The City of Mondovi is starting to plan for a new fire station. During this week's council meeting the council agreed to start the process of looking at what would be needed for a new fire station. Mondovi Mayor Brady Weiss says the fire department has outgrown the current station. One possible location for a new fire station would be the new industrial park on the west side of town.
The city of Durand is looking for volunteers to serve on city commissions and committees. Durand Mayor Patrick Millren says those interested should contact city hall. The city council approves those appointed to city commissions and committees.
The Pepin County Health Department has developed the Pepin County Together program to address community needs and issues. Pepin County Health Officer Heidi Stewart says three main issues were identified as important by the community including water quality and mental health. The Pepin County Together Program will be hosting a community event on Tuesday at 5:30 with the Durand-Arkansaw and Pepin School Districts at Durand-Arkansaw High School.
A River Falls man was sentenced Thursday for sex trafficking a woman and a minor -- online. Austin Koeckeritz pleaded guilty last November to compelling a young woman to perform commercial sex acts online, and also sex trafficking a minor. According to authorities, he used violence, threats, emotional manipulation, isolation, and surveillance to compel one adult victim into engaging in online commercial sex acts for a year and a half, in 2021 and 2022. He was sentenced to 20yrs in federal prison followed by lifetime supervision.
Governor Evers is going on the air to ding Republicans for not giving him 15 million-dollars for western Wisconsin's hospitals. The governor used his weekly radio address yesterday to bash the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee for not releasing the emergency funding that the governor signed-off on weeks ago. Republicans approved that money to go to hospitals in the Chippewa Valley to replace the emergency room services that disappeared when HSHS closed its hospitals in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. The governor changed that plan and instead wants to let other hospitals in the area spend that money on other services. The governor says the standoff is breathtaking.
One Democratic state lawmaker fears more budget cuts at the UW if lawmakers don't send the school more money. State Representative Katrina Shankland from Stevens Point yesterday said a number of UW campuses have already laid people off, and one branch campus has closed completely. She says newly released financial reports for seven UW campuses show there continue to be financial problems. Shankland wants the state to spend some of its three billion-dollar surplus on the university. Those financial reports show stagnant or falling enrollment, rising costs for individual campuses, and deficits at almost every school but UW-Madison.
Wisconsin's state superintendent of schools is calling the latest look at the state's teacher shortage a crisis. The Department of Public Instruction released a report yesterday that says 40 percent of new teachers don't last six years in the classroom, and 30 percent of wanna-be teachers never even make it into a classroom. Superintendent Jill Underly said Wisconsin's teacher shortage is most desperate when it comes to special ed teachers. Underly is blaming Act 10, which changed how teachers can negotiate for their salaries and benefits more than a decade ago. DPI's report comes at the same time as another look at Wisconsin's teaching landscape that says Act 10 saved taxpayers billions of dollars, and actually paid high-performing teachers in the state more.
More than 300 people in Rusk County now have to decide if they're going to move with their jobs to Illinois. JELD-WEN yesterday announced it is closing its window plant in Hawkins, in Rusk County. The company says it's consolidating the plant into another facility in central Illinois. About 340 people work at the plant in Hawkins. The company says they will have the opportunity to apply for open jobs at the Illinois plant. The company says most of the transitions will happen by August, though the full move will last into next year.
Minnesota farmers are hoping their income will rebound after a huge drop last year. An analysis by the University of Minnesota Extension Department shows average net income for state farmers dropped by more than 75-percent in 2023. Analysts say higher production expenses and lower market prices for farm goods and some types of livestock led to the decline. Many Minnesota farmers are reportedly expecting even worse results when they go to market later this year.
There's a guilty verdict in the Apple River stabbing death trial in Hudson, Wisconsin. Fifty-four year-old Nicolae Miu was accused of stabbing five people and killing a teenager in July of 2022 on the Apple River during a confrontation. Miu claims the group was confrontational and he feared for his safety, but the jury didn't buy in, finding him guilty of reckless homicide. Miu's sentencing will take place at a later time.
Wisconsin cities got 106-million dollars for the second quarterly transportation project payment of 2024. Governor Tony Evers says the money will go toward general transportation, connecting highways, and expressway policing aids. Local governments will get more than 536-million total through the year. It's the largest amount of funding the program has gotten in the state's history.
Marriage is making a slight comeback in Wisconsin. Data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services shows that the state’s marriage rate, which has been steadily declining since 1980, returning to a pre-pandemic level. Though COVID-19 intensified a decline, with marriage rates hitting 50-year lows in 2020 with just 2.1 Wisconsinites per one-thousand getting married, recent data shows an upward trend in marriages since then. The state’s divorce rates have gone down as well. Despite that, the marriage rate is still far below the all-time peak of 12.2 per 1000 marrying during the mid-1940’s
Local leaders in Wausau say they are thankful and ready for new federal rules on PFAS chemicals. The Biden Administration yesterday unveiled new standards for the so-called forever chemicals, and they are much lower than the standards in Wisconsin. Wausau is building a PFAS treatment center at its water treatment plant, and Mayor Katie Rosenberg says that turned-out to be a great decision. She says there's no way they could meet the new, lower threshold without a new treatment facility.
Doctors say one of the suspects in the Slender Man stabbing is not ready to leave Wisconsin's state mental hospital. In 2014, Morgan Geyser and a friend, both 12-years-old, were arrested after stabbing their friend, also 12, nineteen times. Geyser, who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, believed the girls were appeasing the fictional character Slender Man. The victim survived, and Geyser and the friend were forced to undergo psychiatric treatment. Geyser was in court yesterday to request to be discharged from the hospital, but doctors disagreed.
A deadlocked race for a Rock County Board seat is settled with a red Solo cup. Canvassing earlier this week showed a 190-to-190 tie on April 2 between Lori Marshall and Brandon Buchanan. County Clerk Lisa Tollefson says the winning name was drawn from the familiar red cup. State election law requires that in a tie between candidates, a winner be chosen at random. In this case it was Marshall. Tollefson says Buchanan's seeking a recount, but she thinks the tie vote will hold.
No comments:
Post a Comment