Day of Announcements 1 (Hour 2)

Transcript

Day of Announcements 1 (Hour 2)

Mornings with Pat Kreitlow · Wed Sep 17, 2025

Kathryn Lake

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

Pat Kreitlow

Hey, good morning.

Welcome back.

Nice to have you here up north on this September 17th, Wednesday morning.

September 17.

Keep that number 17 in mind as we talk to our next guest, Kareen Hendrickson, about the 17th state senate district.

Details to come right after Brittany's weather.

And then in our next hour at 8.35 we will be talking to state representative Francesca Hong, who announced this morning that she too will be running for Wisconsin governor.

next year so we have a gubernatorial candidate coming up in our eight o'clock hour and that's not all there's there's also tomorrow we'll be talking with former racine alderman trevor young who has just announced his candidacy for the state senate in the 21st district the seat held since 2010 i believe by republican van wandard so a lot to cover this week with the the change of seasons not just you know back to school not just fall

campaign season as well.

But let's get to the the fall part of the season with meteorologist Brittany Merleau who joins us along with Parker Olson who's producing things down at Madison Studio A2 and I did not realize because it's now it's dark at the start of the show here so the show is well underway for me to notice it is really foggy up here on Lake Wissota this morning.

Is that something we're seeing all over the place?

Yeah, definitely up north right now.

Dense fog from Eau Claire through Hayward into Ashland and Superior.

That's going to be here for about another hour or two.

Temperatures to right now in the mid fifties to mid sixties across the state.

We're also seeing a few thunderstorms starting right now.

Pretty much from Amory through Rice Lake and that could extend towards the Manaqua area too.

We have a front just sitting here over the northern part of the state this morning.

So that's kind of the case as we go through the next day.

This front is going to slow

make its way south through the state and then the system, the low pressure itself will eventually move into the state for the weekend.

So yes, wet weather ahead and cooler temperatures too.

But not today.

We're still looking very warm across the state, low to mid 80s everywhere.

Some of us will be nearing 90 once again.

It will be a sunny day, especially south into Madison and Milwaukee.

Clouds will be increasing the West and North throughout the afternoon.

Drizzle is possible far southwest.

midday.

And then we're looking at more small storms sparking up again this evening, especially northwest arm sorry, northeast in our state.

And then tomorrow cooler, slightly cooler, especially north only mid sixties up north eighties will still be felt down south tomorrow.

Scattered spotty showers are expected kind of statewide, very isolated, very brief and small.

But chances for sunshine still hang on into Madison and Milwaukee until the weekend.

That's when that low pressure system arrives.

So

Pat Kreitlow

have your

rain and storms on the way.

Pat Kreitlow

conceivably today and tomorrow could mark the last of the mid-80s.

It could.

Pat Kreitlow

Yes, it could.

Unless we get a nice little warm spell in October, which does happen, by the way.

It does.

Even in

November, it's happened.

Pat Kreitlow

Yes.

Okay.

So so shut up, Pat.

Don't get ahead of yourself here.

Good morning from Tigerton writes Rob partly cloudy and 59 degrees.

I felt a lot like mid July rather than mid September.

Yesterday was busy mowing lawns in Wittenberg.

To me, this is the first that is been actually

dry, a lot of dry grass that's drying out for the first time since spring.

Today he's got a mowing job in rural Tigerton, a doctor's appointment in Shawno, and he writes no fog in the Tigerton area.

Tony writes that these 80 degree days have been killing me.

It's so hot and I refuse to turn on my air conditioner.

You live on Lake Superior, you have the world's greatest air conditioner up there, Tony.

The Tony also adds it was so foggy, I could barely see the turkeys crossing the road.

acceptable.

You got to be able to see the turkeys when they're

here up there.

Pat Kreitlow

Yes, exactly.

And yeah, so that's from from Tony.

And that's from Rob.

And we'll have more from Brittany coming up in one hour.

Brittany, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Pat Kreitlow

All right.

Also a note up here from our friends at Motherhood for Good who are saying good morning.

I sense they maybe want to hear more from one of our next guests coming up.

This is a candidate announcement kind of day.

Candidate announcement kind of week.

You had state senator Keldor Royce getting into the race for governor a couple days ago.

I just mentioned state representative Francesca Hong also joining the governor's race.

There are state senate candidates.

One I just told you about in the Racine area and

and now one potentially in the Nucleus area as we welcome in Karine Hendrickson to tell us what she's going to be up to later today, former childcare provider in the Nucleus area.

Karine, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

It's still really weird to hear former in front of that.

Pat Kreitlow

I completely, it's weird for me to say it, and it's not something we necessarily like to dwell on.

But the thing that's prompting your change in what you do on a day-to-day basis,

is rooted in in a Wisconsin legislative leadership team that did not ever seem to take everything that you said seriously about just how serious childcare and other issues are for Wisconsin families.

And so consequently, what's that meant for you?

What is it that you plan to be doing throughout the day today?

So it means that I guess I have to do it myself.

Pat Kreitlow

there you go.

So I am officially running for state senate district 17.

That is the southwestern part of Wisconsin, which we have some really good progressive democratic roots.

And we just need to get back to them.

And a lot of it comes down to the lack of affordability in our daily lives, whether it's groceries, childcare, our property taxes continuing to increase because our state refuses to invest in our public schools appropriately and instead is cutting taxes for the wealthy and keep the powerful in power.

So at 1030 this morning,

I will be launching at the Nucleus Village Park.

Super excited because in Nucleus it's a tradition to have alporns and there will be alporns there as well.

So I'm hoping that lots of people will join me and support me in my newest adventure.

Pat Kreitlow

Those are those big Swiss horns, like as if everybody's going to get a Ricola lasage or something at this

point.

Maybe that should be my thing.

Pat Kreitlow

There you go.

Instead of tossing candy at parades, you're tossing cough drops.

It could be.

Whatever works for you.

Now, let's take care of the elephant in the room, or shall we say the donkey, because we're going to be talking about primaries.

And that 2026 is probably going to be a year unlike

any other in terms of primaries, you've got an open governor's seat, an open lieutenant governor's seat, an open secretary of state seat, and you've already got three democratic candidates announced in the third congressional district, and now you have in these state senate districts at least three different state senate districts now, there will be primaries as well, and that includes in your district where Representative Jenna Jacobson has also already announced.

In this case, let's just bring it down to this.

particular example in the 17th Senate district.

There is a motivator for multiple Democrats to want to run, and that's because the Republican incumbent, Howard Markline, chairs the Joint Finance Committee.

So, I mean, all the more motivation for Democrats to jump in, right?

Oh, absolutely.

I also find it interesting that so far, Senate 17 is all women, Lisa White is also running, and the CD3, which is Van Ordens, is all women too.

So I feel like there's a little bit of women wanting to make sure that we can take care of our families and our communities and stepping up into this space.

I think it's good there's a primary.

I think we can learn from each other.

I think the voters have a right to choose because we fought for gerrymandering.

So that's part of why there's so many.

also interested.

This seat is now winnable because the lack of gerrymandering in our state, we have fair maps, but at the same time, you know, have a robust primary because that's the way for the people to decide who they want on their party ticket, I guess you would say.

So I'm looking forward to, you know, getting to know people and proving, you know, that I'm the hardest worker, I'm the best for the position.

Pat Kreitlow

The comments are already coming in, including from Tony that says it seems like a great opportunity for new faces and for new ideas as well.

And now again, I'm not looking to make Senator Howard Markline, you know, the issue is certainly not the centerpiece of your campaign, but the symbolism of a co-chair for joint finance in budgets that cycle after cycle after cycle seem to be out of sync with what he and others are hearing at all those budget public hearings around the state.

Again, seems to be rather

representative of why anybody is running for legislature around Wisconsin this year.

Oh, absolutely.

When you look at the Joint Finance Committee hearings, when you look at the Assembly and Senate hearings in office at the Capitol, they're being told over and over and over again.

This is what we want.

This is what we need.

And then they refuse to do it.

Two years ago, when they did the special session for the workforce, you know, they had 200 people send letters, 100 people show up and speak to the fact that they wanted this special session bill to pass.

And after the hearing, they put an amendment in and completely gutted the whole thing.

And so really,

we need people that are not just gonna say they're listening and that they understand there's a problem but that they care enough to do something about it and are willing to go outside of their box that they put themselves into of their opinions of what's important to, it feels like almost it's what's important to them themselves instead of listening to what their constituents have to say.

Pat Kreitlow

Well, I think it's pretty clear talking to Kareen Hendrickson, state Senate candidate in the 17th district, what you're going to be hearing from Republicans and others, because I mean, we've been hearing this for 15 years or more, and it's going to go something like this.

Well.

There she goes again.

Here's another tax and spend liberal and she and Tony Evers and everybody else, they just want a tax and they want to spend and you know, we're the ones that are holding the line on taxes.

We're the ones that are holding the line on spending and being more fiscally responsible.

You know, that's what you're going to hear over and over again.

So now that I've teed that up, what are you going to tell the voters?

So it's more

of an investment.

It's more how do we spend the money that we take in for taxes?

Currently, our state budgets have been to the point where they encourage the people who have the wealthy and the most money to keep as much money as possible to hoard that money.

And meanwhile, the rest of us are working as hard as we can.

And we're not seeing that money.

We were promised with some of these tax credits that job growth would happen, job creation would happen.

We don't need to raise the minimum wage because the employers will do it automatically for us.

And that's not what we're seeing.

What we're seeing is

that are those tax cuts have actually starved our public schools from the resources that they need.

And I'm really worried and people in my area are really worried about this next year with all the referendums that are likely to come or, you know, if they don't pass or schools really, you know, don't want to continue to increase property taxes, what are they going to cut?

The first thing is music and art and, you know, sports and all and musicals and all the things that enrich our children's lives and, you know, make them want to go to school as well and just make them more well rounded.

individuals and then allow our communities to have things that we've come together over.

The musical sells out every year here.

I have outporns coming today.

If we don't have a music program, there won't be kids who can play those instruments.

We won't have the fundraisers at, you know, the festivals because there will be no music at those because our state is refusing to invest and cutting it.

Same thing.

We have a dire workforce shortage, but we have a huge number of parents of young children who want to work, but they can't because they cannot afford and access childcare.

Those of us in the field

or in the field.

Sorry, see those who are remaining in t are struggling to more just closing that have been over 20 years becau to keep going because t anymore.

They're losing kids kids at five, six and home.

We're back to the 1980s and it's just not s and it does not have to b again, it isn't tax and s our money appropriately so

We recruit that money and we grow our economy.

We grow our communities and we, you know, have our kids can come back to the small towns that they're vacating right now because there just isn't anything for them in there.

Pat Kreitlow

Yeah, and you've definitely made the link not just for childcare to then K-12 education, but again, to small businesses.

They're all kinds of employers that are.

practically begging the legislature to do something because they're losing too many good workers to this child care crisis as well.

And they want well educated workers.

So you're going to hear these themes and more from Kareen Hendrickson.

Her website is kareen417.com.

Kareen is C-O-R-R-I-N-E.

Kareen417.com.

And on all the social media sites, just put in kareen417 as the handle, and you'll get her on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and more.

Kareen, thank you so much for taking time to make your announcement.

with us this morning.

We really appreciate it.

Have fun with the the horns at the announcement and we'll talk again real soon.

Yeah, sounds good.

Thank you so much for having me.

Pat Kreitlow

You bet.

Pleasure seeing you and best of luck as you move forward.

Again, there are going to be primaries in several races here.

So really keep that August date in mind if you plan to vote Republican or Democrat and get to know the candidates in your local community.

We'll have our homeroom segment coming up in just a bit.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Pat Kreitlow

Remember, you can sign up for our newsletters up North News W I dot com.

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Travel Wisconsin is putting that together and we have an article about that in the newsletter.

Also, an article about Wisconsin parents who are rightly concerned about the cuts that Donald Trump and Republicans want to make to Head Start, which is a critical link for vulnerable children to receive a good education.

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The Brewers were winners yesterday against the Los Angeles Angels.

Final score was nine to two.

Christian Yelich hit home run number 29.

He had three runs batted in.

Freddy Peralta struck out 10 over six innings.

He won his National League leading 17th game.

Peralta allowed only one run on two hits.

He walked only two.

He struck out the side in three different innings.

Brandon Woodruff will get the start in tonight's game two against the Angels.

Pre game begins at 6 0 5 on several stations across the Civic Media radio network.

Of course, the Packers are back in action this coming Sunday at noon against Cleveland.

You can hear the pregame starting at 10 a.m.

Sunday on some Civic Media stations.

And the Wisconsin Badgers football team opens the Big Ten part of their schedule.

This Saturday they will be hosting Maryland and again 9 a.m.

for the pregame this Saturday on some of the stations of the Civic Media radio network.

I guess we can tell the story now of Karine Hendrickson's announcement because she's mentioned a couple of different times how she wanted to kind of make it official here first.

because it was on this show when she was talking about having to close her child care center in Nouglaris because of an unresponsive legislature that she said something along the lines of, well, I guess I might just have to run for office.

And as people got to talking about that, she said, well, I did mention it first on your show, we should probably share the final announcement here, the formal announcement.

And I'm very thankful that she followed through and did.

because the the actual announcement will be at 10 10 30 this morning in nuclearis, but it was very kind of her to come share it with us today.

Usually what happens is the announcement comes and then they kind of do the media tour afterwards.

For example, Francesca Hong made it official in the 6am hour that she's running for governor and now she will be joining us just over an hour from now at 8 35 to run for governor.

Some of the reaction is already coming in.

to koreen hendrickson's run from adam comment on youtube as a resident in the 17th district i'm so happy to see the excitement to challenge the incumbent that would be republican howard mark line and koreen talked about all the women running for office three women now in the 17th senate district three women running for the democratic primary in the third congressional district and tony puts up typical lazy men not getting involved for example pat refusing to run for governor shake my head

He says, well, Parker.

I mean, what do I do?

Do I prove him wrong and make my own announcement?

Well, I mean, if

Pat Kreitlow

I did, where would I do it?

Would I do it on my own show or would I give somebody else the scoop?

I mean, Todd Alba.

I would

probably announce on his

Pat Kreitlow

show.

Yeah, because it's not as much of a bang if you do it on your own show.

Pat Kreitlow

Right.

I mean, people might think you're just goofing around.

You show up on somebody else's show.

Yeah.

And Todd Alba is a he's a bang.

Pat Kreitlow

In fact.

I could take it a step further.

I could announce on all the different shows.

I could announce I'm running for governor on Todd's show.

Then I go on Maggie's show and say, I'm actually running for attorney general because she's an attorney.

So she, she could quiz me on that.

And then the next day I joined Jane and Greg and said, you know, on second thought, secretary of state.

That's it.

So I'll just,

it's my

Pat Kreitlow

loud tour.

What should I run for a tour of radio shows?

That actually could be quite the little, uh, little

should scam scam.

Tony

Pat Kreitlow

saying announcements coming threes to so far.

Yeah, quite possibly.

And Eli says Korean's explanation of spending in the right places hits the nail on the head.

It absolutely does when she talks about those investments because it is such a knee jerk thing to hear Republicans go tax and spend tax and spend tax and spend.

And they've lost all credibility on that.

With this most recent bill from Trump, the big bloated boondoggle.

because it's not cutting spending.

It's cutting the things that you're paying your taxes for.

It's cutting healthcare.

It's cutting nutrition programs.

It's cutting farm conservation programs, but it's not saving anything.

This is literally just robbing from the poor and giving to the rich.

And so the whole tax and spend, you know, deficit spending thing, Republicans have absolutely zero credibility anymore.

They had credibility literally for decades.

in this era of Reaganism.

But the record proves time and time and time again, they don't actually save any money.

They cut services, they give tax breaks to the wealthy, but the only times, for example, that the federal budget has been under control, has been with Democratic presidents.

They're the ones who are more fiscally responsible because they take our tax dollars and actually put them to use for us.

Look at how this job market has softened so badly so quickly the difference between a Biden administration and a Democratic Congress that was making investments of our tax dollars into Infrastructure and all kinds of other things versus now all we're hearing is cutting and cutting and cutting But we're not saving any money.

It's just gonna be tax cuts for the very well off, but I mean what to expect from somebody who

is really only focused on enriching himself and his friends as the president is.

And the last example I'll leave you with is this rumor that TikTok is finally going to have a new buyer and that it won't be a simply Chinese-owned company anymore.

But it looks like the ownership is going to be from people associated with Oracle and other companies who are buddies with Donald Trump.

and it's just more consolidation of the media.

It's almost like what happened in Hungary with Viktor Orban.

It's kind of the urbanization of the media where the companies are still going to take money from us, but they're going to bring more value to the billionaires who own them because we have that much less competition out in the marketplace.

Our homeroom segment is coming up right after the Midwest Farm Report.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Boy, there's a lot going on today.

735, welcome back.

It's a Wednesday morning, September 17th.

We just heard from Karine Hendrickson announcing her candidacy for State Senate.

One hour from now we will be talking to State Representative Francesca Hong all about her run for Wisconsin Governor joining a growing field there.

Tomorrow we'll be talking to Trevor Young who is a former Racine Alder who has just announced he's running for State Senate in the 21st District over in the Racine area.

And if you can't catch all this live on the radio from 6 until 9

or social media if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, then you really ought to get the show by podcast so you can dip in and hear some of the highlights.

So head over to Spotify, sign up to follow the show or Apple wherever you get your podcast, and never miss a moment of what we do.

You can also get connected to all this through the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

All right, welcome to our homeroom segment that we do every week at this time.

Talk a bit about public education in Wisconsin and the things that impact it.

A lot of those things come from the state capital, and not just the state budget, which is all done now, but certainly all the other ways where lawmakers can introduce bills that are helpful or even harmful, as the case may be, depending on what people in

in the Assembly and Senate, think of our public school system and what ought to be done with it.

Somebody's got to track all these things.

And for the Wisconsin Public Education Network, that would include our friend, Bryn Horton, who joins us for a little update.

Bryn, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

I'm good.

How are you?

Very good.

Thanks.

Nice to have you along.

Yeah.

There's always, there's just always so much beyond the budget that could get done for our schools or to our schools as the case may be.

So

Right now, the fall legislative session is just getting going.

We never really know just how busy or not busy they'll be at any given point.

So there are bills that are introduced.

Some may get a committee hearing.

Some may go to the floor of the Assembly or Senate.

Some may just be introduced and not come up at all.

But you have to note that they've been introduced because these are things that conceivably could happen.

So as you're looking beyond the state budget at what the legislature could be considering this fall,

things are you keeping your eye on?

Yeah, so I think the main thing that we're keeping an eye on which I feel like the fall is always a time of of hurried introduction of bills because they haven't really done much since the budget passed but both sides of the assembly introduced well they haven't been

formally introduced yet, but gave press conferences on packages of education bills that they're planning to introduce to the legislature.

Soon I would imagine they're getting co-sponsored and so it's interesting to see the the play between both of those sets of packages Do

Pat Kreitlow

you want to run through like the highlights of each package the the Republican package on the Democratic package?

Yeah, and this is fully going off of the the press conference Pres conferences that I've listened to because I haven't seen the bill texts of them yet, but

The Democratic side is introducing bills for healthy school meals for all, which has long been a topic that the Democratic Assembly members have tried to get through in the last couple of sessions.

There is a bill about voucher transparency and having the impact of those dollars on tax bills.

And then also,

there is a bill around budget and financing and the things that they're trying to do to balance out the lack of funding that came in the budget.

And then the Republican side, my understanding is there's a bill around math curriculum and changes to math curriculum.

I'm sensing that might have some of the same type of connotations that Act 20 did for reading.

That's the guess that I'm going from that one.

And then a parent's rights bill, which is also a bill that they've tried to get through a couple times in the past.

And then also some bill around school discipline and teachers being able to do what they need to do to help with student behavior.

Since that seems to be a talking point across the nation of teachers not feeling like they have the ability to do what they need to do to control student behavior.

Pat Kreitlow

So those are just some of the things that you might see in the Democratic package of bills, in the Republican package of bills.

You know, looking at some of the things that are on the Wisconsin Education Association Council website and things that they're following, you also see kind of the same

uh shall we say division between the the two parties where one is looking to maybe enhance uh prep time for teachers while another may be seeking to micromanage prep time

for

Pat Kreitlow

teachers and as we as we mentioned with Peggy where it's also from we had a couple weeks back I mean some of these bills again they may not go anywhere but

just the introduction of them is noteworthy.

For example, you know, restricting the kinds of flags that can be displayed in public buildings like schools and in classrooms.

There's always something about, you know, cursive handwriting as well.

And certainly, and then on a slightly broader level, state testing standards.

And so

I

Pat Kreitlow

really kind of feel like there's this this tug of war, if you will, between micromanaging, you know,

our educators and giving them the resources and flexibility to teach our kids.

Yeah, it's, I think, interesting in the, the cross specs of local control and the way that Wisconsin school districts have been created to give school districts and local school boards local control.

And yet we're, they're constantly being given

ways that they need to do things, even though that might not be something that works well in their local school district.

And so I think that's a constant look at least is how are we making sure that school boards are being able to.

have their local control rights that they that they were given by the by the state statutes.

Pat Kreitlow

We also have we talked about this recently.

It was kind of news to an old guy like me that cell phone bans, you know, are I guess I just thought they were there and they're not and it's become a hot discussion topic again.

And I'm sure that I think there's at least one bill dealing with cell phone bans and there will probably be others that you'll have to track in the Capitol as well.

Yeah, and that's an interesting because I believe that the cell phone bills tend to have bipartisan support.

And what I've heard from that is that because there are a lot of school districts that have their own policies.

And what I've heard is that their hope is to in order to pass a bill like that, that school districts then have the ability to be able to say, oh, see, it's not us.

It's the state telling us that we have to do this.

So when there's pushback that they have something to fall back on.

Which I guess is is a nice way of them thinking that that's that's good that the state that we can fall back on the state But I do think there's still a need of that There's a reason why we had that school districts have local control because school districts are so very different from each other across the state

Pat Kreitlow

Yeah, we're talking to Brynn Horton and she follows for the Wisconsin public education network the various bills that get introduced at the state capital that could have an impact on our schools and on your kids education

And again, from the Republican side, we see just such a focus on issues that involve such a small percentage of what goes on in society, much less our education.

In this case, I'm referring to various gender restrictions on participation in sports and other activities.

That's another bill I'm assuming Republicans will try to bring up and push, even though they know that Governor Evers would likely veto anything resembling that.

Yes, that's absolutely true.

And I do believe that there is a lot of talk about the fact that the Senate might not possibly go into any more floor sessions the rest of this year.

And so even though, I mean, introductions happen and those bills will definitely get referred to committees and actually have public hearings, which doesn't happen for a lot of bills that could actually.

fix things or help things in the school districts.

It's those dividing bills that get public hearings.

Pat Kreitlow

Right they do and I'm sure there will be something there is a bill of course to require English only in schools We talked about the flag display.

There's another bill that would require, you know, the national motto in God We Trust to be displayed in all courtrooms.

Somebody just asked me yesterday like did that law really pass in Texas that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every classroom?

Yeah, yeah, that's you know, that's a thing and that that which which means it's going to

encourage, you know, some legislator in Wisconsin to try to do the same thing.

So you're right, we're going to hear a lot of what you would call what social issues or wedge bills or anything like that.

Those seem to ones that get the public hearings and get some attention.

Yes, absolutely.

And there's never any funding attached to those.

So, you know, we can display the motto in the schools, but it's going to cost the school districts money to have to do all of that stuff.

And so that's the other

part of it too that comes with is we can give us all these things to do and then don't give any money to be able to accomplish those effects.

Pat Kreitlow

Yeah, I mean, we just talked about this with Jimmy Koska a couple weeks back when we talked about scoreboards and how I did not know that there still wasn't a shot clock for high school basketball, but that's because every school would have to

uh, not every school, but many schools have to replace their scoreboard.

They don't have the money to replace the scoreboard.

So if they don't have money to replace the scoreboard, they, they sure don't have money to be putting up, you know, religious symbols and, and models and things like that in our schools as well.

And all of this really comes back to, you know, a central theme of this segment and that is providing our public schools with the resources they need.

That includes the voucher transparency that we've talked about here.

And by the way, the Wisconsin Public Education Network, you know, just this week kicked off a public campaign to increase the transparency of the voucher program so that taxpayers know how much it really costs.

So head over to Wisconsinnetwork.org to learn more.

But Bren, you know, again, it really is what you're what you're hearing from the Democratic side is let's give schools the resources and the tools they need rather than more restrictions.

Yeah, definitely ways to be able to find more funding to be able to help close that funding gap that's going to be left with the budget.

And the main one that I think that I'm really watching on the Republican side is that there is a bill to get rid of the $325 automatic revenue limit increase that the governor got passed into law through his partial line veto and then was upheld.

But there is a bill out there to get rid of that now.

And so that's the kind of thing that the punishment that comes along with being able to get that, now we need to take that away, even though that's not actually more funding from the state.

Pat Kreitlow

Yeah, that's just it.

Because of the creative use of the line item veto, you now have this per pupil adjustment locked in for 300 years or whatever it is.

But again, if you're not giving an increase in overall general state aid, it really doesn't mean much.

But of course, that's what Republicans are going after.

They're going after the line out in veto, rather than putting a focus on what can we do for our schools?

What can we do for our kids?

And I guess I'm not confident that a bill that would get rid of the 300 year extension will be accompanied by, okay, we'll do an extension for a couple of years.

No, they'll just get

rid

Pat Kreitlow

of it entirely.

We have seen how that goes.

There's also bills out there for everything from requiring civics education to tuition and fee remission for veterans and dependents, technical colleges leasing their facilities.

There's just so many things that have to be followed in the Capitol and Bryn Horton does that for the Wisconsin Public Education Network.

Bryn, thank you so much for doing all of that and for taking some time to give us a little update this morning.

Absolutely.

Happy to do it.

Pat Kreitlow

All right.

Thank you, Brynne.

Have a wonderful day.

Thanks.

You too.

Pat Kreitlow

As we mentioned, it is a day of campaign announcements.

Karine Hendrickson announcing her run for state senate earlier this hour and then less than an hour from now at 8.35.

State Representative Francesca Hong newly announced candidate for Wisconsin governor.

We'll join us to talk about why she has chosen to run for that office in 2026.

I'm Pat Crichtlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Kathryn Lake

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.

Pat Kreitlow

Coming up across the Civic Media Radio Network today, Matt and Air on Air follows this program, Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bach from 9 to 11, Bennett Goldstein, a reporter with Wisconsin Watch.

We'll be joining them at 9.35 this morning.

The Todd Alba Show, you can catch that from 2 to 4 today, and then the Maggie Dawn Show from 4 to 6 at 5.06 this evening.

In the 5 o'clock hour, General Russell Honoré will join Maggie to discuss

Putting the military into the streets of American cities.

Also on Maggie's show at 5.30 we'll hear from Senator, State Senator Kristen Dessler all time about increases in health insurance premiums.

And then you can hear Nightlight with Pete Schwabba from 6 until 8 this evening.

Actor Mike McGill from Shameless will be joining Pete at 6.30 this evening and comedian Greg Schwarm will join him at 7.20.

All that ahead on the Civic Media Radio Network head over to CivicMedia.us to learn more.

There's also a podcast with Earl Ingram and we'll talk to him about that in less than 15 minutes to see what's going on with the What's Going On podcast.

But first let's check in with Jimmy Koska from

who's the sports director, follow some of the news stories around Southwest Wisconsin as well.

Jimmy, how are you doing this morning?

Dan Shafer

I'm doing great.

You know, it's funny because we're, we're sitting here mid September and I know it's the heart of football season and everything like that.

But you know, all anybody can talk to me about is the Milwaukee Brewers and what they've been able to do right now.

And I got to tell you, it's, it's quite the ride right now.

Pat Kreitlow

It's a very nice ride and plenty of people have been able to enjoy that ride for free.

because Parker why what what what are we doing one last time on Friday?

We're giving away free tickets.

Free ticket Friday.

That's exactly it.

Yes.

So again, if you don't have that civic media app, get that puppy downloaded and you'll be texting us keywords throughout the day this coming Friday.

The final free ticket Friday

of the brewery season.

After that, Jimmy, I'm thinking tickets get a lot more expensive as we

Dan Shafer

move on.

Yeah, they get a little more expensive.

That's when they start adding the auxiliary press box to AMFAM Field.

And it's a little harder to get into games.

You can't just get in standing room only and sit there for five bucks above the visiting bullpen and let them know exactly how you feel about that.

Pat Kreitlow

Yeah, nope.

It doesn't work like that.

But there will be October baseball, which is a nice thing.

And I really

I really am counting on the brewers, not just to get this by and not be in the wildcard round, but to advance beyond the division series.

And, you know, look, again, these are not household names for the brewers.

There's names I scarcely remember sometimes when they take the field.

But I don't feel like we should also sell them short and say, well, you know, if they lose in the first round, that's how it goes.

I think we can hold higher expectations of these guys from what I've seen.

Dan Shafer

Yeah, and the fact that, too, that if they can stay ahead of the, you know, the Cubs, which they're up by five games, I think, this morning as we enter the day, five and a half games with just a handful of games remaining, they can get that buy out of the wild card run.

They don't have to worry about playing in that best of three.

Then they go right into the NLDS and, you know, and have home field advantage there.

And they can have home field advantage, too, throughout the postseason, just given the fact that the record is so great.

They are a few wins shy of the best record in French.

history.

I mean, there's a lot of good vibes happening right now with the Brewers.

And like I said, I know we're in the heart of football season and, you know, everybody here in the companies and I've talked to Mike Clemens about, you know, what the Packers are doing.

We're going to see the Badgers, you know, coming up again against Maryland this weekend.

But it is, it is all about the Brewers at the moment in terms of what people are talking about sports wise, which is really, really fun to see.

Pat Kreitlow

It really is.

And by the way, when you say a handful of games, let me run through that for folks when they say, well, is it really the last free ticket Friday?

Yeah, because there's only one more homestand after this one.

You've got the angels here tonight and again tomorrow night.

But then the Brewers head off to St.

Louis for three against the Cardinals and then to San Diego next week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, for three against the Padres.

And then they come home a week from this Friday for the final homestand of the season, three games against the Cincinnati Reds.

And that's it.

There's just these 11 games left in the regular season.

Dan Shafer

Yeah.

And those three games against the Reds, what is fun about that is that they typically have a lot of fan centered giveaways, fan appreciation night, things like that.

So those last two games are actually pretty fun.

Even if at that point, the Brewers have wrapped everything up.

It's a lower stress atmosphere.

There are still a lot of cool things they do at the end of the regular season to make sure fans stay engaged.

Pat Kreitlow

Well, let me tell you.

This works out well for some folks that plan ahead.

Even if it's accidentally.

And what I'm saying is I got a college buddy who we try to get to one brewery game every year.

And we just, we just couldn't pull it off.

We just couldn't get the dates to match up as we were going through.

And finally he's like, you know, we got to the last weekend of the regular season.

And we said, okay, that's the one that's going to work.

So we finally, we got tickets for the last of that last home stand again since Nettie.

This was before the burrs got real real good So we managed to get some some discounted tickets for the last regular Homestand and we're gonna have ourselves a grand old time because we because we planned ahead or because we were Accidentally lucky.

We'll take

Dan Shafer

you there

Pat Kreitlow

one.

Dan Shafer

You know, it used better be lucky than good sometimes.

So I'm with you That's it's so cool though because you know, there's

You hope that the series is low stress for the first click into the postseason and that you can just enjoy the baseball atmosphere.

But yeah, that last home stand, usually what you get as you get a handful of goodies to take home and put put put in your collection as I've done as you could tell here many times over the years.

Oh, sure.

Pat Kreitlow

Absolutely.

Look at that.

That is that's a museum back there on yourself of

Dan Shafer

a

Pat Kreitlow

swag.

And of course, you also root for the non-injury.

You know, it's like, no, you don't need to make that dive and catch.

It's OK.

Don't

Jam your thumb, no compound fractures, please.

We're heading into the playoffs.

Every every play like that is going to be a little nerve wracking.

Dan Shafer

Oh, yeah, for sure.

And the other part, too, is I think the thing that you really watch is, you know, pitching and just seeing who lines up for the postseason and trying to figure out who's going to be be the guys in the bullpen, be the guys of the rotation.

Typically in those first couple of rounds, you're talking about a pitching staff carrying just 12 guys.

They do allow you to carry up to 13.

But usually that's not until the later rounds, the best of sevens, where that becomes an issue.

So if you're looking ahead to the brewers of their posts,

season roster.

They'll be looking for the 26 guys.

It'll probably be a 14 12 split in hitters to pitchers.

But then as the playoffs go further, if the Brewers are fortunate enough to get to those points, that's where you would see them at the extra pitchers.

So watching how the pitching staff and the rotation sets up for the playoffs is one of the more fascinating parts of MLB baseball.

Pat Kreitlow

Civic media sports director Jimmy Koska.

Great to talk to you.

Have a great day.

Thank you guys.

Thank you, Jimmy.

All right, coming up in our next hour, we will talk to Earl Ingram from the What's Going On podcast through Civic Media and new candidate for governor, state representative Francesca Hong.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Kathryn Lake

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