The preliminary assessment of property owners on Drier Street and Laneville Avenue will move forward. After a public hearing and a debate on whether or not the assessment should move forward, the Durand City Council Spilt and voted 2 yes, 2 no and 2 abstaining to not move forward with the assessment. Durand Mayor Patrick Milliren broke the three-way tie with a no vote, meaning the assessment is moving forward. Milliren says the city needs to have a way to finance projects. Voting to not move forward with the assessment were councilmembers Gillis and Roesler, voting to move forward were councilmembers Hartung and Scofield, and Councilmembers Hooker and Schneider both abstained.
The City of Mondovi is beginning to plan for the reconstruction of North Eau Claire Street from Downtown to the edge of town. The City has received a $1 million CDBG Grant which means residents will not be assessed for the project. However, according to Mondovi Mayor Brady Weiss, the city is going to work with property owners to have them replace laterals to the main sewer and water lines, something that is not covered in the project. It is hoped the project can begin in May of next year.
The Durand-Arkansaw School Board has approved the budget and tax levy for the 2021-2022 school year. The district will have a total tax levy of just over $4.9 million dollars, which is a 1.38% increase over 2020. However, the mill rate is dropping from $8.14 to $7.75 and property values in the district rose 6.46% over the last year to an equalized value of $639 million. The budget for the school year is once again balanced at just over $12 million.
Bond is set at 100-thousand dollars for a Chippewa Falls woman accused of stabbing her husband. Police say Ashley Dietrich stabbed her husband in the chest with an eight-inch kitchen knife on October 15th. Dietrich initially told investigators that she was cutting herself when her husband tried to take the knife away and was accidentally stabbed. She was found unconscious in bed and appeared to have overdosed on medication. Prosecutors say a note found at the scene indicates the incident may have been an attempted murder-suicide. No word on her husband's current condition. Dietrich has another court hearing Tuesday.
A U-S Post Office in Eau Claire has some damage after being hit by a vehicle Tuesday afternoon. Police say a man in the parking lot thought he had put the car in reverse, but it was actually in drive. He stepped on the gas and crashed into the building. The damage included some broken glass. Officers say no one was hurt.
A Chippewa Falls man is going to federal prison for dealing methamphetamine in western Wisconsin. The U-S Attorney's Office says 36-year-old Justin Barnard was sentenced to six years for possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of meth. Dunn County authorities found more than 74 grams of the drug in Barnard's fanny pack during a traffic stop last November. Deputies said he appeared to be under the influence and also had packaging materials and a scale in his mini-van. Barnard is already serving a two-year sentence for an Eau Claire County conviction.
Governor Tony Evers is expected to veto several anti-abortion bills passed by the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly. Democratic Minority Leader Gordon Hintz said, "Republicans know these extreme bills won’t become law. And they know most Wisconsinites support access to safe and legal abortion.” Speaker Robin Vos says everybody in our caucus is proud to be pro-life and added, "just because a bill is errantly vetoed by the governor in a previous session doesn’t mean we won’t bring the topic up.” One measure prohibits the state from certifying abortion providers under Medicaid. Two others ban abortions based on sex or race and require doctors to provide expectant parents information about congenital conditions.
The University of Wisconsin System plans to follow the Biden administration’s executive order on COVID-19 vaccinations. It requires federal contractors to comply with the vaccine mandate. UW System President Tommy said the system “cannot afford to jeopardize millions of dollars in federal contracts, which are integral to academic and research missions.” A majority of U-W campuses have already reached a 70 percent vaccination rate among students. UW-Madison has a student vaccination rate of over 90 percent.
The perennial debate over allowing wine and beer sales at grocery stores in Minnesota is back on at the State Capitol. Jeff Bagniewski the owner of Jeff's Little Stores in Rochester, told lawmakers his three-two beer sales declined as product availability dwindles, eliminating choices for customers. He said he doesn't want to miss out on being part of Minnesota's local beer boom. But Tony Chesak with the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association responds when he stopped at a Kwik Trip in Iowa, he saw no local beers on the shelves. Chesak warns big-box operations will drive local liquor stores out of business and reduce product selection for Minnesotans.
The sentence is five years in prison for a Rochester man convicted of trafficking heroin. Forty-three-year-old Sean Alexander pleaded guilty to third-degree drug sales in an agreement with prosecutors. Alexander was arrested after a traffic stop last February on Interstate 90. Deputies say Alexander was caught with nearly an ounce of heroin or fentanyl during a search at the Olmsted County jail. Authorities seized another 39 grams of heroin and T-H-C wax from his home and another vehicle. He had a previous conviction for selling drugs in Hennepin County.
Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson is accusing someone of lying about his office’s participation in the recent audit of the November 2020 election. Christenson said claims that his office didn’t allow state auditors to view and analyze ballots are simply not true. He did not say if he’s speaking about Republican lawmakers or the auditors. The Legislative Audit Bureau said in its report that it was told it would not be able to handle the ballots from Milwaukee County. Christenson says he provided auditors with everything they asked for. That audit found dozens of problems with last year’s vote or with local election managers who didn’t follow the state’s election laws.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says the taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 vote could stretch into next year – and he points a finger at Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul. Vos hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to oversee the partisan probe and says he’ll sign-off on additional subpoenas if Gableman says they’re needed.
U-S Senator Ron Johnson is co-sponsoring a bill that would prevent essential workers from losing their job for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine. President Biden has proposed a federal vaccine mandate for companies with more than a hundred employees. Johnson says we are already suffering severe worker shortages and vaccine mandates will increase these shortages and degrade our health care system. The Wisconsin Republican added, "no one should be pressured, coerced, or fear reprisal for refusing treatment, especially essential workers.”
It's unclear if a fresh influx of pandemic stimulus funding will be enough to help shore up Wisconsin's timber industry. Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association director Henry Schienebeck (SHIN-eh-beck) tells WXPR in Rhinelander that business has left Wisconsin due to mill closures and production downturns. Shienebeck says many people have left the lumber industry altogether, mirroring employment shifts in other industries like retail and tourism.
Preliminary numbers show Wisconsin hunters harvested just over 38-hundred bears during the 2021 black bear season. That is a decrease from the more than 43-hundred taken last year and similar to the 2018 and 2019 harvests. D-N-R large carnivore specialist Randy Johnson says this fall marked the first season using new harvest zones as outlined in the black bear management plan. He says those zones better reflect the bear population distribution across the state and allow a more fine-tuned approach to management. Officials say harvested bear data is critical to tracking bear population trends and ensuring the population remains healthy.
Wisconsin agricultural groups are applauding the unanimous Assembly passage of a bill that uses five million dollars to increase the state's exports. The goal of the legislation is to boost exports of dairy, meat, and other products by 25 percent in the next five years. Bill author, Representative Tony Kurtz of Wonewoc, said there’s a tremendous growth opportunity for Wisconsin farmers and for all of the wonderful products that our farmers make, everything from ginseng to cranberries to potatoes, to bovine genetics. Dairy Business Association president says this is an investment not only in our dairy farmers and processors but our rural communities as well. Wisconsin exported three-point-three-billion dollars' worth of ag and food products in 2020.
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