In an effort to retain and hire officers, the Durand City Council held a special meeting last night to discuss compensation for members of the Durand Police Department. The council voted to eliminate the residential requirements and on-call time along with a raise and change in the pay scale all to take effect in January of 2023. The city will also work with the Pepin County Sheriff's Department on covering times when no officers are available.
A Lake City man is dead after hitting a dear with his motorcycle late Monday in southeastern Minnesota. The Wabasha County Sheriff's Office says 51-year-old Daran Atkinson hit the deer at an intersection on County Road 17 and died of his injuries at the scene. Deputies say Atkinson's passenger -- Lori Schueller of Lake City -- was taken to a Rochester hospital with non-life threatening injuries. This is the second fatal crash involving a deer this year in Wabasha County.
The storm system that brought rain across the Chippewa Valley dropped some huge hail in some parts of western Wisconsin. A number of people took to social media to show the hail, which ranged from golf ball sized to baseball-sized, from last night's storms. Folks in River Falls saw the worst of it. Forecasters say the storms also brought brilliant flashes of lightning. There are no reports of any serious injuries.
Mourners said a final goodbye to Eau Claire County's sheriff yesterday. Yesterday was the funeral for Sheriff Ron Cramer, he died unexpectedly last week at age 67. Several local leaders and other sheriffs spoke at his funeral yesterday, all of them saying how much Cramer meant to Eau Claire and the entire Chippewa Valley. No one is saying how Cramer died. He was set to retire at the end of the year.
Eau Claire Academy is closing its residential treatment center. The Academy's Chuck Anger said in a post yesterday that the center will be closing because they cannot find enough people to work at the home. The Academy is a residential treatment facility for kids with behavioral issues. The Eau Claire Academy School, which is nearby, will remain open.
The first Emerson College Poll prior to Wisconsin's November general election finds Republican incumbent U-S Senator Ron Johnson leading Democratic Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes 48 to 44 percent. The poll in the governor's race is just as tight -- with incumbent Democrat Tony Evers leading Republican challenger Tim Michaels by a slim 45 to 43 percent margin. The Emerson College poll was conducted September 16th through 18th and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
A Wood County judge has determined there is enough evidence to move forward with a trial in a decades-old cold case killing. Donald Maier appeared for the first time Monday since charges of first-degree murder were filed against him in connection with the 1985 killing of Benny Scruggs. According to court records Maier, who has been serving time in prison for unrelated stalking charges, previously admitted to cell mates that he killed someone in the 1980s and got away with it, even disclosing how he disposed of the murder weapon and admitting that he had been in a sexual relationship with the victim’s wife. He’ll enter a plea to the charges in early October.
The head of the FBI says the head of Feeding our Future and nearly 50 others in Minnesota nearly pulled-off the largest pandemic fraud scheme in the entire country. Federal prosecutors yesterday announced charges against Feeding our Future founder Aimee Bock and 46 others. Investigators say Bock and the rest lied to the federal government about how many children they were feeding and took at least 250 million dollars from the federal program designed to feed hungry kids. The charges say Bock would recruit people to run program sites, then falsify reports about how many kids they were feeding and how much money it cost. In all, prosecutors say the scheme billed the government for 125 million meals that were never served.
Waterfowl hunting season begins in Minnesota this weekend. The season starts just before sunrise Saturday and ends depending on whether you're in the north, mid, or south hunting zone. More information is available on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website.
Twenty countries on six continents, including the European Union, have top representatives in Minnesota this week to learn more about the state’s ag industry -- the visit organized by the U-S Department of Agriculture. State Ag Commissioner Thom Petersen says the first couple of days are in the Twin Cities meeting with companies, then they’ll be visiting some farms in Faribault, ethanol plants in Benson, and some of the sugar beet harvest in the Red River Valley. Minnesota is the fourth-largest ag exporter in the nation at over seven billion dollars annually.
The USDA wants to look at farm chemical use and production costs on Wisconsin farms. The agency yesterday said it will look at wheat and potato farms in the state as part of its Agricultural Resource Management Survey. The hope is to get an on-the-ground look at what farmers need, what they are paying, and how they are managing their crops. The first phase of the survey began back in May, and it will last through April of next year.
The labor union that represents Milwaukee police officers is suing to get new service revolvers. The lawsuit against the city follows two years of reported accidental discharges. Milwaukee P-D chose the Sig Sauer pistol as its service revolver in 2019. Since then, there have been three accidental discharges, including one that wounded an officer earlier this month. There's no word on how much it would cost the city to replace the department’s handguns.
The owners of a property management company say police wouldn't help them recover their stolen vehicle full of tools that were located in a homeless encampment. Ross and Heather Lumley own The Stepping Stone Group and say the van's GPS was pinging at the Near-North homeless encampment, but Minneapolis Police said they couldn't go into the encampment to investigate or get the stolen property. KARE 11 News says an MPD spokesperson told them that they would have needed to make sure they have available staff and resources before going into the hostile environment. The Lumleys went into the encampment themselves to retrieve the van and later recovered the empty van crashed in an alley after it was part of multiple hit and runs.
Twenty-21 was the seventh straight year in which more than 700 Minnesotans died by suicide. Tanya Carter with the state Health Department says in addition to those who die from suicide there are more than ten thousand individuals a year that are treated for suicidal injuries, and those are just the ones who show up to a hospital or clinic seeking care. September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Carter says if you or someone you know is struggling to please reach out and be attentive. Earlier this year, the U-S rolled out a nationwide three-digit dialing code -- 9-8-8 -- to access suicide prevention and crisis support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
There’s another report of an alligator in a Wisconsin park. Department of Natural Resources wardens searched a pond at Reigle Family Park in Kewaskum Monday after getting reports of an alligator. They didn’t find anything, but wardens say they do believe there is a gator in the pond. They say the gator was likely someone’s pet that was released. In July, an alligator got out of its owner’s backyard in Kenosha. In Wisconsin, it’s legal to keep a gator as a pet.
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