The Mondovi City Council is meeting tonight. Items on the agenda include discussion and possible action on allowing the use of golf carts in the city, repealing and recreating the ordinance regarding mobile food trucks in the city, and reports from the mayor and department heads. Tonight's meeting begins at 5:30 at the Marten Center in Mondovi.
No one was injured in a silo fire in Buffalo County on Sunday. According to the Buffalo County Sheriff's Department, firefighters were called to a fire at La Crosse Milling on Hwy 35 in Cochrane on Sunday Night. When crews arrived, they found an oat silo smoking due to a fire in an auger that had overheated. A building next to the silo was evacuated and fire crews contained the fire to one silo.
The city of Wabasha will hold a grand opening celebration on May 31st for the new athletic complex. The grand opening will include a game with the St. Paul Saints to benefit the Falcon Youth Baseball Association. The new Wabasha Athletic Complex will have pickleball and tennis courts, a basketball court, a hockey/skating rink, a warming house, a concessions stand, and restrooms. The grand opening event will be from 4 to 7 p.m.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS), along with other Minnesota and Wisconsin state, county, and city agencies, will participate in a simulated emergency at the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant today. The annual drill tests the capabilities of federal, state, and local agencies in the event of a plant incident. A variety of field activities will take place near the plant in Dakota and Goodhue counties.
Another school district is looking for a superintendent. Darrin Strosahl is resigning as superintendent of the Plainview-Elgin-Millville School District at the end of this school year. Strosahl has accepted a position as executive director of the Minnesota Rural Education Association, based in St. Cloud. He has served as PEM’s superintendent since July 2022. The school board will now begin a search for a new superintendent.
There will not be an investigation into how HSHS closed its hospitals in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services yesterday said it does not have the authority to open a criminal investigation into the hospital's decision to close Sacred Heart and St, Joseph's hospitals back in March. Eau Claire's city attorney asked DHS last month to open an investigation, saying HSHS didn't give Eau Claire enough time to plan for its closing. DHS Secretary-designee Kirsten Johnson says they can't investigate the hospital unless there's been a violation of the Medicare Conditions of Participation.
Part of the Republican-controlled legislature is ready to override the governor, but the other half can't. Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate say they will come to Madison this morning to override Governor Evers' vetoes of a PFAS clean-up plan, and another plan to send millions of dollars to hospitals in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. Senator Eric Wimberger said the governor is playing games with the millions of dollars included in the plans. He said Republicans have the votes to fix the mess the governor created. But only in the Senate. The Republican-controlled Assembly doesn't have enough votes to override the governor, so today's vote is already doomed.
Arena football is coming to Eau Claire. The Arena League yesterday said Eau Claire will be getting an expansion team. There's no word on what the team will be called, or just who owns the team. The new Eau Claire team will join the Arena League next year. The Arena League includes teams from Duluth, Minnesota; Waterloo, Iowa; Springfield, Missouri; Kansas City, Missouri; and Hot Springs, Arkansas. League Commissioner Tim Brown will be in Eau Claire on Friday to provide some more details.
The air above western Wisconsin is a little less bad. The state's Department of Natural Resources yesterday said the air quality over Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls is a little better than Sunday. Though, the DNR does expect smoke from Canadian wildfires to continue for a while. Those fires are burning for the second straight year.
The Rochester City Council wants to find ways to boost passenger numbers at Rochester International Airport. The council will meet for a work session today to discuss why passengers are choosing other airports to start some of their trips. Passenger numbers following the pandemic are about half of what they were in 2019. A study being presented to the council indicates that more direct flights to destinations that are not served by the airport could boost passenger numbers by up to 33-percent.
Most of Wisconsin's Red Lobsters look to have survived the first round of closings. Red Lobster this week closed 48 restaurants across the country as the company looks at bankruptcy. The Red Lobsters in Wauwatosa and La Crosse are among those that closed yesterday. But the restaurants in Appleton, Ashwaubenon, Eau Claire, Greenfield, Madison, and Mount Pleasant all appear to still be open. Bloomberg first reported that Red Lobster is considering bankruptcy as a way to manage its debt and operating losses.
Wisconsin's supreme court is questioning whether it should once again allow for ballot drop boxes. The new liberal-majority court heard arguments yesterday from a liberal group that says it's unconstitutional to not allow Wisconsin voters to drop off their ballots at unmanned boxes throughout a community. The court's conservative justices said there's nothing in state law that specifically allows for ballot drop boxes, and pointed to the law that says absentee voting is a privilege in Wisconsin. Still, the liberal justices said the former conservative-majority court may have made a mistake in 2022 when that court banned drop boxes. The decision from the court could play a role in this November's election.
It was a ransomware attack. Ascension Health on Friday confirmed that the hack that's frozen their computer system is a ransomware attack. Ascension says they are now working with the FBI to try and unfreeze their computers. The hack nearly paralyzed Ascension's hospitals and clinics across the state. Doctors cannot access patient records, and that's forced delays and cancellations across the entire Ascension network. There's no word just how much the hackers want to release Ascension's files.
Organized baseball and softball require umpires. After a dip in the count of umps during the pandemic, the director of training for the Wisconsin Umpires’ Association, David Furru, says those numbers are rebounding. But he says help is always needed, especially with the explosion of youth sports, clubs sports, and traveling teams. Furru also stresses the need for younger people to join the umpiring field, as the current count of umpires is aging. Furru says the Association exists to help train new umpires. There’s more information about the group at WUAumpires.com.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other state leaders are announcing a 525 million-dollar expansion in semiconductor manufacturing in Minnesota. The project at Polar Semiconductor in Bloomington will be by 75 million dollars of state investments, along with 120 million dollars from the Biden administration's Chip and Science Act. The business produces high-voltage semiconductors for auto, commercial, and industrial uses at the Bloomington facility. The expansion will cause the business to double its monthly output and will add 160 jobs.
A previously unidentified person found dead and stuck in a chimney in Madison has been named. The body found more than thirty years ago, was found in a pipe in the Good 'n Loud Music Store on University Avenue. Ronnie Joe Kirk was originally from Oklahoma, but his last ties were in Wisconsin. He was identified through the DNA Doe Project using genetic genealogy.
Minnesota's new state flag and seal are now officially in use. A ceremony was held on Saturday morning at the State Capitol to retire the old state flag and raise the new one. Secretary of State Steve Simon also recognized members of the State Emblems Redesign Commission and the designers of the flag and seal with an award for their efforts. He used the new state seal for the first time to sign a proclamation at the event. The ceremony was part of Minnesota Statehood Day, celebrating the state's 166th birthday.
A central Wisconsin car show is rated one of the best in the county. A USA Today list of the top 10 car shows in the nation, placed the Iola Car Show at number eight. The show’s executive director, Joe Opperman, tells WAOW-TV in Wausau the annual event creates anywhere from 25 to 30 million dollars in economic impact for the area each year, and attracted a record attendance of 134,000 last year. The 52nd edition of the show, with the theme "Meeting of the Muscle”, will run from July 11th through the 13th.
No comments:
Post a Comment