Exposing the Voucher Price Tag (Hour 2)

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Basota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on this Wednesday morning, August 6th, 2025.

It's a beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake Basota, from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media radio network.

Catching us by podcasts, social media, however you got here.

Appreciate your watching, even jumping into the comment section.

Tony, right out of the gate.

Pat, Pat, Pat.

I'm hoping that's a cheer and I'm not being chided for something here.

But thanks for starting your day right here.

I got a question for you.

I got a question for Parker Olson, who produces the shindig down in Madison Studio A2.

Here's my question for you.

Are you tired of talking about the Brewers yet?

No, no, no, no, no, no the correct answer is no five games in a row The current winning streak is five and I love being able to say it the current winning streak is five It's just so it happens so often now.

I know it's it's it's very nice We'll get into their latest win over Atlanta coming up in just a bit How are things in Madison?

Are they are they a little hazy or foggy there like they they are here?

I think it's more haze than fog

Honestly,

I'm not really sure it was

too dark for me to really tell when

I was you know what it is It is absolutely that time again.

Yeah at this morning where it's like, you know now again by now It's 6 0 8, you know, it's it's light out, but you know now but not 5 30 now still not very light at

all.

No, and

I

will say I did go through a pretty big like Chanka or chunk of patch of fog and

I

thought my windshield was like fogging up.

I like

You know, when the temperature

in the car isn't

quite right, whatever.

Yeah, I was confused.

Well, it makes sense because that that whole Madison area, I mean, we we talk about the isthmus and the two lakes on either side.

If you were to restore it to its natural state, it would all be Swampland down there by and large and.

That's the way it was sold.

If anybody's never looked into the real story of how Madison came to be the capital of Wisconsin, that it was basically one big corrupt land deal, that the guy that owned most of the land on the isthmus sold each of the legislators a bill of goods, promised them property and everything.

And yeah, eventually it all got cleared out.

Eventually it looks really nice now.

But yeah, it's an interesting story.

Yeah, you really want to read through that sometime.

But because of that, you know, it being in the lowlands there, you definitely get those patches of fog.

You know, one of my favorite plane rides was actually a short plane ride from Minneapolis to Chicago or vice versa, flying over Wisconsin.

And it was one of those very early morning flights.

And you know how when you're in a fog bank, I mean, you just feel like it goes on forever, right?

You're just enveloped by it.

If you ever get a chance to see fog from, from up high like that, I don't know where that flight is.

Let's, let's say it's 20,000 feet up, whatever it is.

And you just see the patches of fog.

Now the patch of, again, will be large enough for like an entire, say small city that might be in a river valley or something like that.

But then there's no fog for one.

Then there's another patch in some more low line areas.

And it is just that it's beautiful from up high.

But you can just see how the people in each one of those little foggy blobs are thinking, oh my god, it must be foggy everywhere.

Nope, just you.

That is a weird concept to me is that weather is different.

in different places.

Well, in short order, you know, yeah, and especially, especially something like fog where, you know, the lowline stuff, you know, really does depend on where you are at any given point in time here.

So yeah, it was a little foggy this morning, not as smoky.

We've got a south wind, a blowing right now.

Brittany Merleau's forecast for the state says that the wildfire smoke continues to clear as another system moves closer, dragging in the heat and humidity behind it.

Active weather will start up again, she says, as we head toward the weekend.

So for today, increasing cloudiness and a chance for drizzle highs today statewide in the low to mid 80s, the south wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.

For tonight, mostly cloudy scattered showers are possible late.

a low tonight in the low to mid 60s and a southeast wind at five to 10 miles an hour.

Now the rain parker is going to be welcomed, I think by a lot of folks, you know, light rain, not the flash flooding kind.

I noticed yesterday in the farm field across from us, they've got one of those big, you know, irrigation sprinkler systems for for the fields.

And it was turned on for the first time.

this year, this season for us.

And it, you know, does what it does.

It's quite the little marvel there, how you can water, you know, an entire massive cornfield and get it all done.

And I want to make clear that I'm talking, what I'm about to say did not happen yesterday.

But if you ever passed by those big farm irrigation systems, and they're kind of, they kind of overshot the runway.

And if you're driving past them,

And you happen to have a convertible or a motorcycle or something.

You get a free car wash.

You ever drive through one of those?

I

don't think I have, although I 100% can see that happening.

That being way more water than I would want to my car.

Yeah.

Again, if your car's all closed up, it's kind of funny.

It's like, oh, he, he, the, you know, like, like any other neighbor who sprinklers is, is again overshooting its mark.

But when it's a one of those big farm ones, uh, that's a lot of water.

coming out at once.

And hopefully, these don't have to get used too often.

Hopefully, we get back to some more balanced precipitation.

But I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I've just seen the latest crop progress reports.

And I mean, as you can imagine, things are growing like crazy here.

Yeah, it's been raining.

You know, this morning, I love watermelon.

I didn't realize how much I love watermelon.

There's random?

Okay,

go ahead and tie that back to

this.

Go for it.

Farm.

I don't know.

They're growing.

That's all I got for you.

That's the segue.

But I took

like

four

pieces of watermelon this morning.

The trees, the landscaping, the grass, but I mean the crops as well.

This has been an amazing growing season.

The balance between the rain that we got earlier and then, you know, the sunshine, the warm temperatures and everything, it is to this point, I hasten to say, looking like it's going to be a great season.

Now again, you know, other things can happen, heat, hail, given all that, but boy, things are looking beautiful out there.

I mean, pretty much all of the second crop of hay is in.

About half of the third crop of hay is getting done by a lot of farmers out there.

The corn is coming together nicely.

And I'm saying all these things that maybe you just heard in the last hour.

Maybe you're at one of the civic media stations that has the Midwest Farm Report from five to six a.m.

If not, stick around because the short version of the Midwest Farm Report is coming up in just under 20 minutes here.

But let's get back to the brewers.

Their win last night.

Over Atlanta, the final score was seven to two.

In winning, the team extended its current winning streak to five games.

They still have Major League Baseball's

best record.

They now lead the Chicago Cubs in the National League Central Division by three games.

And that, that feels nice.

When I, when I asked, are you tired of hearing about the Brewers yet?

Roger jumped right up on Facebook.

Here's his answer.

Nope.

I was listening to a replay to a Chicago radio sports show and those hosts were vicious to the Cubs.

Um, and he also adds listening to you.

Uh, he put in another comment quickly.

Roger says, I could eat watermelon forever.

Yeah.

So there you go, Parker.

It's not

that random.

Do you put anything on your watermelon?

I do sprinkle a little salt on mine.

I used to.

I don't anymore.

I used to do a little bit of salt, but now I'm just going straight watermelon and I'm very happy about it.

The lowly cubs.

Tony puts the lowly cubs, you mean?

Yes.

Well, come on, they're in second place.

And again, we still have plenty of baseball yet to go.

I wish I had to save the clip.

I have to go find it.

We're going to play it again sometime.

But the clip from when he mentioned a Chicago radio, a Chicago sports talk station.

The day the Brewers traded Savali to the White Sox and we got Andrew Vaughn.

They must have thought they fleeced us.

Oh, they just thought that seals the deal.

They're winning the World Series.

Well, not the White Sox, but they did not like Andrew Vaughn.

It was clear they were not a fan.

They were happy to get Aaron Savalli.

They thought the Brewers were so getting the short end of the stick on this.

I have to find that clip at some point and play it.

Andrew Vaughn singled in two of those runs yesterday.

His current hitting streak is now at 11 games.

Of course.

Matching the longest of his career.

Freddie Peralta allowed only one run and four hits over five innings of work.

And then there's Isaac Collins, who we now have to introduce as National League Rookie of the Year candidate, Isaac Collins, drove in two more runs on two hits.

I thought, like a month ago, I was thinking, man, maybe Caleb Durbin can be the rookie of the year.

Uh-huh like and now maybe it could be as a Collins.

Yeah, Ms.

Rowski stays healthy and gets to play all the year.

Maybe it could be him I don't know There's so many good guys that are so young which has been a theme for the last I don't know four years now for the Brewers It's been like it's

rookie

after rookie

It's been really great, especially when you consider that the roster looks a lot different now than the way that the season began.

That's okay.

Jose Quintana is going to start game three against Atlanta tonight.

Once again, pregame begins at 540 this evening on Civic Media Stations in Richland Center.

We're seeing Kenosha, Hayward and Park Falls.

Then tomorrow is a travel day for the Brewers.

They come back home and they'll have a weekend series against the New York Mets.

That should that should be a very good one as well.

Go meet the Mets.

I will say I

hope that pitching does not.

I don't know how much of the game you watched last night, Pat, but

that was a good, a good part of it with rain throughout it all.

Yeah, they kept

playing.

Yeah, I will say that might have been the most painful win that the Brewers have had in a while just because the pitching was just it was such a grind.

Freddie Peralta, I love you, man.

Good God just throw strikes.

I know

he works harder than you'd want him to yes and It the fact that he still made it through five innings is a pretty good thing.

I mean, yeah again

Old man alert here.

I remember when picture complete games were like the expectation.

Yeah.

You were supposed to pitch nine innings.

Your arm hasn't fallen off.

You're fine, you know.

Well, they used to be more efficient

anyway.

Yeah.

Now look, a lot of people very happy that Freddie Peralta got through five innings.

I'm just saying my natural bias is if a starting pitcher does anything less than six innings, there's something wrong.

But now we refer to six innings as a quality start.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I hope

for five four.

I'm like, All right, sure.

Yeah.

Let's tell you what else is coming up on the program today.

Look, we're going to talk about Ed Prane again, who was on the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board a couple years back, and then stayed well past his term.

What he and Scott Walker and legislative Republicans did back then to sabotage the Natural Resources Board.

That was not politics as usual.

It was conduct that should disqualify people from ever being entrusted by voters with elected or appointed offices again.

And we're going to have an update on a lawsuit over text messages that led some of Walker's appointees to stay in place after their terms had expired simply to obstruct appointments from Governor Tony Evers.

In our homeroom segment, we're going to talk to leaders in Green Bay about what they did and how you can follow their lead in your hometown and push for better taxpayer transparency when it comes to the true cost of voucher schools and your property tax bill.

It is also our climate check day with Melissa Baldoff.

We'll have a guest, Casey Hicks of Wisconsin Conservation Voters.

That's because Donald Trump's environmental protection agency, and I got to put protection in quotation marks now, has rescinded a landmark policy acknowledgement that man-made pollution from fossil fuels is a danger to human health.

And we'll check in with James Kelly, Jimmy Koska, Earl Ingram, and of course, Melissa Kay, to see how Leeloo the Pigeon is doing.

It's all coming to you from the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Remember, you can get our daily newsletter, head over to upnorthnewswi.com.

We've got newsletters that come out on weekdays and of course my Sunday morning one as well about Wisconsin politics.

And let's see, Henry the intern tells us about a northern Wisconsin bear rescued from a jar mishap.

You might have heard us talking about that recently with with Jimmy Koska.

I think James Kelly's going to mention it as well.

About a young black bear who had been roaming around Bayfield, Douglas and Sawyer counties with its head stuck in a plastic jar.

It is now safe and back in the wild.

We've got that story in our newsletter.

A story on how Justin Vernon of Boney Vare, the Eau Claire native, has gradually but radically helped transform downtown Eau Claire.

downtown Eau Claire looks amazing in a way that I would not have necessarily thought would happen if you'd have asked me 25 years ago and Justin Vernon and others to be sure have been part of an amazing rebuilding.

of downtown Eau Claire.

So we have that story in our newsletter.

And then if you missed our interview yesterday with the mayor of Superior Jim Payne, well, we're going to play part of it back coming up here in less than 15 minutes.

But also in our newsletter is a story about it because you can also see an article on our website about how the city has found success building out its broadband network.

How was it able to do that?

Joe Biden.

and the American Rescue Plan.

And that's always been the problem is that we talk about these shovel ready jobs.

A lot of things aren't shovel ready, but at least if you've got the plans and the works, you can make things happen faster than drawing things up from scratch.

And Superior was ready.

They just were in need of funding.

And when the American Rescue Plan came along, the work was able to get done.

You'll hear from Mayor Payne all about that coming up in just a bit.

In national news, I was looking to give you an update on what's happening in Texas, where Republicans in the legislature are engaged in perhaps the most blatant corruption of the year, at least at the state level, in redrawing the maps mid-decade in order to add five Republican seats to Congress.

As I'm looking at the New York Times here,

I mean, it is, there's a story about California Democrats looking to redraw their house map, but not much there at all about the situation in Texas and calling out what is happening there.

Instead, we get this story about the president of the United States.

The headline is, up on the roof, Trump surveys the home he's making his own.

Katie Rogers is the reporter, and the story starts like this.

President Trump was on the roof.

As a confused group of reporters assembled below him on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump strolled around on top of the White House, occasionally stopping to take questions, but only to tell his audience he was taking a little walk in service of his latest home improvement project, a large ballroom.

It's just another way to spend my money for the country, Mr. Trump shouted.

He was getting a bird's-eye view of where the $200 million White House ballroom he has proposed building would go.

And on it goes, just making it sound like, you know, just another day in the Trump presidency.

Now, I know the late night comedians talked about this last night, but I'm going to mention it as well.

If Joe Biden were wandering up on the White House roof and muttering about building a, you know, a $200 million ballroom next to it, what do you think the media coverage would be like about that?

Similarly, if Joe Biden or if Barack and Michelle Obama had paved over the Rose Garden.

You think we'd be hearing more about it than we are right now because that's what's there right now in the Rose Garden is basically a concrete slab.

In both cases, the ballroom and the slab so that the president can have more parties.

There's real things to be done.

like attacking the corruption in Texas.

Listen to one of the Texas Democrats who left the state to hold off the gerrymandering proposal there.

This is Texas legislator Ann Johnson asked by a CBS reporter about Republican claims that Democrats are abandoning their jobs.

Listen to her answer.

You know that Republicans in the state, Republicans out of the state, look at what you guys are doing and thinking you're running away from the fight.

You're running away from your jobs by not being an Austin today.

Yeah, no.

Abandoning your job is going to Cancun in the middle of a deadly freeze, right?

Abandoning your job is cutting health care when people need access.

Abandoning your job is cutting public education when we already have one of the worst education systems in the nation.

What we are doing is the fundamental protection by our founding fathers in the Texas Constitution when

Donald Trump called Georgia Republicans and said, I just need you to find me 11,000 votes.

They said, no, sir, that's a step too far.

But when he called Texas Republicans and said, I need you to steal me five seats, they said, just you know, I work for you.

Well, it doesn't work for us as Texas Democrats.

And it shouldn't.

Again, listen to that.

He called Georgia said, I want you to dig up.

Find me 11,000 votes.

I don't care how corrupt it is.

And the Georgia Republican said, no, we can't do that.

Texas, meanwhile, was like, sure, sure, boss, whatever it is that you want.

Because what the boss wants, this party is willing to give him.

And unfortunately, far too much of the national media is not holding Trump to account on this.

As the New York Times article continued to go on about, you know, the White House changes that Trump wants.

Katie Rogers did say.

This line a White House that is rapidly changing from the taxpayer funded people's house to one that resembles one of the Louis the sixth Louis the 14th properties in Trump's portfolio And I thought that was particularly telling because yeah, this is a guy that wants to put a gaudy gilded ballroom Attached to the White House to go with all of his other golden urns and baskets and coasters and all of it has his last name and

That's all fine, but I'm going to close with this, and it's a social media post by an account labeled Big Tucson Dad, and he writes this.

Listen, man, if you want to live in the Palace of Versailles, that's fine, but you can't act surprised when the people eventually start sharpening the guillotine.

We'll hear from Superior Mayor Jim Payne coming up next.

You're up north.

So we asked in our Sunday morning newsletter, Sunday mornings with Pat Crite, we'll sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com, should blue states match red states to offset gerrymandering?

You know, what they're talking about in California right now is if Texas is gonna

steal five states or five seats in Congress through corrupt cartography, should California do the same or not sink to that level?

Plenty of answers looking at at the question from different perspectives coming into us and you can get our question of the week first every Sunday.

by heading to UpNorthNewsWI.com and clicking subscribe in the top banner.

Tomorrow on the program, we will be talking to our friend Lou Ann Bird.

She will tell us all about that town hall the other day with Congressman Brian Stile getting an earful.

And again, I would contend that while people want to give props to Congressman Stile for holding an in-person town hall, he also tried to spew the same old garbage, you know, talking points about, you know, these things aren't actually cuts, et cetera, et cetera.

You don't get points for holding the town hall if you're not going to be up front about what it is that you did.

So we'll talk to Luanne Burt about that tomorrow.

Sharita Booker will talk about events coming up this weekend.

Chad Holmes will be along.

Joseph Pecky.

Sean O'Malley will talk about your money and the markets and so much more all coming up.

By the way, in terms of what's coming up this weekend, we know the Wisconsin State Fair is still going on and Sharita tends to talk about some of the local festivities.

Let me tell you about county fairs because two of them start up today and run through Sunday.

There's the Clark County, Clark County Fair in Nielsville, the Lincoln County Fair in Merrill, and then starting tomorrow, the Bayfield County Fair in Washburn, the Pierce County Fair in Ellsworth, the Rusk County Fair in Ladysmith, and the Vilas County Fair in Eagle River.

And then, I mean, all kinds of local festivals.

There's Pure Water Days here in Chippewa Falls coming up this weekend, Irish Fest in La Crosse.

There's Burger Fest in Seymour.

There's the Muskie Jamboree in Boulder Junction.

And that's where we're going to transition here to hear from Superior Mayor Jim Payne.

Because when he was on the program yesterday, if you missed it during their eight o'clock hour, I mentioned Boulder Junction because we'd done a story about that community how a couple of years back, they

worked for a way to gather grants and other funding to help essentially entice a private internet service provider to come to the area.

They laid the fiber optic network.

And now that company is able to provide internet service that Boulder Junction wouldn't have otherwise.

I started by asking Mayor Payne the difference between what Boulder Junction was doing versus what they did in Superior with a

a network that is owned by the city itself.

Here's what he said.

Well, we're certainly not the first to recognize the need for high-speed reliable and affordable access to the internet, but we're the first city in Wisconsin, the first community of any kind, to create a publicly owned

Open access broadband network.

There is no other network of our kind in Wisconsin And it's a unique public private partnership where we own the actual network the physical network And we sell internet access to private internet service providers who in turn sell it to customers so they compete

freely on our network the same way multiple delivery services UPS FedEx US Postal Service compete on the roads that the city builds.

So it combines public infrastructure with private competition.

And that I'm glad to hear that explanation because when I first heard about it, it made me wonder about a law that the Republican led legislature passed several years ago that essentially was a ban on

municipal networks, especially Wi-Fi networks, again, not wanting, you know, the public sector to compete with the private sector.

A lot of people were upset by that saying, hey, look, in some of these smaller communities, the private sector isn't coming up here anytime soon.

They're only going to want to serve the big cities.

So why block local units of government that want to provide this kind of service?

It sounds like you have found the right path through of you're not the internet provider.

but you have made it easier for the private sectors to come up here and extend service that they otherwise wouldn't do on their own.

Does that sound about right?

almost

the biggest difference is people don't have to come here to provide the internet.

People are already here that can provide the internet.

So because all we require people to do is be an ISP, they don't have to own this gigantic physical network, a multimillion dollar investment, that allows small businesses to go into business opening, selling the internet to customers.

So one of our first ISPs came from Duluth, Minnesota, right next door, and is now headquartered in Superior.

It's a really small

They only serve this community on our network.

So what we did is rather than have a giant monopoly, which was what almost every city in the country has, selling us internet at whatever price they want.

Our monopoly spectrum, they actually raised the price of the internet.

during the pandemic.

That was a kind of, we just saw that as unconscionable.

How can you exploit people that way?

So what we did is we combined what I thought is the best of the political philosophies on the left and the right.

We believe in private sector competition to lower prices and increase innovation, but the public should own infrastructure.

We shouldn't allow the private sector to control infrastructure that is vital to modern life.

And so that's what we did.

We just combined the two and we're two weeks in and it's already a hit.

And is it a network that is accessible to everybody in the superior area now or is it starting in one area and building out?

No, we started in a pilot area one neighborhood.

It's actually my neighborhood.

I'm talking to you on it right now and the

So it was meant to show skeptics that this could actually work.

One of the early successes, though, is our construction costs actually came in so far under budget that we're building out much faster than we had originally planned.

So we will be lighting up the next neighborhood already this fall.

And how is it that the city was able to afford to do its part of this public-private partnership?

Joe Biden, really.

The ARPA dollars that came to every community in the country.

What a lot of people forget is that

the ARPA dollars, which have been used for so many different things across the country, were primarily meant for utility infrastructure.

And the first utility described in that law is access to broadband.

And so we just took them at their word and we we use it to build a network.

And so the first $5 million plus of this network was covered by that bill.

So President Biden had this American recovery plan and had a mission for it.

And you took that literally and seriously and made it work.

It sounds like perhaps the most textbook case of ARPA funds doing what they were intended to do at the time.

Exactly.

In fact, we've been trying to build this network.

since before the pandemic.

But the pandemic proved every single argument we made correct.

When we had to send people home from work, send children home from school, and they did not have access to the internet, that meant they didn't go to school, Pat.

That's what it meant.

And people are still trying to pretend like that didn't happen.

We lost a generation of kids that should have been educated and weren't because they didn't have access to this vital public infrastructure.

The Biden administration gave us money

to solve that problem, make sure that never happened again.

And that's what we spent it on.

That's incredible.

And you said another neighbor is coming.

How long do you think it might take for most if not all of the city to be served?

That's

a political question.

Yes, me, I'd like to get it done in the next two years.

But, you know, we have to prove that it's a success.

I think we're already doing that.

Like I said,

We need to get to a 10% take rate.

10% of the area should be customers by the end of the year.

I think we're going to cross that in the next month.

And if we can show real success by the fall of next year, I think we'll have justified moving quite a bit faster than our original forecast of five to seven years.

Superior Mayor Jim Payne with a great update from way up north.

Jim, thank you so much.

Good to talk to you again, Mr. Mayor.

Have a wonderful day.

Always fun.

Thanks, Pat.

And if you want to learn more about the story, if you want to look back at some of the things that he had to say, head over to our website, upnorthnewswi.com.

It's the first story on our website right now all about what they're doing in Superior and what President Biden's American Rescue Plan did for the country.

And we'll just talk more about that again another time because you don't need to hear that rant again.

The difference between

Joe Biden's investments and Donald Trump's cuts.

Let me make one quick correction on the brewers.

The brewers lead over the Cubs in the division as four games.

I was reading some old associated press copy that said the brewers entered the game with a three game lead, but the Cubs then lost to the Reds.

And so it is now a four game lead from Jane and Madison on the text line.

Kudos to Superior.

Their public infrastructure philosophy should be a model for all communities.

Thank you for the message.

Yes, couldn't agree more.

Let's shift gears and talk about a story that I first noticed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel written by Ariela Lopez, the headline, environmental law firm celebrates a win in public records dispute involving DNR's Fred Preen.

He was, you'll recall, the member of the state natural resources board whose term had expired, but he refused to step down.

He seemed to have discovered this loophole that said, well, if the state Senate hasn't confirmed your replacement, you just stay on.

But what if the state Senate doesn't have any intention of confirming the replacement?

What if, say, Devin Lemahue is the Senate Republican leader and the Democrat is now Tony Evers, the governor is a Democrat?

What if the Republican State Senate makes it a habit not to confirm appointees?

How would Fred Preen know that?

Well, it turns out that there were text messages between him and Scott Walker and lobbyists and Devon Lemahue and others and those text messages came up as part of a court case with Midwest environmental advocates that had made a request as part of the discovery phase of a court case and eventually

pre-released the text messages and the emails.

They showed that there was this for lack of a better term and I don't think there is a better term conspiracy on this to obstruct a sitting governor from being able to make the appointments that he or she has the right to make.

They

won the election, in this case Tony Evers and has the power to confirm.

Power to appoint the Senate in abusing its power to confirm.

And there's still something like 100 or more Governor Evers appointments who still haven't been confirmed.

It's taking advantage of a loophole of the system.

It's perverting the advising consent process.

Well, in the meantime, Midwest Environmental Advocates, as part of the lawsuit, also wanted damages, essentially, to have, you know, the legal bills paid.

The initial court said no, but now that has changed and appeals court has ruled that the group can seek relief in a lawsuit that was originally filed in October of 2021 against preen, the DNR, the Natural Resources Board, and so the attorneys for that environmental group.

say that, you know, there's a reason they pursued this.

It's not just to have their legal bills paid, that their attorney Rob Lee said in a news release, the ability to recover attorney's fees is vital for journalists and for other groups and individuals who are forced to take legal action to secure their rights under the public records law.

And it gets us to this notion of things that we take for granted.

I mean, the biggest of which is democracy.

Don't get me wrong.

Too many people are definitely taking democracy for granted in this country.

But the same goes for public records.

And the same goes for paying the bill if you're obstructing public access to those records.

That is real damage and had MEA not been allowed

to look for legal relief in court the way that they are able to now, it simply would have emboldened more politicians later on to stall, to run out the clock on appointments, on public records requests, on doing the things that voters expect them to do.

So this is a very positive development that we hope is one more step in returning norms to a process where voters can again trust the people who are both elected

and appointed to serve them in state government.

Today's history lesson is next as we always do.

Mornings powered by Up North News here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You broke my heart because I couldn't dance.

You didn't even want me around.

And now I'm back to let you know I can really shake them down.

Welcome to today's history lesson.

This of course would be the contours from 1962, but we're mentioning it

at the top of today's history lesson because it peaked on the charts again on this day in 1988 because it was on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, of course.

Today's history lesson on a Wednesday is always includes Melissa Kay.

Yes, she's here from WFHR, WIRI in Wisconsin Rapids, and Lelu, I assume the pigeon is somewhere just off camera.

Melissa, good

morning.

They're hanging over there.

Good morning.

Okay.

Melissa also put up a social media reel of Lelu getting their nails trimmed and basically just being the whole process.

I mean, you looked, it reminded me a lot of Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, and just the way that you would approach and then catch it.

And you're saying all the right sweet things to it.

Like, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you.

That's my worst Australian accent ever.

But, you know, there was an Australian accent in there.

I like the crocodile hunter.

You were there to take care of it and that was a beautiful thing.

It was a nice reel that you put

together.

Thank

you.

Things going well so far?

Yeah.

Yeah, I actually put up a second reel about them exploring their pigeon playpen.

Yes, because I built a little little area here for them to come out and be out.

And yeah, now they're mad at me for touching them

or they're

mad for being on social media.

I'm not sure.

I don't know if it's a social media because after all, Lulu's first appearance was was one week ago on this very radio show when Lulu started flapping around to the music.

So.

We'll see how that goes.

All right, let's get back to today's history lesson.

Chubby Checker performed this hit of his for the first time this day in 1960.

The song, of course, would go to number one and start a huge dance craze this day in 1960 when he did it for the first time on Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show.

This week in 1981, Stevie Nicks released her first solo album, Bella Donna, apart from her work with Fleetwood Mac.

Did

that work with Lelou by talking about the white wing dove?

Anything?

I

always thought she said one wing, though.

I thought two, and I thought no.

I think we joked about that on this show.

I think we did.

Many times, a bear flying in circles with one wing.

Nothing from Leeloo?

All right.

Bella Donna, big first solo album for Stevie Nicks.

It had Stop Dragging My Heart Around, Leather and Lace, and more.

Happy birthday to Jerry Hallwell.

You know her best as Ginger Spice.

She is 53 today.

Let's also wish a happy birthday to singer-songwriter Pat McDonald.

He was the co-founder of the group Timbuk3 and Born in Green Bay this day in 1951.

He formed the duo with his then-wife Barbara K. McDonald in Madison in 1984, and of course that was part of their

Big hit, the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

It won them the 1987 Grammy for Best New Artist.

In 2005, he co-founded Steelbridge Songfest, an annual not-for-profit benefit concert and songwriting festival that's held in his hometown of Sturgeon Bay.

And 10 years ago today, Broadway was rocked by a new hip-hop-infused musical based on the life of one of our founding fathers.

And Leslie Odom Jr., who played Aaron Burr in Hamilton, is 44 years old today.

Melissa, getting back to what's happening, there's got to be more going on in Wisconsin Rapids.

But besides the adventures of Lelu, what are you guys working on up there?

We're gearing up for our 85th anniversary with a parking lot party.

We're pulling out all the stops.

We got food trucks.

We got dessert.

We had part games for the kids.

We might even have like some axe throwing and some VR inside going on.

But the big thing that we're doing is we're gathering recipes because we're gonna, from listeners, we're gonna recreate our cookbook.

We've done this over the years, I guess.

And with our 85th anniversary coming up in November, we're collecting the recipes now to put them in our cookbook.

And we're

having a staff

Dessert cookoff that people get to come and try our desserts and vote on the winner.

I love it.

I love it And again, this is not a big thing anymore, but boy radio and then some TV stations I'm sure but back in the day when you put together let that annual cookbook I mean it was a big deal In

the community

people wanted people want to know what what is Edna making there around the corner?

They finally

got to see what was in her, you know

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, there was some apple pie in the hash brown cat, whatever was in there.

They had to make it work.

Now, savory sweet.

Yep.

Exactly.

See, you get it.

85 years of service to the community.

That is just amazing that we're getting to that point now with radio stations.

Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

And a lot of our listeners have been listening like since they were kids.

That's

I remember mom listening to over the back fence.

I'm sitting drinking coffee and oh, sure.

Yeah.

And it's nice to be to again, be bringing back more of that local community radio where, you know, civic media has really been a leader in that in communities all over Wisconsin.

And so nice that you're doing that, Melissa.

The other fun thing that kids can come in and be a radio announcer.

Oh, love it.

That's awesome.

Do they get like a little Panasonic tape recorder like I used to talk into all the time?

No, they get a

USB wristband.

Okay, that work with their recording on

it.

All right.

It's also today's National Rupert Float Day.

This is Jamaica's Independence Day, and this is Clutter Awareness Day.

So, Melissa, be aware of the clutter around Lelu today.

I'm aware.

We're very, very aware.

Thank you.

Have a wonderful day and

a

great party.

You too.

All right.

Thanks.

More coming up here on These Mornings.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Good morning.

It is 7 0 6.

It's nice to have you here up north on this Wednesday, August 6, 2025.

Parker Olson is producing this show down in Madison Studio A2 in meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here as well.

Brittany, we were talking about the.

Musical Hamilton, opening 10 years ago today.

Have you seen it?

Are you a Hamilton fan?

I have not seen it.

No,

but I

would love to.

I

would love to.

You would love it.

What I learned over the news break here is that Parker here, he was in high school when this musical was peaking and makes a unique claim about his knowledge of Hamilton and that claim Parker would be.

I'm pretty sure I know just about every word.

to that entire show, I think.

And so since we don't have a guest for, you know, another 28 minutes or so here, we're now going to turn the show over to Parker and he's going to recite Hamilton, the clean, clean, take out all the naughty words.

So we like to take,

take it away, buddy.

How does that?

Oh, wait, see.

Never mind.

In the very first line, there's words we can't say.

So I guess we'll just have to go to weather instead.

How does it?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, see?

Yeah, you got it.

First line.

Yep.

We'll come back to it.

Shoot.

We'll workshop this.

In the meantime, we have been talking about the wildfire smoke, which by the way, the advisories for at least parts of Wisconsin.

This is the 23rd day, I believe, of advisories exceeding the record from 2023.

Not a record you really want to break, but we do appear to be on the tail end of it, Brittany.

Let's

hope so.

This morning, it kind

of went backwards this morning.

Areas that aren't even in an air quality alert are seeing some of the highest levels throughout the state right now.

Just south of Madison, you're in a red.

unhealthy level at the moment.

It's orange, unhealthy for sensitive, pretty much all throughout central Wisconsin, northern Wisconsin, and all of eastern Wisconsin, still seeing that wildfire smoke, that fog, that thick haze out there.

Hopes are that by this afternoon, it should clear the entire state.

We've got winds starting to move out of the south.

They're starting to get feisty.

So they should gust around 15 to 20, hopefully miles per hour this afternoon, kicking out that air mass and bringing in a new one.

But the new one comes with rain, more humidity and mugginess and of course, hot temperatures as we push towards the weekend.

So changing weather patterns completely here as the jet stream starts to lift north.

We are looking at a low pressure just off to the west that is wrapping in a warm front to the western parts of the state right now.

So that's where those south winds are coming from.

And today we are going to hit the low to mid 80s.

So getting a little bit warmer there.

We will become mostly cloudy because we do have rain on the way.

Light rain and drizzle is possible today, kind of working its way throughout the state.

And then overnight, we got another round coming through with some more scattered showers, maybe some rumbles of thunder, no severe weather to worry about just yet.

And of course, as we go into tomorrow, highs will be in the low to mid 80s.

And we've got the mugginess seeping in at that point.

It's going to get very hot and humid.

Temperatures nearing 90 degrees on Friday and Saturday.

and dew points in those 70s, so it's going to be feeling closer to those mid to upper 90s and then the cold front hits.

That'll be Saturday and into Sunday.

That's where the severe weather chance moves in and some heavy rain that could cause some flash flooding.

So much to watch over the next few days here.

Good morning from Tigerton, writes Rob on YouTube.

It's partly cloudy with light fog and 58 degrees, still very smoky.

Yesterday I got four yards mode west of Tigerton and had no breakdowns, which is something we always like to see.

I went to the Tigerton library after work to get the latest information on Highway 29 plans to put into my Highway 29 scrapbook.

and then had tacos sponsored by Tigerton Main Street Incorporated.

Yesterday was his sister Debbie and her husband Kevin's 30th wedding anniversary, some lawns to mow and then a doctor's appointment in Shawno and here's a traffic update from Tigerton.

Beginning August 11th, there will be road work along 29 Westbound between the Wolf River Bridge and the Highway 22 interchange.

It'll be down to one lane in each direction and the Highway 22 interchange ramps will be closed until late October.

Take note.

I know.

We would do more of these, but given what construction season is like in Wisconsin, that would take the whole three hours.

So we're just going to put them in from the Tigerton area.

If you want to add your own to the comment section, that's fine as well.

Hey, Brittany, thanks so much.

We'll talk to you in our next hour.

Sounds good.

See you.

All right.

A reminder that you can always sign up for our newsletter up north news wi.com, including our Sunday morning newsletter about Wisconsin politics.

And we have a question of the week this week that asks, how should blue states respond to the red state gerrymandering going on in Texas?

Coming up across the civic media radio network later today.

Well, of course, you've got Matt and air on air, which follows this program from nine to 11.

Political strategist Joseph Pecky will be joining Jane and Greg just after nine

30.

And then in the 10 o'clock hour, Darren Van Ruden, president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.

Again, Darren Van Ruden, not to be confused with Derek Van Orden, the congressman, who is decidedly not working in line with things the way the Wisconsin Farmers Union is.

The Todd Alba Show is on from two to four this afternoon.

and I'll be making an appearance there in the two o'clock hour and maybe Trig V. Olson from the Lincoln Project.

I know that he is traveling, so he may or may not be checking in.

He's so far away right now that we may actually have him on this show tomorrow morning, Trig V. Olson, because we can't get him to wake up.

It's 7am in Wisconsin, but it'll be well past that where he is.

So we might have a Trigvielson sighting, if not this afternoon, then tomorrow.

And then Jim Santel is the guest host on the Maggie Dawn Show, starting at four o'clock this afternoon.

Hey, Peach Wabba's got a couple of guests this evening as well at 6.30.

He'll catch up with musician and photographer Chris Rogowski and then Madison film critic Rob Thomas.

at 720.

So much to see, so much to hear across the Civic Media radio network, you can see more over at their website, civicmedia.us.

We've been talking more sports lately than we otherwise normally would.

That's what happens when your team is on another winning streak.

This one is five games after the Brewers beat up on Atlanta again last night, seven to two.

So the winning streak is at five.

The lead over the Cubs is now four, a four game lead in the National League Central Division.

Freddie Peralta win five innings, giving up only one run on four hits.

Andrew Vaughn singled in two runs and he extended his hitting streak to 11, matching his career high.

And National League Rookie of the Year candidate Isaac Collins drove in two runs on two hits.

Jose Quintana will start game three and once again pregame at 5.40 this evening on several civic media stations.

Then a travel day tomorrow as the Brewers come home and will have a weekend series against the Mets.

Do we think the radio station tickets for the Brewers, those nice club seats, do we think they're all probably all snapped up by

now?

I do believe they're all snapped up.

I think, oh, yeah, it was whenever you were here.

So like two weeks ago,

I

think I asked Luke for some tickets.

Might have been for this weekend.

And he said, no, how about the end?

How about no?

How about no?

Yeah, it's slim picking, I believe.

Well, that's what happens if you want to go to a White Sox game.

I mean, there's tickets.

If you want to go to a Twins game, it's already tough enough to be a fan of a sports team that is not doing well.

In the social media era,

you at least can laugh through the tears.

The memes that have been put up, the TikTok videos that have been put up by Twins fans after the ownership had a fire sale, you know, last week.

I mean, what was it?

10 out of the 26 players.

10 at yes.

We're traded away in some way, shape or form.

So you've got like the, you know, the John Travolta one from.

Pulp Fiction or, I think it's Pulp Fiction.

He's just looking around the room, like looking,

is

anybody here?

And of course they put him in Target Field.

Looking around, does anybody hear from this team?

You've got from the Fresh Prince, when Will Smith comes down into the family home and like all the furniture is gone and everybody's gone, like where did they go?

No shortage of movie clips that point out just how hard it is to be a twins fan this year anymore.

I feel

bad.

Good baseball.

We don't have to feel bad.

No, I

for the twin.

I don't care about here.

Here are the teams I don't like the Cubs and the Cardinals.

Oh, that's a short list.

I think that.

Well, it's far like that I care about not liking.

Those are the

only

ones I don't love the Yankees.

But

I think the only the only team I would say I don't like in baseball would be the White Sox because they had is he still there?

Is he gone now?

The that announcer of theirs?

a Hawk Harrelson or something like that.

I mean, just

it was

him and another announcer.

And it's just that, you know, that Chicago tough guy thing where they just they just dump on all the other teams.

They can't

just

call the game.

They always felt the need to punch down back when they thought they were all tough.

And then, of course, the White Sox, you know, before the Brewers were big rivals with the Cubs.

The Brewers were in the American League, and it was the White Sox games that got particularly nasty.

I mean, in the couple of years before the Brewers switched from the American and the National League, those games, I'm not saying they were all bench clearing brawls, but they got to be tense at times.

Interesting, I didn't

know

that.

And either way, you had to put up with Chicago fans coming up to Milwaukee, and that's...

That's a thing.

That is a whole thing.

Chicago sports fans are an interesting breed.

You know what though?

Over time.

I mean, we used to say this about Bears fans too, but you know, when you spend enough time in the basement, you're eventually a little bit more humbled when you're able to, you know, come out of the basement and meet up with the rest of the folks.

Bears fans have been

better behaved.

I'm not, I'm not going to say well behaved.

Don't get me wrong.

They've been

better, better behaved.

Roger putting up on Facebook here.

Hawks partner was Tom Pechorek.

Yeah, it was him and there was, uh, was it John Rooney for a while was with them as well.

Anyway, they were just, they were just so, so sad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So not fun to listen to.

Uh, so for the, for the brewers to be having the kind of year that they're having,

especially this lead up on the Cubs, if it can maintain, it's just going to make things that much sweeter.

Plenty of things to see over at couriernewsroom.com, Courier Newsroom being the parent company of Up North News.

For example, there's Mark Jacob, who joins us on Friday mornings.

He also has the Stop the Presses newsletter.

You can also see it at stopthepresses.news.

And this week in his newsletter, he says, will journalism become impossible in the U.S.?

Trump's war on the free press is following the foreign dictator's playbook, and he outlines that.

Let's see, we also have our friend Jennifer Scholesi, who has a newsletter on Substack.

You can find her newsletter in distinct chatter on Substack by searching for at news Jennifer.

She is talking about the Paramount merger with Skydance and its takeover of CBS.

And in her newsletter this week, she says, a CBS investigative piece on the Epstein jail video broke important new ground.

under its new mega mandate, that story might never be allowed.

And so you can look for that again from our friend Jennifer Schulze.

And then back on Courier Newsroom on YouTube, go to youtube.com and then put in Courier HQ.

and look for the series.

How is this better with the Kila Hughes?

And again, this one is about the Trump media takeover and why Americans are increasingly split into the informed and the manipulated.

So all that and more to find over at couriernewsroom.com.

A local update is coming up next for some of you.

And then when we come back, we'll have this week's homeroom segment.

We'll be talking to folks from Green Bay, from the school board, from the city council about the ways that they

created better taxpayer transparency when it came to the cost of voucher schools and how you can do that in your community as well.

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

Powered by Up North News, I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Keep in mind there are a number of different ways you can join us here on these mornings powered by UpNorth News on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We can be found on Facebook both under UpNorth News and Civic Media and on YouTube again for UpNorth News and for Civic Media.

You can go to either one of those places and put something in the comment sections but you can also use the Civic Media app and send us a text message that way.

You can also

use the voice note feature.

Again, go to one of the stations on the Civic Media app, send us a little voice note.

And if we like it, we might pop it up there as well.

Although now to be fair, if you jump into the comment section and you give a take that shall we say is not necessarily.

popular given with the listeners of the show.

Don't be surprised if there's a little pushback.

I'm noticing, for example, on one of the Facebook pages, hearing all about, you know, let's just do more to have Canada put out their wildfires and stop trying to take away my gas stove, to which somebody responded basically along the lines of, nobody is trying to take your gas stove, sweetie.

It's just another one of those cases where

rather than address the real problem, it's easier to throw things out there and say, well, what about this?

Never mind a changing climate.

What about my gas stove?

We are seeing it in, for example, the Epstein files things as well, where yesterday you had Donald Trump wandering along the roof of the White House, creating a new diversion so that people stop talking about things like.

you know, the Epstein case and his role in it, or trying to overturn elections, things like that.

I noticed that in the story about Trump up on the White House roof yesterday, it was, it was implied that he was trying to, you know, change the subject and things like that.

But I noticed that the Epstein case wasn't mentioned anywhere in the article.

nor the economy, nor the job cuts that are being made.

Instead, down the street on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are trying to create that next distraction and they're going back to their moldy oldies, their greatest hits, their break glass in case of emergency distraction.

That of course would be Bill and Hillary Clinton.

because the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena for the Epstein Files at Trump's Department of Justice, but only after adding subpoenas for a who's who of distractions.

The Clintons, former Attorneys General Merrick Garland, Jeff Sessions, William Barr.

It's pretty clear that the Trump administration's gonna ignore that subpoena and hold on to the Epstein Files.

What about the others?

Should they ignore Congressional subpoenas?

Once upon a time, I would say I don't recommend that.

If you're subpoenaed, you should take that seriously.

But let the record show that when the January 6th investigative committee subpoenaed representatives Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Kevin McCarthy, they were given the metaphorical middle finger.

And you should expect the same from Trump and his Attorney General Pam Bondi to do the same with these new subpoenas because actually, you know, look, why seek justice for Epstein's victims when there's, you know, quote unquote, real work to be done, like attaching a gaudy gilded ballroom to the White House.

So the subpoenas are out there.

But again, it's more about creating a distraction.

I always feared that the same thing was happening with something called Marcy's law.

And I'm pivoting now to the state level of things.

It's something that has been in referendums.

It's been in legislation.

It is supposed to expand and strengthen the rights of crime victims.

And look, who is against the rights of crime victims, right?

But again, should that be a blank check and undo things like, you know, due process?

in the Constitution.

But heaven forbid you stand up against something that is trumpeted as victims' rights even if it has flaws.

Well, State Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, politician that she is, has certainly figured that one out because in a new Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article by Dan Bice, Justice Rebecca Bradley blasts Judge Chris Taylor over her opposition to Marcy's law.

Last week, Bradley sharply criticized Taylor for opposing a constitutional amendment aimed at expanding and strengthening the rights of crime victims.

Bradley noted that Chris Taylor had twice voted against the constitutional amendment and said, Chris Taylor's radical political agenda is out of touch with the people of Wisconsin.

Taylor would tarnish the Wisconsin Supreme Court with politically driven decisions and voters cannot trust her to exercise good judgment.

Again, every assertion is usually a confession in cases like this.

Taylor did vote against the measure in 2017 and 2018, and her campaign treasurer, Bice Rights, was among those who took the measure to court even after 75% of the voters backed it in 2020.

the Supreme Court ended up finding the amendment was properly enacted, even though as a lower court judge noted, its language was confusing and insufficient.

Well, what do we mean by confusing and insufficient?

Well, this whole package of victims' rights laws called Marcy's Law has been criticized for undermining due process, for basically equating victims' rights to the rights of the accused.

But

the rights of the accused are important for this reason.

It's not the victim that is going against the abuser, it's the government.

And before government should be able to put you behind bars, they should be able to make their case.

And if the victim is able to do things like withhold certain evidence, saying that it's a violation of their privacy,

And if due process then doesn't come to the person being accused of a crime, you can see the slippery slope that we're on toward putting people behind bars who may not have committed a criminal offense.

I'm sorry.

I almost forgot who was president of the United States and what's actually happened to Americans in this day and age.

So Rebecca Bradley knows that if you use something like this and say that Chris Taylor is opposed to victims' rights, that's going to stick with a lot of people.

Hopefully more folks take a look at what it is the package actually does and whether it's the right way to go.

Our homeroom segment is up next.

You're up north.

Welcome to our weekly homeroom segment where we highlight public education in Wisconsin and the opportunities and especially the threats to it including the lack of taxpayer transparency when it comes to things like the the ongoing voucher school movement in Wisconsin and today's topic takes me back several years to 2017 particularly when I was helping my friend then state representative Dana walks in his campaign for governor.

And one of the things that he liked to talk about, that he thought not enough people were talking about, was that need for greater taxpayer transparency on property tax bills.

That not enough was being done to let taxpayers know that when they see that line on their property tax bill that says, you know, school district of Chippewa Falls,

that not all that money is going to the school district of Chippewa Falls.

In fact, a lot of money is skimmed off the top and put into the voucher program, but the taxpayer wouldn't know it.

Dana Walks wrote a bill that called for that chunk of money to be put separately on the property tax bill.

Republicans in the legislature year after year said no, that they weren't gonna require that through state law.

Some folks in Green Bay said, well, maybe we need to make that happen at the local level.

and they recently did, and they're here to talk about how you could do that same thing in your hometown and have, again, greater taxpayer transparency.

This isn't about whether voucher schools should exist, and this time around it's not even whether they should get state funding, though I'd argue that they shouldn't, but at the very least...

You should know how much of your tax dollars go to that when it's on your property tax bill.

So we welcome back to the program our friend Denise Gomer Hutchinson from Wisconsin Public Education Network.

We're also happy to be joined by Laura McCoy of the Green Bay School Board and Alyssa Prophet who's an alder on the Green Bay City Council.

Nice to have all of you here.

Thank you, Denise, Laura, Alyssa.

Good to see you all.

It's nice

to be here.

Denise, let us start with you.

I know we've talked to you about this previously, but lead us up into what happened in Green Bay.

In other words, before we even get to what they did, maybe you can say, you'll say better than I can.

Why is it important to have this kind of transparency on property tax bills?

Well, it's critical for taxpayers to make well informed decisions on if they support future referendas, but also just to know and understand where their tax dollars are going.

Yeah.

And so, again, the state legislature wasn't making this happen.

Laura, do you want to pick up the story and talk about how things started to get rolling in Green Bay?

Yes.

In the fall of 2023, our school board passed a resolution asking the city council of the various municipalities that fall underneath the

Green Bay School District umbrella to please include this information on their tax bill.

We started with Green Bay, which is obviously the largest municipality.

We passed the resolution, our board passed it unanimously.

It went before the city council following January and it got tabled.

It didn't pass and they didn't even take a vote.

What happened is that this is where Alyssa comes in.

She was elected the following April and brought this back to the City Council.

The up make of their City Council had changed.

And she really pushed hard for this.

Alyssa, why don't you go ahead and take the baton from there to talk about how you got started in this process.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I'm thankful to know both Denise and Laura, who are great advocates for public education.

I also value public education.

I have a kindergartner and first grader starting up in about a month here at Green Bay Public School.

This was a conversation that I hate to say was easy at the start, right?

Because I've yet to talk to a voter who wants less transparency when it comes to where their tax dollars are going.

They want more.

in this conversation like where do we put it?

I believe there's a few pieces of mail that taxpayers will look at and take seriously and that's likely their W-2 documents if they still receive those via mail and it's their tax bill, it's their property tax bill.

The entirety of the council sees calls go up when it's that time of year, right?

So really what I did from there was bring back a communication really for

just staff to investigate the feasibility.

That's the first step is really like, can we get our staff who are phenomenal at the city of Green Bay?

They're willing to run with a lot of things that the council wants to look into, right?

So that was the first step.

We thankfully got that through committee level.

worked legal and finance, worked with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, showed examples of where and what we were looking to do.

They came back and Wisconsin Department of Revenue was really our end all or you know the final say when it comes to the feasibility piece and they said yeah.

Yes, we can do that.

And the imaging that was shown was then sent back to council to discuss further.

Was it interesting night at council in terms of who spoke in favor and who spoke against?

So I can maybe let Laura or Denise speak to that a little further.

But thankfully, it did pass.

Unfortunately, when a lot of things passed easy in this cycle for us, this one was not.

It was a 6-6, and it was broken by the mayor.

but it was a pass.

So we'll take that.

Well, without a doubt.

So once you looked at the feasibility, I'm wondering if part of it too was then the cost.

It's one thing to say you want the transparency, but A, you have to go get the numbers and then B, you have to change the way that you do your property tax bills to put it out there.

Was cost any kind of a consideration in this as well, Alyssa?

That was certainly a question from a number of elders as well.

And our finance department is the one who creates and does the work there.

And then the county is the one who prints the bill.

So from a city perspective, our staff said to them, this would be $0 cost.

I mean, they said it's it's work that we're already doing.

It's it's something that if that's what the body wants, it was kind of funny, the discussion, you know, folks were like, well, what else can we add to it?

And they're like, yeah, what else do you want to add?

I mean, it's printed.

for the city of Green Bay?

Yeah, so cost certainly was a factor, but staff was confident in saying that it wouldn't be at any additional cost for us.

Yeah, it's funny that you say that.

It is sometimes politically convenient when you want cost itemized.

I recall being in the legislature and hearing Republicans say, well, there should be a Google government should be essentially like a checkbook where you can look line by line at all of the things that cost taxpayers money, which nobody really totally

disagrees with Denise unless you're looking for obfuscation.

And so it's one thing about whether, you know, it's it's feasible to get the numbers.

It's another thing if you can afford to put the numbers on.

But it seemed to me first and foremost, the reason we weren't seeing these numbers on tax bills was that there were too many lawmakers trying to hide the cost of vouchers.

And Wisconsin Public Education Network has basically made a cottage industry out of going, Oh, we'll get those numbers for you.

Yes, we have.

And that's been really important and valuable because we're finding a lot of legislators and therefore also city council members have no idea what the costs are for the voucher program and also what the costs are on the taxpayers.

Right, and so that's Denise Kammer Hutchison from Wisconsin Public Education Network.

A moment ago, you heard from Alyssa Prophet on the City of Green Bay City Council, now back to Laura McCoy on the Green Bay School Board.

And again, this whole notion of getting the numbers and providing the transparency, this does not sound like it was a heavy lift for the school district of Green Bay, nor for any other school district.

The transparency is something you would naturally want the taxpayer to have, it seems to me.

Yes, and I think that the indicator of the importance, the political importance of this statewide is who showed up at our city council that night to argue against voucher transparency.

I think you might be interested to know that John Gard showed up and Kate Zeiske showed up to argue against this measure.

And remind people who they are.

John Garb used to be in the state legislature and his wife, Kate Zeiske, used to be the secretary of

state treasurer.

And state treasurer, yeah.

So I mean, they've had leadership positions that were part of a legislature that was not looking to make these costs transparent.

And as you just said, they're still arguing against that to this point.

Let's carry it then to...

the next step, and that is other communities around Wisconsin, if they want to do this.

And I don't know if the order in which you did it was the way that everybody should do it.

Denise, do you want to go with this first, that if somebody just wants to start this from scratch in their particular school district, what are your recommended first steps?

And then I'll ask Laura and Alyssa the same question.

Well, you'd want to contact Wisconsin Public Education Network.

You can contact one of the regional, you can go to our website, find out information, how to get ahold of us, and we'll gladly have a conversation with you and get you all the background details.

In fact, we're gonna, we have a toolkit that we're going to make available to communities that want to take this on.

And yes, the first step is the school board.

um writing that resolution and asking the city to do this or the municipality or the township because that's where it really has to start is they have the information and they can move forward with it

so and that would be at wisconsinnetwork.org uh a great website to learn more about uh taxpayer

transparency.

And so yeah, that's Laura from a school board standpoint.

Again, if somebody is looking to get this going, what are your recommendations for first steps they should take?

Well, yes, as Denise said, it starts with that resolution.

And since we were able to do this in Green Bay,

People have been reaching out to me across the state.

In fact, after I'm done here

this

morning, I'll be calling someone on the eastern part of the state who is very interested in trying this in their community.

This issue is heating up.

And I was in Milwaukee over the weekend to see Beto O'Rourke at a city.

um, hall kind of, um, situation.

And I've got to speak and tell people about this,

you

know, what's going on.

And I got to tell you that the room, um, when I told them that next year there might be as much as $800 million taking out of public education for about the voucher program.

I mean, this is.

People are paying attention to this right now.

So if this is important to you, if this is something you want to try to do, start with your school board.

But you're also going to need your city officials.

You're going to need the support of your community to some degree, as well as potentially your superintendent, maybe some statewide elected officials.

In Green Bay, it took a team of people

to take it through all the stages and in the end, that's what it took.

I'll listen to our final minute here from a city standpoint.

Again, whether somebody is hearing who is serving on a city council or as close to people who are, what should they do?

Yeah, absolutely.

I would say reach out to Wisconsin Public Education, ask those questions, and you don't have to wait, I would say, from a city perspective, right, for your school board to take something up.

If this is something that interests you, I think we always hear how education funding is complicated.

It is, but sit down, grab a coffee with someone like Denise, get an understanding, because even though you might be from a municipal perspective, you still have.

you can increase some transparency for your township and everyone should consider doing it.

We can't wait for the state to act.

No.

And our friend Chris Handbook Boyle puts on Facebook, what a team for the taxpayers, what community will be next?

And it's true.

Oh wait, did I?

I want to make sure I get that right.

I did say .org, right?

On mine?

Yes, WisconsinNetwork.org.

Okay, I saw in the comment section, somebody fixed theirs, and again, just want to make sure it was clear, WisconsinNetwork.org to learn more.

Laura McCoy from the Green Bay School Board, Alyssa Profitt, a District 7 alder in the city of Green Bay, Denise Gomer Hutchison from Wisconsin Public Education Network.

You guys are taxpayer rock stars indeed.

Thank you so very much.

Good to see you today.

Nice

to

be here.

All right, and again, this is something that you can do in your community as well.

And I think back to Dana Walks' original bill.

This is a basic thing.

The legislature should have done it years and years ago.

They didn't, but you can.

A local break is next.

For some of you, others will catch up with Jimmy Koska from Civic Media next year up north.

Hey, Civic Media Sports Director, Jimmy Koskas here now to tell us about, well, little sports, a little bit of some of the news stories that he's following there in Western and Southwest Wisconsin.

If he's not snoring, let's check in and see if he's still napping over here.

Jimmy, you up, buddy?

You

up.

I am wide awake, man.

It is day two of high school football season,

so we're ready