The City of Durand continues to work on the 2024 city budget. Durand Mayor Patrick Milliren says the city has the Madison Street Project and will be purchasing a truck for the public works department. Milliren says the Finance Committee continues to work on the department budgets. The public hearing for the budget is expected Mid-November.
The City of Mondovi has sold the Mirror Lake Park playground equipment to the city of Alma. Mondovi has ordered new park equipment and it will be installed later this fall. Mondovi Mayor Brady Weiss said the council decided it was better to sell the equipment than to try and move it to another park. The City of Alma paid $3500 for the playground equipment and will be responsible for moving it.
A jury has acquitted a former UW-Eau Claire official on child sexual assault charges. The jury came back with not guilty verdicts yesterday against Timothy Boehnen. Investigators say he reportedly touched five children between the ages of five and 13. Boehnen always said he never did anything wrong and testified in his own defense at trial. He was the director of risk management at UW-Eau Claire in 2020 when he was charged, and he resigned from that job.
The Barron County Sheriff's Department is telling people that the office is not calling up and demanding a thousand-dollars for a court-ordered DNA test. Yesterday, the sheriff's office took to Facebook to warn of a scam that's spreading around. Officials say scammers call people up, claim they're with the sheriff's office, then tell people they have to take a court-ordered DNA test and pay a thousand-dollars with a gift card or else they will be arrested. The Department says that's not how any of this works. Authorities say if you get a call, simply hang up.
There are no answers five days into Kwik Trip's technical disruption. The company continues to say there are problems with its rewards program, and some things at some stores are unavailable. Kwik Trip has never called the incident a hack, instead, they say they are facing some challenges. Security experts aren't so sure, they say it's obvious something has happened. Customers say they are starting to worry that their information may have been stolen.
A man is in jail after police say he was communicating inappropriately with a person describing themselves as a minor online. Police say their suspect, Brian Anderson of Chippewa Falls, has knowingly communicated with someone saying they were 15 on the internet. They also say he was trying to make plans to meet up for sex, and took actions to do so. Police have searched Anderson's home and are continuing to investigate.
More than 200 people at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh are without jobs as part of a wave of layoffs. The university yesterday said it laid off 140 people, and said another 76 people accepted a voluntary retirement offer. The university is trying to close a nearly 18 million budget shortfall. UW-Oshkosh says the layoffs and voluntary retirements will save about 15 million dollars. The university says no faculty members were laid off, though 12 of the layoffs are among the university's top administrative positions. Everyone who is either laid off or who agreed to leave will stay on their jobs until January.
Republican legislative leaders have walked back a claim about Wisconsin’s top elections official. Just last month, Republicans in the state Senate, unhappy with the results of the 2020 election, voted to fire Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe. But in a Dane County Court filing on Monday, Republican leaders admitted the effort to remove Wolfe was symbolic, that she is legally WEC administrator, and that lawmakers have no authority to replace her. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul and the Elections Commission are asking a judge to prohibit the leaders from taking further action to remove Wolfe.
The state of Wisconsin once again has billions of dollars in the bank at the end of the year. Governor Ever's office yesterday said the state ended the fiscal year 2023 with a seven billion-dollar surplus. The surplus at the end of fiscal year 2022 was just four billion-dollars. The governor's office says Wisconsin also has one point-eight billion in its rainy day fund. Republican lawmakers say the huge budget surplus is a result of their fiscal policies. The governor says the Surplus shows that there is money available to spend on the state's needs.
The U.S. Department of Energy will send millions of dollars to Minnesota and North and South Dakota as part of its hydrogen hubs initiative. Governor Walz announced late last week that the three states will partner with Xcel Energy to form the Heartland Hydrogen Hub. The federal government will provide up to 925-million dollars in funding for the initiative, which is designed to create a regional hydrogen network accessible to current and future users. Xcel Energy has promised to provide up to two-billion dollars in private funding to help the project over the next decade. Governor Walz says the initiative could create more than three-thousand jobs during construction and another 700 permanent jobs after it is built.
Republican lawmakers at the Wisconsin Capitol are once again trying to cut taxes. The latest effort came Friday when Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu offered to replace Governor Evers' billion-dollar spending package for child care and workforce development with a two billion-dollar tax cut. LeMahieu says Governor Evers promised to cut taxes for the middle class but has not yet done that. The governor wants 365 million-dollars for child care providers in the state. LeMahieu said he'd be willing to trade the tax cut for the childcare investment. There's no word from the governor's office on the offer.
The Minnesota Department of Health has completed an investigation into a claim of neglect at a Rochester senior living facility. The agency said last week that it substantiated the claim against The Waters at Maywood. A resident fell at the facility in June, suffering head trauma and broken bones. She died in July. The resident told staff members that her medical call pendant failed to work and that she lay on the floor of a bathroom for more than ten hours before anyone found her. The Department of Health found that the facility failed to establish a procedure to fix call pendants after discovering issues with the system.
The Minnesota State Supreme Court will discuss on November 2nd if Donald Trump will remain on the 2023 primary and general ballots. Former legislators are fighting to keep Trump off the ballots after the US Capitol attack about two years ago. Minnesota is the first state to proceed with court action because of a state law that allows citizens to request the state's Supreme Court to outlaw a candidate. Trump is facing numerous charges but is still the frontrunner in the G-O-P primary race.
There is a happy ending to the story of Mama, Eau Claire's beloved auto shop cat. The folks at Auto King say someone picked Mama up last week and took her home. The auto shop says they figure someone thought Mama was a stray, and was just trying to do the right thing. Mama is a favorite at the Auto King in Eau Claire, and even has a baby whose name is Baby. Auto King managers say someone dropped Mama off over the weekend.
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