One person was injured in a two-vehicle accident in the city of Alma on Saturday. According to the Buffalo County Sheriff's Department, 20yr old Cameron Patzner was traveling southbound on Hwy 37 just north of Hwy 35 when he failed to negotiate a curve, causing him to cross over the centerline into the northbound lane of traffic and struck a northbound vehicle head-on driven by 30yr old Dustin Huber of Alma. Huber was transported to the hospital while Patzner refused medical treatment at the scene.
The City of Wabasha and its Port Authority have selected Keller-Baartman Properties LLC, out of Red Wing, to begin developing plans for a proposed 44-unit market-rate apartment building, in downtown Wabasha, on a city-owned site. The site is located at the intersection of Alleghany Avenue and Second Street, steps away from Wabasha’s historic Main Street and the many amenities of downtown including the Mississippi River, public library, and National Eagle Center. The apartment building will have one, two, and three-bedroom units, an exercise room, a community room, and 28 underground parking stalls. The City of Wabasha is partnering with the developer to pursue a state-wide grant and TIF to support the project, so the start date is unknown at this time.
Crews are starting work on the I-94, Highway 53 interchange this week. Wis-DOT says it will take a couple of years to remove and replace the pavement on I-94 from Otter Creek to Mallard Road, resurface the I-94/US 53 interchange, and widen the I-94 bridge over Otter Creek among other things. The work is expected to cost just under 70-million-dollars, and isn't scheduled to wrap up until 2026.
One person is recovering from a house fire in Eau Claire. It happened about 2:30 p.m. yesterday at a home on Uranus Avenue where crews arrived to find smoke and flames coming from the first floor. They were able to pull the victim out but there's no update on that person's condition. Crews had the fire out in about ten minutes and say it damaged the kitchen and living room. No word yet on a cause.
An investigation is underway into a body found in the water in Hudson. Police got a call Saturday about it being discovered near Lake Front Park. No one is identifying the person just yet or saying how they got to the park, and the medical examiner isn't revealing the cause of death either. Investigators don't believe there's any threat to the public.
Wisconsin taxpayers are on the hook for Michael Gableman’s legal fees. Those costs stem from Gableman’s review of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, and subsequent lawsuits. A review by WisPolitics shows that legal fees to defend the former state Supreme Court justice before the Office of Lawyer Regulation, along with a settlement the state Assembly reached last month, have pushed taxpayers’ exposure to nearly $2.7 million. Gableman is alleged to have violated professional standards for Wisconsin attorneys. Gableman was hired by Assembly Republicans as Special Counsel to investigate the election, which Joe Biden won by 20,000 votes. The 14 month effort failed to find anything that would have altered that outcome.
The Wisconsin National Guard is now a part of the search for that missing Manitowoc County boy. Guard troops and the DNR joined the search for three-year-old Elijah Vue over the weekend. Vue has been missing since February 20th. His mother and her boyfriend are being held on child neglect charges, but they both say they don't know where the little boy is. The FBI and local authorities have been searching for Elijah since he was first reported missing. That search over the weekend included dive teams in Lake Michigan, and drones above Two Rivers and Manitowoc.
Governor Evers announced that Department of Corrections Secretary Kevin Carr will be leaving his position this week. Carr received bipartisan support throughout his time in Evers cabinet. He was one of the first to join in 2018 when Evers was voted in as Governor. He helped steady a department that was under federal investigation for allegations of inmate abuse, official misconduct, and neglect. Carr now leaves as issues have arisen at various prisons for never-ending lockdowns and even rodent issues. His replacement will be announced in the upcoming weeks.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wants to give anglers more chances to get their fish into the state record book. The agency is adding 18 species to its catch-and-release record list for the upcoming fishing season. The new entries include brook trout, rainbow trout, lake trout, walleye, channel catfish, and largemouth bass. State officials say the popularity of catch-and-release fishing and a desire to promote native rough fish led to the changes.
The finalists for Chancellor at UW La Crosse have been announced by the University. They are, interim chancellor Betsy Morgan, James Beeby the provost of Keene State and College in Keene, New Hampshire, and Christopher Olsen the provost of Indiana State University. They will be participating in campus forums from Monday to Wednesday this week with a final decision to be made by the end of the month.
As expected, Governor Tony Evers has vetoed three Republican-authored tax bills. Evers has twice previously vetoed tax cuts from Republicans. In a statement Friday, the Democratic governor said the three measures totaling $800 million would have driven the state into insolvency and threatened services. The bills included an expansion of the state’s second income tax bracket to cover higher earners, an increase in the income tax credit for married couples, and an increase in the amount of retirees’ income exempt from the state income tax. Evers did not mention a fourth Republican bill, an expanded tax credit for couples with children.
Fatal workplace injuries increased in Wisconsin year-to-year by almost 20 percent. Newly released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in 2022, 125 work injuries that led to deaths were reported in the Badger State. That number is the highest for Wisconsin since the state reached an all-time high of 138 in 2013, and it’s also up from a total of 105 in 2021. Nationally, deadly work injuries went up from 2021 to 2022 by 5.7%. In neighboring states, the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries shows Illinois totaled 177 of those injuries in 2022, while Minnesota had 81.
Democrats unsuccessfully challenged changing the state congressional maps to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday. The rejected request will keep the new maps as they are for 2024. The new layout does weaken the GOP's grip on the state legislature but followed the "least-change" theory when drawn in 2022. Arguments made by the Democratic law firm Elias Law Group said that because the State Supreme Court said it wouldn't favor the congressional maps that follow it meant the state ones should change too. The US Supreme Court blocked maps drawn by Governor Evers in 2022.
It’s a good indicator that spring is in the air…literally. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources notes that many migratory birds are returning to Wisconsin earlier than normal. The warmer winter weather in the state this season has gotten the migration for short-distance birds off to a fast start. The agency says birds are in sync with environmental cues and their access to food. That trend could change, however, depending on how the transition from winter to spring plays out in the state.
A Fond du Lac woman with a Leap Day birthday gave birth to a Leap Day baby. Lisa Barkow and her husband Andrew welcomed their new son Cole to the world Thursday morning at an Oshkosh hospital. The boy and his mother share a February 29th birthday. Online research finds that the chance of a baby being born on Leap Day is one in 1,461, and the chance of two siblings being born on Leap Day is one in two million, but the odds of a mom with a Leap Day birthday giving birth to a Leap Day baby couldn’t be located.
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