The City of Durand has completed the budget for next year. The tax levy will be approximately 5.2% higher with the mill rate increasing 2.6 percent to $7.91. Durand Mayor Patrick Milliren says the budget increase is due to the Madison Street Project. A public hearing on the new city budget will be on November 15th and then approved by the council after that.
The Durand Arkansaw school district is receiving just over $5,000 as part of a vaping class action lawsuit. The district is looking at how the money will be used or if it is restricted in any way. The money may be used for educating students on the dangers of vaping. The money came from the $168 million settlement from the lawsuit against Philip Morris and Altria Group.
The Mondovi City Council has approved authorizing and issuing $1.9 million dollars in water system mortgage revenue bonds. The council approved the bonding at this week's council meeting along with approving an additional $1.8 million in debt with USDA's Rural Development as part of the new wastewater treatment plant. The money will be used to pay the interim water loan from the Bank of Alma.
Chippewa Falls Police say last week's shelter-in-place order should not have been as wide as it was. The alert was sent out after police say a man barged into a woman's house with a gun and started making threats. Chief Matt Kelm says he asked the county to send a shelter-in-place alert to people in the immediate area, but the county sent the alert to people living miles from the scene. The chief says the alert went to so many people, in part, because of confusion by cellphone companies about the rules for such emergency orders. Kelm says it was an unintended consequence.
An Eau Claire man is now in the double-digit OWI club. Prosecutors this week charged Christopher Raney with his 10th O-W-I. Police arrested him Tuesday after they said he nearly crashed into a squad car. Raney told them he'd been drinking, and he could barely stand up during his arrest. Eau Claire Police claim they found a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his SUV.
There’s more information on a fatal multi-vehicle crash Monday evening in St Croix County. The Wisconsin State Patrol says the westbound lanes of I-94 near the Village of Wilson slowed due to construction. When the driver of a semi-truck didn’t identify the slowed traffic, his vehicle hit a pickup truck and another semi. That impact caused a chain reaction involving four other vehicles, with several bursting into flames. A 76-year-old man from Illinois driving the semi that struck the pickup was killed in the wreck, as was the driver of the pickup, identified as 46-year-old James Michael Shearer of the Village of Hammond. Six other people involved in the crash were treated and released for their injuries.
UW-Platteville is the latest campus to announce layoffs. The school's chancellor yesterday said 111 people are being let go. That's about 12 percent of the university's workforce. Platteville says 60 people will be laid off or not have their contracts renewed, 32 people are taking early retirements, and 31 open positions will be cut. Platteville is facing a multi-million-dollar deficit, and the school says the layoffs will save about nine million dollars. The layoffs at UW-Platteville come after layoffs at the campuses in Oshkosh, Green Bay, and Parkside, and the closure of the UW-Richland campus all together. Other UW schools will likely face similar cuts in the coming months.
There will need to be some changes in order to get the Brewer ballpark funding plan through the Wisconsin Senate. Senators held a hearing on the plan yesterday and said they're not quite ready to vote. Both Democrats and Republicans have questions about the proposal to spend 500 million dollars on American Family Field, though their questions are different. Democrats want to see a ticket tax and/or a Beer District built at the ballpark, while Republicans want to see the Brewers put in more money. The Brewers are open to a non-Brewer game ticket tax and are open to talking about a Beer District, but they do not want to make Brewer games too expensive for fans.
As expected, Wisconsin's new wolf management plan does not include a specific number of wolves. The Department of Natural Resources Board yesterday approved the new management plan. Not having a specific wolf population number means the wolf population in Wisconsin will grow. DNR managers say they want to focus on a 'range' for wolves in the state, instead of a specific number. The lack of a specific number also means there likely won't be a wolf hunt anytime soon. Wisconsin's old wolf management plan set a population cap of 350 wolves.
All of Wisconsin's Republican members of Congress support the new House Speaker. Republicans yesterday unanimously elected Mark Johnson from Louisiana as the next Speaker. Five of the state's Republican congressmen voted for Johnson. Western Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden missed the vote because he is currently in Israel.
Shooting incidents between police and suspects have doubled so far this year in Wisconsin. Data from the Wisconsin Professional Police Association points out that 28 of them have happened so far this year in Wisconsin. The report from the association also shows that in 2021, 68 percent of suspects shot by police were armed with a weapon. That’s up from just 50 percent of suspects five years earlier. So far this year, the police association says, to its knowledge, every suspect shot this year by police had a gun or a knife on them. FBI data shows fatal police shootings have increased nationally dating back to 2015.
Look for a “Zuckerbucks” constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot next spring. Zuckerbucks refers to grants many municipalities relieved for the 2020 election from a group largely funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Most of the money went to the state’s five largest municipalities. The Constitutional Amendment has already passed the legislature once. It would need to do that both again before appearing on the statewide ballot in April. It would prohibit the use of private money or equipment to administer elections in Wisconsin. A second amendment that would prohibit non-citizens from voting in local state or national elections is slated for the November 2024 ballot.
Minnesota's top election official is working to inform the public about changes to state election law that went into effect this year. Secretary of State Steve Simon stopped in Mankato yesterday, speaking at the Blue Earth County Library and Mankato East High School. Simon spoke to students about pre-registering to vote, noting that some 17-year-olds will turn 18 by the time the next presidential election happens. He also talked about a new law that allows Minnesota workers to take time off to vote anytime during the 46-day absentee voting period. Simon encouraged people to get out and vote by November 7th, saying local races are often decided by narrow margins.
A bill that would allow Hmong and Laotian veterans official stamps on their driver's licenses got a hearing at the capitol on Tuesday. Representative Shae Sortwell says those who fought for freedom shouldn't be denied their benefits. The bill's text was part of an amendment to a different bill last session, but that didn't pass the Senate. Sortwell says the new version has the full support of the American Legion and other veterans groups.-
The Mayo Clinic has performed the first robot-assisted kidney transplant in the state of Minnesota. Doctors performed the surgery in Rochester on October 4th. Pam Panning received a kidney from her daughter after more than six months of preparation by surgeons, including training on using the new surgical robot. Doctors say the procedure uses smaller incisions, reducing the risk of infection and possible hernia development.
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