The Durand City Council has learned that a proposal to remove trees from the OC Hanson Park to make room for a dog park may not work. It was hoped that the city would earn some money from the removal of the trees, but according to Mayor Milliren, the best the city could hope for is breaking even. The next city council meeting is September 13th.
The Durand-Arkansaw School Board has approved eliminating the salary structure for professional and support staff of the district. Durand-Arkansaw Superintendent Greg Doverspike says the elimination of the salary structure will give the administration more flexibility. The district is giving all employees a 3% raise on all salaries for the upcoming year.
The City of Mondovi has approved a $30 driveway permit fee. The permit would be needed when a new driveway is installed, or an existing driving is modified from the original driveway. Residents that are repairing an existing driveway are exempt from the permit fee.
A man who went to prison in connection with a crash that killed three Girl Scouts and their troop leader near Chippewa Falls – is getting out early. John Stender was a passenger in the truck that day in 2018. Last year, he pleaded no contest to aiding a felon and other charges, for staying silent afterward. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Wednesday, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections told a Chippewa County judge that Stender has just been released from prison. Meanwhile, Colten Treu is serving a 54-year prison sentence for causing the crash. He was behind the wheel of that truck. Treu and Stender were huffing a can of air duster before the crash.
The first of nearly three-thousand drought relief checks are going out this week to livestock farmers and specialty crop producers in Minnesota. State Agriculture Commissioner Thom (TOM) Petersen says requests totaled nearly 19 million dollars, over double what the legislature appropriated, so payments will be pro-rated. He says the average check should be “somewhere north of 25-hundred dollars.” Producers in all counties except Goodhue, Rice, Wabasha, and Winona were eligible for drought-relief grants. The legislature also appropriated an additional two-point-five million dollars for zero-interest loans, and Peterson says there’s still money available.
A Racine County man who falsely requested absentee ballots says he has been subpoenaed by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Harry Wait leads a group calling itself H-O-T Government. The group continues to claim there was voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Wait has been ordered to make a court appearance September 9th. He admits to illegally seeking absentee ballots. Wait says he did that to show the state’s election system is insecure. Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling has declined to file charges.
Minnesota state revenue officials say without legislative action student loan forgiveness will be taxable. The Legislature never passed its 2022 tax bill to confirm with federal changes. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday a wide-ranging debt cancellation program where many student loan holders could get 10-thousand dollars of their debt forgiven. That forgiveness would increase a person’s tax liability and potentially reduce tax credits or deductions a person would otherwise be eligible to receive.
A big drop in public sector employment in Wisconsin. A new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found more than 17,000 state residents left public sector employment last year. That marks a 20 year high, and a second straight year of a net decline in public sector workers, which includes K-12 teachers and higher ed instructors, law enforcement and public officials. The report attributes this to both Wisconsin's aging population and strain on state institutions due to the COVID 19 pandemic 2021 saw the largest increase of non-retirement, “other separations” in any single year.
Wisconsin families will have to apply for their children to get free meals at school again. During the pandemic the government allowed any child to get a free lunch but that program has ended. U-W-Madison nutritional sciences professor Beth Olson says the calories from a meal can help a child’s brain handle new information better and keep them alert in class. Olson says parents should be making sure their kids are getting good protein, vitamins, and carbs in their meals every day. She says low-income families should also remember to sign up for those free or reduced school meals this fall.
A Boscobel man will spend the next seven-and-a-half years in prison for his role in a drive-by shooting. Thirty-one-year-old Wesley Dollar was found guilty of first-degree recklessly endangering safety with a dangerous weapon. He was sentenced in La Crosse County Court Wednesday for his actions last December. Prosecutors say Dollar was free on bond when he drove through a neighborhood in Holmen and fired a shot into a house using a high-powered rifle. One person was injured.
Everybody in Fond du Lac County seems to think they can outrun the authorities. The sheriff’s office says its deputies have found themselves in more pursuits this year than ever before. Sunday morning deputies say they were wrapping up an operating while intoxicated stop when another vehicle failed to follow the “Slow Down Move Over” law. W-B-A-Y/T-V reports that when that driver was pulled over, they were drunk, too. Then, just a few hours later, deputies were involved in another high-speed pursuit. Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt says his department has been involved in 27 pursuits. That compares to 25 for all of last year. Video from Sunday’s chase shows the driver crossing the median and traveling at 100 miles an hour into oncoming traffic. That reckless driver is in jail.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is now in federal custody. He was moved Wednesday from the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Oak Park Heights to the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. The transfer was part of an agreement when he pleaded guilty to federal charges of denying George Floyd his civil rights. Chauvin’s federal sentence will run concurrently with his state sentence for murder and manslaughter in the death of Floyd in 2020.
Hundreds of nurses in Madison say they’re ready to go on strike to get their union recognized. 99-percent of nurses at UW Health just voted in favor of walking off the job for three days, starting September 13th. The nurses and the hospital have been talking about union recognition and a new contract for more than two-and-a-half years. The union says recognition would give nurses a say in workplace policy. U-W Health says it encourages nurses to make their voices heard through its shared governance system.
You need to know the rules before you go out hunting your first deer. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is offering free webinars for new hunters again next week. The second of several educational hunting webinars is scheduled for 7:00 p-m next Wednesday. People can learn about hunting, fishing, and trapping. Each episode features guest speaker sharing their experiences about getting started. The videos can be found on the Wisconsin D-N-R YouTube channel. Hunting season dates, rules, and regulations, harvest quotas, and more can be found on the agency’s website.
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