The Durand-Arkansaw School Board is meeting tonight. Items on the agenda include the setting of the Summer School Course offerings and staff, setting breakfast and lunch prices for next year, and reports from the district superintendent and building administrators. Tonight's meeting begins at 6pm in the board room at Durand-Arkansaw High School.
The Durand City Rural Fire Departments Spring Dinner and Dance is this Saturday from Noon-10pm at the fire hall. According to firefighter Matt Gillis this year's goal is to raise money for a new tender truck. Chicken Dinners will be served from Noon-7pm with music from 40 Fingers from 1-5 and the Whitesidewalls from 6:30-9:30.
The Mondovi City Council has approved accepting bids for a new library. Mondovi Mayor Brady Weiss says the community support has made the project possible. The plans will still have to receive state approval, but it is hoped to have bids received sometime in June or July.
There is a person in custody for last Friday's deadly wreck in Eau Claire. Officers say Kenneth Van Meter was drunk and speeding when he crashed into a car last Friday night. Eau Claire Police say they are recommending homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle charges in the case. The D.A.'s office has not said just when formal charges could be filed.
If you are speeding in Wisconsin, you could get clocked for your next ticket from the sky. The State Patrol is continuing with its aerial enforcement this week. Troopers will be in Eau Claire County tomorrow patroling I-94. The State Patrol says it's telling people about the flights in the hope that people will slow down on Wisconsin's interstates.
Eau Claire's health department is reminding people that this is the last call for free COVID tests. Starting next month, people will have to pay to get at-home testing kits. The health department took to Facebook yesterday to suggest people order their tests now, just in case. The end of the federal coronavirus emergency has brought an end to most free coronavirus care.
The tuition freeze at the University of Wisconsin has ended, but state lawmakers still want some say over how high the price of a UW degree can go. A Senate panel is set to vote tomorrow on a plan that would tie any future UW tuition increases to the consumer price index. The idea is to stop UW Regents from raising tuition too high or too quickly. The plan comes after lawmakers froze tuition at UW campuses for nearly a decade, and comes after UW Regents approved a four percent tuition increase earlier this year.
Glazers and dunkers reign supreme, again. USA Today yesterday named Kwik Trip as the best gas station in America. The paper ranked gas stations across the country based on clean bathrooms, fresh coffee, snack options, and of course the availability of gas. Kwik Trip has been USA Today's top gas station for four-years-running. The rest of the top five includes Hy-Vee, at number two. RaceTrac at number three, Royal Farms at number four, and Maverik at number five. Kwik Trip's Illinois rival Quick Trip came in at ninth on the USA Today's list.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys in Wisconsin are going to get a raise in the new state budget. The budget-writing Joint Finance Committee yesterday agreed to spend more money on D.A.'s and defense attorneys. The starting salary in Wisconsin will now be 75 thousand dollars a year. The pay hike comes after years of complaints from D.A.'s and judges that low pay was squeezing lawyers out of prosecution and defense work. Dodge County lost all of its prosecutors earlier this year because they all got better-paying jobs somewhere else. The State Bar of Wisconsin says the pay raises will help stave off a constitutional crisis in the state's court system.
State Senator Jeff Smith will be meeting with constituents throughout Wisconsin’s 31st Senate District for a presentation and discussion of the proposed 2023-25 state budget. Smith will hold a session in Durand, on May 31st at Durand-Arkansaw High School from 6-7:30pm.
Marsy's Law is being allowed to stand. Yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the wording of the law is constitutional and was properly written on ballots. The law passed in 2020 and expands the rights of the victims of crimes. That year a judge in Dane County ruled the law was improperly enacted, but today's decision by the Supreme Court overturns that ruling.
It could be a crowded holiday weekend over Memorial Day. Triple-A expects 800-thousand people to travel over the weekend. That'd be the most since the all-time high back in 2018. Triple-A's Debbie Haas says despite the creeping prices under inflation, people still want to travel. Nationally, Triple-A expects about 42-and-a-half million people will head for a trip on Memorial Day. Most of those people are expected to drive.
A teacher is expected to appear in court today for allegedly bringing loaded guns to a Minneapolis elementary school. A student at Loring Community School discovered the two loaded handguns in Derrick Lind's bag last month, according to a criminal complaint. The complaint also states Lind got mad and "trashed a room" after police collected the handguns and he was asked to leave the school. Lind is currently being held at the Hennepin County Jail.
The president of the UW System is defending both a tuition hike and a proposed budget increase, even though enrollment is down. UW President Jay Rothman yesterday told WisPolitics that the university needs more in order to prepare young people for the coming 'war for talent.' He says that means paying professors more, as well as improving classrooms and other buildings on UW campuses. The university is raising tuition four-percent starting next fall, and Rothman is asking for a four-percent budget increase in each year of the new two-year state budget. Without it, he says, the University of Wisconsin will fall behind.
A bill in the state legislature would increase the penalties for drivers who don't stop for a school bus. The bill would bump up the minimum fine for drivers who fail to stop when a bus is flashing its red warning lights from $30 to $300. The maximum fine would climb from $300 to $1,000. The proposal is being introduced by Representatives William Penterman of Columbus and Scott Johnson of Jefferson, as well as State Senator Jesse James of Altoona. It’ll be circulated for co-sponsors through Friday.
Lawmakers are considering exemptions from nurse staffing legislation for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Mayo threatened to move their billion-dollar expansion outside of the state, causing negotiations in a measure that would require committees to agree on nurse staffing levels in their units. Mayo says it has an automated system that can determine staffing needs faster than a committee could, and they argue they should be able to opt-out because of this. Now legislators are considering a change to the plan that would allow Mayo in Rochester to be exempt from the staffing bill.
It was a busy Mother's Day for new moms at Eau Claire's Sacred Heart Hospital. Five babies were born on Mothers' Day. The first arrived about 6:40 a.m, and the last was born at about 11 p.m. Doctors say all of the moms and their babies are doing fine. HSHS Sacred Heart says five babies in one Mother's Day is a record.
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