You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime,
anywhere.
You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 806.
Nice to have you back here up north on this Wednesday morning, June 25th.
Earl Ingram is standing by.
We'll talk to him about several stories being followed by civic media in the southeastern part of the state.
Later on, James Kelly will talk about stories he's following in the northwestern part of the state.
We've also got Joseph Pecky stopping by at 830.
We'll talk about the state budget.
and the wisdom of letting the most extreme members of your caucus drive the bus and potentially drive the state budget into a ditch rather than
you know, working across the aisle, getting things done.
But before all of that, we're going to talk to meteorologist Brittany Merleau where I once again have completely forgotten my manners and respected the people that take the time to write in.
Robin Tigerton says good morning.
It's cloudy 62 degrees now as the eight o'clock temperature there.
Tigerton had four tenths of an inch of rain yesterday and then later in the day mowed three yards.
Today's in Wittenberg getting ready to mow three more than a
doctor's appointment in Shawnau.
Rob writes, as a kid in the summertime, the hottest days of the year always were bailing hay and filling the barn with hay.
Had to go from farm to farm in his younger days to make money for school shopping, you know, to get school supplies and things like that.
We talked earlier about the actress June Lockhart from Lassie and others.
She turns 100 years old today.
And Rob says he remembers June on Petticoat Junction as Dr. Craig in the last two seasons of the series.
And finally notes that Pat Parker, Brittany and Kristen are sunshine always,
which is
good.
Brittany, we need the sunshine from you and Parker and others because it's going to be in short supply around here otherwise.
Oh, what sure is.
I mean, we have spots of it this morning that is quickly fading away as more and more clouds are rolling in thickening.
We're still looking at fog far south.
The clouds are going to take over for the next 48 hours, basically.
And what we got going on right now is cool temperatures up towards Lake Superior in those mid fifties, but then down south by the state line.
low 70s this morning.
So a good chunk of 60s statewide outside highs today will hit maybe the low 80s far far south, maybe south of Madison area and pretty much 70s statewide.
Now the rain is sitting on our back doorstep.
I mean, it's in Minnesota, Iowa, starting to roll into far southwest portions of the state already this morning, and that's only going to get more widespread.
So northern half of the state expect rain by this afternoon becoming heavy at times.
We're going to have some embedded thunderstorms in there too.
Southern half, you're going to see more clouds, lighter chances of rain this afternoon, maybe some isolated thunderstorms, which could produce some heavy rainfall, maybe some flash.
flooding as well.
And then we're going to see another line start to form later tonight, probably from the La Crosse Eau Claire area, moving its way into central Wisconsin towards Madison and Milwaukee late tonight around 10 to about midnight or so.
So between those two waves or so that we're going to get
A good one to three inches is possible widespread if you get underneath one of those thunderstorms.
And then we're really concerned about the area, the Chippewa Valley, Eau Claire, up towards the Twin Cities because two to four inches of rain is likely.
You're going to keep getting hit with thunderstorms.
Heavy rain starting this afternoon through tonight.
and then it'll start to wind down late tonight.
So this is all gonna happen between a timeframe of about three to seven in the Northwestern areas of the state.
So beware of flash flooding, get ready for that now.
If that does happen, that's where we're looking at it most likely.
Otherwise rain continues tomorrow too.
We'll talk more about that though, tomorrow.
I need to get a cistern.
I should have set this up a long time ago, a way just to collect all that rainwater.
and use it for like, you know, watering the lawns and the gardens and things like that.
You don't see cisterns like you used to.
No, I want one so bad.
I've seen some stuff down in like Florida area.
They'll have the rain barrels and they'll have those rain chains hanging from the gutter.
So it looks all beautiful and pretty.
I love it.
I wish we could do that, but it gets too cold here in the winter.
I
don't even know that
term.
You're not familiar with cisterns?
No.
C-I-S-T-E-R-N,
but
it's like a big rain barrel underground to just capture all of it and then reuse it.
It was very popular back in the day, like the Roman Empire, but you know.
You should be standard now.
Let's bring it
back.
Yeah, you should have an aqueduct running from Lake Wissota into the rest of downtown Chippewa.
So Parker's going to learn more about that.
We'll have a pop quiz tomorrow.
Thank you, Brittany.
Thank you.
See you then.
Coming up later today on Civic Media, Matt Nair on air is next from 9 to 11.
Lisa Schiller of the Better Business Bureau will be the guest for Jane and Greg at 930.
The Todd Alba show is on from two to four.
Trig Vilsen from Lincoln Project and I will be joining Todd just after the two o'clock news.
Then on the Maggie Dawn show, Dan Schaefer joins Maggie at four o'clock and then at 430 Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway.
all that coming up across the Civic Media Radio Network.
But right here right now, Civic Media's own Earl Ingram joins us to talk about some of the stories that he's been following in his corner of the state.
Earl, good morning.
How are you?
I'm doing
fine.
How are you, Pat?
I'm great.
Always nice to have you here and we're going to start with a story out of Milwaukee, although it's also technically a story out of Madison and it enables me to again tell the story of how when Republicans took over control of the state capital back in 2010.
All we heard was that they are the party of local control and that you know personal freedom You make your own choices you control your own destiny and local units of government should get to do what they want and They have certainly proven to be anything but and in this instance Earl There is a basically a staffing minimum that the legislature imposes on Milwaukee for the size of its
police department.
That sounds about as partisan political as it gets and is certainly no help for the city's already struggling budget, right?
Well, when you talk about law enforcement and Milwaukee clearly biggest city in the state has the largest law enforcement footprint, there's a tremendous cost that goes along with that.
So when you mandate that 1,725 police officers have to be maintained, it
It certainly is at the expense of other things that happen in our city.
Never mind that crime is down.
I know the chief of police very well.
I've known him for well over two decades and he talks and when we talk, he talks about the fact that crime is down.
Never mind what we see on television and those kind of things, but the majority of places around the city of Milwaukee are safe and so treat.
to continue to mandate that we continue to have a heavy law enforcement presence when it's not required by law enforcement itself.
It's going to continue to be one of those albatrosses that the state of Wisconsin continues to put on the back of the city of Milwaukee.
Yeah this would be looking at an article from David Clary in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about this minimum and basically under the law he writes Milwaukee would lose 15 percent of its shared revenue from the state if it does not meet a requirement called maintenance of effort requiring the city to maintain the number of police officers and the daily staffing level in the fire department minimally
at the numbers from the previous year.
And so that affects the expenses of police recruitment, fire recruitment.
Recruiting is never an easy thing exacerbated by a labor shortage, but then also the politics that are involved in all of this.
And Earl, it's not as if city leaders
don't want a police department that is strong, healthy, vital, keeps everybody safe.
So you're, you're sitting there, you know, under the thumb of non-Milwaukee politicians in Madison when I have to think that city leaders, police leaders, community leaders think there would be a better way to handle police staffing.
So I've lived in this city for 71 years.
I think I know a little better.
than those in the state of Wisconsin, the legislature, or many who've never been to the city of Milwaukee, who have mandated not only that, but that there are police in the schools, even though the schools themselves never asked for that.
So when you continue to see these kinds of what I believe are hits on the city of Milwaukee,
by out-state legislators who've never been to the city of Milwaukee.
As Milwaukee continues to struggle like many other cities, this is just some added pressure unnecessary to the people and the taxpayers of the city of Milwaukee when we can't control what happens in our own city.
No, but also from a law enforcement standpoint, there's the notion of these new juvenile detention facilities that are going up and they're designed to replace Lincoln Hills, Copper Hills, these facilities up north that are far outdated and for years and years courts have said you've got to shut these things down and build new facilities.
Is that process still moving along even though it's
Extremely delayed.
Is it happening in any kind of an orderly fashion from your standpoint?
It's in process.
Silver Lake and Lincoln Hills have certainly long outlived their usefulness.
They're so far away from the city of Milwaukee and so parents and loved ones who have young people.
We're talking about children locked up in these for want of a better word.
prisons, youth prisons, and the fact of the mistreatment that has been occurring, which is the impetus for why it was demanded by people who live in the city of Milwaukee that these facilities be replaced.
For decades, this debate has been going on, and clearly the people in Silver Lake and Lincoln Hills didn't want to see this happen because those are financial resources.
that will be taken away from those small towns.
And this is the reason why it's taken as long as it has for this decision to be made.
But the pressure, which has been going on for decades, finally bursted the pipe.
And now they're in the process of building these facilities in the city of Milwaukee, where the majority of the young people are who wind up in Silver Lake and Lincoln Hills.
And one more Milwaukee note I want to ask you about briefly, before we've got to go to a break here.
And a lot, again, if you don't spend a lot of time in Milwaukee, you might not be familiar with Brady Street, but every city has a street somewhere that is maybe a little more narrow, maybe very commercial.
And in some cases, it might be ripe for saying, let's turn this into a pedestrian only area.
That seems to be kind of the trend now.
But you can't do that everywhere.
And again, I've seen Brady Street enough to know that this talk about a car ban doesn't sound like it's got a lot of legs, no pun intended.
How do you see it?
Well, Brady Street, very popular street for young people.
College students and others It's basically a a street that's full of bars that it can be a small Madison if you look at it from that perspective state street and some people go to have a great time and You know you you can it's our right for young people who are having great times but for the rest of the taxpayers in the city of Milwaukee that would be a hardship to
those taxpayers who want to use those same streets.
The streets don't belong to anybody in particular.
These streets belong to the citizens of the city of Milwaukee.
And so when you talk about shutting down traffic through an artery that's very important, I'm surprised they even thought about it.
Yeah, a local update is coming up next for some of you.
Others will be back here after the break where we'll talk to Earl Ingram about the upcoming youth football camp that he and Gilbert Brown will be working on for a 16th year.
And then when we're all back together in our next half hour, we'll be talking to Joseph Pecky, all of that followed by Matt Nair on air from the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Crightlow and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
We've got matinee baseball on several stations across the civic media radio network with Jacob Mizorowski taking on Paul Skeens of the Pittsburgh Pirates brewers and pirates pregame begins at 1235 on several civic media stations head over to the website civicmedia.us to learn more continuing our visit here with Earl Ingram who has had a long professional
relationship, partnership with a frequent guest, Gilbert Brown, the grave dinger formerly of the Green Bay Packers, but it's not just sports talk.
There's also a youth football camp that you guys are getting set to put on yet again.
Tell us about that.
You know, I think it's your 14, 15, 16, whatever you lose track of a youth football camp that Gilbert Brown who is originally from Detroit.
decided to do in Milwaukee.
It's a free camp, a three day free football camp.
And we basically have two sessions early in the morning for six from eight o'clock until 11 or noon.
We'll have kids ages six to 14, 13 boys and girls and many high school football coaches from across the.
the city and state will be there and the during the afternoon from two to six.
That's a long time.
They're long days.
Yes, it
is.
We'll have high school kids, you know, for 18 or 14 to 20 some college kids who will join us.
And we're talking about thousands of kids who will be enjoying this football camp.
Gilbertson.
of just an amazing guy who travels the entire state of Wisconsin doing football season, putting camps on, and in most instances, he charges, but in the city of Milwaukee, the camps are free, and that's an amazing thing.
That is.
Let's see, Tony asks on YouTube, are you gonna get Leroy Butler to stop by too?
We don't know all of Earl's connections.
Well, you know, it's strange because Leroy is...
Since he got his gold jacket, Leroy is in top demand all over the place.
And I had conversations with Gilbert about the difference in a guy who's a Green Bay Pack or Hall of Famer.
And the amount of money that they receive is just unbelievable.
But we have gotten a commitment next year that Hall of Famer Brett Farr will be joining us at the camp.
That's so excited about that.
Yeah.
Was was youth football or any other youth sports?
Was that something in your past before you entered the world of work?
I ran the largest youth tackle football program in the state for 20 years in the city of Milwaukee.
The neighborhood Children's Sports League had four young men who came from Milwaukee who wound up playing pro football.
countless numbers of them who played in major universities across this nation and many who played in state universities.
The neighborhood children's sports league was a labor of love, did it for free.
Five months out of the year I dedicated my time and services and it's still happening.
Eight kids ages six to 14 years old is how I really got to meet Gilbert.
uh from the camp that I ran or the football league that I ran for over 20 years.
Can you just talk for a moment then about the the importance of having these kinds of organized sports and it might not be a league it might be just camps or you know anything like that that essentially tells kids there there is something out there besides looking at your screen you know your tv screen your computer screen your phone screen whatever the case may be and i'm not
going to take away from people that like, you know, eat what's called esports.
But I just don't think that you can advocate enough for the kind of organized sports activities in any community and the benefits to kids and families.
So I always tell my story.
I played high school football.
I was a guy who, you know, they look around the score, it'd be a hundred to nothing.
And then they would say, hey, Ingram, get in there.
But the lessons that I learned from being a part of a team carried with me every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
And so when I ran the football program that I ran for 20 years, I made sure I told the coaches not about you.
You have an opportunity to make kids love the game or never play it again.
It's bigger than the game itself.
The lessons that I learned
you know, um, you know, loving something so much that, you know, you put other things aside, we always tie academics into it.
And so that's missing.
One of the things that happened a couple of years ago, a few years back is there was an attack on youth football and they scared parents.
into allowing their kids to play because they talk about post-traumatic, I forgot what it's called, where after guys play football for such a long period of time, they wind up with brain damage.
And so they terrified a lot of mothers from allowing their children to play.
And traumatic brain, yeah.
Yeah, CTE, that was it.
Yeah, CTE.
And and so that was one of the worst times and I'm hoping that now by now people have gotten beyond that.
When you're playing youth football, very young football, that's that's not the danger.
I'm not saying it can't happen, but all the values that is that are learned on that football field, far our way to risk.
Yeah, there's there's a lot to be to be learned there about teamwork skills and you and everything else that you just listed there.
Oh, Ingram, thank you again for the weekly check in.
I appreciate it so much.
Have a great day out there.
You as well.
All right.
Thank you, Earl.
When we come back, we're going to talk to Joseph Becky, who himself does a little bit of youth coaching.
So I'm sure we'll get into that and some other sports.
Maybe I actually think Joe may have gone to last night's Brewer game.
Maybe he'll play hooky again today.
And then we will get into the state budget and the dangers.
of letting the extremists drive the bus and what it means for a state budget that is already overdue.
And as we learned from our guests in the last hour, that's causing real angst to school districts and local governments around the state.
We'll cover all that and more in just a bit.
I'm Pat Critello, you're up north.
Tomorrow on the program, Sharita Booker will review some events you might want to visit around Wisconsin this weekend.
We'll talk to Chad Holmes out of Wausau, Sean O'Malley on Your Money and the Markets, and Melissa Baldoff will have our climate check where we'll say it really is that simple.
Plastic bag bands work to reduce litter and damage.
Also, despite a Trump administration at war with cleaner energy,
One automaker says it's keeping its plans to expand battery development even without the tax incentives.
That's all part of our visit with Melissa Baldov tomorrow, which is happening tomorrow instead of today because she's got a work thing.
Thankfully, this guy she knows, Joseph Peck, he was willing to swap days and so instead of hearing Joe tomorrow, we hear Joe today right about now.
Joe, good morning.
How are you?
Sometimes you got to go to the bullpen and it doesn't quite work out It
works out just great speaking of which you were at the Brewer's victory yesterday over the Pirates last night
I was man the bottom of the lineup just continues to mash Joey Ortiz have a night kid
Jeepers.
I mean just these upper deck bombs, which are just really fun to see so, you know
Then there's this great pitching matchup this afternoon.
I sense you might have an ear to it along with everything else you're doing today.
I'm gonna listen on the radio.
We cut the cord recently, so I'm not sure I can see it on TV.
Yeah, that's okay.
I hear it's on several civic media stations and is really exciting on the radio.
So catch it that way indeed.
So Melissa's over in Madison today and that's where they're talking about a state budget that is almost.
Can we talk?
Can
we talk for one minute about football and follow up on that conversation that Earl was having?
And not only the conversation with Earl in the last segment, but also Jimmy Koska the hour before, who is also he was coaching football, you know, last weekend and in the hot, hot weather.
But again, talking about the value of these programs.
Yeah, particularly youth football.
And the point I think Earl was making I want to just add on to, which is that when
You start kids younger.
You are at lower risk of traumatic brain injuries and concussions because the kids aren't moving that fast.
But one of the things that
you learn is how to get tackled and how to fall down and how to be physical without exposing your body to risk.
One of the things that we have seen that I have seen in the last seven, eight years of coaching high school football is some of these kids that start later.
their bodies aren't used to it.
And once those kids are bigger and faster and stronger than they are when they're in middle school, the risk of injury does get higher because they're not used to being tackled.
They don't know how to be hit as well as being hit.
And so I do think some of this we sort of overcorrected for the ways that we now coach tackling.
are very different than even 25, 26 years ago when I was playing.
We have really taken the head out of tackling.
And so any parent who is concerned about their kid playing, send me a note.
I would be happy to talk.
It is not for everybody, but there is no reason that we should have some kind of blanket kids walking away from youth football.
The game is a lot safer than it has been.
Let's go from physical tackling to metaphorical tackling and whether it is past time for Republicans in the legislature to tackle state Senator Steve Noss and say, you know, maybe we maybe our most extreme member shouldn't be driving the bus when it comes to the state budget.
Look, everybody's
got their wish list for a $4 billion surplus.
And the latest one now is Steve Noss saying he won't vote for a mostly Republican written budget unless nearly all of the surplus is turned into sales tax rebates and some other things rather than being invested.
He wants to see, you know, spending cut at a time when we have this tremendous surplus and opportunity to do things.
Chris Kapping has also said that, you know, he's a no vote unless certain things happen.
when Joe, all the rest of the Republicans would have to do is turn to Democrats and say, how do we win-win this thing and not let, you know, the extremists keep the budget from passing on time?
And they might have to.
I mean, listen, the short version of this is the state Senate does not work.
Let's give Democrats a try next year.
This is what happens when one party controls a legislative chamber for so long, they lose the ability to govern effectively.
And what you have
this week is really the conflict is between Republicans in the Assembly and Republicans in the state Senate.
Now, I happen to think that Robin Voss is really going to force this issue.
I think it's later today or maybe it's tomorrow.
They're doing a press conference with every member of the Assembly who is a Republican.
They may just pass what they're going to pass, drop it in the lap of the Senate and say, that's it, we're done.
And so all of this grandstanding from Nass and Kopenga,
it speaks to Lemmi who appears to have lost control of his caucus and Robin Voss is going to have to try to be, you know, the grown up in the room among the Republicans to get something passed.
And, you know, there's there's a lot, a lot left to happen in the next 24 to 36 hours.
But I would not be surprised if the assembly does get something across the finish line this week.
And by the way, this is this is not new.
There are divides between Republicans and Democrats, of course,
but then within the parties when you when you get these caucuses and we see this in congress as well but i certainly saw it as a senate democrat that there were times assembly democrats were working on things and we were like what are you guys doing over there and i'm sure they thought the same about us and it's happening now uh and it's happened repeatedly
over these past 14 years where assembly republicans and senate republicans are not on the same page about what they want in what would be a republican written budget and this would not be the first time that one chamber or the other passes a bill and says we're adjourned we're done yeah you know and it's going to be a race to see who who can get enough votes to pass a measure first and this time around it's going to be the assembly probably
And this is the problem, or one of the major problems with the Republican Party in the age of Trump.
They don't really have a governing philosophy.
You know, there's a big part of that movement that continues to believe the answer to every problem is to cut taxes for the super rich.
And if you got to kick people off healthcare to pay for it, well, sorry, people who don't make more than $150,000 a year.
But beyond that, the governing philosophy of MAGA is everything from
own the libs to actually we're just kidding about wanting smaller government.
We want a huge government including masked law enforcement that can tackle anybody on the street.
We want government big enough to fit into your exam room and your bedroom and the locker room of your high school students.
They're a mess.
The Republican Party is an absolute mess right now.
And they're doing things now like passing
measures passing bills that seem to be things that should be in the budget, but they're passing them as standalone bills without any funds attached.
The most recent example is one that's meant to
address the labor shortage and instructs the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to start some kind of an incentive program to incentivize people to move to Wisconsin.
Sounds fine, but there's no dollars attached.
They say, well, just find the money someplace else.
And they say, the Republicans, that they're doing it this way because they have trust issues with Tony Evers that if they attach a dollar amount, he'll just use his partial veto pen.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Joe.
I don't think I'm wrong.
That's what governors get to do.
It's part of the rulebook you signed up for when you ran for the legislature.
Yeah, and what let's count me skeptical.
I guess I have trust issues with Wisconsin Republicans right now.
But what do they think they're talking about?
Is this like some whiz bang marketing campaign to get young families to move to Wisconsin?
That's not gonna work.
You know what works?
actually investing in schools so that young families know their kids are going to get an education.
It means growing an economy so that there are work opportunities for people, making sure people can access health care, making sure we catch up to our neighbors on common sense things like even medical cannabis, much less full legalization so that the state can thrive and people can purchase legally and safely things that they want.
You want to attract people to Wisconsin, govern the state better, and Republicans seem to think that's never the solution.
No, and that's why you still have this standoff about funding the childcare accounts program, which again, I admit I was surprised pleasantly so when Governor Evers drew a line in the sand and said, if there isn't some state funding in a childcare accounts program, I won't sign the budget.
So he has truly gone to bat for childcare.
There are
I want to believe a handful of Republican lawmakers who understand that child care counts is a worthy program and that it works.
But unfortunately, Joe, I have to ask this in a more cynical manner.
Okay, Republicans will not put zero dollars in there because they, for passive aggressive reasons, will put a dollar amount in there that is not zero, but still dares the governor to veto it.
And passive aggressiveness is really not the best way to write a budget bill.
No, it's not.
I mean, and there's another great example of how to make the state more attractive.
If childcare accounts funding gets zeroed out, this is going to impact the workforce.
You're going to have moms or dads who have to leave the workforce to take care of a child, or you're going to have more healthcare providers go under.
This is common sense, pro family.
utilization of state tax dollars at a moment of crisis for childcare providers.
This has to get done good on Tony Evers for standing up for families.
And then finally, the Washington Post had an article yesterday, I believe, about the importance of.
Wisconsin's congressional elections, that there may be a redrawing of the congressional district boundaries.
That's something that's still before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
But either way, what a bellwether Wisconsin's going to be, you have that third congressional district race where state Senator Brad Paff, somewhat surprisingly, endorsed Rebecca Cook this week because there were a lot of folks thinking Brad Paff might still jump into that race for the third congressional district.
I set all that up, Joe, just to state the obvious, but it needs to be stated as much as possible.
Next year's congressional elections in Wisconsin are going to be huge with national ramifications.
Yeah, there's no question that the third is one of the most highly targeted congressional campaigns anywhere in the country.
I think the open question is how competitive the first is going to get if the maps stay the same.
And if the maps change at all, we could have two to three competitive races, particularly in an environment where I think in the last 16 special elections around the country, in 15 of them, Democrats overperformed their historical numbers.
This is shaping up to be a very good political environment for Democrats.
And, you know, but you got to have candidates to meet the moment.
There are three of them running in Wisconsin's third.
Congratulations to Rebecca Cook for the PAF endorsement and the Bernie Sanders endorsement, but Emily Berge and Laura Benjamin are also great Democrats.
And so, you know, that primary is going to play out.
Everybody should be kicking the tires on those candidates and figuring out who is best equipped to take on Derek Van Orden next fall.
I am looking now in conclusion at tonight's NBA Draft and wondering can we finally put a stake in the heart of rumors about trading Yanis on the Compo.
The Bucks do not have a first round pick.
They gave that to the Brooklyn Nets who will pick at 19th.
So the Bucks don't have a first round pick.
Do you have any expectation of some big surprise for the NBA Draft for the Bucks?
No, I think the big moves have already taken place.
Kevin Durant to the Rockets.
Yanis wants to be a buck and
We are happy to have him.
So stake through the heart.
No more of this after tomorrow.
I hope so.
God, please, please.
I hope so.
If you're not getting to the game this afternoon, do you know when you're getting to your next one?
July 9th against the Dodgers.
What's your watch plan for today?
My watch plan for today is convoluted.
I have to pre-record some stuff for tomorrow's show to finally see that sleep specialist that Greg Bach has been bugging me to go do.
So, in and out, I will be looking around the corner at my living room TV and hoping that we've got this no-hitter that both teams taking to extra innings with a big dramatic victory for the Brewers.
There you go.
How's
that?
You got a wish for something here.
Joseph Pecky, thank you so much as always.
Appreciate it.
See you next week.
All right coming up next James Kelly will report from Civic Media's newsroom in Chippewa Falls after this your appointment
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
James Kelly joins us now from the Civic Media Newsroom here in beautiful Chippewa Falls.
James, how are you doing
today?
Great.
Now that it's not 100 degrees out.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
Let's see.
First off, a little breaking news from JR Ross over at WIS Politics.
A new ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Governor Evers exceeded
his partial veto authority in a literacy reading package last year, even though it included no appropriations.
It also ruled joint finance did not improperly withhold funds from the Department of Public Instruction appropriated in the package.
So a unanimous setback, it appears for Governor Evers with his partial veto authority on the reading bill.
So we will definitely follow that up.
in the coming days here.
But for the here and now, the current budget in the here and now, James, a little news was broken the other day with Governor Evers visiting a childcare center in Eau Claire.
And then one other one, the place escapes me, but making the comments that if childcare accounts isn't funded in this next state budget bill, he won't sign the bill.
Yeah, well, he did declare 2025 as the year of the kid in Wisconsin.
And that would not really follow up on that promise.
No, so what else can you tell us about his visit in Eau Claire?
Yeah, so that was the general sentiment that if there is no childcare counts funding in this new budget, he's not going to sign it.
The facility that he did visit the Kitty Patch Early Learning Center has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from childcare counts.
Eau Claire County alone has received millions.
And he's done a few of these visits over the last few months specifically to childcare centers.
He was at Western Dairyland Head Start when the federal funding freezes were
threatening to close those facilities as well, or at least delaying when they could get that funding.
And the sentiment is the same.
If these places close, people have to leave the workforce.
That's not good for the economy, let alone the fact that we are not able to financially take care of our own children.
Yeah, and again, this is...
this is economic development is what we're talking about and it's education that education doesn't just start at kindergarten that that these are investments that are made not just in education but in the workforce and in the economy and so you absolutely see why the governor has you know made a big deal about supporting child care providers along the way meanwhile at the federal government level
You're seeing not investments, but you're seeing proposed cuts in the House bill and now the bill is over in the Senate where some Senate Republicans want even deeper cuts to Medicaid.
That is not going over well with most Americans as you can imagine and that led to some recent rallies in the Chippewa Valley.
Yeah, organized by Chippewa Valley Indivisible.
The one in Chippewa Falls I found particularly interesting because I spoke to a doctor who used to work at St.
Joseph's Hospital there who noted that the thing with Medicaid is that it covers typically low-income people who typically tend to be from more rural areas where there's not as much economic opportunity out there.
So when we're talking about rural hospital closures,
This is what we're talking about right here, Chippewa Falls.
We're talking about St.
Joseph's closing and people having to take a 20 minute ambulance rise down to Eau Claire to get emergency treatment.
I know you talked to Cindy Greening a couple weeks ago and she told her bee sting allergy story.
It's like she's on a clock as soon as she gets stung and if she has to go all the way down to Eau Claire, that's taking time off that clock.
That's right.
And again, we see that in labor and delivery.
Everything else that's related to rural health care is at stake with these Medicaid funds and
why you
see the rallies for them that are happening as well.
Yeah, I think another interesting thing too is that we have all these plans for new hospitals here and since
these potential Medicaid cuts started being discussed.
I've asked a lot of officials, do you think these hospitals will be able to operate effectively?
And I've gotten anywhere from we'll have to see to they'll be starting from behind to just flat out no.
Yeah, because again, if they don't, then then what you're building is a concierge care hospital where only people who can pay cash for their care will get seen.
And yes, that is a segment of the health care industry, but not nearly one that would serve the
population given the cost of health care and given the fact that we still allow private for-profit corporations to have so much control over what Americans pay for their health care.
Let's move over to some new library groundbreaking and it's nice to know that in this digital age a lot of folks still appreciate the value of having libraries in their communities.
Yeah they're definitely good community spaces especially for people who need to maybe access the internet from rural areas.
We're still working on broadband
Expansion so libraries are really important for that.
There was a groundbreaking at a new facility in Fall Creek this weekend this past weekend It's gonna be a joint use library and village center So kind of an all-all shop everything you need from education to just general city services And then there's gonna be another groundbreaking in cable this weekend for a new library They actually only have about 1,000 square feet in their current library and they're saying they're
Their staff have to cross the street to a nearby church where they store some of their collection multiple times a day So they're gonna be expanding that facility as well Both projects got flexible facilities grant funding from the state which I thought was interesting as well
Yeah, and then finally let's head up to the Lake Superior Zoo for I mean we've got pigeon watch or pigeon quest with Melissa Kay every Wednesday at 6 50 so let's end here in the 850 segment with
Bear bear dental work.
Yeah bear dental work So the Lake Superior Zoo has an Alaskan brown bear named tundra And a couple years ago tundra cracked one of his canine teeth had to get kind of a temporary crown put in and then that crown also broke So this week apparently they put on a full dental crown on on tundra the bear Which is apparently the largest known animal to receive such dental work, which I thought was pretty funny
that I mean look as somebody who's had the things that you've mentioned here and had to have repeated work I'm wondering if maybe one of my former dentists was working on that bear earlier and I'm glad they've got good ones now that can have that fixed I
I wouldn't.
I mean, I don't care how good of a dentist you are.
I don't care what you tell me about that tranquilizer that they're using.
I'm just a no on that.
Yeah, if you ask me to put my hand in a bear's mouth, I'll say no.
Yeah, bless the ones that are willing to do that.
James Kelly, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Have a good one.
All right.
Good to see you.
And again, tomorrow in our climate check, Melissa Baldoff will be along.
We'll also talk to Sharita Booker, Chad Holmes, Sean O'Malley, and much more.
Remember, Matt Nair on air is coming up next year across the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Craitlow.
Up North News is the Wisconsin Digital Outlet for Courier, a pro-democracy news network.
We'll see you tomorrow morning, 6 a.m., here up north.
The national news cycle never stops.
but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
