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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Good morning, 706.
Nice to have you back here Up North on this Wednesday morning, September 10th, 2025.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.
Meteorologist Brittany Merlot will be along shortly and later this hour, we will be talking about a new campaign.
to help taxpayers across Wisconsin understand just how much money the private school voucher scheme is costing them.
money coming out of their wallets, money that is leaving our neighborhood local schools and going to this private school voucher plan instead.
So again, that's coming up less than a half hour from now.
And then at 8.52 before we wrap things up here for the morning, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley will be dropping in to talk about his joining the race for governor.
He's made it official.
He and Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez, among others, will be seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in August of next year and running for governor next November.
So David Crawley will talk about.
what propelled him to decide to join the race for Wisconsin governor again that's coming up a little bit before nine o'clock before we wrap things up for today but we are still getting going just here on the seven o'clock hour starting with the weather and the return of summer says meteorologist Brittany Merleau and I for one am here for it
I can't wait.
I'm so looking forward to one last weekend of boating before we put things away for the weekend.
I'm sure other people who have made outdoor plans are almost giddy with the thought that things at the moment are looking pretty good.
Yes, they are, honestly.
Today, starting off damp and dreary, but...
Good things ahead.
Um, warm weekend, 80 degree temperatures, like you said, summer is coming back and it's falling on the weekend so it couldn't be any better.
This morning we do though have thick fog up north, northwest.
We are looking at a dense fog advisory from Ashland to Eau Claire and then northwest into Hayward and Superior.
Even Eagle River has less than a mile visibility right now and then middle of the state.
We're looking at scattered showers from Madison to Wausau.
the way over to Iron River.
Those are going to be working their way into the Fox Valley later this morning.
Maybe a sprinkle or two until Milwaukee by this afternoon, but nothing heavy.
All the heavy rain fell yesterday.
We're a good half an inch to an inch and a half up northwest where all that fog is sitting now.
So more clouds north today.
few sunspots down south before the system moves through high temperatures will reach the upper sixties up north to the low seventies down south today and we are looking at more fog pushing in overnight tonight.
Now tomorrow starts the warm up low to mid seventies statewide.
far south, we could hit some eighties.
It'll be a partly sunny day.
Very comfortable out there.
And then the muggyness starts to seep in for Friday.
You'll start to feel like summer again.
It'll be partly sunny, much warmer highs will be in the mid to upper seventies far north to low eighties south.
And then Saturday and Sunday, we're all hitting 80 to 85 degrees.
We do have chances for scattered rain in the morning on Saturday and then maybe late Sunday night.
But otherwise, it looks rather dry for the entire weekend and warm too.
That is such good news for people who are planning all sorts of activities this weekend, which I'm going to tell you about in just a moment.
But first, I just wanted to
Pass along a good morning from Robin Tigerton.
Cloudy, a few rain showers, 58 degrees.
Did some work around the home and fixed the tire on his John Deere mower.
He says it's been fun working with Kristen Lyrely about cuts for people with disabilities and fighting back against wanting to put disabled people in institutions or in nursing homes.
He writes places north of Iron Mountain and the UP got over three inches of rain and says the leaves are starting to change color in the Tigerton area.
Oh, and from Tony, one little request for Brittany, could you not make it summer again?
No, Tony, I'm sorry.
We should hit the delete button way too fast on that.
I'm so sorry.
I'll delete.
Exactly.
So this weekend, and the thing is with the Packers playing tomorrow night,
you
know, there's no packer game over the weekend.
So good weather, get to enjoy one of these things.
So
Parker, guessing game for you.
Brittany is starting a long weekend tomorrow.
Let's see if we can guess.
No spoiler alerts.
Here are some options for her.
There's the Vernon County Fair, which starts today in Verroqua.
There's the Amory Fall Festival that begins tomorrow.
There's the Lake Geneva Taco Fest going
on
Friday and Saturday.
Yep.
There's Blues Fest in Theansville Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday and Sunday is also the Wappan Volksfest German Festival.
On Sunday is the 12th annual Beaver Dam Pepper Festival.
Also on Sunday is the Eau Claire Fall Festival.
Sunday is also the Stevens Point Celebration of India over at SPASH, the local high school.
Lakewood has its festival.
Get
it?
Like festival,
festival?
You see what
they
did
there?
Yeah,
that's on
Sunday.
As is New London Fall Fest, the Hayward Lions Oktoberfest, and the Mineral Point Car Show.
All of these, oh wait, one more from Rob here says a Tigerton steak fry Saturday night.
So there you go.
So I
don't know which of these you're going to here, but you won't lack for possibilities for things to do this weekend.
No, not at all.
Sounds like a good long weekend to take off.
My gosh, I have options.
I know.
So we're going to want to hear all about those when you're back next week, but we will get
an updated
forecast next hour as well.
Brittany, thank you so much.
Thank you.
All right.
Hey, we have a new newsletter editor at UpNorrent News who has put together her first edition.
Her name is Ellie Bordo, and we're going to let her get her feet wet a little bit before we
initiator here on the radio.
We can only do so much hazing at Up North News, but Ellie is an EconiWalk native, has been in Wisconsin her whole life, and is looking forward, as she says here, to talking about Wisconsin's true sense of community where people take pride in their roots.
She's got a photo of her and her dad at Lambeau Field at a Packer game here.
She went to UW Madison, has degrees in journalism and Spanish, wrote for the Daily Cardinal.
and discovered a passion for giving people a platform to share their stories.
And so again, I believe only the fourth newsletter editor we've had with Up North News over these past five and a half years.
Yours truly and then there was Christina and then there was Henry and now there is Ellie So give her a welcome by becoming a subscriber head over to up north news wi.com Click subscribe up there in the top banner and you will be part of the weekday newsletter that she works on as well as the Sunday morning newsletter that I put together Sunday mornings with Pat quite low which includes a question of the week and this time around the question is
What caused Donald Trump's flip-flop on the Epstein files?
Is it that it turns out his name is in the files that much we know the Attorney General Pam Bondi Told Trump as much but we have no idea in what context whether it involves wrongdoing whether it involves cover-ups whether it's all I Don't know if innocence is the right word but does not involve criminal activity Maybe that's what it is or maybe he's
not releasing the files fully because he's covering up and protecting people who are listed, or to be a bit more sinister about it, maybe not protecting people, but maybe blackmailing people that are in the file and saying, I'll keep these files secret if you continue to do the things that I want you to do.
And then the fourth option, of course, is that it's all a hoax and that for 20 plus years, all of these victims of Jeffrey Epstein
Decided all those years ago to make things up because someday Donald Trump was going to be elected president like anybody would have believed that 20 years ago and That way we'll we'll be able to get him when the time is right I mean it seems to be what congressman Derek van Orden is thinking because asked yesterday about the crude birthday note that Donald Trump signed to Jeffrey Epstein about 20 years ago Derek van Orden called it a fallacy
It's not a fallacy.
And so you have Derek Van Orden and every other Wisconsin Republican in Congress has voted to basically stonewall the release of all of the Epstein files.
All six of Wisconsin's Republican congressmen have voted to not seek justice for the Epstein victims in
in a way that would be faster than continuing to sit on these files for no good reason whatsoever.
There are plenty of Republicans who have voted for or expressed support for getting on with this and not worrying about political protection, but you can't say the same.
for Wisconsin's six Republican House members.
And so again, these, these are stories that we are following, including our question of the week at our news and get our newsletter or Sunday morning one by heading to up north news wi.com.
Checking in on sports here, the brewers lost to the Texas Rangers last night, five to four.
Remember, they had lost five to nothing the night before.
And that was when
Texas's Michael Hellman, who has only been with the team since May 19th, when he was picked up on waivers by Pittsburgh, hit his first ever grand slam and had five RBIs total on Monday.
Last night, he hit a two-run homer and made a leaping backhand and catch over the fence in left-center field to Rob Bryce Turing, and that again led to the Brewers losing five to four.
They will wrap up that three-game series this afternoon.
Freddie Peralta will be on the mound going for what would be a league leading 17th win if you were to get it in Arlington this afternoon.
Coverage begins at one o'clock on Civic Media stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine, Park Falls, and in Hayward.
The Packers on a short week, they play tomorrow night, hosting the Washington Commanders.
Coverage begins at five o'clock on several civic media stations.
Christian Watson signed a one-year, $13 million contract extension through the 2026 season, even though he is still out recovering from an ACL injury.
And the Wisconsin Badgers will play this Saturday at Alabama.
Coverage begins Saturday morning at 9 a.m.
on stations in Richland Center, Amory, Wisconsin Rapids.
and in ripping.
All right, one more football note, though, I mean, it's not football related, but it's a football guy letting us know what he thinks.
Brett Favre would like you to know that spreading the message to end racism is a bad thing and says it is, it is divisive.
The native of Kiel, Mississippi, spoke out in a story here on the Fox News website saying that
The messages such as and racism and it takes all of us and what else was on there choose love and Farve says those messages are counterproductive He says I feel like they're maintaining a divisive stance.
They may say well, we're trying to bring everyone together No, that's not bringing everyone together farve said on the sage steels show earlier this week There are a lot of things in this world in this country.
We can be better at
And I think we do continue to get better at certain things, Farve says, but you're creating more division by talking about a problem that I'm not saying it's, it isn't still a problem, racism, but I think you could do more by not talking about it.
Talk about unity and how far we've come.
There are those who say, I face this all the time and kudos to the NFL, he says, but I think most people are over and beyond that.
Yeah, I feel like the league is the league of divisiveness.
There might be no other way to say you're a white guy from Mississippi without saying you're a white guy from Mississippi than to say the things right there that Brett Farve just said that He's saying I'm not saying it is a problem which is right up there with your uncle saying I'm not a racist but and Saying that I think people are over that.
I think people are beyond that They are not which is why messages like these are more important than ever
And at some point, the people who think that something like this is divisive might finally have the epiphany that helps us make some progress in our country.
We will talk about the subject of taxpayer transparency for voucher schools 15 minutes away here.
I'm Pat Crite Lowly from Lake Wissota.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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You can subscribe to Cam Stevenson's newsletter at Beltway.News or CourierNewsroom.com for daily dispatches from Capitol Hill.
Nice to have you back here at exactly 7.23 on this Wednesday morning.
Some of the
Big stories that have been racking up eyeballs and comments and shares across social media from Up North News include on Facebook, Shatex Alan Kircher.
You might recall we heard from Alan through a report from Selena Heller on Monday.
Kirchner is winning awards for his ice cream from the World Dairy Expo and he talks about how what it is he does different.
at his little ice cream shop up in Chateau, which is going to only get more popular as word gets out about all of these many awards that he's winning for his chocolate peanut butter ice cream, his vanilla ice cream, and much more.
Let's see on Instagram, one of the top stories is one that includes audio from inside the courtroom as a court commissioner expresses shock and outrage that an immigration arrest
is taking place in his courtroom and the officers refuse his demand to show their warrant.
And somehow it's the court commissioner who ends up losing his job as a result of this.
So again, a very popular post this past week on Instagram, along with one from Vice President J.D.
Vance's misinformation riddled message in La Crosse.
where we take five of the things that the vice president said and basically set the record straight.
So again, find us on Instagram, on TikTok, on Facebook.
We're also on Blue Sky and even the Dumpster Fire formerly known as Twitter.
Come and follow all that we do across social media and up North News.
Let's see, we just heard a bit ago a promo from the folks at the...
investigative journalism site Wisconsin watch.
And you know, not not everything is completely serious politics.
Parker, there's a story that went up last week, I believe it's called the future of work in Wisconsin in six charts.
The headline the subhead saying what are the fastest growing jobs in Wisconsin, which jobs are shrinking?
We break down the data on nurse practitioners data scientists when turbine techs and more.
Did you ever count on fastest growing jobs to determine what it was that you were going to do when you grew up as a young lad?
Um, let me think.
No.
No, no.
I don't either.
And the thing is, that would be my advice to a lot of young people would be, Hey, you should see, you know, where the jobs of the future are.
Um, but I mean, a lot of us, we just, we want to follow our hearts instead.
I remember.
Yeah.
There is a little something of that, like.
There were things that I wanted to learn because I thought they would be helpful because they were coming up.
Like I wanted
to
learn a little like computer coding stuff.
I didn't do that, but I wanted to because I knew that was becoming a thing that would be important.
I didn't want that career though.
Yeah, that's just it.
You start to study these things and say, well, they may be fast growing, but they're not necessarily for me.
I know that when now the baby boomers, they start turning 80 this year.
So we're going back.
Either 20 or 30 years and I recall back even you know 50 years ago when the baby boomers started turning 30 Every one of these milestone years you'd see these articles about the future of the baby boomers when they were in their prime working years and then about you know the best retirement for baby boomers and and so forth and so on and I remember thinking like either 10 20 or 30 years ago boy if my generation and those people younger wanted job security
Get into some kind of work that takes care of these baby boomers as they're aging because we're gonna need more spot more people who work in nursing homes, you know occupational therapy Mortuary you know sad to say all of this, you know all these things and I joked the other day about just just specializing in the 80th birthday parties You you could make a pretty good income just doing that
But even 20 30 years ago, I thought that's just not that's not where I feel myself being called is is as a gerontologist, essentially,
and yet
that that would be, you know, a fast growing career.
So getting back to the Wisconsin watch story.
Now, they do start with wind turbine service technicians.
And that field is projected to grow by 75% in Wisconsin between 2022 and 2032.
So
I think there now is to be a footnote on that since we have a president who is actively trying to undermine wind and solar power.
But by the same token, I don't think this industry is really going to, it's going to come back.
It will survive Donald Trump.
And so to be a technician on these wind turbines will, that'll be some job security if you can do that.
Oh yeah, for
sure.
You'd have to be able to go up on a very tall structure and that ain't happening.
Yeah, that's an acquired taste.
Yeah, you've got nurse practitioners projected to grow by 51%.
And again, with an aging population, you would not go wrong if you wanted to become a nurse practitioner.
Computer and information research scientists, you know, the little Parker Olsons that weren't to be, that job growth has grown by 44% within this decade.
And then there's data scientists projected to grow by 43%, which I'm not so sure about.
data scientists.
I mean, they have been essential in the past.
But you now have in Donald Trump and in Robert Kennedy and in Ron Johnson, data scientists, I mean, who are those liberal elites, you know, with their with their data, and their facts, and their science.
In other
words, in other words,
kids, if you want to become a data scientist, there will be jobs out there.
But remember, it's more than just training your mind.
It's more about training your fingers to do all the calculations on keyboards.
You also have to train your forehead, because you're constantly going to be wanting to put it against a brick wall.
When you hear what people in power have to say about science and data and facts.
Our homeroom segment talking about school about your transparency is coming up the Midwest Farm Report.
Before that, I'm Pat Crichtlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back on this Wednesday morning.
Time for our homeroom segment.
And before we get to our guest, a little history of the homeroom segment, especially appropriate for today's topic.
How did we come to do a weekly segment on public education in Wisconsin?
It started with my learning just how much money our tax dollars goes into the voucher school program.
And now this goes back.
at least a couple of years.
And I originally wanted to do just a short series, maybe a short series of videos, kind of like Schoolhouse Rock, but instead of how a bill becomes a law, it was, could we find a way to explain in plain English how the school funding system works in Wisconsin?
And in doing so, we would help people appreciate
how we fund our public schools, but also let people know how much money is skimmed away from that from a voucher program for private, often religious schools that started as this small experimental program in Milwaukee.
But with a lot of folks not knowing it has mushroomed into something massive.
And how do you go about sharing that message with folks?
Well,
The short video series is still a work in progress, but we did say, you know, we need to be talking about this on a more regular basis.
So along with a lot of other education topics, we started this homeroom segment along with some friends from the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
who have made it their mission as well in the support of public schools is to help increase taxpayer transparency about the voucher school program.
Well, they're taking this to the next level with a transparency project.
that the Wisconsin public education network is starting with a kickoff party and free training through zoom and a toolkit and more.
It's all starting next week.
And so to get back to basics on all this, Heather Dubois born on from the Wisconsin public education network is here today, Heather.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
I'm great.
Thanks for having me.
No, thank you.
You and Chris Hamburg, well, you're basically the godmothers of this segment to help make sure that we're getting this kind of word out about supporting public schools and not undermining public schools through use of our property tax dollars, oftentimes unwittingly.
And so tell us in your own words what led to this transparency project, and then we'll get into what the transparency project is all about.
So thanks.
There's a lot to unpack here.
And I'm just going to start by saying that question about, well, how do I understand this in regular plain language is probably the one we get the most.
Most people know that Wisconsin taxpayers are subsidizing a secondary system of education that is not playing by the same set of rules.
We are funding private, mostly religious schools through taxpayer-funded vouchers.
funding independent charter schools, which are charter schools that are not run by your district or your locally elected board.
They're public schools in name, but they're independently run and they aren't subject to the same level of scrutiny, particularly that financial scrutiny that public schools are.
And so the question we get next is, well, why and how much do I find out these costs?
And Pat, you're a smart guy.
You used to be a state legislator.
You are a reporter.
You know how to dig into details.
How easy do you find it to find out how much vouchers are costing in your district?
Yeah, yeah, that kind of says it all right there is.
I have been working at this as a as a journalist and as a state senator and now as a radio host and it's still hard for me to wrap my head around how we get these costs and you know for folks who think well I'll just look at that line on my property tax bill that does not tell you the whole story.
Yeah, there's no line on your property tax bill.
There's no line that you can just go to and put in, here's my district, how much are vouchers costing in the state budget or on the state DPI website.
You have to dig.
into spreadsheets.
You have to know what those spreadsheets are called.
You have to search this information out yourself.
And then, worst of all, you have to do your own math to add up all the different programs and see how much they're all costing.
And so we have created a tool on our website, WisconsinNetwork.org, where you can go and we're going to update this by next week when we do our party with the numbers for this year.
So that's one way you can get the numbers right now.
There is also a fiscal
Bureau memo that gives us the grand total of the price tag, which by the way, for the next two years in this biennium is going to be $1,836,300.
Let me start over, because I'm not very good at saying numbers this big, Pat.
$1,836,391,400.
We're approaching $2 billion in the biennium on voucher and independent charter spending.
And so the question is, how much is that costing in my district?
How much is that money siphoning away from the pot that's not going to my kids?
Because this is one of many reasons that districts have been forced to go to referenda so much over the past 15 years.
And so there are a lot of challenges facing public schools right now and hiding those challenges is a real problem.
And so we want to see more transparency, not in the service of expanding that program, but rather in the service of exposing what a scam it is and how much it is truly costing local kids.
And in the hopes that more people will turn their confusion into outrage and join us in demanding that we write this wrong and restore our commitment.
to funding the public schools, our constitution requires us to serve.
We're talking to Heather Dewaub, born on from the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
And so now that we've set up the problem, let's talk about the new transparency project and the kickoff event next week.
What's that all about?
Yeah, so what can people do about it?
You can say I want this on my tax bill and people have said that around the state in Racine in Milwaukee in Madison in South Milwaukee There are there are a number of communities around the state where they already have what's called a tax insert It is a little slip of paper that comes with your tax bill that shows how much vouchers are our costing taxpayers and how much is being deducted from the aid for your district to cover these unaccountable
that's on your actual tax bill.
It's expensive to do inserts.
It's unnecessary.
It's confusing.
That should be a line item.
The same as any other school costs, just like our public school funding, which is funded by public dollars is exposed to taxpayers.
And so the good people of Green Bay took it into their own hands to approach their city and ask.
for that level of transparency and after a few months of discussion and debate and and consideration they passed it and this fall when those tax bills come out they're going to show taxpayers exactly how much that program is costing and add a layer of transparency that we've never been afforded before.
And I'll say this, we've tried at the state level.
There have been several bills circulated asking for a state law that requires those costs to be exposed.
Those bills have never seen a hearing.
We hope that bill will continue to come forward and that we could solve this problem in one fell swoop at the state house.
But there seems to be a real will for lack of transparency on behalf of the voucher lobby.
And so I think that should speak volumes in and of itself.
So we're going to give you all the tools you need to get to get this process started where you live.
It is not as hard as it might sound.
It's just a question of talking to the right people, following the right steps and setting the wheels in motion to find folks in your community who are invested in making sure that the kids in our public schools have the resources that they need to succeed to thrive and to ensure that our schools are like.
well-equipped places of joy where we're really making sure that we're meeting the needs of every kid who walks through the door.
I think you really hit the nail on the head when you said it isn't that it's hard, it's just a matter of knowing the steps, getting the resources to tap into basically a toolkit and
That's the thing that you all have put together now because lacking a state solution because of the current legislature, this has to happen at the district by district level.
So if any one person hears this in a school district, it might sound rather daunting, but you get two, three, four people at a coffee clutch or a local meeting of some other group.
It sounds like the kind of thing that
this tool kit and this training would help them get some answers at the local district level.
Yeah and and who doesn't want that level of transparency and accountability?
I mean it is really basic and we're seeing strong bipartisan support for these efforts wherever they've been introduced because regardless of what your feelings are about the program we
over here at Wisconsin Public Education Network are strongly opposed to programs that siphon monies away from the public schools we are required to serve.
But we, whatever your feelings about that program, most people want transparency, they want accountability, they want to make sure that their tax dollars are being used in a way that ensures we're good stewards of our money.
And there's really nothing less
conservative about a taxpayer-funded voucher that's providing resources for private school students to attend the school they already attend, which has been the case for the vast majority of students, close to 80 percent of kids who are in the statewide voucher program, never attended a public school.
So as our
As our tax dollars increase to that program, it becomes increasingly unsustainable and that's the one of the things we want to expose to.
Most people don't know that there was a statute put into place about 10 years ago, well exactly 10 years ago next year, that every year a few more kids can enter the program from each district based on a certain
percentage until the year 2026 when the cap on enrollment will come off altogether.
Wisconsin is not prepared for that free for all.
And we need to make sure that we are ready to expose the cost to understand what they mean to local kids in our public schools that serve the vast majority of Wisconsin kids and really hold the line and demanding fair funding because Lord knows we did not get fair funding in the last state budget.
And if we're going to do better, it's going to start with us being better watchdogs where we
live.
Heather, the whole notion of transparency, I just find rich, no pun intended, from a lot of folks who love to talk about taxpayer transparency until it's something that's important to them.
And so now you have the potential for people to learn more about this.
And on our Facebook page, Chris Hambock Boyle has been putting in the exact web addresses that people can click on.
But really, if you go to Wisconsin Network,
Yes, thank you.
If you go to wisconsinnetwork.org slash events And even if you just go to wisconsinnetwork.org you'll go to events and then from there it'll be very clear to see the the go public transparency project It's it's on September 16th.
So that'd be Tuesday of next week 6 30 via zoom, but you do need people to pre-register I would assume
Yep, we need you to register in advance and once you do, we will send you the link to participate in the event.
You're going to get a toolkit.
You're going to get access to people like Chris who can do a one-on-one consultation with you, help you understand what specifically in your community you're going to need to do because this is a bit of a choose your own adventure.
No two municipalities do their tax bills exactly the same way.
So you're going to have to do a little bit of investigating to get started.
But again, it's not as hard as it sounds and we're here to make it fun.
but also to help you tap into some energy around making sure that local kids have what they need that you might not have known was going on around the state, but let me tell you it is and people are ready to stand up for and defend their public schools and we hope you're one of them.
Heather Dubois born on from Wisconsin Public Education Network, Wisconsin Network.org.
Heather, thank you so much for all you do.
It's great to talk to you again.
Have a wonderful day.
Thanks.
It's always great to see you, Pat.
You bet.
Thanks.
Take care.
Hope to see everybody next week.
new bat.
So it's always good to connect with Heather.
And at one point, I want to underscore again, very quickly, is there's always been an enrollment cap on the program.
And that cap's about to be lifted.
And that can blow such a hole in the next state budget.
If this whole monster isn't addressed.
In our next hour, we're going to talk to David Crowley, Milwaukee County Executive and Candidate for Governor.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
We've got Earl Ingram coming up right after the eight o'clock news to talk about what's going on That's the name of his podcast that what's going on podcast with Earl Ingram We will also be talking with a guest from clean, Wisconsin about data centers and their growth But also the growth and how much water they're sucking out of the ground to keep all those servers cool and it's starting to Impact the neighbors so that's coming up at 835 but then one hour from right now We will be talking to Milwaukee County executive David Crosby
who has just announced his entry into the race for governor.
So he's making the rounds around the state, including La Crosse today.
And Jimmy Koska helps cover the La Crosse area and other parts of Southwest Wisconsin for civic media and joins us now as he always does Wednesdays at this point.
Jimmy, how are you doing today?
doing great.
It's neat that La Crosse is once again the center of Wisconsin's political universe today.
It has been for a long time.
Dating back to when Al Gore started his riverboat ride from La Crosse back in, oh, what year was that?
2000.
That's right.
How could I ever forget?
I got I got kidnapped on board that riverboat.
That's a story for another time.
Anyway, so as we talked about what's happening,
in the area there.
Not only David Crawley, but Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez, another candidate for governor.
I gather was in the area not long ago.
Yep.
So Rodriguez is on, well, what they're calling a 72 county tour around the state.
So La Crosse was a stop on Monday.
You know, excuse me, today's Monday.
My days are all mixed up with this weird week.
So here in Western Wisconsin, it's been really interesting.
Just the last.
five, six years where all of a sudden it's a competitive congressional district.
And you've got presidential candidates stopping here.
You've got the vice president here just a week or two ago.
And now you've had two of the prominent governor candidates that have had appearances here with David Crawley having an event this morning in La Crosse.
So there are no shortage of political events happening in and around the Coulee region.
And this week is just the latest example of what I think people around the state really view as an extremely competitive and important area politically because the Third Congressional District itself represents such a wide swath of interest in Wisconsin, everything from college towns and hospitals and manufacturing to obviously agriculture and tourism and all that.
So there's a lot of things here, a lot of different people, a really good mix of
of representation here at Wisconsin.
So it's not surprising that not only is it competitive politically, but that people in politics take it seriously and spend their time and campaign over
here.
The third congressional district, I mean, it sprawls.
It's built around three different population centers, the Eau Claire area, the La Crosse area, and the Stevens Point area in a weirdly shaped district that we'll get into that reason some other time.
But still, it's the La Crosse area that draws the most attention.
It's why the vice president, JD Vance, was there recently looking to
prop up Derek Van Orden in his run for a third term in office.
And so now you have David Crawley coming in talking about the run for governor.
And we most recently heard from him on the topic of affordable housing.
He was in the Eau Claire area week before last talking about affordable housing.
And I don't doubt that he'll be asked about it in La Crosse in part because of this new development with a couple of the public parks in La Crosse being closed and fenced off, which is said to be due to safety concerns, but it seems pretty clear to most that these
These are also issues involving what you could call the unsheltered community.
And this is a city that is still struggling to deal with affordable housing and homelessness.
You know, one of the hottest topics anytime we get on Al Gore's internet to talk about with the cross is, you know, the unhoused population, whether, you know, whether it was Huska Park and everything that was happening there, you know, some of the crime issues they were having there to the ordinances banning public camping, banning staying and parking ramps, banning that and then increasing the ban to, you know, to any city owned property.
So that includes
you know, parks and the parking ramps and things like that.
It ended up pushing people out to parks and to DNR land along the rivers that run through the cross.
And so now last week, it was announced that they were going to be closing both Cameron and Bird's Park.
They put up fences this week to announce that they were deep cleaning these parks.
They're doing it in the interest of public safety, but a lot of people are looking at this as it's a thinly veiled, you know,
It's just the latest thing and how the city is aggressively dealing.
with unhoused people and an issue that has plagued La Crosse for several years.
And a lot of the policy and a lot of the work in what La Crosse is doing, a lot of the important work they're doing, the Pathways Home Program is a fantastic example of how they are trying to deal with this as a municipality, as a region, and trying to find better solutions of things.
But it is a huge thing, not just for La Crosse, but for a lot of communities.
And La Crosse probably deserves a little credit for trying to come up with ways.
to serve all interests with how they're doing this, but seeing fencing going up at public parks, I mean, the optics are just not great for that, and people are calling that out.
Anywhere you look online in La Crosse, people are calling it out.
not enjoying the fact that this is a visual reminder of what the city is doing and addressing some of these issues.
And by the way, it cuts across different areas.
It's not just about affordable housing and the economy at large, but it's also about mental health issues and access to resources there as opposed to people literally having to live on the streets for lack of these resources.
Yeah, but very quickly, because I know we're running out of time, that they are pushing to get mental health treatment centers resources in the Coulee region because right now,
everything is in southern and eastern Wisconsin.
There's nothing in western Wisconsin, so there is a push, a legislative push to bring some of those resources to western Wisconsin and specifically La Crosse.
Jimmy Koska, thank you so much as always.
I appreciate your coverage.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
All right, and coming up, after the eight o'clock news, we'll talk to Earl Ingram.
In our climate check this week, we will be talking about data centers and the concern about how much groundwater is needed to support data centers.
And then Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, candidate for governor joins us at 852.
I'm Pat Critewell.
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