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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Well, that's not exactly true.
We're not at the Lake WSOTA studios today.
We weren't there yesterday.
We won't be there tomorrow.
We're in Madison Studio A2, along with Parker Olson producing this fine radio program, and tomorrow we'll be on location in Oshkosh.
It's where Brittany Merleau is.
But we're not talking to her today.
She's not talking to her.
She's taken a couple of days to after reporting from EAA for a few days is now just going to take it all in and enjoy it.
And we hope she's having a great time at the campground and seeing all the sites and we look forward to hearing all about it come Monday.
But coming up this hour, we are going to be talking about cryptocurrency from a state perspective because around the state, you're starting to see ATMs go up that are also.
crypto friendly, I guess we could call it, where you could somehow, you know, put money toward whether it's Bitcoin or one of these other cryptocurrencies to which I had parenthetically, whatever the heck they are, because I am not convinced that this isn't just something on par with, you know, the the Dutch tulip bulbs of the 1600s or any any other commodity.
And that's the other question.
Is crypto a commodity like wheat and corn and gold?
Or is it a security?
Is it more like a stock and you can lose your investment in it?
These are all questions that are still up in the air, but at least one thing a couple of legislators want to do is make sure that if some of these folks want to put ATMs up in Wisconsin that say you're putting your money toward crypto, that it's not a scam.
And so we will hear directly from State Senator Kelder Roy's and State Representative Ryan Spouty later this hour about.
crypto and what kind of guardrails state government can put on it.
We'll talk to Camden Hargrove of the Wisconsin Public Education Network live from Green Bay.
He's there for the Wisconsin Public Education Network Annual Summer Summit.
Get together of educators and their allies.
Todd Alba is up there as well and will be doing his show live from Green Bay Preble High School coming up this afternoon.
Chris Hamburg Boyle, a friend of the show, must also be there as well because she texted us a photo of Lambeau Field where they had their welcome reception last evening.
The note from Chris says, we welcomed public education champions from across the state to kick off our 11th annual summer summit each year.
The welcome reception shows off some local flair.
How could we not?
Well, if you're doing local flair in Green Bay, that would be Lambeau Field.
And Chris has sent to us Parker a very lovely picture from, uh, if you've, if you may not have ever been to basically, it's like a little conference center inside of Lambeau field.
And there's an area there where you look out over the field from way up high.
It's pretty cool.
It's so, this
I would take it
Yeah.
So hopefully everybody's having a good time there at Preble High School after that nice reception yesterday.
We will also be checking in with Chad Holmes from 98 nine WXCO.
Ian Wasaw, our civic media station up there.
That's in our next hour.
As well as Joseph Pecky, we'll be talking about a Democratic state senator who's circulating a petition saying that the
Democratic gubernatorial nominee next year, whether it's Tony Evers or somebody else, needs to commit to a series of promises, kind of on par with the contract on America that, you know, Newt Gingrich had back in the day, but this one more productive, this one actually, you know, for the middle class, this one, something that's actually attainable.
But is it, is it too much to ask for?
Are some of these things painting potential candidates into a corner?
We'll talk to Joe a little bit about that.
We'll talk to Sean O'Malley about your money in the markets, all that yet ahead here on these mornings powered by UpNorth News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Let's check over on the mailbag here because I'm sure that Rob from Tigerton has checked in as well.
Sure enough on YouTube he writes, good morning from Tigerton.
It's cloudy and 70 degrees.
Tigerton picked up 1.1 inches of rain from yesterday's storm.
Uh, there was tree damage.
There were power lines down in the rush, Holt and Iola areas.
I also saw some photos of damage north of Bloomer and Chippewa County.
Uh, Rob goes on to tell us there was a funnel cloud along highway 45 south of Clintonville, a tornado in the Gillette area in Ocano County.
And with it being so humid yesterday, it had that feel like it was going to storm.
He said, coming home from Shawno.
The sky to the west was very dark from the tornado warning out in Marathon County.
He writes, I think the meteorologists in the Wassau and Green Bay markets did an excellent job with their tornado and severe weather coverage, an excellent job of keeping people up to date.
And we are always extremely thankful for meteorologists who are working their hearts out in severe weather.
Now to an earlier subject and that was about concert t-shirts Tony writes on YouTube I have heard that you shouldn't wear a band's shirt at their concert He says I was told that as I was wearing a band's shirt while at the concert So there we got we got one other person who claims that that's a thing.
I Don't know if this is a really thing or just people think it's a thing and so they they parrot
not to.
No, I like your Packer analogy.
Who wouldn't wear a Packer jersey to the game?
Let's see.
Tony also chimed in on the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band movie, not the album, the movie in the mid-seventies.
And you said, maybe just need to watch a good, bad movie.
And Tony said, I tried watching it a week or two ago, and I just hated it.
This is not a good, bad movie, he writes.
just bad.
All right.
So
saving me an hour and a
two hours,
Yeah, exactly.
I'm just about finished here with my my quick trip coffee over here, my cafe Caruba, which I never had.
It's only when I'm on the road because I mean, this thing is basically it's a you know, big old cup of sugar, some water, you know, you're over there drinking water.
So healthy.
today.
Well, good.
You're properly hydrated.
Yeah.
We preach that all the time here.
That's great.
But it does get me to wondering because I've seen the coffee maker in my hotel room.
Yeah.
Don't trust it.
No.
Well, it has a look like look at four in the morning when you're making it.
And if something goes wrong.
I mean, what are you gonna do?
It's four in the morning.
You're stuck and you got this mess to clean up or whatever.
So then there's the lobby coffee.
And again, this is pretty much any hotel.
And, you know, most of the time that tastes rather burnt or whatever, there's gas station coffee of varying degrees.
And so that's the question that I wanted to ask folks is either hotels or gas stations or both, something else like that.
When you're on the road,
Is there a place that was surprisingly good in the coffee department?
You know, you were at maybe, maybe you like staying at Holiday Inn Expresses and you happen to think that coffee is particularly good or bad.
I want to hear about both.
I want to hear the bad.
And the same goes for, for the gas station stuff and not just quick trip, but other chains out there.
Is there anything that is particularly good, bad, noteworthy, funny?
You know, because sometimes I imagine that, you know, sometimes at these places, you have very young employees.
I imagine one Parker Olson, who is not a coffee drinker.
And if you're not trained properly, you're like, how many scoops of coffee are you supposed to put in this thing?
12 will do.
And it should actually be two.
I'm sure that's right.
Yes.
So would love to know in the comment sections on Facebook or YouTube, if you watch the show there for Upground News or Civic Media, or you can use the Civic Media app to send us a text and let us know more of what you think about either coffee at the gas station, coffee at the hotels, and, you know, just being on the road overall.
I mean, yesterday.
Yesterday had a sausage McMuffin coming into work because I usually make my own breakfast, but hit the drive-thru.
And then during our little host retreat yesterday, they brought in Ian's pizza, a Madison institution.
So we had the mac and cheese pizza and the pepperoni and sausage.
That was good.
And then of course the whole crew went out to dinner on State Street after that or on Capitol Square.
They don't get your cheese curds and some other things.
Yeah, I should be fasting today.
But of course, no, I've got this big old cup of sugar, you know, from, from the gas station.
There's
No, you need what you need.
Well, again, we're on the road this week.
And so the diet is just a little bit, it just hits a little bit different.
There's there are plenty of good options, although fewer than than the last time.
Madison's one of those places that is just
always changing.
And I noticed that like to do pasta is gone.
I used to like that.
Was it short stack, the breakfast place?
Oh yeah.
That's not gone.
But there are a couple of new places there that have come in since I was last around.
So I mean, State Street in Madison is definitely one of those places where if, if there's, if you can't find something you like, come on back next week because there's definitely some turnover in there.
Let's see.
There's also from Tony.
I want Todd's take on coffee because he is an aficionado.
Oh, yes.
For how much he's on the road.
Yeah.
Yes.
And he does love his Wonder State coffees all the time talking about that as well.
Uh, the Brewers were big winners yesterday, which is kind of bittersweet given that, you know, that would have then been 13 wins in a row, but instead, uh, it's 12 out of the past 13.
because Bryce Durang drove in three runs on three hits.
The Brewers had 17 hits overall in a 10 to two route of the Seattle Mariners to take two out of three.
Quinn Prester went seven innings, allowed two runs on six hits with six strikeouts.
And I think that Roger up and Steven's point, oh yeah, we were talking about, he put a comment up on Facebook.
And Quinn Prester's last 11 starts.
He has won eight decisions, an ERA of 2.42.
Let's see, and 61 strikeouts compared to 12 walks.
That's, those are some pretty good numbers there.
Thank you, Roger.
Very good.
My goodness.
Yeah.
So, but we, we've been talking about how the Brewers are doing all this with names that are, are not household, shall we say?
No.
You know, the, those of us who like to follow the team are still.
Learning who some of these guys are you do get a name
you
and yet you know and yet they're they're getting it done They are off today.
The Brewers will head home to take on the Miami Marlins Pat coverage begins.
It's it's an afternoon game
tomorrow on a Friday, kind of rare here.
So coverage begins the pregame at 235 on stations in Oshkosh.
We're seeing Kenosha, Richmond Center, Park Falls, and of course Hayward.
And tomorrow, even though the show is on the road, we will still do Free Ticket Friday, where you can win four tickets.
And I'm going to tell you right now, we already know which game it is.
And I'm telling you this just to get you excited for it.
It's the Brewers Cubs series.
And tomorrow on Free Ticket Friday, we're giving out four tickets to see the Brewers Cubs game Wednesday afternoon.
Daytime baseball against the Cubs at American Family Field.
You're going to want to get the Civic Media app if you haven't already.
Get that downloaded where you pull up a station, you text us the keyword.
I'm not giving you the keyword now.
That's the whole purpose of Free Ticket Friday.
Gotta listen tomorrow.
We'll give you the keyword and then throughout the course of the show You text us that word and then on some of the other shows Well, all of the other shows you'll get an opportunity to text in a keyword as well and in that entire statewide drawing Somebody's gonna get pulled and win four tickets to next Wednesday afternoons Brewers Cubs game it could be you so if you can go if you can get some tickets sent to you over your phone and use them Then keep that in mind for tomorrow for free
ticket Friday.
A local update is next for some of you and for others we'll be back in 15 minutes and talking about cryptocurrency with two legislators.
Live on the Civic Media Radio Network, I'm Pat Krightlo.
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.
722 the time now I'm Pac right.
Well, we are here in Madison studio a two at the top of State Street right off the Capitol Square here in the capital city for a little civic media Gathering and then tomorrow on the road again.
We'll be reporting from Oshkosh before we head back up North But let's talk a little bit about one of the legislators from up North State Senator Jeff Smith of Eau Claire.
He was on recently and Has a column
an opinion column in the CapTimes newspaper.
talking about how supporting our veterans shouldn't just be a talking point and we are talking about the zeroing out of help for homeless veterans and he speaks specifically of Klein Hall in Chippewa Falls which since 2007 has been a safe haven for homeless veterans where those who served our country have a chance to rebuild their lives with dignity and purpose.
Senator Smith writes it offers more than just shelter.
It promotes the tools that veterans need to get back on their feet like job training, counseling, and stability.
But at the moment, Smith writes, several dozen veterans currently living at Klein Hall could be out on the street by September 30th.
Each of them wore the uniform they served with honor and trusted that we'd keep up our end of the deal if they needed help when they got back home.
To that end, Governor Evers asked for nearly $2 million in his budget proposal to keep Klein Hall and the Green Bay Veterans Facility open.
That funding was stripped out of the Joint Finance Committee, controlled by Republicans, so Smith mentions offering an amendment to restore it on the Senate floor, but it was voted down.
All but one Republican state senator voted against the amendment.
So now Smith is co-authoring a standalone bill to fund the program and keep the facilities open.
He says this is not a time for finger pointing now we've got to get the job done.
He says if Republicans don't want to sign on to the bill that I introduced then so be it.
But don't stand by and do nothing while these brave veterans are asked to relocate to Union Grove on the other side of the state.
He says supporting our veterans shouldn't be a talking point, it should be a promise we honor, let's show the people of Wisconsin what it really means to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to supporting those that we have served.
Again, that's State Senator Jeff Smith from Eau Claire County, the Senate Democratic Assistant Leader talking about Republicans zeroing out funding for homeless veterans.
In a somewhat similar vein, Governor Evers is knocking the Trump administration for cuts to the U.S.
Forest Service, saying that those cuts are going to be devastating for states like Wisconsin.
Evers wrote a letter Monday to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and said the state was going to expect less funding from the urban and community forestry grant programs
presumably to cover the cost of terminating some dedicated federal workers.
Evers writes it is untenable to expect Wisconsinites to take on the additional workload caused by cuts to the federal workforce while also gutting the investments necessary to support that effort.
Using the very funds that are being eliminated to compensate for the workforce reduction undermines the trust and commitment that this important work requires.
And Evers goes on to say much more, but the folks at WISP Politics report that there is a state senator from the Rice Lake area, Romain Quinn, Republican chair of the Committee on Insurance, Housing, Rural Affairs and Forestry.
Romain Quinn said that the reductions, quote, don't warrant the hysteria being drummed up by Governor Evers and opponents of President Trump.
God forbid somebody tries to trim a little spending from the federal government that is incapable of living within its means, Quinn said.
And there, once again, we get at the crux of the differences between the parties and those who are focused on service.
and then finding ways to fund that service and those who are simply looking for ways to save a buck for the purposes of saving a buck.
But not really for the purposes of saving a buck because that buck that's not going to be used for the Forest Service is going to go to tax cuts for the very wealthy where we hope that they just trickle down.
It seems like the chair of a legislative committee committed to forestry should
perhaps maybe defend Wisconsin's forests in a ways that isn't just reliant upon, well, my party wants budget cuts, and so who cares what the consequences are?
If you've got a better plan, happy to hear it, but it sounds like the plan is simply due less.
And let's get those tax dollars over to the rich, and maybe they'll build us a new forest if they can be bothered.
not to invest in another yacht instead or something like that.
So in much the same way, the last hour we talked about, there's a difference between the parties.
There's one that wants to, Democrats want to make it just a little bit harder for state legislators to use your tax dollars to use outside counsel to represent them.
when they're doing things like, you know, trying to gerrymander maps.
And another party, the Republicans, while their latest bill they've introduced, would be to increase the penalties for vandalism and graffiti on statues and monuments.
Again, it's field good legislation, but it doesn't do anything to stop the abuse of, you know, things like gerrymandered maps.
And
racking up big legal bills to defend the gerrymandered maps and the lame duck laws and the other things that one political party has been doing recklessly in the state for a number of years.
I'd much rather side with the people that are looking out for homeless veterans, not forgetting to fund them, making sure that our forests are healthy and sustainable and economically productive.
And also instead of the party whose president has now made over a
billion dollars off cryptocurrency in one of the great corruption scandals of our lifetime that is going unreported.
I'd rather go with the folks that are trying to make sure that cryptocurrency isn't something that can scam us even at a place like an ATM when we go to the gas station.
And we're going to talk about that with two state legislators coming up right after the Midwest Farm Report live from Madison today.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Coming up tomorrow on the program, I'll be in Oshkosh.
We'll be hearing from Gordon Hintz, the Winnebago County Executive.
We'll also be talking to a provost from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh about happenings there, along with our Week in Review panel, which includes former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel.
and journalist Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze, all that and much more.
Oh, also a state representative, Lee Snodgrass from the Appleton area will be joining us and Mike Clemens with a look at Weekend Sports, a very busy day tomorrow from Oshkosh on these mornings with Pat Krightlow, powered by Upton North News and right here on the Civic Media Radio Network, where today we're in Madison where Parker Olson produces what we do and Parker's not a coffee drinker.
That I am not Parker pointed me toward the coffee pot here because my my original gas station coffee is gone So I thought that's I see a coffee pot there.
I will fill it up
Yeah,
there's one of those little single serving curing cup things.
Okay, and there's a coffee pot Yeah, I filled it up from the coffee pot.
Okay, put in a little bit of cream and sugar.
There you raised it to my lips It is ice cold.
I mean, yeah
Is it like yesterday's coffee?
I'm asking the wrong guy.
Is it decaf that's next you have to use the single serve?
I do not know if this has any benefit whatsoever.
Certainly not in terms of heat.
Well, here's the thing.
It may not caffeine.
It may have shocked you enough that you're more awake now.
Oh, I'm more awake now.
Yes.
See, it did the job.
It did the job.
It did this job without having to ingest a thing.
Poor guy.
Yeah, I know.
First world problems.
But here's a problem I don't have.
I am unburdened by immense knowledge and cryptocurrency.
I have a healthy dose of skepticism at this point, which does not mean I'm writing it off entirely.
I'm completely admitting I will need to learn more.
What I've learned is that cryptocurrency involves a whole lot of data processing, which means a whole lot of electricity.
and everything that comes from it, and that the regulatory framework around it is, shall we say, still a work in progress.
Now, that doesn't mean you can't do anything about it.
Some folks in Washington said they were doing something about it last week.
It was allegedly crypto week, and Congressman Brian Stile talked all about passing some kind of stable coin legislation that he said was going to put a regulatory framework around cryptocurrency.
A lot of Democrats disagreed and saw it as more of a sweetheart deal.
I am again here to tell you that I can't say with authority that it is more one way or the other.
I can say this as a former legislator.
There is a role for legislatures to play at the state level to protect consumers and perhaps financial institutions, small businesses, the economy.
Somebody should be thinking about these things.
I have found two people who are thinking about these things.
There's State Senator Keldoroyz and there is State Representative Ryan Spoudy and welcome to you both.
I hope your coffee is hot and I thank you for being here with us this morning.
Well I like iced coffee when I know it's coming.
I just, I wasn't expecting it.
Um, Kelda, these are weighty issues that we're about to discuss, but I've got to get the, the, the fun stuff out of the way here first because Trig V. Olson, who was filling in for Todd Alba yesterday and Tony up in Ashland was listening and he asked this question on YouTube.
Did you know Kelda wrote musicals?
Found that out yesterday from Trig V. Olson.
Uh, how do you plead?
So you're
But yeah, I was a theater major in college.
And actually, my best friend from college is a musical theater composer.
And he's very successful.
So it's really fun to see, you know, the early things that we did together, go in the garbage, but he's actually very successful.
Kelda, I will feel much better now when you write Wisconsin legislature, the musical.
I just feel like you've already got some verses in your head that will make, um, you know, book of Mormon look like child's play by the time you are done.
I hope that this happens.
Uh, so.
Tuck that away for future reference.
All right, now let's cover the the matter at hand here.
And Kelda, while you've got the floor, we'll start with you.
What is the bill that you and Representative Spaudi are working on from a state level when it comes to crypto, and especially as we see them on these ATM machines that are popping up around the state?
We know that Wisconsinites want to experiment and learn about these new kinds of technologies, including cryptocurrency.
But unfortunately, what's happening right now with these crypto kiosks being totally unregulated is that people are being scammed and they're being used to facilitate criminal activity.
So massive fraud.
And stories are really, really heartbreaking.
People just losing their life savings in an instant.
So this is a bill to basically put a framework, create some guardrails so that people can safely use cryptocurrency kiosks.
And so that there's some accountability and law enforcement can actually go after these criminals, which right now it's almost impossible for them to do.
Representative, why don't you help fill in some more, tell us more about the bill and your involvement in it.
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me on, Pat.
Good to see you, Calda, as always.
Senator Royz and I teamed up on this.
Former prosecutor.
I was a drunk driving prosecutor, actually.
That was my primary focus.
But as we're all well aware, there are many crimes against people's property that aren't tangible that you can't actually see.
And crypto is, it's the Wild West still.
There's still a lot of...
unregulated areas of that uh we'll call it uh enterprise and what we're doing is we are stepping up at the state level and we are saying hey we need to have some rules we need to have some ground game rules that everyone is expected to follow and the goal we want to encourage entrepreneurship and the development of new technology but we also need to be serious there's
There are many cases both here in Wisconsin and across the country of folks, frequently their seniors, who are being defrauded.
They are losing just an incredible amount of money, as Senator Royce mentioned, like that.
We need to have some good government, some very basic.
regulations in place to make sure that people are not cheated and scammed out of their livelihoods.
And that is what this bill aims to accomplish.
Senator, can we then get in a little bit more specifics, either if not what the bill does or maybe what it's trying to prevent?
Are there examples of scams or crimes that have been seen elsewhere that we don't want to see happen here?
And they're already happening here to be clear.
You know, a lot of
scams basically tell you to go put money in this kiosk because you're gonna buy something from overseas or they're used for you know criminals use them to transfer proceeds of their ill-gotten activities.
We've also seen a startling rise in the number of love-bombing sort of catfishing schemes where really targeting people who are isolated and you know feeling sad and lonely and they
meet somebody on the internet who, you know, tells them that they love them and kind of carbon bombs them with affection and then has a need for money for some family member surgery or something like that.
And before the person realizes this scam, their money is gone.
So we worked with the Department of Financial Institutions on this bill.
They have just promulgated some regulations, but they are really excited to
update our statutes.
Right now, if you transfer money using your credit union or an online service like PayPal or Venmo, it's regulated.
So this bill basically turns crypto kiosk operators into regulated money transfers, meaning they have to obey the same rules and have the same protections as your bank.
You have to verify the identity of the people who are using this.
And that's as important for law enforcement.
If there is an allegation of a crime that they can go back and say, well, here's this person's ID.
Here's what they presented us.
and here's the name they gave us.
There's a daily limit so that you could only withdraw or you could only use up to $1,000.
This is really important because if somebody is asking for $40,000, you could lose that in a day right now.
There's also the ability to get a refund from the crypto operator if within 30 days you have reported to law enforcement and reported to the kiosk operator that you were scammed.
And that's really, really important because right now there's functionally no way for people who've been victimized to get their money.
Can you talk, Representative Spaudi, a bit about just the volatility of crypto?
I worry at the risk of getting too far in the weeds here, but that
somebody may have thought they were investing so much or spending so much on this, they do feel like they were scammed.
They want to get something back and the response to them as well, now it's only worth this much.
And again, I mean, who knows?
You're basically looking to see that dollar for dollar, if somebody gets scammed,
They're going to recover the money that they thought they were putting toward what turned out to be a fraudulent transaction.
Is that about right?
Yes, that is correct.
I'm not, uh, I don't own any, uh, spouty coin.
I don't, uh, I'm not in that market, uh, personally, but the whole purpose of this bill, the goal of this bill is when we have these regulations, these licensure requirements, uh, these know your, uh, customer requirements warnings, um, on a crypto.
kiosk.
You can see these and they're sprouting up all over in malls and in convenience stores, gas stations, warnings.
That's another important part of this bill.
The goal is to have the number of cases where people, as we are seeing, like I said, across the country, including here in Wisconsin, we want the number of those cases from the get go to go down.
We don't want to have folks in a situation where they are seeking a refund because they've been defrauded.
So again,
kind of setting aside the whole what's it like to be in that market.
If you play by the rules and you want to do crypto, good on you.
Go for it.
We are setting these regulations in place so that way we do not have as many instances of criminals using a lack of regulation to defraud people of incredible amounts of money.
It would be nice if this were a non-partisan, you know, non-political issue Tony puts up on YouTube.
Who could possibly be against this bill?
Well, I'm sorry to put some politics into this, but I have a feeling that maybe a certain White House occupant who has made more than a billion dollars with his own cryptocurrency, which
seems an awful lot like a shell game to me, might be it.
And so Kelda, when we see what Congress was working on last week, and we know that, you know, Wisconsin Congressman Brian Stile was one of those leading the charge on this, how confident do you feel that what Congress and the Trump administration are doing will be helpful to you as state legislators or an impediment?
this absolutely corrupt regime in Washington is going to try to crack down on state's ability to protect consumers.
We have never seen a president monetize being in the White House the way that this president has.
And one of the ways that he's doing that is with crypto schemes and any type of financial asset that you might have, whether it's cash in the bank, whether it's jewelry or gold or stocks, bonds, real estate.
There there are regulatory guardrails in place even if you're in you know more speculative markets like early-stage investing or hedge funds private equity There are still rules in place and there are regulatory regimes that have to be followed and crypto really is the wild west and that is why it is the You know the gambling of choice the asset of choice for criminals and fraudsters and
you know, the idea that we should just sit by as people are scammed, I think is outrageous, right?
I mean, what is government for if we're not going to stop crime and keep people safe?
And that's where, when Congressman Fowle says, we want to spur innovation, development, and growth in crypto.
Again, the sense I get from you and others is saying, okay,
in the point where it's legal and does not become the Wild West.
And so I'm very thankful to see state-based legislation like this.
Senator Keldor-Royce of Madison, Representative Ryan Spaudy of Ash Wabanan, thank you very much for your time today.
We really appreciate
All right, have a wonderful day.
A local update is next for some of you.
And then in our next hour, Chad Holmes, Sean O'Malley, Joseph Pecky on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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Well, we normally in our homeroom segment on Wednesday mornings at 7 30 talk about public education, but public educations.
I don't know if you'd call it Super Bowl or maybe their Daytona 500.
Whatever it is is happening in Green Bay today up at Preble High School and Camden Hargrove from the Wisconsin Public Education Network joins us to talk all about today's summer summit 2025.
Camden, how are you?
Hey, I'm doing well.
Thank you for having me on.
That's wonderful to have you here.
You're working with some great people with the network.
Todd Alba being one of them.
He'll be doing his radio show live from the summer summit coming up this afternoon from two until four.
But let's start with the general overview.
This is the 11th annual summer summit.
But let's describe to folks more or less what the summer summit is that you hold and what you're holding there in Green Bay today.
Yeah, well like you said, it's the 11th annual summer summit.
So this is starting to become a great tradition that we have and we're at Preble High School today and we are coming together to talk about where we are the state of education right now and where we are post state budget where they absolutely took away
the needs that children
have,
right?
They did not give nearly enough money to help special education.
They are only planning to fund 45 and 47%.
And that is just not acceptable, especially when they're willing to give $30 million to vouchers.
We know that
our kids are the most important thing.
And so we're here to come together, realize that we do have each other and that there is strength in all of us being here together and learning, as well as then being able to teach people and grow and have.
workshops and sessions where people can
learn
about how to fight back against these vouchers, where people can learn about referendums and what goes into them, where we can talk about how to be allies to LGBTQ youth.
Yeah, and really just
grow together.
And the theme is building community through thriving public schools.
It is definitely something we've talked about with network folks before.
Just talking about the deep connection between public schools and their communities and that when public schools are harmed, the community is harmed overall.
I'm sure more people will be talking today about drawing that line between public schools and the health of our communities.
Yeah, yeah, and and we're gonna have over a hundred people here today here to Listen to that message and bring that back to their communities And so this isn't just going to help and impact the Green Bay school district we have people from all around the state coming and When we learn from each other we can grow and
build our communities.
And that's what is necessary right now.
We are going to be the people that do the work.
No
one is going to come to save us.
No one is going to come to bail us out of this.
It is our job.
We are here.
We have to do the work.
So that is why we're coming together.
That is why we're uniting the community and we're learning, we're growing, we're teaching, and we're working together.
There are several breakout sessions.
There is, as always, a School Finance 101 to explain the state's convoluted school funding process.
There is community engagement for public schools through referendum efforts.
That will include Lori Blakesley, who's been on the show before.
from the Green Bay Area Public Schools, Colleen Nowak from Depeer, Emily Pritzkow from the Wisconsin Building Trades Council, somebody that we've talked to before.
There will also be sessions on supporting new teachers, transformational community schools that give success to all.
There's also a wellness workshop for organizers, building resiliency, because let's face it,
You know, being an advocate for public schools is, it's a draining gig these days.
It's full time.
You got to learn to take care of yourself along the way.
Yeah, burnout is, burnout is real.
And like I said, all of us need to come together, right?
Well, you know, that, that can get exhausting if we just keep burning, keep burning, keep burning.
And so it's important to learn how to have self care, how to find what.
helps us thrive so we can make sure that we embrace that and work on that so we have enough of ourselves to give and enough energy to keep doing this.
There will also be supporting public schools in an age of disinformation with Christina Brie from the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
There will be a session called getting ready to run.
Some educators are thinking about being candidates next year and former legislator Christina Sanher, the executive director
of Wisconsin Progress along with training director Becky Rasmussen will be putting on that seminar as well and then you had that reception at Lambeau Field last evening so that had to be a really nice way to pun intended kick things
off.
Yeah I mean that's one great pun.
I will bring it back real quick to what you're talking about about running because it
lines right into what I was saying about it being about us, right?
And the people that run for school board, these are the people in our community, right?
These are previous teachers.
These are people that care about our kids and learning how to get into that and run is very
key.
One of many topics to be covered at the Summer Summit.
Camden Hargrove covering it for the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
Camden, thank you.
Have a great day.
Thank you so much.
You too.
All right.
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