The Durand City Council has approved a resolution declaring the city's intention to operate the Tarrant Park Pool this year. With the new pool project delayed until at least 2024, the council decided to pass the resolution and try to get an additional year out of the current pool. The city will have to spend $11,200 to make repairs to re-open the pool, but according to Durand Mayor Patrick Milliren, the biggest concern is pea gravel is getting into the water lines at the pool. Along with repairing the furnace and impeller, a new chlorine pump and ladders will also have to be installed before the season opens. The city will have just over $3000 left to make any other repairs before the council would have to approve future repairs.
A Wausau woman, facing 5 charges in connection with a 2020 Pierce County fatal accident has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. 25yr old McKenna Fell plead guilty to a count of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle and injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle this week. Authorities say on February 19 of 2020, Fell was driving north on Hwy 63, crossed the center line, and crashed head-on with a southbound vehicle injuring a 91yr old man from Ellsworth and killing the passenger an 81yr old woman from Ellsworth. Law enforcement found empty cans of alcoholic seltzer and prescription pill bottles in Fell's vehicle. She will be sentenced in May.
UW-Eau Claire is once again hoping for a new science building in the next state budget. Chancellor James Schmidt says replacing Phillips Hall is one of his top priorities. The building is nearly 60 years old. Lawmakers gave UW-Eau Claire 100 million dollars back in 2019 to tear down and replace Phillips, but Schmidt says the school needs another 230 million to finish the work. He says inflation has forced prices and the cost of a new science building much higher.
A pair of adults in Barron County are looking at charges for running a 'party house' and tattooing two 15-year-olds. Prosecutors say 27-year-old Chase McCarty and 24-year-old Hannah Rhodes gave local teens alcohol and marijuana and let them get drunk or high at the house. The teens would sometimes do chores for the two. Investigators started looking into McCarty and Rhodes after one of the teenagers who partied with them said something to authorities about a six-year-old who lived at the house. During the investigation, detectives learned McCarty gave two 15-year-old tattoos without their parent's permission.
There's some fear that a powerful animal tranquilizer has made it into the drug supply in La Crosse. Authorities in the city are investigating nine deadly overdoses since the beginning of the year. The worry is that the animal tranquilizer xylazine, also known as 'tranq,' is now being included in fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine in the city. Investigators say it will take a while to get the final toxicology reports on all nine overdoses, so they may not know anything for sure for weeks.
Forecasters are warning of much colder weather coming to Western Wisconsin and East Central Minnesota this weekend. The National Weather Service says colder air will move into the area Friday night, with temperatures below zero in the overnight hours. Cloudy conditions are expected both Saturday and Sunday, and temperatures will be in the single digits during the day. The service-added wind chills will be in the region of negative 20 to negative 30 next week.
Wisconsin's DMV managers want to continue to allow some new drivers to skip their road test. The DMV yesterday suggested making its driving test waiver permanent. The DMV says 87 percent of new drivers since May of 2020, when the DMV closed because of the coronavirus, have been given a waiver. That comes to over 108 thousand drivers. There are worries though. Some drivers ed teachers say not testing new drivers behind the wheel will make the roads more dangerous.
Wisconsin's record budget surplus is growing, again. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau yesterday said the surplus will now hit seven-point-one billion dollars this July. That's a half-billion dollars more than expected. Almost 90 percent of that increase comes from money that was set aside during the past two years but wasn't spent. Republican lawmakers yesterday once again said they, and their budget decisions, are responsible for Wisconsin's record surplus. Lawmakers and Governor Evers are now talking about what to do with that money.
A lot of people have changed their minds about the U.S. Supreme Court after the Dobbs decision. The latest Marquette Law School Poll shows the court's reputation has rebounded since last summer. Immediately after the Dobbs leak, pollsters say people said they lost faith in the high court. Back in July, 61 percent of people said they disapproved of the Supreme Court. In the poll released yesterday, that number was 53 percent. The change is more noticeable when you look at the gap between disapproval and approval. That gap was 23 points in July, it's just six points now.
Lawyers for the Oshkosh teen accused of stabbing a school resource officer back in 2019 are suggesting it may have been an attempt at suicide by cop. Yesterday saw a day full of testimony in Grant Fuhrman's trial. His lawyers questioned a police sergeant whether they thought Fuhrman wanted to harm himself when police say he stabbed a school resource officer with a bar-b-que fork. Fuhrman is now 20 and is looking at attempted homicide charges. His trial continues today.
Applications are now being accepted for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection's Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin grants. The grants are designed to help Wisconsin farms and businesses sell locally-grown food. Up to 200-thousand dollars is being offered and applications are being accepted until March 31st. More information is available on the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection website.
US Senator Tammy Baldwin wants to ensure that Americans will continue to get the money they need to afford health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Those grants were expanded under the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Wisconsin Democrat says they should stick around. Baldwin says 13 percent more people were able to sign up for insurance on the Marketplace in 2022 thanks to the increase in grants.
The owner of an abandoned Milwaukee mall was found in contempt of court Tuesday. Milwaukee County Judge William Sosnay makes the decision against the out-of-state owner of Northridge Mall, US Black Spruce Enterprise Group, for failing to secure the property. The mall’s owner is appealing an order to raze the shuttered property. Two-thousand-dollar-a-day fines assessed to the mall owner by the judge for failure to secure the decaying mall now total over $300,000. Attorneys for the City of Milwaukee trying to move forward with plans to demolish the vacant mall have filed a motion to have the deed to Northridge given to them. The job to tear the mall down would cost the city about $15 million, money the city says it doesn’t have.
A 15-year-old boy from Florida is arrested in connection with threats made at Portage High School earlier this month. A possible active shooter threat was called into the school back on January 3rd and a 15-year-old girl was arrested three days later. Now police say a 15-year-old boy from Sarasota, Florida has been linked to swatting calls in Canada, Washington, Indiana, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, including the one at Portage High School. Police want him charged with terroristic threats.
Former Badger football player Marcus Randle El is heading to prison for the rest of his life for murder. A jury yesterday convicted him for the 2020 murders of two women. It took the jury just about two hours to find Randle El guilty. Prosecutors say Randle El killed the women because he thought they were stealing drugs from him. He'll be sentenced in May.
This year's United States Championship Cheese Contest will happen in Wisconsin. Nearly 200 cheese makers will take to the Resch Expo in Green Bay on February 21st and 22nd for the 21st biennial competition. Medals will be given out in 118 cheese categories. The champion cheese announcement will be streamed live online on February 23rd.
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