clinic that could be used by employees and retirees of the three bodies. Getting to an approval, however, wasn't easy as there were some delays along the way after Scrima challenged the previously-selected health care provider.
10) Alcohol at baseball complex causes pushback
Despite many concerns from residents, the Town of Waukesha Board approved the ability for the owners of Five Diamonds Inc. — which operates the Infinity Fields baseball and softball complex — to sell alcohol at the facility.
The approval allowed Five Diamonds to change its plan of operation at the complex, located at West Les Paul Parkway on Highway 59. Many said alcohol has no place at a youth facility, while board members favoring the change, including Chairman John Marek, said that with some "common sense limitations and restrictions," allowing alcohol can work.