Menomonie police are announcing a convicted sex offender will be placed at a Menomonie motel following his release. 35Yr old Joseph Johnson will be placed at Sloogs Parkside Motel on September 8. He will be under lifetime supervision and will be monitored by GPS. Johnson was convicted of first degree sexual assault of a child under 15 and has been labeled as a potential to re-offend.
One person was injured in an ATV accident in Spring Lake Township last Friday. According to the Pierce County Sheriffs Department, 19yr old Kaazy Vhaa of Spring Valley was driving northbound on 220th street when she entered the east ditch. The ATV overturned and Vhaa was injured and transported to Western Wisconsin Health in Baldwin.
St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Wabasha will become part of the Gunderson Health System. On Tuesday Gunderson announced the addition of St. Elizabeths to is system. The hospital will retain its local leadership and will also retain its primary care clinics in Wabasha and Alma, two long term care facilities and assisted living apartments. The move marks the first Minnesota Hospital affiliated with the La Crosse Based Health System.
Another local school has decided to play fall sports. Eau Claire Regis made the decision to move forward with fall sports after receiving guidance from the Eau Claire City County health Department to help lower the risk of Covid 19 in contact sports. Some of the recommendations include preventing students who are sick from playing, limiting attendance at events and requiring face coverings for all those who attend indoor and outdoor events. Practice for football and volleyball begin next week.
The Chippewa Valley Airport is receiving a $2 million FAA Grant to help improve safety and infrastructure of the airport. The grants are part of a $1.2 billion investment into airports across the nation. The airport plans to use the money to acquire snow removal equipment, update taxiway markings and lighting and replace the aircraft rescue and firefighting building. The projects should begin by the end of the year. Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee received $16 million to upgrade its runways.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) continues to be a concern in Minnesota. In the last year, 36 deer tested positive for the fatal disease in the southeastern portion of the state. The D-N-R's Michelle Carstensen updated state lawmakers Tuesday on C-W-D. Carstensen said, "we've sampled over 90-thousand deer since 2002 and we've had 88 total positive cases and that's in six counties: Olmsted, Fillmore, Winona, Houston, Crow Wing and Dakota." She says C-W-D remains a rare disease in Minnesota and she calls the state's approach to managing the disease "aggressive."
The University of Minnesota unveiled a four-step process today for how students living in university housing will return to campus and attend classes amid COVID-19. The "Maroon and Gold Sunrise Plan" includes limited on-campus activities, potential curfews and the usual mask wearing and social distancing. The U of M will welcome residence hall students beginning on September 9th in Duluth, September 15th in the Twin Cities and September 18th in Rochester. The move-in dates were delayed so officials would have more time to observe the experiences of other higher education institutions across the country that started their semesters with spikes in COVID-19 transmission. Also as a safety precaution, distance learning for most undergraduate courses at Duluth, Rochester and the Twin Cities will be offered at least for the first two weeks of the semester.
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue reports the state’s budget picture isn’t as dark as the agency had feared. The state will still face a budget shortfall, but it may not be as bad as was first thought. Tax collections for the fiscal year that ended in June were off by less than one percent – or, 112 million dollars. Republicans say a lot of additional factors go into Wisconsin’s fiscal picture. They warn there could still be bad news on the way. Lawmakers are anticipating a two-billion-dollar shortfall for the next two-year state budget.
The call is going out for volunteers on Election Day this fall. The Wisconsin Elections Commission says it will likely need thousands of people to work the polls November 3rd. The Election Commission is expecting shortages because older people who usually work the polls are at the greatest risk for the coronavirus. Communities have relied on the National Guard to staff the polls since the outbreak began, but there's no guarantee the Guard will be available again in November.
The 26-year-old man accused of the arson attack on the City-County Building in Madison has been bound over for trial. Marquon Clark faces two felony counts of criminal damage to property. Prosecutors say he was involved in the tearing down of two statues that were standing outside the Wisconsin Capitol. Authorities say Clark also threw a Molotov cocktail at the City-County Building. Investigators were able to identify him as a suspect by checking footage from city surveillance cameras.
The City of Winona could be adding three social workers to its police department. The social workers would respond to calls where a person might be experiencing a mental health crisis or other situations where there is not an immediate threat. Winona Liaison Officer Bridget Klinger said, "if we can have someone on the department that's able and better-trained in that area and we are just their back up that would probably be a good thing. It's worth exploring." The proposed program is expected to cost the city up to 300-thousand dollars a year.
Milwaukee voters will be able to access early voting sites at Miller Park and the Fiserv Forum for the November General Election. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and other city leaders made the announcement Monday. The Fiserv Forum will be open seven-days-a-week starting October 20th. Dates for early voting at Miller Park haven’t been set, although it is anticipated to be a drive-thru location. Neither location will be open on Election Day. The Milwaukee Election Commission has established 170 neighborhood-based polling places.
The U-S coronavirus response team leader says she is pleased with the work done in Wisconsin. Doctor Deborah Birx met with Governor Tony Evers and state health officials Monday. Her team is meeting with state leaders to get a sense of what is working in the battle against the virus. She stopped in Madison on the day when the U-S topped six million COVID-19 cases for the year. Birx says she is seeing a positive response to the mask mandate and local safety ordinances.
Pundits and voters alike are watching Minnesota closely ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Some are speculating that the state could turn "red" for the first time since 1972. Carleton College political science Professor Steven Schier says it's a 50/50 possibility that Republicans carry the state. Schier said, "Greater Minnesota has become much more Republican in the Trump era and there are a lot of non-Hispanic whites without a college degree, and a lot of those people are moving to Trump." But Schier says the Twin Cities and the suburbs are become bluer than they ever have been. Former Governor Tim Pawlenty is the last G-O-P candidate to win a statewide election back in 2006.
Kenosha County’s sheriff blames out-of-towners for most of his community’s violence. Sheriff David Beth says 114 of the 205 people arrested last week are from out of town. He says they came from 44 different cities to be part of the riots and violence last week. Beth says people were arrested for all sorts of crimes, including burglary and weapons violations. He says police took 20 guns from people who shouldn't have had them.
Authorities in Brown County say a 23-year-old Antifa member had military-grade smoke grenades, fireworks, and a flamethrower in his backpack at a protest Saturday. The district attorney filed charges Monday against Matthew Banta. Investigators say Banta is also known as “Commander Red.” When he was taken into custody in Green Bay, Banta was out on bail for pointing a rifle at a police officer in Waupaca earlier this month. He’s in the Brown County Jail on a 25-hundred-dollar bond.
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