The Mondovi City Council held a special meeting last night. Brad Hansen the City Administrator has submitted his resignation. His last day with the city will be December 16th. The City's Personnel Committee will be the search for a new city administrator immediately.
Students at the UW Stout, River Falls and Eau Claire will be reverting back to virtual learning for the rest of the fall semester once they leave for Thanskgiving Break. The Universities made the decision after the announcement that hospitals in the region were nearing 100% capacity due to the covid-19 pandemic and because of the governor's request for everyone to stay home. Even with the remote learning, campuses will remain open and students can continue to live in residents halls and use dining services. Any student that plans to return to campus after Thanksgiving break will be tested twice the week they return to campus and testing will continue to be mandatory for students living in the residence halls. All three chancellors emphasized that the announcement about campuses switching to remote instruction does not reflect a significant rise in cases among their students or employees, and it does not affect their operations for the spring 2021 semester.
There’s no more room. Mayo Clinic Health Systems reports its hospitals in northwestern Wisconsin are full. The system has already postponed all elective surgical procedures. Officials say all of the beds are full at its medical facilities in Barron, Bloomer, Eau Claire, Osseo and Menomonie. The COVID-19 pandemic is being blamed. A spokesperson for Mayo says half of the patients in intensive care beds have the virus and 40-percent of its medical or surgical beds are occupied by coronavirus patients. The problem is made worse by the fact 300 workers are on restriction after being exposed to the virus.
Authorities
in western Wisconsin say a woman is dead after crashing her vehicle
into a horse and a tree Thursday morning. The Eau Claire
County Sheriff's Office says the female driver struck a horse on
Highway 12 and then hit a tree in the ditch. Deputies say the
woman and horse died at the scene. The victim's name hasn't
been released. The crash is still under investigation.
Wisconsin 93rd Assemblyman Warren Petryk in encouraging everyone to help slow the spread of Covid-19. In a press release yesterday, Petryk said “This pandemic continues to affect Wisconsin residents, especially when it comes to our physical, economic, mental, and spiritual health. To help contain the spread, I continue to encourage people to follow the federal Center for Disease Control guidelines. Certainly, I will continue to support increased access to coronavirus testing for people living in our area. Hospitals in Northwestern Wisconsin have see an increase in the number of patients due to covid-19 while at the same time staffing levels have dropped due to healthcare workers being quarantined due to covid impacting them personally.
I-94
westbound at mile marker 78 was closed for a time yesterday for a
semi truck fire. According to the Wisconsin State Patrol, the driver
of the truck was able to disconnect the trailer that was carrying
baby red potatoes which prevented the fire from spreading from the
trailer to the cab. The westbound lanes were closed for about a half
our while firefighters put out the fire and crews cleaned up the
scene. No one was injured in that blaze.
Crews from 8 fired departments responded to a trailer house fire at a trailer park in Lafayette township yesterday. The Chippewa Fire District says one home was destroyed and two other homes beside it were severely damaged in the blaze. The other departments were brought in to protect other homes as the homes in the park were close to each other and firefighters feared the fire would spread due to the wind and weather conditions. No one was injured in the fire and it remains under investigation.
Scientists
with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are investigating
a manure spill in Vernon County. They say three-thousand
gallons of manure that Misna-East Town Dairy applied ran off its land
and into a tributary of Knapp Creek. The accident in Westby
happened October 30th. The contamination made it all the way to
the creek – and it is being blamed for dozens of dead
fish spotted by D-N-R staff members in the two waterways.
A federal lawsuit has been filed seeking to have the votes from Wisconsin’s three largest counties thrown out. The suit – filed on behalf of three voters from northeastern Wisconsin – alleges that absentee votes are often fraudulent. If successful, the suit would effectively take the state’s electoral votes from Joe Biden and give them to President Donald Trump. Milwaukee and Dane counties alone were the source of more than 577-thousand votes for the Democrat Biden to just over 213-thousand votes for the Republican incumbent Trump. That’s a gap of 364-thousand votes in a state decided by less than 21-thousand.
The
Minnesota Legislature wrapped up its sixth special session of the
year in under three hours Thursday. The COVID-19 peacetime
emergency was extended another 30 days. House Democrats
refused to move forward a Republican-sponsored bill that would allow
lawmakers to selectively cancel some of Governor Walz's COVID
emergency orders. Walz said, "it’s more important than
ever that we have access to tools to fight this pandemic and protect
Minnesotans’ health and well-being.”
Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says he is advising the Trump campaign about what it should do about the razor-thin loss in the Badger State. Walker says he doesn’t think a recount will flip Wisconsin. Walker says unless something changes while the counties are canvassing the vote, simply counting the ballots again won’t give President Trump a victory here. That’s what he has told the campaign. The canvass only determined if ballots were properly cast. Officials say 51 of the state’s 72 counties have completed the task.
Records are sketchy, but it appears Wisconsin lawmakers are about to issue their first subpoenas in almost 50 years as they investigate the presidential election. State Representative Ron Tusler chairs the Assembly committee on elections. He says he believes the state runs its elections well and history indicates the results won’t change. Tusler says the vote still deserves a review because of the questions raised by voters. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos called for the investigation, but he also says it is unlikely enough cases of fraud will be found to overturn the election in Wisconsin.
The
heroic actions of two Brown County deputies were caught on the
dashcam in one of their cars. Sergeant Chris Tappen and Deputy
Cooper Walker were responding to a wrecked S-U-V Wednesday at about
1:30 a-m. Tappen got there first, running to the burning
vehicle and prying open a jammed door. Walker helped Tappen
pull the 32-year-old driver to safety, then both men returned to the
S-U-V to make sure no one else was inside. The driver’s name
hasn’t been released, but he has been arrested and charged with
operating while intoxicated. He suffered minor burns and cuts
from the crash.
A Wauwatosa police officer cleared in three shootings over the past five years could know next month if he will keep his job. Wauwatosa’s Police and Fire Commission has set a hearing in Officer Joseph Mensah’s case for December 16th. Some people in the community want Mensah fired, but the police chief says Mensah did nothing wrong in the three shootings that date back to 2015. In each case, investigators say the person Mensah shot had a weapon and threatened Mensah’s life.
With COVID-19 cases surging in Minnesota and new restrictions about to take effect, the Minnesota Medical Association is urging caution heading into Thanksgiving. M-M-A President Doctor Marilyn Peitso of St. Cloud says "many people are contagious and are asymptomatic they may not know that they are contagious, and for the sake of our loved ones, we just need to this year, pay attention to what our public health experts are telling us." Doctor Peitso is urging Minnesotans not to be complacent about mask wearing, hand-washing and social distancing.
Following
last week’s election, the Minnesota Legislature remains split, but
the majorities are smaller for the parties in control.
Republicans hold the edge in the Minnesota Senate and Democrats hold
the house. If preliminary vote totals hold, Republicans will
have a 34-to-33 edge in the Senate. A recount could be coming
in one Senate district in St. Cloud. Democrats have a 70-to-64
majority in the Minnesota House. However, three races are close
enough to bring on automatic recounts.
The producer of the new movie, “Mags and Julie go on a Road Trip,” says it’s a love letter to her home state. It’s totally Wisconsin. Nearly the entire cast and crews come from the Badger State and it was filmed here. The movie is about an overworked woman who inherits a cabin in Rhinelander and takes a road trip to check it out. The locations used were in Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Mequon and Door County, plus others. Producer Ryann Liebl says it will be available for streaming on all platforms beginning November 24th.
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