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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.
Good morning, it's 7 0 6.
It's nice to have you here up north on this Tuesday morning, July 8th, 2025.
Parker Olson standing by in Madison Studio A2.
Brittany Merleau will join us in just a sec.
Coming up in this hour, I mean, we're covering the far northwest and the far southwest corners of the state.
We will be talking in our 730 half hour with State Representative Jenna Jacobson about her newly announced campaign for the state Senate seat currently held by one of the Republican co-chairs of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee.
We're also going to visit with Superior Mayor Jim Payne about lead water pipe removal, the Blattonic Bridge project, and using goats to get rid of buckthorn.
And Dan Hagen from WJFWTV will tell us what's new in the Rhinelander area as well.
So I mean, we got you covered from Superior to Cincinnati.
We do.
And then in our next hour, we'll talk to Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation area about the state budget bill.
and the decisions made by Democrats to support it or to vote no on it.
All of that coming up from Dan Schaefer in our eight o'clock hour.
But right now it's time for a little update on the weather with Brittany Merleau.
And Brittany, I see some thundershower activity.
Looks like it just went past you and is in the Antigo area here.
Just went past Marshfield, just past Portage.
Who else is getting some right down here?
Yeah, so a
lot
of places in central Wisconsin, you're kind of seeing a few of those pop-up showers, storms.
Yeah.
It
looks like maybe near Milwaukee, too.
You're getting some light rain, maybe a rumble of thunder as well.
Otherwise, we're waiting for this warm front.
So this is what's causing all of this little bit commotion here this morning.
The warm front's moving through right on the western edge of the state right now is a low pressure near the state.
Temperatures up north, you're sitting in the mid-fifties, down south, even in La Crosse.
You're at about 70 degrees this morning.
highs today will climb to the upper 70s in the northern parts of the state and 80 statewide, probably some mid to upper 80s far south and west in the state.
So it's going to be a warmer one, but we do have a cold front moving through this afternoon.
That is going to be sparking up some more showers and thunderstorms.
Those could pack a little bit more rainfall than the ones early this morning.
So make sure that you have that umbrella with you as you go through this afternoon and evening.
I'm probably thinking they'll start around
or five or so and kind of go into that early evening hour.
They should fizzle out by midnight.
We're looking at a good 10th of an inch to a quarter inch of rainfall.
This is today and another high pressure system settles in tomorrow.
We have a bunch of sunshine on tap for Wednesday.
Thursday we get a little more muggy and then more rain headed our way on Friday.
That could be some heavier, much more widespread spread event going on Friday.
Alright, let's see.
Rob says good morning from Tigerton.
It's partly cloudy 61.
It was a muggy and hazy yesterday.
I had mowing jobs in Wittenberg.
My cousin David came over to my place for a visit talking about the good old days when our parents were around and farming.
He said, as a five-year-old kid in 1972, that year there were great songs on the radio.
When I think of Oklahoma, as Parker and I were talking about earlier, I think of Shirley Jones from her 1956 movie.
Yes, I should have mentioned that starred Shirley Jones of the Partridge family.
The Go-Go's were his favorite all-female group.
Vacation was their best song in his opinion.
He also had a Hot Fudge Sunday yesterday at the Dairy Queen in Clintonville.
We were talking about this being National Sunday Day and Parker
you couldn't come up with a favorite Sunday, but Alicia helped you out on that, didn't she?
Turtle.
Turtle is
a good call.
Turtle is the one
that you want.
Yes.
Oh, absolutely.
That one's good.
Got all the good in it.
Right?
Yep.
And Rob's hoping you can get some lawns mowed today in Tigerton.
Do you have a favorite Sunday?
Mine for the record, hot fudge and bananas.
Cut up some bananas and a hot fudge Sunday.
I'm good.
Oh my gosh.
Other people, they want the whole kitchen sink in there, but you know, I'm easy.
How about you?
If I have brownies and fudge in there, I am golden.
So as long as that's
in there, I'm good.
Love the brownie pieces ones that are in there too.
Yes.
And let's see, there's also, so that's my goal too at Culver's.
At DQ, there's one with little pieces of birthday cake.
that they use instead of the bronze.
I was just thinking that.
I
forgot the cake or the cheesecake if
they put that in there.
We are so not a low calorie morning show.
Just so we're clear with everybody on this.
That's fine.
No, it is.
Hey, yesterday, I believe you were wearing an AirVenture EAA Oshkosh shirt.
Yes, I was.
I
didn't have time to ask you at the time because I believe Parker here has expressed interest in going to the EAA.
You've never been, Parker?
I've never been.
I'm thinking about it.
I really want to go.
It seems really cool.
I told them to talk to you because you, I mean, you camp there, so.
I do.
I do it all.
If you go Parker, we are definitely going to be hanging out in this event is just massive.
People from all across the world are coming to Little Oshkosh.
It's crazy to see all the campers, all the planes, all of the people.
You are going to make friends and family while you're there.
You're going to learn so much.
See some cool technology and probably flying a bunch of planes because they do different trial runs and stuff like that So if you have any interests in aviation, yeah, you should be there end of the month.
Okay.
I know somebody who will definitely go
So I
might have
I'll be there.
Yeah,
and well, yeah, you go Okay, there's your promo for air venture for today.
That's pretty.
We'll talk to you next hour.
Thank you very much.
Thank you
Appreciate it.
Um, the the Brewers had no trouble with the LA Dodgers yesterday beating up on them nine to one chasing their starting pitcher after just two thirds of an inning Christian Yelich had a home run
And of course Freddie Peralta had a great game as well six shutout innings striking out seven and That was just last night's nine-to-one victory for the Brewers tonight is a whole different story where the Brewers will have their rookie phenom pitcher Jacob Mizorowski going up against Clayton Kershaw
the guy who just joined the 3000 strikeout club so I would expect to sell out or a near sell out at American Family Field and you can catch that game wherever you are especially in Civic Media World in the Richland Center Oshkosh we're seeing Park Falls and Hayward areas by tuning into your local station the pregame will begin at 6 0 5 and Alicia says my oldest and I will be there that might be our venture not the burgers game but regardless
Big game pregame at 605 on some of the stations here of the civic media radio network Remember as well that you can sign up for our daily newsletter head over to up north news wi.com and see what we've got in there a mix of features and news stories as well on our Website there is this story ten Wisconsin breweries that make a difference Places that have started their own grant programs.
They host fundraising events
placing emphasis on sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint, even giving to groups that help abandon pets and animal sanctuaries.
All of this in the name of drinking beer to do good works.
Find that article.
Here's another one.
Weekend road trip stories.
Seven great places to see waterfalls around Wisconsin.
So you can see those on our website upnorthnewswi.com.
And of course, we're on social media as well.
And so if you scroll through our Facebook feed and Instagram, I think as well, you will find the interviews that Selena Heller did with members of the Blue Angels.
when they were at the Chippewa Valley Airport for that recent air show, she talked to them about what service means to them, serving their country, serving their community, and also putting on a great show with precision skills and the support that goes along with it.
So find those interviews on the UpNorth News social media sites as well.
I wanted to take a sec to talk about
the way that the state budget and the federal budget are going to impact Wisconsin.
And the bottom line is that Republicans in Madison and in Washington have turned out to be equal opportunity defunders.
It doesn't matter if you're in the city or if you're in parts of rural Wisconsin.
Let's start with the city.
The Trump mega bill killed a lot of funding that the Biden administration was making to invest in American infrastructure.
And that
includes killing federal funding for the 6th Street corridor in Milwaukee.
Because obviously none of Wisconsin's six Republican House members wanted to be a champion for a project not in their district, even though it would have brought in tens of millions of dollars in economic impact, created hundreds of jobs, improved driver and pedestrian safety, reduced traffic congestion, can't have nice things like that in the big bad city, right?
So the 6th Street corridor makeover has been dealt a setback by the Trump administration.
And then there's rural Wisconsin.
We're in the state budget.
Republicans were requested by Governor Tony Evers to put $100 million into the Knowles Nelson stewardship program, which provides grant funding to acquire, conserve, and maintain public land.
The governor asked for $100 million over the next decade.
Republicans didn't want to go that high.
They didn't go that they put in zero, zero dollars in funding for the Knowles Nelson stewardship program.
There is a separate Republican bill about it, but it doesn't have to pass the way that a state budget does.
The budget, by the way, does include a $1 million study for private industry to look at forest management practices.
Now that could be good forestry practices like sustainable harvesting and identifying new markets beyond paper mills.
Or it could be something more along the lines of, you know, this looks like a good place for another strip mall.
I would highly recommend the Wisconsin Examiner article by Henry Redman.
Head over to WisconsinExaminer.com to read his story about how conservation of public lands remains widely popular among Democratic and Republican voters in our state, but not the lawmakers.
The lawmakers get donations and some do a better job representing their ideology than their entire district or the best interests of the state as a whole.
That separate Republican bill I mentioned is being sponsored by Representative Tony Kurtz of Wanna Walk and Senator Patrick Teston of Stevens Point, and of course it would come with strings attached.
Like more legislative micromanaging of land purchases.
And who wouldn't rather have politicians in charge of conserving our natural resources?
with the ability to disregard those pesky scientists and other experts.
And I can hear folks saying, well, what if the tables were turned, you know, and a Democratic controlled legislature would want oversight over a Republican governor's DNR, right?
Well, here's the difference.
The DNR under a Democratic governor is actually interested in conserving and getting the best use out of our natural resources.
The DNR under the last Republican governor Scott Walker used its time to remove the words climate change from state records and dismantle environmental protections.
The last Republican DNR secretary even tried to end the publication of the popular Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine so it couldn't publish those pesky articles about conservation and climate and the legacy that we leave our grandkids.
So a DNR
true to its mission is more likely to be in line with scientists and other experts and not require micro management from politicians, especially the ones who could not bulldoze a wetland fast enough to make room for another golf course or a subdivision of McMansions.
So just keep this in mind for future elections.
Every election matters, including your legislator.
And it's a lot easier to replace a forest with development.
than it is to grow a new forest.
We have to do right by the future when it comes to long-term planning over short-term gratification.
And that takes me to this quick promo for Civic Media and one of their podcasts by Matt Rothschild called Wisconsin Forward, a weekly dive into a topic surrounding a current political problem in our state.
In one recent episode, Matt gives a history of conservation in Wisconsin.
What was once a bipartisan value and interviews Tia Nelson, daughter of the late Senator and Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson.
Subscribe and download Wisconsin Forward on Spotify, Apple, or over on the Civic Media website as well.
A local update is coming up next for some of you.
Others will visit with me and Dan Hagen from Newswatch 12 and Rhinelander.
And when we're all back together in 15 minutes, State Representative Jenna Jacobson on her state Senate campaign.
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 Krightlow.
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.
Thanks to have you along on this Tuesday morning, July 8th.
Let's bring in Dan Hagen from News Watch 12.
WJFWTV in Rhinelander.
Hit the right button over here.
There we go.
Dan, how are you?
Good morning, Pat.
I'm doing well.
How are you doing?
Good.
Did you have to work over the holiday weekend?
I did not to bring a somber note to good morning with Pat Crichtlow.
I had a family member who passed away, but we had a vigil, so it was.
I wouldn't say it was good, but it was, it was with family and it was an important, important time.
So I'm grateful for that.
Okay, good.
I'm sorry for your loss.
But you did get to spend some time with family, which is exactly.
Yep.
I was
down in Decora, Iowa, which is a very nice little, nice little town.
I've heard so much about it.
Yes, exactly.
All right.
Well, I mean, now, now you're back up here, you're getting back to work and what kinds of things have you been watching for news around your neck of the woods?
Well, I want to just share a quick personal experience with the library.
With the library?
With the library.
I've been into audiobooks lately and I decided I wanted to rekindle some of my favorite books from high school, thinking nostalgically, so I wanted to listen to Lord of the Flies, right?
Don't tell me he's letting us know on YouTube.
I always fall asleep with audiobooks.
I need to listen.
He says, please don't be mean to my audiobooks.
No, I
love audiobooks.
The thing is, is that yeah, my eyes are tired from looking at things all day for my job.
So I want to listen to audiobooks.
So I go to the Rhinelander library to get this Libby app, which is done through all the Wisconsin libraries.
And I try to get Lord of the Flies and I'm a hundred and tenth in line right now.
A hundred and tenth.
Yep.
for Lord of the Flies, and it's a digital file, right?
Why is there a waiting list for the libraries?
I learned the answer last night, but I'm wondering if you have any good guess.
Oh, it has to do something to do with the licensing, that they're only licensed to issue.
something otherwise nobody would pay for anything.
That's my guess.
What's the real answer, Dan?
Yeah, more or less you're right.
So the publisher only gives libraries a certain amount.
So there are 11 copies copies of Lord of the Flies audiobook at the Wisconsin library system.
So I'm 110th.
So I'm really just 10th in line for one of 11 audiobooks.
But I learned that it is incredibly expensive to get audio books in the Wisconsin library system.
And Tony is exactly right.
It's ridiculous,
the waiting list.
Tony writing on YouTube, the wait list with Libby is ridiculous.
Again, maybe a lot of folks haven't tapped into their local library lately, but plenty of other people have, very popular and could really use more support.
And speaking of support or lack thereof, IMLS, it's like Museum and Library Services, and Mr. Trump made an executive order to pretty much dismantle it.
And a lot of the funding for audiobooks comes from IMLS.
So that is something that we can look forward to down the pipeline is perhaps the loss of some of these audiobooks.
Oh, my goodness.
I'm just looking for quick headlines on that.
And sure enough, Trump administration cuts library funding.
A federal judge declines to block the Trump administration from getting rid of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
It's a war on books.
It's a
war.
Well, I mean, my goodness, last hour it was a war on rainbow crosswalks.
Now it's a war on books.
This is the things I continue to discover.
Yeah, you know, it's either things in the bill or just things the administration is doing or just They they really catch off guard Tony gives us a big no Yeah on YouTube.
Yes,
and with it all, you know, we're in a kind of a legal
adventure right now, so we'll see where that lands, but I did want to mention one other thing.
There's a research station in northern Wisconsin.
It's called the Trout Lake Research Station.
It's near Boulder Junction, and it's one of about 35 long-term research stations in the country, and they've been doing this research for 47 years, so they will go to the same exact location, same exact GPS coordinate on local lakes, and
someone will go in scuba gear and they will go down and they will see exactly what plant life is down there, an animal life.
And they've been doing it for so long that it's kind of become a really valuable resource to understand how lakes are changing in the Northwoods.
But I may sound like a broken record here, but...
They're expecting their funding to be gone soon as well.
They employ about 30 interns every single summer.
They have a number of long-term staff as well.
So that's also something to look out for as well to see.
with the funding does indeed cease at Trout Lake Research Station.
If folks head over to wjfw.com and scroll through there, there will be a note about slashing $600,000 over half of the annual budget and what that could mean not just economically but ecologically as well.
probably not the only cuts that are going to impact your part of the state for things like this, which is operated by University of Wisconsin Madison as part of, you know, an entire statewide campus.
So yeah, there's, again, I don't think I can stress enough that there are many more local impacts in what's happening in DC and Madison than we could ever have time to cover.
That's right.
You know, it's tough.
tough to understand what's going to happen in the legal system.
That seems to be kind of a bulwark against some of these items, but I don't know if a war of attrition will will land on one side or the other.
So it's just kind of wait and see for that too.
Yeah.
Hey, I like the chair you're doing this from.
I feel like we're in an episode of Blues Clues over here.
Yeah, you know, big comfy chair.
Are you?
Did you?
Are you a Steve Blues Clues guy or Joe or who was?
Steve, you know, it's hard to remember.
They were both kind of brunette.
kind of big eyed individuals, maybe those are the glasses that popped them out.
But Blue's Clues now.
Do you have a little notebook there that you can solve mysteries with?
Yeah.
Oh, I was just about to conflate it.
I adore the Explorer.
I'll have to get out of my backpack.
It's been too long.
I can't get your backpack.
Total mountain.
Yeah.
Well, leave it or not.
I haven't tuned into Blue's Clues as of late,
Pat.
So maybe I'll do that
for next time.
I can understand.
Yes.
We are kind of early on.
Our daughters were very young.
So we're OG.
We're in club Steve.
So, there you go.
So,
I have to ask Pat, when you
were a kid, was it just like 10 seconds to
ask it?
So, go.
Was it cowboys
and Indians battling in each other on the
TV?
No, Captain Kangaroo.
We talked about that last week, so we'll get more into that.
All right, Dan Hagen.
Thank you very much from News Watch 12, up in Rhinelander.
When we come back, State Representative Jenna Jacobson will talk about her run for state senate.
That's coming up after the Midwest Farm Report.
You're up north.
Remember, if you can't catch the program live, you can take it along as a podcast and listen on demand.
Head over to Spotify or Apple or whatever podcast platform you use and subscribe to our mornings powered by UpNorth News and keep listening live.
But that way, if you miss a show or you want to listen back to something, you've got the chance right there on your smartphone or other device.
So again, Spotify, Apple, subscribe as a podcast.
We'd love to have you along.
We are already talking about the 2026 elections and for good reason.
There are big races that are at stake.
Of course, the governor's race.
We've talked about the state Supreme Court race that will be happening next April.
And of course, there will be legislative elections with Democrats seeking a return to the majority for the first time since the 2008 elections.
uh they were hampered by gerrymandered maps which have been uh by and large uh either derigged or shall we say lesser rigged either way you've got a legislature that is creeping closer to being more representative of wisconsin value statewide and that might be helped a bit next year in the southwestern corner of wisconsin for a state senate race that developed there
with a challenge to the Republican incumbent, Howard Mark-Line co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, and that challenger is Democratic State Representative Jenna Jacobson, who joins us this morning.
Jenna's from Oregon and looking to compete in the, it's the 17th district, right Jenna?
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yes, it is.
Thank you for having me, by the way.
You bet.
Now, the 17th includes Crawford, Grant, Green, Iowa and Lafayette counties, parts of Dane and Rock and Vernon counties.
And yes, you'd be going up against somebody who's got a lot of, you know, power, but it is a district that appears to be very much in play.
Kamala Harris carried it by one point, Tammy Baldwin by five points.
So basically, you knew what you were getting into when you
launched this campaign yesterday.
How did the launch go?
It went well.
I was surrounded not just by family and friends, but community leaders around the district.
And I'm excited to get out there and talk to folks and give them the opportunity to have a good representation in Madison.
Yeah, now you've done that representation in a couple of different assembly districts, which I think is funny because of the prior redistricting, which did you no favors.
Basically, you have represented two different districts.
The switch from one to the other was really that broad, wasn't it?
It was, it was.
And I used to represent my mom in the previous district, so she's still a little sad that I no longer.
But fair maps are a good trade-off.
They really are.
And that was, without a doubt, the point of this last state budget.
And we're going to get into that in just a little bit.
But let's get a little bit more of your background as a state Senate candidate that while you're competing down in the southwest corner of Wisconsin, you are a native of Polk County.
from Frederick
of all
places.
So I mean, you're practically a hometown kid for us up here.
So give us a little bit more of your story.
Yeah.
So I moved to Frederick when I was in sixth grade, because my mom got a job up there.
She was a pastor and really I
lived in various parts of Wisconsin previous to that, but really settled in Frederick, really enjoyed the community, the man, you learn so much about how important community is when you're in a village of 1,100 folks.
And I really think about that frequently, you know,
After I went to college and I had moved out of state with my husband to to finish my degree We kept saying we really need to get back to Wisconsin.
We really need to settle in in one of our rural communities that we just have enjoyed so much and I'm so grateful that we did in southwestern, Wisconsin and And that
college by the way was River Falls.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah
That's
great.
Let's see on YouTube already from Adam says, yeah, Representative Jacobson, Oregon Pride, I voted for you in the Oregon Village President election.
So you did
you you had run for village president.
You served on the village board before you
were a
legislator.
I did.
And that really informed a lot of my reasoning for running for state level office was I kept learning about how, you know, we would try to do something.
And then there's the state would say, oh, well, we have a regulation that says you can't.
do this even though this is what your community needs or funding was a huge issue you know we could you know we're
We're hampered by how much money we can raise, which is not a bad thing necessarily because we obviously want to make sure that we're not taxing people out of living in our community, but we also need to provide services to folks.
And so it was a really eye-opening experience as far as how the state and the local government interplay to provide all these services and where there's some real opportunities for
bringing for the state to get out of local communities ways so that they can really provide for their neighbors.
Provide a measure of local control.
Boy, I remember hearing that a lot about a decade and a half ago.
My how things have changed.
You've worked in financial literacy.
You worked up here for Wisconsin Credit Union.
You've been on the governor's council on financial literacy and capability.
And the funny thing is, Jen, I know from my time as a state senator and as a journalist before that, we heard a lot from folks on the right about the need for, you know, kids need to know their financial literacy and need to understand how a budget works.
It seems to me, yes, that is important, but it's a skill that translates into use at the state capitol as well.
We could use folks who know their numbers when it comes to budgeting every two years.
not just know their numbers, but make sure that the budget is reflective of their priorities.
I think that is the key of any budget.
When I first sit down with somebody that I'm coaching with, I say, what are your financial goals?
And then we work towards that.
So if your financial goal is to go on a trip to Ireland, I had a couple that I worked with, then that's what you work towards.
If your goal is to fully fund your public schools,
then that's what you work towards.
So, you know, you can't ever solve everything in one budget, but you build them to make sure that they're reflecting what your constituency needs and wants.
So then what did you ultimately see and do about the budget bill last week?
Because it was plotting along and then suddenly it picked up tremendous speed because of things that were happening in Congress.
How did it eventually all shake out in your view?
you know, I think it was I think there was a lot of good things in the budget and you know, I'm really grateful for the advocacy that Governor Evers and Senator Hassebein did to get it to the place that it was but I just keep going back to you know, the budget was debuted back in February and and yet we found ourselves rushing in the last few days of June to get it done and that seems like a
a problem that could have been solved earlier, right?
You know, the budget was due on June 30th, and yet we were voting on it on June set.
We, well, we actually technically didn't vote on it till June, or till July 3rd, but we weren't debating it till July 2nd.
And, you know, I just, were you putting ideology over the practical needs of your state?
Is that what was going on?
I have questions, I guess,
about why.
look this is we hear this all the time about there should not be policy in the budget bill there there is always policy in the budget bill and yet the first thing they'll do is they'll take governor evers ideas and they'll set them aside they might bring one or two of them back but they don't and it is it is a
in my view, a very dysfunctional joint finance committee system that we have right now.
And you are looking to challenge the incumbent state senator in the 17th district, Howard Markline, a co-chair of the joint finance committee.
So as much as Senator Markline's record itself will be up for consideration by the voters, so will the whole way that this current legislative majority handles our tax dollars.
And I think that's a fight you wouldn't mind taking on.
No, I mean, I think anybody can agree that when we're delaying how we do the budget and then suddenly it's debuted and you're voting on it 24 hours later, that doesn't give the public the opportunity to have the input that they want and deserve.
That doesn't give legislators the opportunity to fully dive into this massive policy document because you're right, they take policy out.
on the basis that they say policy shouldn't be into the budget, but a budget is a policy document inherently.
And so the whole process is dysfunctional.
And I think, you know, Wisconsinites are just tired of it.
They want government to work.
They want it to reflect their needs and their values.
And I think that there's no reason why it needs to be that dysfunctional.
In going up against an incumbent in a larger district areas that you hadn't represented previously What else will be part of your message as you go talk in some of these new areas for you of the 17 Senate district about why they should replace their senator and what makes you the better replacement?
Well, it's not just that I've represented a large chunk of this district, but I also lived in another part I used to live in Barnabeld.
I had all of my three kiddos and I had all of them at the hospital in Dodgeville.
So I have connections throughout the district and.
both in the few weeks before announcing this campaign and when I lived in other parts, one of the biggest things that I heard was people didn't feel listened to, they didn't feel like they were being represented.
And so I think one of the biggest things that I can bring to the table is I will show up places, happy to talk to folks.
Even if you think I'm not going to agree with you.
Let's have a conversation about it.
I think that that's important because when you represent, when you're an elected official, you represent everybody, not just the people who voted for you, not just the people who agree with you, but all of the folks in that district.
And so I think that's the, you know, one of the huge things that I can bring to the table is to just get out and listen to folks.
Your website, which is jenniforwisconsin.com, that's J-E-N-N-A, jenniforwisconsin.com.
Under the shared value section lists six key issues off the top, education, environment, family farms, healthcare, quality, affordable housing, and women's rights, and we don't have time to cover all those in our final two minutes or so here, but I want to.
Let people know what you listed as your highest priorities pick any one of them if you would represent of Jacobson and talk about Why you think that it makes you the better choice and why you hold that value dear to you?
I'm gonna choose education There's so many things that we could talk about But I think when we look at education we look at the state of education in Wisconsin one of the things that we've seen as a chronic underfunding in our schools this
Senate district has multiple elementary schools that have had to close because of a lack of school funding, including a renal elementary school where my kids were slated to go when I lived in the Barnabelle area.
And I think about how important our schools are to our rural communities.
You know, up in Frederick, we did so much around our school, not just going to school, but it was a great place for community activities, community education, so many things that
that vibrated out of that school and how we're not supporting our rural communities and sometimes harming them when we don't prioritize education.
And we're also not supporting the next generation of Wisconsinites, which we really need to be a main focus.
So we've got so we've got a ways to go until the 2026 elections.
Why did you feel was important to jump in now?
It was a lot around the budget.
I felt like, you know,
As many folks do, they take their victory laps, as we've seen Senator Marklein do on this budget, but I think we can't let the last 15 minutes really overshadow what's been going on for the past 15 years that he's been in office.
And again, the chronic underfunding of our schools, the underfunding of our communities, the removal of local control.
There's a lot of things on the table that over the past 15 years have really hampered how folks in this district can do their work.
Yep.
Representative Jenna Jacobson, who is running for State Senate in the 2026 elections.
Representative Jacobson, thank you very much.
We appreciate the visit and safe travels.
Best of luck to you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
And you can learn more over at jenniforwisconsin.com.
And of course you can follow her on social media as well.
A local update is coming up next.
For some of you others will stick around as we visit with Superior Mayor Jim Payne.
And when we're all back together in the eight o'clock hour, we will be talking to Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area.
Remember, you can follow my team all day long at upnorthnewswi.com through social media.
And of course right here, Mornings on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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.
It's just about seven minutes now until eight o'clock on this Tuesday morning, July 8th.
Welcome back to our mornings powered by Up North News.
I'm Pat Critello and welcome to our new segment, new weekly segment, Way Up North, where we get to talk to folks much closer to Lake Superior and find out about the stories, the events, the people that make that place such a wonderful corner of Wisconsin.
And you can't go up to the Northwest corner of Wisconsin without starting at the very top.
And by that, I mean the mayor of Superior, Mayor Jim Payne, who joins us now.
Mayor, good morning.
How are you?
Very good.
Good morning, Pat.
Hey, nice to have you along.
Thanks for joining us and our new rotating cast of characters to talk about life up there on the shore.
How was your fourth of July weekend?
What what all happened in in the beautiful superior area?
It was great.
As usual, the weather was perfect started out warm, which we're never used to in superior, but the it turned into just a really great day.
That's wonderful.
Tell us about, you know,
Superior and you how long have you been mayor?
What was your path that led you to it?
April was my eight year anniversary as mayor, which would be the end of a term except I was elected in a special election in 2017.
So before I was mayor, I was on the Douglas County Board, which I joined very soon after I graduated UWS.
Before that, I was in the Marines right out of high school, got a history degree at UWS, master's degree from UMD, public service right away on the County Board.
And then in 2015, I ran for mayor against
the incumbent and lost pretty badly.
And then when he had to resign for health reasons two years later, I won the special election.
I've been mayor ever since.
Okay.
What prompted you to run?
Why be mayor?
You know, especially one that, you know, let's face it, these are not easy times for, you know, what are pejoratively called Rust Belt cities.
You know, I've always been interested in public service and the power that government can have to actually help people But somewhere in my 30s I started becoming really interested in the unique power of cities and their ability to shape quality of life to promote equity to create opportunity for people and to be able to protect our global environment, but especially our local environment our ability to experience
and access nature and their economic potential.
I just was really fascinated by how cities work.
And I thought that Superior was really a diamond in the rough up north that we had made just a few minor mistakes over the years, but those mistakes had led to decades of decline in the city.
And I thought just a few minor fixes could make Superior a really great and booming city in the Northwoods.
And so I was eager to experiment with a couple of those things and I've been
Pretty excited at the progress.
We've made sense.
Give me an example of one of the mistakes, one of the fixes.
American cities often overbuild their transportation networks.
We build streets far too wide, and we seed most of the city to cars.
Now, obviously, people drive cars in the United States and have to get around, but we give physically too much space.
And I mean, down to the inches, every single inch in road width in the United States
correlates directly to traffic deaths.
It also harms our economy.
More space given over to cars and parking lots actually hurt our local economies.
Business suffers and ultimately fails in communities that over build the transportation networks.
That was one of the things I was first and most passionate about.
I wanted to build a transportation network that was slower, safer and more efficient and go back to the...
the pedestrian friendly cities that were economic boom towns at the beginning of the 20th century.
I've noticed cities across the country that have done that and it's been shockingly successful for quality of life and economic development.
Excellent.
We did speak with Representative Stroud last week about the lead pipes removal agreement, but I wanted to folks that might have missed it if you want to give a quick explainer of what's happening there.
for people to go, wait, lead pipes for the water, that's just a Milwaukee thing, right?
It is not.
What is what is happening up there?
Most Midwestern cities have lead pipes.
We have a more than century old infrastructure for most of our utilities and
Unlike every other city in the state of Wisconsin, our water utility is privately owned.
It's owned by Superior Waterline Power, who is owned by Minnesota Power, who's owned by Elite, who might be about to be owned by BlackRock.
And that meant that that company was not eligible for public grant funding.
Now, the city owns many of the other utilities, and we are eligible for it.
And whenever public money goes to private companies, we're used to controlling that money.
It comes through the city of Superior so that we can provide local
public oversight of that money and make sure that taxpayers are getting a fair deal and that the work is being done effectively and fairly for customers.
So that ended up
something of a conflict between us and the local utility and us and the GOP authors of the bill.
And so we pushed pretty hard that there has to be an agreement whereby Superior, the city of Superior would provide that actual public oversight so that we can keep costs down and make sure that no cost got passed on to individual homeowners and property owners that had lead pipes.
That was the deal we got in really the last few hours that we had left.
That's great.
So you're happy with how it all worked out.
I'm very pleased with how it worked out.
Yes, we're going to replace every lead pipe in the city.
Okay.
I got under two minutes.
I want to cover two quick things here.
Platonic bridge replacement.
Obviously, that's still a little ways down, but you're certainly doing some early planning now.
Why is that important?
The bridge is closing and it will
one way or another that bridge is going to close and it's going to dramatically change the way we get back and forth between the larger city of Duluth next to us.
That's a wider river than most folks think and so it's vital that we plan especially for the economic impact very very early and that's what we're doing.
We'll have plenty of updates
in
the years to come but the work has already begun.
And finally you're using goats to attack Buckthorn.
Is this new and how's it going?
No, people have
been using goats to eat things for thousands and thousands of years.
They're really good at it.
And they happen to like invasive species like buckthorn.
And
when you have a steep hillside that's tough for people to chop the buckthorn down and it's near a park and it's near water, you don't really want to use herbicides.
Goats are a pretty environmentally friendly solution.
And honestly, Pat, the buckthorn ended up being kind of secondary.
The bubble guys just loved the fact that we have goats in a park.
Oh, absolutely.
We've talked about this with Wausau and other communities.
And trust me, I'm going to explore this further in future visits.
Mayor Jim Payne from Superior, great to visit with you.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
All right, have a great day.
When we come back in our next hour, Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area joins us to talk about the new state budget that's coming up in the next hour of our mornings powered by UpNorth News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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