Ticking Time Bomb for Wisconsin Taxpayers (Hour 2)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Upnorth News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Upnorth News, Pat Craiglow.

Good morning, it is 7.06.

Nice to have you here up north on this Wednesday morning.

It is July 16th, 2025.

Parker Olson is our producer down in Madison Studio A2, and we will hear from meteorologist Brittany Merleau.

on the way as well.

Coming up this hour we'll be talking to State Representative Christian Phelps from Eau Claire in our homeroom segment where we talk about education issues in Wisconsin and the ticking time bomb that is awaiting Wisconsin taxpayers when it comes to the voucher school program.

It's already costing nearly a billion dollars a year and that's with a cap on enrollment.

That cap is supposed to go away.

What happens then?

for state taxpayers.

We'll talk about that with Representative Phelps coming up.

And in our next hour, the new chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Devin Remaker, will be along talking about an event that's taking place tonight in La Crosse in the Third Congressional District so that folks in the Third Congressional District can finally talk to somebody.

other than their missing congressman about the cuts that their congressman is supporting for Medicaid and healthcare programs and a host of other things.

to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy.

While we await Mismar Lowe and the forecast, a reminder that you can join us here by using the comment sections either on Facebook or YouTube or on the Up North News, Facebook and YouTube pages and the Civic Media Facebook and YouTube pages.

You can also use that Civic Media app to send us your texts and comments and questions as well.

For example, Rob does that from Tigerton every morning.

He says, good morning from Tigerton.

Sunshine in 65 degrees.

Really?

Because it is like super overcast over here.

So not so much in Tigerton.

He said yesterday I had six lawns to mow in Tigerton, drank a lot of Gatorade, took plenty of breaks and it tired me out.

I fell asleep on my recliner.

Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the 10 tornadoes in western Wisconsin around the Chippewa Valley.

With three deaths 27 injured.

I watched the old WEAU TV reports on YouTube Yes, that July 15th 1980 is a date that is seared into the memories of anybody in the Eau Claire area and I mean somebody got a picture of the the wall cloud that was coming and The straight line wins that that front brought along and just did a immense

damage all throughout the city of Eau Claire and just outside the area as well.

So yes, that did indeed get mentioned.

by a lot of folks around here yesterday.

Rob goes on to say on YouTube, I love weather history.

And when I was a kid, I would track severe storms with a roadmap in the direction they were moving.

And that's how I got to know geography and math by tracking storms.

He says, I'm looking forward to the cooler and less humid weather.

It will have a fall feel great feeling to it mowing yards.

We talked about Sean Cassidy.

in our last segment and he said he remembered seeing Sean Cassidy on Tiger Beat Magazine and of course he and Parker Stevenson and you know others who were starring in the Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries that were on ABC oh and then Rob adds here on YouTube clouds are moving into the Tigerton area as we speak

So there you go.

I saw Brittany come up.

I think she had a little connection issue.

So let me go back and get her state forecast at least because, well, I mean, stormy is the main thing to share there, that there will be soaking rain across the state and then there will be some thunderstorms.

There is the potential for flash floods and then there is cooler air behind it.

Her forecast for today says cloudy and cooler.

Strong or even severe thunderstorms are possible, along with heavy rains and flash flood concerns.

Pies will only be around 60 up north, low 80s in southern Wisconsin, a northeast wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour for tonight.

The rain moves out, lows will be in the mid 40s up north to the 60s down south and a northeast wind at 10 to 20 miles an hour.

The radar right now shows a very large area of rain, a few thunderstorms embedded in there as well, taking up basically the entire eastern half of Minnesota.

And it looks like it's just starting to roll into western Wisconsin.

And the funny thing is, I mean, the system is curved

pretty much like the Minnesota Wisconsin border.

So I mean, it is quite literally moving into all of Western Wisconsin, pretty much at the same time.

So keep an ear on your local civic media station for the forecast details.

And again, Brittany and others will be following that, especially when it comes to the potential for severe weather that could be in the forecast for today.

Parker.

You like balloons?

Well, like balloons, right?

I mean, they're sweet little innocent things,

right?

Have you ever, when you were a kid, Pat, did you ever get a balloon and it was like, it has a bunch of air and it hits the ceiling?

Yeah, yeah.

Would you ever wait for it like over a course of like couple days or a week or whatever for some of the air to like escape from the balloon or however it works?

and then it gets to a level.

I'm not a scientist.

And I'm now Britney Marlowe.

Come on.

And you get it to the point that it's just kind of like floating around like eye level.

And then you just fly it around the house with the windows open or something.

Can you can you play the mystery music for that and we'll describe this some more because that's that's the vibe I'm getting from this as you're describing Okay,

so what it is

yeah watch a balloon as it's come off the ceiling But it's not to the floor yet.

No, it's not it's just it starts to kind of hang What we would do when we were kids is we would take like tape and paper clips to weigh it down So it wouldn't be on the ceiling and we just like open the windows and fly around the house

your science teacher then teach you all about ballast and how that all worked.

No, this is just a family thing that we did.

Oh,

okay.

All right.

Well, I bring it all up because of power outages that are being caused by mylar balloons, one most recently in the Milwaukee area, led to some 2000 customers being without power.

In parts of Walker's Point Lincoln Village in Bayview and it was hours and hours before the power was restored There were balloons found tangled around we energies equipment a lot of folks release balloons to honor lost loved ones or special occasions but According to a story in the journal Sentinel here

At least 10 states along the coast like Florida and Delaware have passed laws to ban the intentional release of balloons and Milwaukee area State Senator Tim Carpenter has introduced a bill as well to prohibit the release of 10 or more Mylar balloons.

If you do that.

It constitutes littering and you could face a fine of up to $500.

We Energy's estimates that 120,000 customers have experienced power outages over the last five years from mylar balloons that run into power lines or equipment and short them out.

I did not see that coming.

That many people have had their power knocked out by balloons.

I didn't see coming that you could get a fine for releasing balloons.

All right, well, you can't.

Well, in Wisconsin, it's not yet.

It's a bill that's been proposed by Senator Carpenter.

But in several other states, they've already passed that law.

consider other things.

The other thing that worries me, you see this especially at weddings are those, I don't know if they're called lanterns, essentially it's like a little candle in a paper bag and then they attach to a balloon.

And then these little tiny things blow away.

And it seems innocuous enough, but then you worry if it's just dry enough and it lands in a field someplace.

And what it can do.

I feel like you need better substitutes for some of these things.

There's got to be ways that you can do something that don't involve, you know, flames or things that can cause power outages for thousands of people.

I think about like for our wedding, you know, and again, we're going back almost 40 years now, but back then people were still throwing rice, you know, at the bride and groom.

Like it's almost like confetti, you know, prehistoric confetti.

That's what we call rice.

Yeah.

And

We were, we were like cutting edge for our wedding.

We said, no, no, no, no rice.

You got to throw bird seed.

You get the same effect, but then at least it's safe for the birds as opposed to them eating the rice and causing, you know, death and destruction and everything else.

So throw rice or throw a bird seed instead.

Throw bird seed.

I like that.

You completely just explained why you shouldn't throw rice.

You're like, yeah, I'll throw rice.

So throw rice.

No, throw bird seed.

What we didn't count on was that how many birds would appear?

No, it was 96 degrees that day when we got and we were already glistening shall we say standing outside of the church and the people are kind of throwing their bird seed and it's so much of it just stuck.

And all I want to do now is once again, 39 years later, is apologize to the housekeeping staff of the Motel 6 in Appleton, where we went after our reception was over because I'm sure that cleaning crew went in the next day, knowing that there were honeymooners staying in there.

And there was birdseed everywhere.

because we got to the end of the day.

We've been outside, we get hit with the bird seed, and then we polka dance for like the next seven hours or something like that.

Get to the hotel about midnight, and as we're, you know, getting set for the end of the day, we're like, how much bird seed was stuck to us all this time that we did not even know about?

So, I

don't know if there's

still.

I don't know if they're still throwing birds.

There's days I still feel like I could reach back behind my ear or something.

Oh, look, here's a little bit more.

It was not our best.

It was still a better idea than rice.

But it was ultimately not maybe our very best idea that we could have come up

with.

But hey, you made a heck of a memory.

Here's the thing.

Nobody is writing a bill to say, you can't do this anymore the way they are with the Mylar balloons, OK?

We've got that going for us, which is kind of nice.

Let's see, the Emmy nominations came out that I wanted to lay out there for folks.

Severance, do you watch any of the Apple TV things like Severance or

Trinking or any of

that?

No, we only get Apple TV for the free trial when the burgers get stuck on there for a

night.

Severance, 27 Emmy nominations and the studio led the comedy nominees with

23.

Apple TV had 79 nominations overall, shrinking added to that total with seven more in the comedy category, including acting nominations for Harrison Ford and Jason Siegel.

I've not watched Severance or the studio, but we have watched all of shrinking.

And I cannot recommend that highly enough.

It is, it is really funny.

It's a good show.

Over on Disney Plus and or

got 14 Emmy nominations.

I hear a lot of people talk about Andor.

I talk about Andor.

Do you talk about Andor?

I

talk.

You follow it pretty regularly?

I was a big fan of Andor, yes.

I wish that there was space in the timeline for there to be another season, but there's not.

Oh, because, yeah, it's only a certain segment of

before the universe is limited and before what?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Other events.

Got it.

Uh, let's see.

So Tony says, uh, shrinking equals great severance equals great and or equals great.

All right.

Well, this is Tony's, Tony's watching all the popular stuff.

He

knows

Tony's

one.

Tony's one of the cool kids.

Uh, there, there is one other TV, uh, news item that I have to share.

I don't want to share, but I have to share when people go, Pat, why do you do what you do?

Uh, what's with civic media up north news?

Why do you do all these things?

Here's why.

During the month of June, okay, for the third and now for the third straight week, Nielsen reports that Fox News Channel, which isn't really news, but whatever, Fox News Channel had more viewers in prime time on weeknights than any of the main broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC.

That's how many folks aren't getting outside in the summertime, but they're watching a propaganda network that

is going to keep me employed as we keep trying to knock down all the disinformation that it spews repeatedly.

From the heart of America's Up North Live from Lake Wissota, thank you for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

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.

Coming up in 30 minutes, we'll talk to Jimmy Kuska about some of the stories he's following for Civic Media from his corner of Wisconsin.

Earl Ingram from the southeast part of Wisconsin is along for much longer after that.

James Kelly coming up at 8.50 with stories he's covering in Northwest Wisconsin.

That's a day when we check in with a bunch of our Civic Media friends like we did a little bit ago with Melissa Kaye.

over there in Wisconsin Rapids.

So that all is still ahead here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

The Brewers, of course, are off for the All-Star Game.

They'll be back in action Friday in Los Angeles against the Dodgers.

You can catch the games on several Civic Media stations.

Head over to the website to learn more.

I will tell you, I have to scroll down a bit because they're out on the West Coast here.

Friday night, the pregame begins at 8.35 Friday night.

and then 735 on Saturday night.

So if you are a night owl and you love when the brewers are doing those West Coast road trips, you've got some baseball waiting for you come Friday and Saturday nights.

When I do the history lesson, I don't share necessarily everything that's on there because I mean, we only have so much time and some of it is frankly, you know, not happy stuff.

But I wanted to share this one from 1917 here.

Only because, again, it's somewhat illustrative of the times we live in.

And I would, at this point, bring up Adam's comment on YouTube that says that Fox News statistic is horrifying about their viewership.

Yes, it is, Adam.

I agree.

Imagine how they would have covered this from this week in 1917 out of Arizona, Bisbee, Arizona.

The Bisbee deportation took place this week in 1917.

It was the illegal kidnapping and deportation of more than a thousand striking mine workers, their supporters, and citizen bystanders by about 2,000 members of a deputized posse who arrested them.

The action was orchestrated by

Phelps Dodge, that was the name of the major mining company in the area.

It provided lists of workers and others who were to be arrested to the local sheriff.

Those who were arrested were taken to a local baseball park before being loaded onto cattle cars and deported 200 miles out to New Mexico.

The 16 hour journey was through the desert.

without any food on the train and very little water.

And then once unloaded in New Mexico, the deportees, most without any money or transportation, were warned against returning to Bisbee.

And again, it's because these mine workers were on strike.

No doubt for safety and other working conditions and pay.

And back then,

Mining companies that could simply call up the sheriff and say, you know, we're tired of of exploiting these foreign workers They're starting to get a little full of themselves.

Here's a list of them round them up take them out to the desert and law enforcement says, okay And up until not that long ago You probably would have said well that could never happen in this day and age and Yeah, now now we know that it could

In that vein, let me call your attention to our friend Trig Vilsen from the Lincoln Project.

You hear him on Wednesdays on the Todd Alba Show in the afternoons, and he has something that he writes on Substack, all about basically fighting authoritarianism and autocracy.

And he talks about last Friday's mass layoff at the U.S.

State Department.

Now, these weren't mine workers, but these were people who engaged in what you would call soft power.

because the U.S.

isn't seen as well as it has been for these past few decades because solely military might, but for the good works that we do around the world, encouraging diplomacy, engaging in democracy, that's not something the Trump administration likes.

And so fired more than 1,300 State Department employees on Friday.

Critics say that this will damage America's global leadership and efforts to counter threats abroad.

And so Trig Vilsen, who has worked with small developing democracies around the world, had this to say about the hollowing out of the State Department.

He says, the collapse of America's ability to lead, to connect, and to be believed, in other words, weakening diplomacy,

isn't a byproduct of authoritarianism, it's part of the plan.

The way he put it is hard power intimidates, soft power persuades, and persuasion is what makes democracies different, and it is what keeps the peace when we

Lose the people we know how to build coalitions or when we lose the people who know how to build coalitions, organize allies, speak across cultures and show up in hard places without a gun.

When we lose those people, we lose our edge.

We also lose the respect of those fighting on the front lines of freedom.

But Donald Trump doesn't want a state department, Trig Vilsen writes.

He wants a loyalty department.

American power, he writes, doesn't just come from missiles and from consumer markets, but from people who carry our values into the world.

We are weaker without them, and the world knows it.

And a whole bunch of us know it here in the States as well.

In the final 60 seconds or so I have in this segment and I'm giving myself just that little time because really that's all I want to say about what's being said about the Jeffrey Epstein case or the Epstein files or whatever the case may be.

Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible man and it is my personal belief he's probably roasting in hell someplace for what he did to so many children and underage girls and things like that and there certainly a lot has not yet been uncovered about what he did.

And there may be people that allied with him, people that, you know, we might agree with politically or people we don't agree with politically.

For all the consternation about MAGA World being upset that Donald Trump said he was going to release the so-called Epstein files and now is refusing to and Congress yesterday voted not to release them.

Speaking on behalf of most Americans, can we just say we don't care the political alliances of who's on that list?

If somebody was taking part in these horrific crimes, we deserve to know who they are sooner rather than later.

It's taken much too long.

And Donald Trump could be part of the solution if he's not part of the problem.

Representative Christian Phelps is coming up next.

You're up north.

It's going to be a busy day on the Civic Media radio network because it's a road trip in week with Jane and Greg and with Todd Alba all on the road today in Oshkosh on Matt and air on air with Jane Matt and air and Greg Bach at 930.

Dick Kopinski from the EAA Museum because that little thing called air venture is next week.

So they are they're getting set for the big fly in.

So of course, Todd will be broadcasting from Oshkosh as well.

this afternoon on his show from two to four.

And then on the Maggie Dawn show later this afternoon, there will be Dr. Kristen Lierly with a segment called Broad Appeal during the four o'clock hour, taking calls from women about what they are most concerned with right now.

And then in the five o'clock hour, State Senator Chris Larson.

So again, a busy day ahead.

here across the Civic Media Radio Network where right now we are going to hear in our homeroom segment from State Representative Christian Phelps from the Eau Claire area and our subject today by and large is about enrollment caps for the voucher program.

We'll talk about the state budget as well.

Representative Phelps, how are you?

I'm okay.

How are you, Pat?

Good to see you.

It's good to see you as well.

It's been no doubt a busy couple of weeks for you here as a freshman rep with your first aid budget, a process that was not typical.

put it mildly when things plotted along and then suddenly had to race at breakneck speed at the end of it here.

So let's cover that ground first.

Your overall observations on the budget, you were in no vote on it.

So talk a bit about how you came down that way last week.

Yeah, it was a busy couple of weeks at the end there.

It was busy.

because of a manufactured timeline crisis that Republican majorities could have avoided easily.

They know as well as I do who the president is, what federal cuts that president was trying to implement since the day he was inaugurated.

And these are the people who had abandoned the governor at the negotiating table partway through the budget writing process.

So it was a little bit...

disingenuous, in my opinion, for them to come back to the full legislature and say, all right, we need to get a deal and pass a budget immediately in order to avoid the Medicaid cuts that the Trump bill is going to implement.

That was, you know, true by that point, but it was entirely their fault that it had to be on such a condensed timeline.

I come right out of the advocacy world, and so I work with

continue to work closely with teachers and parents who advocate for public schools, as well as sort of issue allies that advocate on healthcare, Medicaid expansion, criminal legal reform, trying to reduce the incarceration rate in Wisconsin, environmental advocacy groups, and they were clear that a budget, especially with close margins in the legislature and Democratic governor,

for them to support was going to require certain benchmarks.

It was going to require Medicaid expansion, 60% special ed reimbursement at a minimum, and closing the Green Bay Correctional Facility and funding child care at least at the rate that it's been funded through child care accounts.

So like those advocacy groups, I knew that if a budget didn't include those things, I wasn't going to support it.

And the budget we got didn't include any of those things.

So I

voted no on it, and I was pretty consistent in my reasoning for doing that.

I thought it was strange that we were being put in the position of suddenly being in kind of a state of legislative panic when really the Republican majorities could have avoided that by just negotiating in good faith from the beginning.

I would let folks know that while Instagram is normally about photos and videos and you know, there's sometimes just a very brief text that's in there.

Christian's Instagram explains again all these reasons why he voted no on the budget.

It is laid out in like six little bullet point paragraphs and is probably the most

informative Instagram post I've ever seen in terms of explaining something that's in the news.

And you'd find them on Instagram at cs underscore Phelps.

If you want to see that, I'm sure you've got it written in other places as well.

But it really stuck out when I saw it on Instagram yesterday, Christian.

I'm glad that's that's the best compliment a state or local elected official could possibly get that our social media presence is in fact helping people understand what's going on in the in the political world.

without any cute animals required, you know, or

anything.

Yeah,

sadly, it just did.

Actually, and you it is it does a company of photo, talk about the three other legislators in the photo, who all banded together on the on the snow vote.

I know.

Yeah, Fran was one of them.

Yes.

So and she's the ranking Democrat on the Education Committee, we worked really hard with her.

and several other public advocates to make sure that our colleagues, including the governor and our colleagues in both parties, to the best of our ability, understood the education components of the budget as well as we could.

And then representatives Clancy and Madison are both from Milwaukee.

All four of us are Democrats in the legislature in the Democratic caucus, and we also caucused the four of us in the Wisconsin Legislative Socialist Caucus and try to always analyze everything through the lens of an advocacy perspective.

And one of the things that I say is that we all believe that healthcare, housing, food and education are human rights.

I think we're not alone in that, but we hold each other accountable to the best of our ability to always analyze policies, including the budget bill through

Does this policy move us closer to treating those four things as human rights?

Not through, is this politically convenient and will this lead to my reelection?

And if there's a gap there, we close it through messaging, not through compromising on our principles.

And I think that that was.

a defining way that we looked at this budget vote as well.

So I think I know where you're going to come down on our Sunday morning newsletter question of the week, which is which direction the Democratic Party should go in.

The options were a go left, be bold, don't be squishy.

B was the big tent option.

C was far left positions are going to kill the party and driveway moderates and option D was I'm a Republican with a box of popcorn just here to watch.

I

I can see, I see a lot of responses for all the various things people are putting their hearts into these responses.

And I just heard from you right there, the heartfelt reason why Democrats ought to embrace either option A or B.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to frame my position as an opposition to a big tent.

I like a big tent.

And frankly, in Wisconsin, as in the United States in general, we don't really have a multi system governing

a multi-party governing system.

We have a two-party system and we are, that's the way that our legislature is set up.

And so what I have found that people want in the Eau Claire area and among my neighbors is an authentic representation and an authentic candidate.

Candidates who don't try to sort of walk a tightrope trying to keep everybody happy but instead articulate

where they stand, why they stand there, and where those values align with their neighbors.

And that's what I spent all year doing last year through a competitive primary and a competitive general election in the Chippewa Valley.

I said, I'm very steadfast on these principles, and I think it's because of values that I share with you, urban and rural residents of this region.

by electing me that those folks said that they agreed with me on those values, and I think that they want me to be consistent and honest in my way of upholding them.

That doesn't necessarily mean an ideological prescription, but it means tell your constituents what you're going to do and why.

and then explain it every step of the way.

That's what I want to see from elected Democrats moving forward and I think not doing that harms not only the state and people's livelihoods but our electoral chances because people are smart and they can tell when you are hedging on your values.

Oh yeah and I could see in the legislature as well people that I

you know, referred to as clock punchers.

They came in, they punched the clock, they did the least amount of work possible, didn't talk about their values at all, just tried to get reelected.

And it was no fun serving with them, even in the same party.

but you see it in both parties as opposed to everything that you just said, which is what a legislator should stand for.

All right, well, let's get back to the topic at hand here.

And again, your education advocacy work that you were doing prior to being in the legislature has you uniquely positioned to talk about the issue of enrollment caps on voucher schools, which I am sure

I would dare say 97, 98% of people do not know about.

They know we have a voucher school program.

They don't know it's costing us nearly a billion dollars a year and that there's an enrollment cap on it.

What is the current condition?

What can you tell us about the cap and then how it apparently could go away next year?

Yeah.

Thank you for asking.

It's true that a lot of people are not really familiar with the gravity of this program.

In my work, I've met people, for example, who get elected to a school board.

And when they get onto the school board, they and start seeing the books and the budget for their school district up close.

That's when they learn things such as the fact that their district is losing funds to the private voucher program.

And the reason for that is because the state-wide voucher program and all of the sort of increases or growth of that program have mostly happened behind closed doors in Wisconsin.

When you look at other states where people have ballot initiatives and they can go to voters through kind of a democratic process to say, do you want something like this or a referendum on vouchers, they always fail.

People don't like the idea of spending public dollars on an unaccountable private school system.

We've seen it fail in places like Arizona, Kentucky.

We've seen very Republican legislatures in places like Idaho reject this idea.

But in Wisconsin, we've had a voucher program in Milwaukee for about 30 years.

And now we have a statewide and a Racine voucher program that Republican Governor Scott Walker put into budgets.

And one of the things that was sort of snuck into a Walker-era budget in 2015 was a 1% annual increase in the enrollment cap on that program.

So it started at a very low percent.

It's now at 10% of a school district's population, student population in that school district, can participate in the statewide voucher program.

And the way that's funded is that school districts get whatever amount of money is agreed on in the budget from the state.

And then the first thing they have to do is take some off the top and send it to the private voucher program.

At that time, they lose all of their oversight over those dollars.

They don't know which students are getting it.

They don't know what the schools are going to do with it, and they have no real way to find out.

And that number has been going up by 1% every year since that Walker-era budget.

And in statute,

it says that in 2026, going into the 26, 27 school year, that enrollment cap will come off entirely.

And this was like a big elephant in the room.

I saw like hanging out as we were going into this budget process because we have biennial budgets.

This is the last one we were going to pass before that enrollment cap comes off and the balloon pops.

And we don't know, there's no way to know how big the program could get.

So before the budget, actually, I introduced a bill, Assembly Bill 307, I recommend people look at, to just keep those caps on.

I'm an opponent of the voucher program.

I think we should sunset it.

That was an olive branch.

I reached out directly to Republican legislators saying, please sign on to this bill.

This is fiscally responsible.

We have to buy ourselves some time.

But it has not passed.

No Republican has signed on.

And now a budget has passed, guaranteeing a 9% funding increase.

to the voucher and charter programs.

We're already losing about $800 million a year to these programs.

And the Legislative Fiscal Bureau has confirmed for me that we really do not know how much this is going to cost the state and our school districts when that enrollment cap comes off in one year.

So we need to pass that bill as soon as possible.

And if you have a Republican state legislator, please reach out to that person and invite them to sign on to my compromise bill to just keep those caps on.

Our budget needs that.

And the thing is, in other states, in multiple states, Republicans are becoming aware of this and they are now supporting putting caps on when they see what it's done to their state budget.

So there's no excuse for Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature not to see this and to try to defuse this ticking time bomb before it goes off.

Representative Christian Phillips from Eau Claire, thank you so much for spending some time with us on all these great subjects today.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for inviting me, Pat.

Our pleasure.

And coming up, a local break is next for some of you.

For others, we'll visit with Jimmy Cuska and talk about news around Western Wisconsin 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.

In 30 minutes, Melissa Baldoff will be here for this week's climate check.

Another thing that we do on Wednesdays.

You know what else we do on Wednesdays now?

We check in with Jimmy Koska about some of the stories that he's following across Western and Southwest Wisconsin.

When he's not doing a 5 AM football practice in the heat of summer, how's that been lately?

I tell you what, football season is here, man.

We actually, our home opener, our football season opener,

is only a little over a month away.

So like this time of year, fall sports coaches for high schools are definitely in high gear.

There's a week where everybody's forced to take off at the end of July before practices begin.

But I tell you what, it's exciting.

July is kind of that turn the page moment for high school sports in Wisconsin.

This is kind of our last chance to get a little summer work in before things really get going here at the beginning of August.

Did you switch in sports gears here?

Did you tune into any of the All-Star game?

I wanted to ask you either about the Brewer's pitching performances or the Robot umpires.

If you caught any of that, I'm sure you have an opinion whether you did or not.

You know, it's funny.

The All-Star games are not...

designed as, um, um, you know, like, Hey, come on.

You know, it's, it's, it's literally a spectacle, right?

You're, you're there to be entertained.

And that's, I think for that, uh, I think for that, it did it well.

Uh, ending the game with the homerun, uh, you know, the, the, the,

the swing off.

Yeah.

The swing off.

I was trying, I was failing on the name there for a second.

I think that's fun.

Like that stuff is fun.

I love the, the all star game, the tinkering, the, the crazy ideas you throw into these things.

Um, these things.

when they were created, you know, decades ago, the appeal of having all of the best players in sports on the field at the same time was such a cool concept.

You know, you get to see, you know, these dream scenarios for your favorite superstars team up.

Well, those dreams scenarios happen a lot.

Now it's sports with free agency.

So that, that appeal is kind of gone, but it was, it's fun for what it is.

I, I, it's low stakes.

It's, it's entertainment.

So

yeah.

What do you think about they use the robot ump as I like to call it for challenges in the game?

They've been using them in the minor leagues since 2019.

Could be in the major leagues as early as next season.

Is that something you'd like to see or do you like the human factor?

You know, the thing is, is that a lot of great people are officials in all levels of sports, right?

I think the human element certainly, especially at the youth levels, I think there's something to appreciate about that.

At the professional levels, with all the money at stake, I think there's much more of an honest to get it right.

I mean, you've got a lot of eyeballs.

You've got a lot of money invested into those things.

You know what I mean?

It's one of those things where you want to get it right.

You have the technology and the means to do so.

So I say for professional sports, you're probably, I'm more okay with it professionally, you know, for the highest level of the sport, but, you know, the further down you go with the list of youth sports, I think we need to appreciate and.

embrace the human element with officiating.

So it's just that I have seen the electronic eye thing work so well in tennis and in soccer for goals and even for cricket for the few of us that actually watch that in the States.

And I've appreciated it with balls and strikes.

I don't, you know, it's not the end of the world if they don't use it, but

I have certainly seen its value in other sports.

So for

sure.

And I think for professional sports, it makes sense.

The technology means exist.

You might as well.

But the accessibility to youth levels, it's really only expanded like in high school, for example, to having replay at state finals events where they know they've got multiple cameras.

So that's kind of where I'm at with it.

I think that the human beings who officiate sports are incredibly valuable.

We've got one right here at our own company with Henry Bray at WRCO, who's just

won the statewide baseball officiating award back a year ago, I think.

So there's a lot to be said for humans that take part in officiating our sports.

Never mind the robots.

Let's talk about the speed gun and Jacob Mizorowski pitching, getting all three outs in the eighth inning of the All-Star game for the National League team and bringing the heat and impressing a lot of people who might maybe at first thought, oh, what's he doing here?

But between his three outs and the

eighth and Trevor McGill getting the third out in the seventh.

The Brewers were extremely well represented last night after all.

Yeah, and having three pitchers of the All-Star game, I mean, that's pretty awesome, right?

And I know the Mizorowski conversation is dominating social media, all that.

I just think it's great that the Brewers were getting some representation when they had just the first

And only All-Star was Freddie Peralta announced.

I'm like, well, hold on a second.

Brewers are one of the best teams in baseball right now.

Like what's going on?

Then they get the couple more added on later.

The Brewers, I think, justifiably could have had one or two more All-Stars, too.

Oh, yes.

Not pitchers, just, you know, with Christian Yellowitch or self-reliant.

Oh, Freelik.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You had a couple of other options.

Oh, without a doubt.

As far as stories that you're covering around Western Wisconsin, there is a big bridge that's going to come down.

And folks need to be aware of that.

But it is a necessary

project.

Yeah, and you know, the impact of this is that when the bridge, it's then we're talking about the Black Hawk Bridge, which connects Lansing, Iowa to Crawford County, Wisconsin.

So this bridge unexpectedly closed last year.

And again, earlier this year, it's a big impact to the people that use the bridge on a regular basis.

About 2,200 people use the bridge daily, according to, according to federal officials.

So there's a lot of people who use this bridge.

And now what's happening is that they're going to close and demolish the bridge later this year.

I had a schedule because they don't think that they can construct its replacement bridge, which has been another way for the last two years without further disruptions to the existing 94 year old bridge, which again has closed twice for structural issues in the past two years.

So they're going to close and shut this thing down.

It's going to be a big impact to those communities too, right there because the detours are North to La Crosse or South to Prairie to Sheen.

And either way, you're taking over an hour around the river to get to where you got to go.

And I

know that

when these closures have happened, it's been when the river hasn't been iced over or the Mississippi River hasn't been completely chock full of ice.

They don't think that they can set up a water taxi service in the winter because they can't get the ice out of the water, especially on the Wisconsin side.

So the detours would exist kind of in the winter months, in the warmer times when they can get a river taxi across, it can help alleviate some of that issue.

But for those communities in Southwestern Wisconsin, this is a big impact.

This changes how you go about your business on a day.

today basis.

It does plan accordingly.

Jimmy Cusko, thank you so much.

It's always good to talk to you.

Have a great day.

You too, Matt.

Take care.

All right.

One more item from that area that'll be in La Crosse tonight.

There will be a town hall talking about the Medicaid cuts and State Democratic Party Chair Devin Remaker is going to join us in the next hour to talk about that.

We'll also be joined by Earl Ingram.

We'll have Melissa Baldoff with this week's climate check.

We'll check in with James Kelly from the Civic Media Newsroom in Chippewa Falls as well.

Remember, you can follow me and my team all day long at UpNorthNewsWI.com and here, mornings on the Civic Media

be a radio network.

I'm Pat Critewell.

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