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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.
A new and improved Pat Krightlow apparently.
Good morning.
It's 7 0 6.
Nice to have you here up north on this Wednesday morning, July 9th, 2025.
Parker Olson standing by in Madison Studio A2.
Coming up later this hour, we will be talking to Heather Dubois-Bornan and Corrine Hendrickson.
And we'll be talking about childcare and we'll be talking about public education.
They both are leading advocates for those areas and they are not.
happy with the results of the state budget.
And you may say, well, okay, if if there are people on both sides who are unhappy with what's in a state budget, then it must be a good bipartisan document, right?
No, no, not necessarily at all.
And you can count Heather and Corinne among them.
Karine will be talking to us all about how
what the shortcomings were for childcare in the budget, Heather, from a public education standpoint, like no increase in general state aides for schools and things like that.
And how does that carry over into next year when people are running for legislature and maybe even for governor?
So that's coming up a little after 730 today.
A little after 730 tomorrow, we'll be talking to Congressman Mark Bocan.
So stick around for that tomorrow.
And then back to today at 830, we'll be talking to State Senator Kelder Royce.
And talking about a state Supreme Court decision from yesterday that rains in one of the ways that Republicans were abusing their power in the majority in the state legislature.
But first, let's bring in meteorologist Brittany Merleau, who's just a little late today, wasn't in time for the great reveal on Pigeon Quest.
But in case you missed it, Brittany, up on the screen on social media.
There is the former paint bucket, uh, who now identifies as Lelu.
And Lelu is, uh, well, we get the photo because Lelu was, was lying low and a little shy.
But eventually I predict Lelu will be on, on Melissa K's shoulder, helping you read the forecast as if Lelu is a parrot.
You know, I don't, I don't think pigeons can recite things back, but.
You know, Melissa K is a good teacher.
You never know.
You never know, right?
You never know.
Oh, that
is
so cute.
She's just
on the top of that whole thing in the castle of pigeons over there.
Gotta love
it.
That's what she called it.
She called it the castle.
She called it the castle.
Not a dog kennel.
No, no, no, no.
Not a repurposed kennel.
It is a castle for a pigeon.
So we're very happy for her about that.
Absolutely.
And you know, spirits are a little upbeat here today because it's been such nice weather.
Yes, some places.
got rain storms, whatnot, but wait.
Good day to be a pigeon.
Good day to be a pigeon.
It's a good day to open up all the windows.
I've done that already today.
It feels amazing in here.
Not going to run up the electric bill today anyway with the air conditioner.
So does it stick around?
Oh, well, you know, it is nice to save a little bit of money, a little bit of energy today, because,
yes, like you
said, just today, unfortunately.
You let us down so gently on that.
I like that.
I know.
I'm going to break it easy.
The mugginess does move back in as soon as tomorrow.
We are looking at heavy rain and storms moving in on Friday, maybe a little comfortable break on Saturday, but more humidity spills in Sunday and into early next week.
So it's summer.
That's why the hair is curly.
There's no escaping it really.
It's only temporary day time.
As we go through today, we are looking at dense fog in places.
So there's a lot of sunshine west in the state and south.
A lot of fog far north into central areas and far south as well with a dense fog advisory for Bayfield, Ashland, Iron and even south of Madison into Janesville.
So that will start to clear as we go through the next hour or two.
We do have a high pressure system in place all
day today and so that means somebody calm winds and that's why the fog is here.
So another chance for some fog overnight tonight and through tomorrow morning.
But otherwise we're staying sunny and dry today, mostly dry tomorrow.
A few showers do want to spark up in the western parts of the state later in the afternoon and maybe some thunderstorms south.
But overall, most of the state sunny and dry for two days.
Today's highs mid eighties far south mid seventies far north.
And then tomorrow, we'll all be in the low to mid 80s and again, more mugginess starting to move back in.
Very much, you know, a summer forecast.
Rob tells us from Tigerton, getting into the dog days of summer here.
Says, good morning from Tigerton, cloudy and 63, busy mowing lawn in the Tigerton area yesterday with the rain and the warmth and the humid weather.
Mowing has been a nonstop job, but I can't complain.
He says yesterday, Tigerton had 13, one hundredths of an inch of rain.
He's got six yards today to do in Tigerton, a doctor's appointment in Shawno.
He loved hearing Alan O'Day's undercover angel in our last segment.
popular back in the late 1970s.
He loves that old pop music from there.
And he says, talk about a happy H high pressure system.
Brittany's the very happy meteorologist, the best in media.
Well, yeah, when you bring us happy high pressure like this, this is lovely.
Right?
I could
stay for a whole week.
I'll work on it for I Know July or something.
I'll try my best.
But I was thinking.
Rob's tan must be outrageous with how much he is outside and doing stuff and
cutting
the grass.
Good.
That's true.
And it's got to be that full on farmer's tan.
Yeah.
You know, where, you know, when he's, he's shirtless, you just see this red V, you know, down his neckline and then the very well defined where the short sleeves end.
Yeah.
I love it.
Lou doesn't love a good farmer's tan.
All right, Brittany, thank you.
We'll talk to you next hour.
Sounds good.
While we're doing comments online and you can make comments on Facebook or YouTube, go to the Up North News or Civic Media pages for Facebook or YouTube.
Last hour, we attempted to explain the state Supreme Court decision and it was on its surface about so-called conversion therapy, but it really got into the ways that Republicans have been abusing the legislative rulemaking process.
You are so good at explaining complicated democracy rules, and I hope the Democrats can find an advertising agency capable of condensing your words for a campaign message.
Democrats must be elected to see any forward progress.
All the people of Wisconsin must see how their own representatives are voting.
Thank you, Ardeth.
I appreciate the kind words very much, and we will talk about it again at 8.30 when we catch up with State Senator Kelder Royce to talk about that.
Looking at our 7.30 conversation,
with Heather Dubois-Bornan and Green Hendrickson.
Here's a comment on Facebook.
The Republican strategy is to threaten drastic cuts, even when we have a huge surplus.
Then Democrats pretend it's a win when the cuts don't happen or where there is a token increase.
That is not a compromise.
That's extortion at the expense of our kids and families.
And the thing I like about that comment is it's an equal opportunity thing.
It says that, you know, Democrats are accepting things as a win that aren't necessarily any kind of a big win, but that, you know, Republicans are essentially engaged in extortion and have not been adequately called out for it.
You know, at a time of a $4 billion state surplus for Republicans to talk like they did two weeks ago, that they would actually cut the UW system.
by $87 million rather than give it a funding increase.
I mean, it should have been just raining bricks on them for saying this is what you're gonna do when we finally have a surplus is you're gonna cut UW funding because you're so petty because you get your feelings hurt so easily.
And they didn't really get that.
I mean, why would they?
The state budget is not the kind of thing most people pay a lot of attention to.
but there wasn't nearly enough condemnation for it so that when they ultimately agreed with Governor Evers to a modest increase, it makes it look like a win for them when, you know, the win only comes after a certain degree of extortion.
And I know that our guests at 730 are gonna have some things to say about whether these are real wins in the childcare and education spheres.
And now to be fair, and I'm sure you'll hear this from me in the next half hour, is that
You know, we have divided government here.
We have Republicans running the legislature, a Democrat in the governor's office.
And, you know, so there's also that argument that says, you know, if you don't accept half a loaf, you're going to get no loaf at all.
And maybe this actually was the best compromise that could be achieved between the two sides.
I'm not going to tell you one side is right or the other.
I'm going to give them all a forum for them to present their points of view and then for you to ultimately make a decision.
But here's the thing, the decision you're ultimately making is a binary one.
Ultimately, whatever you think of whether Democrats did enough or not in this budget, there's going to be a Democrat on the ballot for your seat in the Assembly and for State Senate, and there's going to be a Republican on there.
And I can guarantee the Republican is not going to say, well, I always supported an increase for the UW system.
I always supported more money for childcare.
or if they do say that, well, there's a good chance they're fibbing.
They would have been very happy to go along with a budget that did not fund these things and they would have then talked all about fiscal conservatism and fiscal restraint and being good stewards of the tax dollar, even as more childcare centers close up and even as more public schools go to referendum.
So there can absolutely be dissatisfaction with the democratic side of things, but
If this carries over into 2026, there could be tremendous ramifications in the 2027 budget, because if there were to be a governor, Tom Tiffany, for example, and a Republican-led Assembly and Senate, the modest gains that were achieved this time around are going to look like a faraway fantasy for some future budget.
So.
We're gonna let people you know express their dissatisfaction with how much better we could be doing But the only true way we're going to be doing better is if people next year do not sit out the process and get involved and Fight for the team that's fighting for them even if it doesn't always appear to be fighting as hard as you would like them to be I wish I had an easier answer for you, but that is help how politics work in a two-party system
And unfortunately, for a whole host of reasons, that's the one that we got with us right now.
Also in the news, there was an endorsement.
in the state Supreme Court race for next year.
Senator Tammy Baldwin endorsing Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor.
Again, it looks like Judge Chris Taylor will be going up against incumbent conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley next April.
Justice Bradley talking about wanting to serve another term, but I don't know that she's made the formal announcement of the campaign.
And Senator Baldwin already getting involved endorsing Judge Taylor along with the three current liberal justices and Justice
elect Susan Crawford, who've all endorsed Judge Chris Taylor as well.
All right, let's turn to sports now at 718 because that was a fun one to watch last night.
Jacob Mizorowski back on the mound and starts off the game going two strikes to Shohei Otani.
Strike one, strike two.
Crowd's getting all jazzed up.
Here comes the third pitch and Shohei Otani sends it over the center field wall 431 feet.
to give the Dodgers the early lead.
Did Mizorovsky get shaken up by this?
No, he struck out the next five Dodger batters and ended up yielding only four hits and one walk and he outdulled three times Cy Young award winner Clayton Kershaw.
As the Brewers pulled ahead by scoring two runs off Kershaw in the fourth inning and defeated the Dodgers last night by a score of three to one, the Dodgers have now lost four games in a row.
But Mizorowski did six strong innings followed by Jared Kinig, Abner Uribe, and Trevor McGill, and they did not allow a base runner over those last three innings.
The two teams wrap up their three game series this afternoon.
You can catch the pregame on several Civic Media stations.
including stations up north in Hayward and Park Falls, way down south in Racine, Kenosha, Oshkosh, Richland Center.
If you're anywhere there, tune into your local Civic Media station and hear the Brewers pregame coverage at 12.35 this afternoon.
Then the Brewers will be off tomorrow, but they stay home, and coming to town for the weekend will be the Washington Nationals.
They'll play those games over the weekend, and then it's time for the All-Star break.
already.
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 Critello 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 have turned the up north news daily newsletter over to Henry the intern for the summer and to see what he would put together for us and so his new edition of the newsletter is out now sign up for it over at up north news wi.com Let's see.
He's put in a story from the website things.
You probably don't know about Wisconsin brats Sure, you know, they were brought over by German immigrants But there are other things that make brats uniquely Wisconsin and you can read about that
and today's newsletter.
And also he's inserted Selena Heller's story about last week's state Supreme Court decision upholding abortion access and safeguarding women's health and also a link to one particular OBGYN's reaction to the decision.
I think you can probably guess who that OBGYN is.
But again, all of that is there.
And because Henry's a UW student, he's talking about how tonight
there will again be concerts on the square down on the Capitol lawn.
And again, I know a lot of our listeners are not in Madison, but occasionally you may get down there.
And if you ever happen to be down in Madison on a summer Wednesday and can get down to the Capitol lawn.
And if you haven't been there, when I say Capitol Square, you know, the state Capitol is on a big old square of land in the middle of the isthmus there, a beautiful lawn, gorgeous trees.
And on Wednesdays,
There are free live performances by the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.
People come out and they spread their blankets and it's just when the weather's just right.
there is nothing better to have that in your community.
And again, Madison's not the only community that has music in the park on a summer evening, and we'll talk about those as well.
But Henry mentioned that in today's newsletter, so I wanted to pass it along that you could learn much more about that by heading over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and signing up for our newsletter there.
We'd love to have you as a subscriber.
We were talking in the the last hour about the
Ag Secretary for Donald Trump, Brooke Rollins, saying that she as the Agriculture Secretary is not concerned about mass deportations of farm workers who may be undocumented.
In fact, welcomes it and says, you know, it is time to replace them with American workers and makes the incredibly outrageous claim that somehow there are 34 million Americans on Medicaid
who you would classify as bums and who should be on a farm working, which I'm not really sure how the mechanism of that works.
I mean, do you think if you just cut people's benefits enough that they'll just head down the road like something out of the Great Depression and eventually some farmer will need a worker because all of his workers had been deported?
And do you think productivity is gonna be
the same if this is how it works?
The point that I wanted to make that Brooke Rollins, the ag secretary needs to do or that Derek Van Orden needs to do when he claims nobody's getting their, their Medicaid cut that the only cuts are going to people who are bums, who are couch surfing or undocumented migrants or whatever is show it because I'm telling you it's the same thing as Doge when Elon Musk had that going.
and saying we're going after all the waste, fraud, and abuse.
Waste, fraud, abuse, waste and fraud, fraud especially, fraud's illegal.
Where are the charges?
Where are the perp walks?
Where is this welfare queen who is gaming the system so much that we're going to have a trial on par with coverage given to Diddy, you know?
because we really want to get after these people who are defrauding the government.
Who are they, Derek Van Orden?
I mean, you don't have a problem insulting people online when they disagree with you.
You don't have a problem looking up people's employment and naming their employer in your social media feed.
So clearly naming and shaming is not something you shy away from.
So, congressmen, and the same goes to the agriculture secretary, go there.
go hold a press conference and say, this person here is getting Medicaid benefits and here's why they don't deserve them.
And then let that person come out and tell their story.
And then let's figure out whether the one should have their benefits cut or if the other should have their government paycheck cut.
I know which one I'm likely to side with.
And that is not to say that there isn't waste fraud and abuse out there.
There is.
There always has been.
There always will be.
That is the human condition.
There are always going to be those folks.
That's why we have enforcement mechanisms so that we can cut those benefits or if it rises to a certain level, we can charge people with fraud.
the mechanism is out there.
But if you're just going to continue to claim that there are 34 million couch surfers out there who are somehow going to be converted into cow milkers, that's silly.
It's reckless.
It has nothing to do with anything that's going to be beneficial toward the economy.
But we've already seen
the attitude of this administration about the economy.
I would point you to a story in the Washington Post the other day about all the various debtors who were called to stand before a judge because they were being sued by one of these subprime credit corporations that has filed hundreds of lawsuits against homeowners after making predatory loans.
And the Biden administration, through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
Finally got serious about cracking down on these predatory lenders, and we were finally seeing some progress against it.
It's come to a halt.
Under Trump, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in April stopped its enforcement efforts and withdrew from a lawsuit against that particular predatory lender, the Credit Acceptance Corporation.
And it reflects...
according to the Washington Post, the agency's new approach to enforcement.
In other words, there won't be.
And people will continue to fall victim to predatory loans.
And a government that used to look out for them now looks out for the predatory lenders and thinks that if you happen to be poor or you must be a couch surfer and not deserving any help whatsoever, much less compassion.
We've got guests coming up right after this break on UpNorth News.
See, set UpNorth News radio.
Look at that.
Mornings with Pat Kratlow.
Happens to us all, even when I'm well rested.
Back after this.
One hour from now, we will be talking to State Senator Kelder Royce.
24 hours from now, we will be talking to Congressman Mark Pocan here on the program, the program powered by UpNorth News, not called UpNorth News Radio anymore, but you know, even the host can still make bloopers from time to time.
It is a Wednesday morning, July 9th.
Nice to have you along and now two of our favorite guests and one of our most difficult topics.
in in a while.
Heather Dubob, born on from the Wisconsin Public Education Network and child care provider, Karine Hendrickson.
Nice to see you both ladies.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
Doing good.
I'm sorry.
I have the New Year's resolution to stop saying how are you?
It's just not a fair question this year, is it?
It's just not.
Karine, you were you were first out of the gate when the budget agreement was announced to take a look at it.
You you were
kind enough to review it quickly on our behalf and let us know at first blush you know that there were some good points but there were definitely some shortcomings especially the the aid only being there for a year in a two-year budget cycle now some time having passed
Is there anything else you wanted to add in terms of your overall feeling on how this state budget agreement leaves the childcare industry in Wisconsin?
Yeah, so now that we've had a little bit of time to reflect look over it and talk with others across the state to see how it's basically landing and what the plans are is because of the spin that's been taken by the governor and the Democrats and the Republicans on how much of a win this is our parents are very upset
with us because our rates are still going up because they see that we got $330 million and we asked for $480 million so they're not able to understand that two different things we're talking about.
So the continuing funding was the $480 million that we were asking for and we received $110 million that gets us through to next June.
I am very happy that we were able to
you know, make sure that our federal ARPA interest money is going to be allocated in a good way.
However, it's going to be less than what we're getting right now.
And what we're getting right now is not allowing us to keep family child care solvent to keep teachers, you know, teaching to keep classrooms open.
And now we have very upset parents with us because they
don't trust us and that what we're telling them is the truth and that's why we're raising our rates and that's why we're still closing and so really looking at this in the way we communicate to people how this is actually impacting people in the real world and yes the other funding that's coming through is funding that we have every single year pretty much that subsidy money is federal money it gets allocated every time that's a lot of it and again looking at those harmful policies that were traded it's just
it's immoral honestly to be saying that you know 16 year olds should be in charge of classrooms and counting ratios and to you know take our most vulnerable who are on subsidy and require if you want to participate in this pilot to get a little bit more money to have seven toddlers in a classroom instead of four and so it's not getting better.
No Heather same question to you again we talked a lot about the special education boost but there was also
to be honest, a lot not to like about this deal for education advocates.
In what ways?
Where were the shortfalls?
You want to start with general
aids?
Yeah, that's where that's where we got to start Pat.
And I mean, I don't I hate to come right out of the gate with a negative.
But the truth of the matter is, this budget really was kind of a staggeringly and shockingly between
move from from the state legislature that had signaled all along that it was going to move on both special education and kind of meeting minimum aid needs.
This is
unprecedented.
We have as far back as we've been able to track, never seen a state budget that failed to provide even a penny of new general aid in either year of the of the biennial budget.
So this fall and next fall, kids are going to be going back to school with zero dollars in new state aid.
And let's keep in mind anything less than inflation is a cut.
And so this is a
across the board to every single district in the state holding the line.
They still get that $325 in spending authority or revenue limit increase that the governor worked into his veto last time, but that's going to be made up at the local level by increasing property taxes.
And we predict that we're going to see tons more referenda around the state.
There were also some new aids, right?
We did, you know, increase special education reimbursement to the highest rate it's been in decades and yet it's still woefully inadequate to meet needs.
and anticipated 42% and 45% reimbursement in years one and two.
Since they didn't allocate enough money to make sure that those percentages would be stable, they're not guaranteeing those percentage rate and we predict that it'll probably be lingering in the 30s still.
meaning that Wisconsin may get out of last place for worst nation or worst state in the nation for how we do special ed, but we're still in the bottom tier.
And we're still facing about a one point, you know, something billion dollars funding gap across the state where districts are gonna have to take out of their general aid to cover, you know, the 60% of special ed costs that are going to remain unreimbursed.
So it's a crisis moment.
And like Karine said, who gets the blame for this?
With politicians taking a victory lap around a trash can right now, people are like, why are my taxes going up?
I thought we were investing historic amounts in public schools.
They're blaming their local boards.
They're blaming their superintendents.
They're mad about the right things, but they're mad at the wrong people.
And they need to follow the trail of crumbs back to the state house and say, we're not clapping for these.
We are demanding an adequate aid to actually meet the needs of our kids in our districts and this budget.
absolutely did not deliver for our kids.
Heather, let me start you on this one and then go to Karine and that is the prospect of if not this deal then there would have been no new state budget at all and the old budget would have simply continued.
We've talked about the prospect that there were Republican lawmakers who wanted that and therefore weren't going to support anything and it's a tough call because you don't have a government shutdown here.
You just have the old budget continuing.
Was that a
a less attractive or more attractive option than what this new state budget ultimately turned out to be?
That's a false choice.
Those were not the only two choices our lawmakers had.
They had a third choice, which is be the grown-ups you were elected to be.
Go back to the drawing board and work it out.
Create a budget that actually meets our priority needs.
If the governor had called the bluff on this and said, absolutely not.
We are not sending our kids back to school with zero.
We are not letting childcare accounts expire.
We are going to invest in prioritizing the priority needs as the people of this state brought them to us throughout this entire
higher budget process, we could have had a different result.
I understand that the rhetoric wants us to say it was one or the other and it was all or nothing, but the fact is that's simply not true.
And if we had leaders who were more amenable to doing the right thing by their constituents, we might be having a totally different conversation right now.
Karine, is that what you wanted to see from Democratic lawmakers and a Democratic governor?
Absolutely.
We didn't fight so hard to get people elected to then have them termed.
turncoat, basically, and vote against all the things that they said they were going to do.
And I agree.
They could have just done a Medicaid budget to make sure that we got that funding and then gone back and done separate bills.
I also feel like things are going to fall apart now when it's too late to fix it because they are going to gamble out in March.
And while their campaigning is when these rural schools will be probably looking at consolidation, it's when the child cares will be absolutely falling apart.
And had it started already now,
it would have, there would have been time to do something because the consequences of their actions would have happened while they were still able to be held accountable to them.
So yeah, so Friday we're doing a time's up rally with WPEN and multiple other partners at the state capitol.
930 State Street entrance is the press rally and
we are press conference and then we're doing a rally after and we are going to be talking about how this budget fails our children and at the federal level connecting all the harm that is coming down from the federal level and how our state is not even thinking about doing that.
And the child care specific we are going to be asking for a special session to finish the job for the 480 million dollars and we are talking with our partners to see if they want to add to that at all for their request is you know kind of
last minute with the whole like pivoting, but we're good at pivoting.
And the other thing I want to say is clearly in these budget negotiations, they need some teachers to help moderate the discussion and help them learn how to play in the sandbox together.
From David on Facebook, Heather and Karine are spot on.
This is a crisis moment.
Our kids, our families, and our communities are being left behind all over the state.
I just cheered as Heather declared this budget compromise as the result of a false choice.
It's now up to us to change how we organize in places like way up north where I am.
If the legislature can't get the work done, we need a new legislature.
From Eli, thank you, Heather and Karine.
Backbone is needed by a representation.
Backbone for the good, but I'll tee up the next question.
to you this way from Tony on YouTube.
Sadly, you can't make Republicans be responsible adults.
And I think this is the toughest question to the both of you is to what degree you can be angry with Democrats and at what point does that anger take away from replacing the Republicans who put us in this position in the first place?
Heather, I'll start with you.
First of all, my anger is not partisan.
My anger is about the failure of the state to meet its constitutional responsibility to its children.
The fact that this has become a partisan battle makes me furious.
But that politics is our problem, not our fault.
And I think as long as we center that political division in our conversations about how
how we're going to change this, we're never going to have a solution.
And that's why our coalition was calling for the governor to just call it out and call a veto this year, because the status quo is not going to change itself.
We have seen this cycle again and again and again.
And until we do get a legislature where we can have nice things and use our record surplus to actually invest in meeting the needs of our communities, we're not going to get that kind of change.
And so, yeah, I think it's true that there are individuals who are digging their heels and there are party politics at play, but we need to rethink the way we do politics altogether in this state and that's going to take some serious organizing like the kind that David described in his comment, where we live, putting pressure on and making sure that our elected officials of all political stripes know that we are not going to tolerate behavior that sells us short.
Korean, just a little over a minute to ask you the same thing about holding Republicans accountable for the environment, but holding Democrats accountable for how much fight they bring into each budget debate.
And I think it goes back to what we've allowed to become partisan.
The issues we're talking about, our children, our families, our communities are not partisan, never have been partisan, but our elected leaders are.
treating them that way and we allow it.
And so it goes back to that organizing piece.
So the afternoon of our July 11th is actually us coming together because we'll have people from all over the state to talk about how we can get real people to run real campaigns with real people supporting them while they run for office.
But then also once they're in office, they have those real people then to come back to and talk about and the people that are good at and know a variety of issues because
one person who's elected is not going to be able to know, nor should they know everything about everything, but they should know the people, the real people to talk to, not the lobbyists, not the paid interests, not the comms people, but the real people that these policies will impact and how that will impact them so they can make a good solid decision with integrity and honesty.
And again, Korean really quick, the Friday X's and O's again at the Capitol 930 you said?
Yes, we're gathering at nine o'clock.
The press
conference
starts at 930 State Street entrance.
Then we'll do a march around the Capitol, deliver some letters to elected representatives.
So bring letters saying that you want them to finish the job and do it correctly.
And then we're lunches to be determined.
We're doing some fundraising for that.
And
then also then we'll have our discussion.
Kareen Hendrickson and Heather DuBois-Bornan, thank you so much for all you do.
We appreciate it so much.
And for taking a little time this morning, have a great day.
Thanks for having us.
Talk to you soon.
You bet.
You're very welcome.
A local update is next for some of you, for others at Wisconsin Western Wisconsin update right here with Jimmy Cuska and in our eight o'clock hour Senator Kelder Royce.
I'm Pat Kraitl.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Let's see before we bring in Jimmy here from Tony.
I completely get being upset at everyone, but it sounds like they're getting mad that Democrats couldn't drag Republicans to more funding when they were the ones actively saying, I shouldn't have to pay for your kids.
And so you really do hear the exasperation on either side of this particular discussion point.
One that Jimmy Cusk is familiar with as well as a school board member himself.
He doesn't just do news and sports for civic media and coaching.
He's got school board duties as well.
So I do like when we have folks like Heather on, you're right there in the waiting room wanting to hear what's going on.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think the issues brought up with regards to school funding, it's not just an issue if you have kids in school districts.
These are.
issues that affect everybody who lives in a district because property taxes changes, school districts, and their ability to borrow changes as referendums come across on your ballots.
One thing this week that I was fascinated to learn is that where I live in Southwestern Wisconsin, in covering some recent political announcements, Representative Jenna Jacobson announced a run for Senate District 17, which is the district that Howard Markline currently represents.
And she noted that in this Senate district, there have been
or school referendums than any other Senate district in the state in the last two years.
And it's a very rural district or Senate district in regards to school districts.
So these are issues that affect everybody and not just people with kids in school or people who have ties to their local school districts.
This stuff affects everybody.
So for me, this is all very fascinating to hear about and hear about all these statewide perspectives.
I think it's also fascinating that Jenna Jacobson is running for state Senate.
it down in southwest Wisconsin.
You're in southwest Wisconsin.
And yet you're both alumni of the Lakeland Conference.
She's from Frederick.
You went to Flambeau.
You guys are mobile.
Yeah, for sure.
It was fun.
It was fun when I was at the event and talking to her about that because there's a lot of perspectives you can bring from multiple parts of the state.
I've lived everywhere from Tony in Sheldon, Wisconsin up in the Flamable School District to Madison and near Milwaukee.
So for me, I've gotten to live in a lot of different parts of the state, now currently in the Driftlist area.
And there's a lot of different things you learn just by being in different parts of the state.
But I think overall,
you know, there's a reason why education has been one of the hot topics in the recent budget cycles.
And that's because it truly is an issue that affects everybody regardless of whether or not you have kids in schools.
Yeah, exactly.
Jimmy Koska is with us right now.
And let's talk for a bit about UW System tuition.
And it looks like there may be a third straight year of tuition going up.
And folks are noticing that.
Yep, so in a release yesterday, universities of Wisconsin system, President J Rothman said that they are proposing a 4% tuition hike for UW campuses and in the release it noted that
Every campus except for two would be adding on the optional 1% increase on top of that for a 5% tuition hike.
The two campuses who aren't going along with that Green Bay is gonna stay at four, but River Falls is going all the way up to 5.8% to help fund some initiatives for student success.
So we're talking about a third straight year of it.
I noted in La Crosse that the tuition would go over 10 grand per year for an undergraduate student.
And also kind of funny,
same time, the University of Northern Iowa made a release yesterday saying they were offering in-state tuition rates to anybody in a bordering state of Iowa, including Wisconsin.
So Northern Iowa's undergrad tuition for a Wisconsin student would actually be less than UW La Crosse, which I found
to
be pretty fascinating.
But just looking at it...
you know, after 10 years of tuition freezes, just seeing three straight years, you know, 5%, 3.75%, and now 5% again this year in tuition Ike's, you know, all of a sudden 10 grand a year to get into UW, that's that's a lot of money.
I mean, that's that's big for public school.
Yeah, I mean, it's going to make people, you know, want to make sure that that is the path that they indeed want to take.
You said in on Alaska, they just added a three year wheel tax as well.
Again, a lot of this to me, and again, just my opinion, but when you've got a state legislature that, you know, chooses austerity rather than funding its local government, its local school districts, its UW system, you end up seeing local taxes go up in in on Alaska.
That's what they feel they've been forced to do with the wheel tax.
And this was a compromise, too, because, you know, wheel tax is
typically don't have a cap on them.
On Alaska, put a three year cap on theirs through 2028, which I found to be really interesting.
They were considering cost to other services, you know, closing a library or maybe the aquatic center, or maybe levying an additional tax on property owners.
So coming back to a wheel tax to help pay for some of the infrastructure needs, this was truly a compromised part to manage a $300,000 hole in their budget.
So Kudos to you on Alaska for
you know, finding a way in the middle to not just have a perpetual wheel tax and give it a three year run to help take care of a budget issue here in the near term.
Next door, there is a big discussion on the La Crosse City Council agenda when it comes to downtown development and how you will, how they'll handle housing as a part of that, right?
Yeah, housing is a huge need in La Crosse.
Every single community survey from the past, I don't know, probably 10 years has talked about the need for housing.
It's a city that gets a lot of focus for its attention on policy in regards to the unhoused population.
But they are working with developers.
So there's a couple of big things.
One is that the former La Crosse Tribune building, that's actually on the agenda for tomorrow in La Crosse where they're proposing dozens of additional housing units and some, you know, some mixed use space as well.
But there are multiple developments happening.
right now around La Crosse that are seeking to address some of the housing issues that kind of plague, not just La Crosse, but pretty much any city in Wisconsin is looking at additional housing, especially in our college towns and more rural areas.
How'd you like Mizorowski yesterday, yesterday against the Dodgers?
Did you see the stat pad on the Brewers pitching the four pitchers?
Yes.
Fastballs average 99.34 miles per hour.
That is crazy.
I mean, that's the most that they, they expect that's probably the most in history.
They only have that going back so far, but my goodness, that is straight gasoline pad.
I know all four pitchers are just thrown here and none of them were named Fastball Freddy.
There's more
heat.
This is a great time to be a Brewers fan.
I mean, it's July and you've got playoff atmosphere baseball.
That's amazing.
Oh, I know.
And then you've got, you know, if we want to get ahead of ourselves, Packers preseason one month from today, right?
Yeah, kickoff for the preseason a month from today.
I as a high school football coach, I'm already in football mode, but the rest of y'all will be joining me here real soon.
Thank you, Jimmy.
Jimmy Koska reporting for us.
We'll talk to you a little later on.
And coming up next in our eight o'clock hour, we will be visiting with Earl Ingram and Melissa Baldoff and State
Senator Kel DeRoy's.
Remember, you can follow my team at Up North News all day long through our newsletters, social media, our website, UpNorthNewsWI.com.
And of course, right here, Mornings powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Krightlump.
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