The City of Durand has received a grant from the State of Wisconsin to reconstruct Madison Street in the Downtown area. Durand Mayor Patrick Milliren says the project will cost approximately $2.5 million. The city will be applying for a grant from the Infrastructure Bill to help with the remaining costs of the project.
The rising energy prices are not only affecting homeowners and businesses, but also public organizations like the Durand-Arkansaw School District. According to Superintendent Greg Doverspike, the District explored purchasing natural gas for the upcoming school year earlier this month but found the cost was very high. Doverspike says the district is going to try again in a few weeks. Supply chain issues, the war in Ukraine, and increasing demand have all led to the rise in energy prices.
Another community in Western Wisconsin is dealing with what to do with their public pool. The Chippewa Falls City Council decided earlier this month to close the Bernard Willi Pool as it was not worth the cost of renovating or replacing the pool. Now some residents are organizing a petition drive to either restore or replace the pool with an aquatic center or indoor pool. Here in Durand after many years of discussion on what to do with the Tarrant Park Pool, construction on a new pool is scheduled to begin in August.
Wisconsin 7th District Congressman Tom Tiffany has announced he will run for re-election. Tiffany, replaced Sean Duffy in a special election in May of 2020 after Duffy vacated the seat to spend more time with his family. The 7th Congressional District covers the majority of Northern Wisconsin.
The Sparta School District is searching for ways to find two-point-eight million dollars in savings while it deals with a budget shortfall. A referendum failed at the polls earlier this month by just 39 votes. Superintendent Sam Russ says finding places to cut will involve hard decisions. W-E-A-U / T-V reports that 10 teaching positions, two educational assistants, and two secretarial jobs could be eliminated. That reportedly would save 900-thousand dollars. The district could save about 400-thousand a year if it closes Cataract Elementary School serving a small town north of Sparta. Other possible strategies could involve reducing employee benefits and eliminating other half-dozen teachers.
More Wisconsin communities are encouraging residents to keep their lawnmowers in the garage next month to boost the population of bees and other pollinators. The “No Mow May” initiative began a couple years ago and this year La Crosse, Wisconsin Rapids, and De Pere are participating in the initiative. The idea is to give homeowners the option of letting their lawns become a bit overgrown for a few weeks to ensure that bees that are coming out of hibernation have plenty of options for the nectar and pollen they need.
A report shows that Wisconsin got less federal pandemic aid than most other states. That report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum points out that research measuring federal revenue per capita – dating back to 2006 – ranks the Badger State in the bottom 10 states for the amount of aid received from Washington. There is some good news buried in the report. Wisconsin got less help because the feds used unemployment rates to determine how much money each of the states would receive. Wisconsin had a lower unemployment rate than the national average at the end of 2020.
Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature have scheduled a hearing on medical marijuana on 4 20 (Wednesday). State Senator Melissa Agard, a Madison Democrat, says the bill getting a public hearing at the Capitol is a far cry from what Democrats have tried to offer over the past decade. Agard says her bill would have allowed Wisconsinites to grow their own pot for use, would have prevented outside businesses from selling cannabis in Wisconsin, and would have allowed for judicial remediation for those with cannabis convictions on their records.
A 41-year-old man from Thorp has pleaded no contest to a child sex assault charge. W-E-A-U / T-V reports authorities had been searching for Glen Fifer and found him in Warrens in February. Fifer was using an alias at the time. Investigators say the assaults happened between 2010 and 2017. Fifer was found guilty of second-degree sexual assault of a child and the repeated sexual assault of a child. He was also wanted for bail jumping, resisting or obstructing an officer, operating while intoxicated, failure to install an ignition interlock device, and operating with a prohibited alcohol concentration by Chippewa County authorities.
A Minnesota man will spend 10 years in federal prison for trafficking large amounts of cocaine in western Wisconsin. Prosecutors say 50-year-old Lashawn Bennett of St. Paul pleaded guilty to possessing more than 500 grams with intent to distribute. Bennett was stopped for speeding in Eau Claire last March and state troopers found a bag containing three wrapped bricks of cocaine weighing seven-and-a-half pounds. He was on probation for cocaine trafficking in Wisconsin and prostitution in Minnesota at the time.
Minnesota lawmakers are back at work in St. Paul to continue the legislative session. House Democrats and Senate Republicans remain far apart on tax relief, education spending, and public safety measures. They have until May 23rd to resolve those differences. House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler says Democrats anticipate they will start moving the supplemental budget bills to the floor. Both parties are focusing a lot of attention on public safety. Democrats prefer intervention and prevention. Republicans want tougher sentences and more police officers on the street.
Passengers flying to and from the Twin Cities no longer have to mask up. M-S-P Airport officials announced on Twitter Monday that masks are now “optional,” following a decision by a federal judge to strike down the Biden Administration’s public transportation mask mandate. The mandate was set to expire yesterday, but last week the Centers for Disease Control extended it to May Third to allow more time to study the latest COVID-19 Omicron subvariant, B-A-2. But Florida U-S District Court Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled that the mask mandate “exceeded the C-D-C’s statutory authority” and that the agency “failed to adequately explain its decisions.”
Elections officials are in the process of updating Wisconsin’s new legislative district maps. The state supreme court issued a ruling Friday putting the legislature’s new district boundaries in place. The Wisconsin Elections Commission says it will take some time to update all of the information in the WisVote system. It will also take local election officials time to adjust to their new boundaries. There’s no timeline for when the Commission expects to be done.
A rare medical procedure has been used to recover a dentist’s drill bit after the patient inhaled it. It had started as a routine visit to a Kenosha dentist's office for Tom Joszki. W-I-S-N / T-V reports the 60-year-old Illinois man was having a tooth filled when he apparently inhaled the inch-long drill bit and it became lodged in his lung. It went in so deep normal scopes couldn’t reach it and it initially looked like part of Joszki’s lung would have to be removed. That’s when Doctor Abdul Alraiyes and a team at Aurora Medical Center-Kenosha decided to use a device normally implemented for the early detection of cancer. The team was able to retrieve the drill and avoid the need for surgery. Joszki says he keeps the drill bit on a shelf in his home.
No comments:
Post a Comment