Clean Water and ICE Updates (Hour 2)

Transcript

Clean Water and ICE Updates (Hour 2)

Civic Media Mornings · Fri Feb 13, 2026

Kathryn Lake

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Good morning and thank you so much for joining us on the Civic Media Network.

This is Civic Media Morning.

Happy Friday.

My name is Jamie Martenson.

And I'm Brian Noonan.

You can always get involved in the program 855-75 Civic.

That's 855-752-4842.

This is a shocking statistic, but about a third of Wisconsinites who rely on private wells for their water are rarely notified about nearby contamination.

That is, again, alarming.

So there is a new bill that is going through the...

Congress, or the legislature, rather, that will require DNR to notify local health officials.

To tell us about that is Peter Burris, government affairs manager for Wisconsin Conservation Voters.

You can go to conservationvoters.org to get more of the information.

Peter, welcome.

We're glad you're here.

How is this even possible that people who use wells are not being notified of contamination?

It doesn't seem plausible.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Brian.

Thanks for having me, Jamie.

It's great to be here.

It is really unfortunate that this is just kind of the lay of the land here in Wisconsin.

You know, for the folks that receive their water from public drinking water systems, they receive consumer confidence reports every once a year or twice a year, depending on the size of the municipality.

But yeah, for those one third of Wisconsinites rely on private wells.

That's their property.

And there's not a

There's not a good notification system in place for those folks.

So and I would say, you know, just generally taking a step back Our legislature has in the past decade made some good steps to supporting public water infrastructure But has really left private well owners behind.

So an example of that just this past summer in the budget We increased financing for our storm our wastewater and our drinking water infrastructure by 732 million dollars, which is great really helps will help help tackle

PFAS-led nitrate-related challenges.

But again, yeah, for those one-third of Wisconsinites who rely on private wells, they've been left on their own, and we need to be doing more for them.

So, with AB 635 and SB 628, and by the way, conservationvoters.org has an incredible bill tracker over there.

If you want to see how your representatives are voting, what bills are passing through senates and committees, it's a fabulous resource for anybody who's interested in these things.

But what would these bills, for wells, what would these essentially propose?

What is the proposal and what would they actually do for homeowners?

Yeah, it's a super straightforward bill.

It's a one-page bill.

And then based on the principle, I think something that we all agree on, right?

Knowledge is power.

Everyone has a right to know what's in their drinking water.

So the bill would just require DNR to notify county health departments, county land and water conservation departments, and tribal health departments when they've identified groundwater contamination.

So that's any exceedance of a groundwater standard or a PFAS standard.

Our thinking there then is that that means local health officials will have the tools they need to be able to better support folks in their own communities.

If this were to pass, how long does it take to put those measures into place?

Because, like you said, a third of Wisconsinites use these private wells.

That's a lot of people, a lot of wells.

What's the timetable for this?

Yeah, the timetable built into the bill for just kind of getting this notification system up and running is seven months.

Well, and

the good news is that a lot of this information is already available, right?

DNR does a great job of tracking a lot of water quality data on different trackers, you know.

PFAS Interactive Data Viewer, for example.

The challenge is that if you're a busy parent, you gotta get your kids to school on a Monday morning, you're not logging on to look at the PFAS Interactive Data Viewer.

And then you're not locking onto the lead tracker.

You need

a

better automated notification process.

We're talking with Peter Burris.

He's the government affairs manager for Wisconsin Conservation Voters.

That is conservationvoters.org if you want to check it out.

Where do these bills stand right now?

As they're moving through the legislature, where are we currently at as far as their movement?

Yeah, there's some good news and some bad news here.

So to my knowledge, this is one of the most popular pieces of legislation introduced so far this session.

There are 69 legislators co-sponsoring the bill.

That's more than half of the assembly inside.

That includes both Republican and Democratic authors and co-sponsors.

you know, lots of stakeholders.

So we sent a letter from 60 stakeholders, a letter of support last November.

Other key groups have registered and supported the group of the Bill, the County's Association, the Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards, the Wisconsin Public Health Association.

There are no groups opposed, registered against the bill.

But it stalled out.

They received the public hearing and the assembly.

and the Senate and has not moved from there.

So the rumor we've heard and, you know, we're still trying to verify, but the rumor we've heard is that Speaker Voss doesn't want to advance a bill with bipartisan authors.

And that's the, you know, that's the kind of gross politics that Wisconsinites are fed

up with.

It's the thing we're trying to get past.

And so I think the question before us now is, will the Republican legislators who put their name on this bill

who also believe that it's really important to get done?

Will they stand up to their leadership?

Will they deliver for Wisconsinites?

Or will they let the bill die?

Well, Peter, we ask this all the time when we hear things like this.

And you said, you know, this is the rumor, but a lot of a lot of times rumors have at least a kernel of truth to them.

What can what can people do if you're even if you're not one of the one third of Wisconsinites that rely on private wells, you have to worry about the cleanliness and the reporting of drinking water for everybody.

What can we do?

Yeah, the biggest thing you can do is to call or email your legislators.

So we, you know, conservationvoters.org slash water, you can take direct action there.

There's a link for sharing your support for the Water Pollution Notification Act.

You can also call your legislator directly, share your support and say, you know, Representative, will you speak to Speaker Boss and ask him to give this bill a vote?

We are in a different way of the land with our legislature than we were two years ago, right?

We are competitive maps even splits It's a toss-up in November who's gonna win control of both the Senate and the Assembly and the governor's office, right?

And so we believe very strongly that folks Representatives senators need to deliver if they want to be reelected and so I think we need to make that clear We have one week until the assembly wraps up their work

for the session, which is wild, right?

Like an eight month vacation is kind of insane.

Sounds all right.

But you know, that's where we are.

So we have one week to get this done.

And so it's really pressures on folks.

It is really, really helpful.

Everything I hear as a lobbyist is that it doesn't take much to elevate something in the state legislature as a priority because the reality is folks are just not.

contacting assembly reps and state senators as much as folks in Congress.

So those calls, those emails really do help.

Is it about community engagement as a lobbyist?

Can you speak to that a little bit?

I mean, does it help when people are calling and when Wisconsinites basically tell the legislature that they're worried about shaping their environmental policies, that they're also worried about these things?

Does that help the cause at all?

Because I think sometimes, right, you feel like you're just talking into a void.

So does it actually help from your standpoint when people are doing these things?

Yeah, we all need to remember that we all care about these things.

And when we take collective action, it's not just our voice.

It's all of our voices.

So we've been doing a lot of work around this bill.

We have sent nearly 900 emails to all 99 assembly districts.

We've knocked more than a thousand doors with water testing kits.

We've made 2000 calls into priority districts.

We've surveyed 2,300 Wisconsinites.

We're running digital ads across 17 districts.

But we need everybody.

We're doing this because we've heard demand for this policy and because it's what we need to get this across the finish line.

So I'm envisioning getting this across the finish line and all being able to collectively celebrate together.

We're not going to get to that point unless we do all take responsibility and do the work and push our legislators to do the right thing.

Peter Burris is our guest.

He's the government affairs manager for Wisconsin Conservation Voters.

ConservationVoters.org is the website.

We're talking about the Water Pollution Notification Act.

Peter, it would seem that any bill regarding conservation should be an easy sell.

But as a lobbyist, as you come into these and deal with legislators and stuff...

Is that the case or are there is there still hesitation not so much with this bill because you said this one has bipartisan support and authorship, but our is it is there still a wall for some conservation efforts that Just would seem hard to understand to regular folks

Yeah, I think they're kind of two key challenges one is as it relates to this bill is prioritization, right?

So oftentimes it's just a matter of how do you elevate?

A bill to level of priority and compete with some of the politicking and you know and cut through all the noise Quite frankly the other obstacle that really comes down on a lot of our more preventative accountability related work The challenge is polluters business big business special interest groups who spend a lot a lot of time and money

in the capital.

Quite frankly, they are outworking all of us.

And so that's what we're seeing right now.

For example, with Assembly Bill 131, the PFAS

bill

that Governor Evers and DNR and Republican legislators have done incredible work trying to find compromise.

You know, we opposed to that bill as it was introduced at the start of the session.

We support the substitute amendment that Governor Evers has developed with Republican legislators.

They did a really good job finding common ground and addressing major concerns.

It's not the exact bill we wanted, but compromise, right?

But here we are still.

The bill has not moved forward because big business special interest groups in the capital are doing all they can to stop it from moving forward.

So again, it's a question of, will Republican legislators stand up to those big business

special

interests and put impacted Wisconsin families first?

Or will they let it die?

I want to look at something that happened yesterday really quickly, because we only have a couple more minutes.

If you weren't following along yesterday, the Trump administration has finalized a repeal of the EPA's 2009 Endangerment finding.

It's been the legal backbone for basically regulating climate pollution.

And I know we talked a little bit off the air.

This is not necessarily your area of expertise, but as a representative of conservation voters.

How should we feel about this?

What does this essentially do for not only Wisconsin, but looking at the rest of the country as well?

Yeah, I think this just underscores more than ever what we need to do here in state to offset the potential negative impacts and heading into a big election year.

I think this should be on our minds.

So this decision is really the Trump administration

putting corporate polluter profits before the health of Wisconsin families.

So the EPA Endangerment finding from 2009, as you said, Jamie, concluded that greenhouse gases like carbon pollution and methane endanger public health.

So this was the finding that we used to produce fuel-efficient cars and curb toxic greenhouse gases and really

central to our efforts to tackle climate change.

So I think preventing insect vector-borne diseases, making our air safer to breathe, limiting flooding in our communities, limiting dangerous heat waves.

So rescinding this endangerment finding is going to make our families more sick.

It's going to put good jobs at risk.

And it's going to raise our energy costs.

So I think it's one of many, many scary things happening at the federal level.

And again, just really underscores

what we have to do here in Wisconsin to protect our communities.

Well, if anybody wants to get more information, go to conservationvoters.org.

And as Peter said, contact your assembly people, contact your representatives.

We do have a voice, so use it, especially if you want to turn on your faucet and know that you're getting clean drinking water, which should be, you know.

In this day and age should be a no-brainer.

There shouldn't

be a debate about this.

This should just be something that happens in this country, in this state.

Why are these things so hard?

Thanks, Peter Burris.

Again, the government affairs manager for Wisconsin Conservation Voters, conservationvoters.org.

Peter, have a great weekend.

Thanks for being here.

We appreciate it.

Thank

you, Peter.

Thank you both.

It's 7-I-T right now.

You're listening to Civic Media Mornings.

Coming up, AI toys.

Are they endangering your kids?

We're going to talk about that.

My name is Jamie

Martenson.

Kathryn Lake

And I'm Brian Noon, and this is the Civic Media Network.

722 right now.

We hope you are having a great morning.

It's going to be a beautiful weekend in some parts of Wisconsin.

We are looking at highs close to 50.

I think that shorts weather for a lot of people.

I

mean,

20s in Wisconsin is shorts weather, let's be honest.

Yeah, I'm thinking, oh, maybe I don't have to wear all the heavy gear.

I could just wear regular gear.

I could lose a layer.

I could

lose a layer over the next couple of days.

I'm sure I'll have to pick it back up again though at some point.

Are you comfortable letting your kids play with AI toys 85575 Civic 8557524842 I had never heard of this

this contraption.

Miko, that's

a

company name and a toy name.

It's a small AI powered robot that is supposedly designed for children and on the website it describes it as designed to spark creativity and learning while keeping your child's safety and privacy at the center of everything.

No hidden data practices, no unsafe conversations, no surprises, just kid safe AI your family can trust.

And quote, fast forward to Senator Marsha Blackburn.

and Richard Blumenthal, this is bipartisan because you know Marshall Blackburn is a Republican.

Richard Blumenthal is a Democrat.

They say that MECO exposed thousands of children's conversations and has a database that is publicly accessible that may in fact, Jamie, have names, personal details, the responses of children.

That sounds...

Not sinister at all.

If you are a company who, in your description of a toy, has to say that many times, safety, privacy, data practices, unsafe, no surprises, trust.

If you have to put those words in your description that many times, I am going to be skeptical of you and what your product potentially is.

Your doth protest too much, my

friends.

So I think this is fascinating though, because remember when Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs were a thing?

They were so simple.

But I also remember when Furbys came out and there was a big uproar over, I hated Furbys too, but they came out and it was supposedly that Furbys could somehow pay attention and come to life like Gremlins.

We have also progressed in our technology even since Furby, right?

And remember

Teddy Roxburn where you put

the

cassette in and

I thought Teddy Ruxpin was the most incredibly creepy thing because his eyes moved side to side.

I was not, as a child, a Teddy Ruxpin fan in any way, shape, or form.

I found

him to

be creepy at any rate.

This is interesting because the exposed files from this MECO database, according to Senate staffers, actually date back to December of 2025, and they were organized by language and dialect.

So children's voice...

These recordings didn't appear to be included, but the toys' replies alone could allow someone to piece together those conversations.

Now, Blackburn and Blumenthal are saying that it's a basic cybersecurity lapse.

They've been questioned whether the company adequately protected children's privacy.

Now, of course, Miko CEO denied any sort of breach.

Well, what's he gonna

say?

Nothing

to see here.

What is this human being going to say?

He says that no children's voices or personal information were publicly accessible and no customer data was actually compromised.

However, Senate staff says that they found that the exposure using free publicly available tools to analyze the toys web communications.

And

by late Wednesday of this week, the entire database was no longer publicly accessible.

Nothing said.

you have something to hide, like taking it all down.

Oh, you weren't supposed to see this.

Did I say that part out loud?

Yeah.

I

think this is fascinating because AI is one of those things that actually terrifies me.

I am not, I said it earlier in this program.

I'm not afraid of innovation.

I'm not afraid of growth.

AI actually terrifies me.

AI terrifies me.

It really truly does because we don't know, we don't have any parameters on AI.

There

are no

rules.

This is like the wild, wild West when it comes to technology.

I saw the Terminator, Jamie, Skynet will become self-actualized.

And there are a lot of overlords.

There are.

a lot of people who want this technology not for good, right?

And that's what I think scares

me.

I think it's terrifying, especially when we have no rules and regulation on what AI is capable of right now.

And that's just it too.

We don't actually know its capabilities fully quite yet, especially as we continue to advance and to develop it.

Well, that's the big question, right?

Is AI going to be a tool that we use to make things easier and make things more efficient?

or are we going to succumb to AI and you can already see people if you've if you've read letters or emails you can tell when something is AI and if you just give if you give over to AI that's when the dynamic changes that's when it's not a tool it's a crutch and a crutch then becomes your main source of support we have to figure out that line where yes it's good

It can be great.

Yeah, sure.

But like you said, anything, any new technology can be turned to evil quickly.

Think about the fact that Elon Musk is now basically dabbling, playing in the field of AI.

Is that the type of person you really want running your AI?

Think of what he could do with that chainsaw.

It's AI powered.

But I mean, that's what scares me is there are human beings like that in this world who are taking this technology and they're already incredibly brilliant people.

And what are they going to end up doing with it?

And then when we look at this, I mean, these lawmakers, Blumenthal and Blackburn actually had to send out letters to other AI companies that make AI toys.

saying, we have concerns about this.

We have concerns about your toys.

We have concerns about your children's safety.

And I don't know, this is why I kind of wish I was back in the days of Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys, especially when we're adults are one thing.

I don't feel safe as an adult.

I definitely don't feel safe putting AI in the hands of

children.

It is it is worrisome and I you know I'd urge every parent just do your due diligence before you buy your kid the latest and greatest alleged thing and

We're sure

past the

days of

tickle

me Elmo

Oh my God, I got it.

We had one of those in the house that did not frighten me.

But a lot of things do.

We're going to talk about the updates from Minnesota on the other side of the news.

On Civic Media Mornings, I'm Brian New.

I'm Jamie Martins and it's 729.

And thank you so much for joining us.

735 right now.

We hope that you are having a great morning listening to civic media mornings on the Civic Media Network.

If you're in Wisconsin Rapids listening on WFHR or in Richland Center on WRCE.

Thank you so much for having us on.

I am Jamie Martenson.

And I'm Brian Noonan.

Good morning.

As you know, last week, Borders R. Tom Holman announced that first they were pulling back 700 ICE agents out of Minneapolis.

Then it came out the other day that the Trump administration is ending the crackdown.

Supposedly everything is fixed in Minneapolis, so they're getting everybody out of there.

The operation has been called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever, according to DHS.

we know how it's been going.

But what's going on now and what is really going to happen with this supposed shutdown of the operation?

Tim Wegener is a core leader of Invisible Twin Cities, a local chapter of National Indivisible, rather.

It's a grassroots group of volunteers.

Tim, thanks for being here.

A lot's still going on.

We know there was the pullback of troops, allegedly.

Then there was now the ending of this.

But that didn't stop things in Minneapolis from still being very, very tense this weekend and up until yesterday, correct?

Oh, absolutely.

I think the biggest thing that changed over the last two weeks with Tom Homan was their PR strategy.

That changed.

Okay.

Facts on the ground didn't change.

I mean, just

I think it was Tuesday, we had a high speed, multi-vehicle crash in downtown, basically downtown St.

Paul, residential area, where they were chasing somebody at a high rate of speed.

And this is just one example of the lawlessness and the terrorism that they're inflicting upon the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

How are people responding to what's happening?

Because we were what, six weeks into this?

Because I know they started bringing in ICE agents in about December.

Obviously, then we saw things escalate with the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretty.

So with the news and this ping-ponging back and forth with Tom Holman, how are people responding to this in the Twin Cities right now?

You know, I think a lot of different ways, but I think the mindset that people have right now is this is the end of the beginning.

Is this the best way to put it?

I mean, there's some relief for sure.

There's still anxiety and anger and sadness and all of the emotions that we've all been having, but more than anything, everybody's still resolved.

I have been talking to people in our communities.

You can see it in our chats.

Everybody looked at yesterday's press conference where we announced they were pulling out and said, that's great, the work continues.

Well, Governor Wall said, trust but verify.

So how does that look for average Minnesotans?

How does that look outside of Minnesota as we've talked about?

the possibilities of these kind of operations coming to Wisconsin.

We've seen them already in Chicago, Los Angeles all over.

So what does trust but verify mean for us?

How do we enact that?

Yeah, you know, for Minnesota, I think what it means is a continuation of what we're doing.

Looking out for your neighbors, making sure that they're being fed or that they've got adequate access to health care.

All of the things we've been doing these last six, seven weeks.

to make sure people could survive this.

I think the broader picture for the rest of the country, one of the lessons learned, and I think there's a number of them that they can learn from what we did here, is get ready now.

And what I mean by that is, in the month of January, community organizations in Minnesota trained over 30,000 constitutional observers in the month of January.

The state Democratic Party trained over 10,000.

constitutional observers in January.

Indivisible Twin Cities, my group that I'm part of, we trained a couple thousand people.

And so I'm saying that because that gets you ready for when it does come to your city.

It teaches you what you need to do to document.

It teaches you what to do to hold them accountable.

And most importantly, it teaches what you need to do to be safe while you're doing it.

We're talking with Tim Wagoner, our core leader of Indivisible Twin Cities, which is a local chapter of National Indivisible, a grassroots organization talking about some of the ice agents withdrawal from the Twin Cities.

You were mentioning training these observers.

What other things did Indivisible Twin Cities do during, because I know you guys were very instrumental in helping organize protests and some of these bigger ones that have played out across the nation.

Your group was very instrumental in helping.

with that on the local front.

So what are some other things as a grassroots organization?

Have you been involved in?

So certainly, as you just mentioned, the constitutional observer training, the protests, I mean, January 23rd, it was below zero all day, the wind chill was minus 20.

And we had 75,000 people marching in downtown Minneapolis for two and a half hours.

Wow.

Yeah, it was amazing.

It was absolutely amazing.

I think

you know some other things that really mattered here and I think this is another one of the lessons is from the start we along with a lot of other organizations in the cities and clergy and everybody else leaders elected leaders first and foremost it was stay nonviolent stay peaceful stay assertive I mean don't don't back down but don't give them what they want

That was what we were really involved in was making trying to do our part to make sure that the community understood as awful as this was as many atrocities were being committed and I don't use that phrase lightly, but that's what they were We could not give them what they wanted.

They wanted chaos.

They wanted the city to burn So that they could come in with the Interaction Act and all the other things and we never gave it to them and that's how we ended up winning this battle

Yeah, it was the restraint shown and the dedication shown you mentioned the weather but just the restraint also shown by people in Minneapolis was amazing.

You mentioned at the beginning of our conversation the PR strategy has changed from Tom Holman.

Do you think that the sudden decision to withdraw and to end this operation

coincides at all with the fact that, hey, there's a vote coming up about funding and public outcry against funding ICE is at an all-time high.

Is there a connection in your opinion?

Absolutely.

Not a big believer in coincidences.

Ah, there you go.

Not at all.

You know, I think two things happened.

The murder of Alex Pretty was the turning point.

If you look at the polling and you look at what was happening, it all cratered on them after that event.

And so when Holman came in, he knew what he had to do, which was to bring this to an end because they just continue to lose on it.

And then when the vote was scheduled for yesterday, that was just a convenient circumstance for him to then say, oh, see, now we're leaving.

This administration does not do anything without an evil purpose behind it.

Now you mentioned a little earlier that even with the withdrawal of any sort of ICE agents, your job is not done in the Twin Cities.

So what does that look like going forward?

Because they have said that there will be some agents still there, but what does that look like for your group going forward even with the withdrawal of the agents?

Yeah, so you the first thing is is week we and everybody else that's been organizing around this we're gonna continue to Have patrols We're gonna continue to have observers.

We're gonna continue to have groups making sure that the immigrant families that have been targeted have what they need You know, that's that's all the short-term stuff As we get into the to the medium term

you know we've got elections coming up here as you know everybody does midterms um and I you know the conversation we're just now starting to have but I we're going to continue to have it and I hope others will have it is all of those constitutional observers now need to become poll protectors in November they've made it abundantly clear that they're going to try to intimidate people into not voting well you know Minnesota's already shown we we're not

We're not willing to be afraid to stand up for what we believe in.

So that's, I think that's really the next phase for this for us is making sure that come November people are, people feel safe going out to vote so that we can change what needs to be changed.

Tim Wegener is our guest.

He's a core leader of Indivisible.

Why do we all keep, because we want to say invisible, but it's Indivisible Twin Cities.

Indivisible Twin Cities.org is the website.

It's all well and good that they're ending this operation.

It's great that the troops will not be there.

There will still be an ice presence.

We see it in Chicago.

We see it everywhere.

They're still there.

But what seems to be lacking in all of this is a discussion about accountability.

And who, you know, is there going to be justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretty?

Is there going to be any sort of accountability for these ice agents?

That doesn't seem to be part of the conversation yet.

It's not.

You know, Governor Walls mentioned it yesterday in his press conference and our Attorney General Keith Allison.

He's been talking about that as well.

You know, obviously getting the federal government not letting the state be part of the investigation into both of these murders tells us, you know, they have no interest in accountability, but we already knew that right.

But accountability is going to come over time.

And no one likes to hear that, but that's really the only way that that's gonna happen We're gonna need to vote out these people who are enabling this and it's not just Trump and it's not just Steven Miller I mean, there's basically every Republican in Congress has enabled all of this to happen And so they're gonna have to be voted out so that then we can have people who are interested in accountability who are interested in the rule of law and who wants to hold these people who

I mean, not only did they violate the law, they violated the Constitution.

I mean, it's, it's going to have to happen, but it's going to take time.

I want to ask you about a ruling that came down last night.

Uh, if you, if you haven't seen the news, it was a federal judge, a Trump appointee ruled that ICE detainees in Minnesota were effectively blocked from assessing attorneys at the Whipple federal building, violating their fifth and sixth amendment rights.

And so what was indivisible twin cities reaction to that ruling from this Trump appointee last night?

It's nice to see that even Trump appointees get it and want to follow the law.

I think that's our reaction to it.

I mean, we know from people that have been held at Whipple all of the violations of constitutional rights.

I mean, I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities on the east side of town and one of our neighbors, he's an American citizen.

He's a realtor.

He was filming ICE from his car.

They boxed him in.

They broke his window.

They pulled him out, slammed him to the ground, and took him to Whipple for 12 hours.

No lawyer, no nothing.

That's one example.

And that's an American citizen they're doing that to.

Imagine the atrocities, and again, I don't use that word lightly, but we know from the people that have been held there what they're doing to people inside that building.

Tim, before we let you go, as somebody who is observing this from the outside, and the whole world has been watching what's happening in the Twin Cities,

What's the biggest lesson you think the rest of us could learn from what you folks have achieved in Minneapolis?

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

It really isn't.

You have to be involved.

And we all are busy.

We all have families.

We all have lives.

But this matters.

If they can do it to my neighbor down the street, they can do it to me.

They can do it to you.

Get involved.

There you go.

And it sounds so simple, but it is really the core of this whole thing.

And again, we talked about it all the time, watching the people marching in sub-zero temperatures.

This was not an easy time of year to be demonstrating.

You had to really want it.

You had to really care.

And Minnesota showed up.

We did.

We're very proud of Minnesota,

as you can imagine.

I don't blame you.

Well, Tim Wagoner has been our guest.

He's a core leader of Indivisible Twin Cities.

I got it right on the last time.

Indivisibletwincities.org.

Tim, thanks for being here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

We appreciate it.

Thank you

so much.

Thanks

for having me.

Grassroots Organization too, so go check it out if

you want

to help them out.

There's also chapters throughout the country.

748 right now, you are listening to Civic Media Mornings.

My name is Jamie Martenson.

And I'm Brian Noonan.

Oh, are we in one of the most romantic states?

We'll talk a little Valentine's Day to wrap things up on the Civic Media Network.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,

civicmedia.us.

I would just a fun little mood this morning.

Because when

Parker gets ready for us to go into the on-air mode, it cuts all of my audio from StreamYard until he turns me back on.

So I miss

all the good

stuff.

I don't know if

I

can say the last thing I heard.

No, you can.

OK.

You cannot.

Why not?

Because we're a morning show.

It's more internet-safe harbor law,

air-friendly.

All right.

All right.

All right.

Hi.

Yes.

We're regroup.

Tomorrow's Valentine's Day.

Here's the thing.

There's going to be various opinions, but we want your opinion too at 8557-5CIVIC, 8557-524-842.

How long into a relationship do you either stop celebrating Valentine's Day or you see that your Valentine's celebration just evolves into something

a little less showy, a little less thirsty, a

little

less, oh, do you love me today?

That kind of thing.

8-5-5-7-5-7-8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-7.

Is

that how you got Mrs. Brian by asking her if she loved you today, just like that?

I

did.

That and a burlap sack over the dome.

That's how we do it, where I come from.

All

right,

all right.

Also, Jamie found this.

States being voted the most romantic I did intimate the most.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was a door-dash so highly highly scientific

I'm sure

yes, but you know

But

you know, they probably get it I mean how often do we go to door-dash to have all these things delivered to our house because we don't actually want to take the time to go out and get it ourselves So they probably

know more about us and in Wisconsin.

We don't it seems we don't want to do anything

anyway.

Oh, no, we're not romantic

We're not yeah throw that stat for

Because

DoorDash actually analyzed all their ordering data to rank the most romantic and most intimate states.

And they were based on... Rankings were based on purchases of flowers, chocolate, sweets.

Some cases, more of those private items.

Now, the most romantic state in the country is Delaware.

Seriously?

Delaware.

There's not too many.

Who doesn't love an LL bean sweater and some syrup?

Of course.

Hey, baby.

I want to keep you sticky and cozy.

Oh, see, that goes into the intimate category.

So now you might be dabbling a little bit in both.

But Delaware leads in the orders of flowers, chocolates, plush toys, and balloons during Valentine's week last year.

All of that is boring and stupid.

I'm sorry.

If that's what you're getting your significant other, more power to you.

I hope they love

those

things.

I

would not.

Let's get into the question because we have everybody at different stages of relationships and then there's Parker with no one in his life.

Parker, do you have a treat

for this weekend?

Do I have a date for this weekend?

I have

a date with my couch and basketball, I think.

Jealous.

Oh my lord.

All right, that doesn't actually sound horrible.

No, it doesn't sound horrible.

All right, I've been married the longest out of the

group.

Okay, yep.

And we started off like every other couple where it was you know big grand gestures to prove our love for each other mostly I say our and that was it always comes down to the guy having to do

Ladies do it some and you know, but overall it was it was the guy but now after it'll be 34 years next in April 34 years would but now it's you know, it's slowed down It was like why you know why waste money my wife has always hated cards.

So I don't get her cards I've mentioned that I get flowers I get flowers throughout the year which made Frank very upset because I do not

I do.

And now we do kind of experience stuff if we do anything.

Tomorrow we're going to Lakefront Brewery to get our vows renewed

and

get a free beer.

It's going to be fun.

And I said, because a box came and I knew the box had a label and I knew where it was from.

And I was like, you said we're not getting each other gifts.

And she said, I didn't get you a gift.

I said, there's only one person in the house who uses this product.

and it's moi so now I'm in that I'm in that catch-22 Frank you'll understand this and Jamie Corey would understand this where oh we're not getting any now do I do I run the risk of staying true to that

No.

Or do I have a list of something?

Even though yesterday I brought home flowers.

Doesn't matter.

Just cuz.

No.

Why?

Hold

on.

It's a way too early.

It's way too soon.

Yeah, who

buys just

because

flowers just a couple days before Valentine's

Day.

The guy who the guy who then says... They're really special?

No, no, no.

The guy who then says these are just tulips.

They're not, no, no, no.

They're not like Valentine's flowers.

They're just regular flowers.

And I said...

Happy Valentine's Day.

So I covered myself just in case, but I don't

think I

did.

I don't

think you did either.

I think he got some errands to run later today and I think

he needs to involve some shopping.

But she said, but tomorrow's outing is supposed to be our Valentine's gift

to each

other.

For whom?

She couldn't have been more excited when I mentioned this to her after we had Russ on the show.

And I said, hey, I got an idea for Valentine's Day.

What do you think of this?

And once I said,

and you get a free beer.

Honest to God, her eyes lit up.

She's 100% on board.

I

feel like

the

lakefront

is awesome.

It is.

I'm not gonna lie.

As you hold up your lakefront

glass, I

think you still need to, like, surprise her with something little.

It probably doesn't need to be, like, a big thing, but maybe, like, after you renew the vows or something, right?

Like, you surprise her with something little.

Like, you know, she's drinking her free beer.

I've been surprising her with something little for 34 years, Jamie.

Good morning.

We

have

some texts coming in.

Tom from Hartford had a couple of good ones.

He said, well, it never ends.

Celebrating

Valentine's Day.

And then to Parker, he said, date with a couch.

I realized after I said it, it sounded a little genie.

Now, I will say that

we've

been married for 23 years, almost 23 years.

Valentine's Day never been an important day for us.

Now, it was when our kids were little, and I would always go above and beyond doing fun things for our kids.

But for Corey

and

I, we were just like.

Yeah, whatever.

Here's my thing with Valentine's Day.

I committed to this human being because I love this human being and I love him every single day.

I don't need one day of the year to show that.

I just don't.

And I don't love flowers because there's been flower mishaps in our house.

It's too long of a story to get into this morning.

But I just, no, let's just go do something fun.

We're at that point where we just want to go do something fun

by ourselves.

See, just do something fun.

Frank, keep that in mind with Mrs. Frank.

I will.

All right.

You're going out to dinner, aren't you?

Yes, we

are.

All right.

Well, we'll tell her.

By the way, Wisconsin.

You're a young couple.

Wisconsin on the DoorDash thing, number three for the least most romantic states ever.

I've been

59

right now.

You're listening to Civic Media Mornings on the Civic Media Network.

Have a great weekend.

Kathryn Lake

Have a great weekend.

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