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Oh, that was pretty good.
I thought there might be another punchline in there or something, but... Oh, do you want
No, no, no, no, no.
I thought maybe you'd come up with another one.
Oh!
You played it straight, and I appreciate that very much.
Well, here's Ruth.
Again, we can't have Don Russein from our Lake WSOTA studios when I'm not on Lake WSOTA right now.
So thank you for pinch hitting on that.
I'll have to get those notes to Don more in advance, I guess, in the future.
No.
Like you just said, Midtown Nashville.
a
Mark is.
Is that how I have to be able to do this?
Yes, I think so.
I have to be someplace that is not too accessible.
Uh, have we noticed here and again, this is a radio show.
So our, our, our video production value isn't always what we want it to be, but I tease you about your camera all the time, looking rather kind of, you know, greenish.
Yeah.
Um, is, is it just me or have I just gone completely orange now?
You
was going to go like Oompa Loompa or something like that.
It's just, I don't know.
Or,
Oh man, that is that is harsh.
I'm just going to turn the camera off here right now.
We'll just put you on full.
There we go.
No, I suppose we can keep this on.
Anyway, so we'll continue to play around with camera settings over here.
But in the meantime, welcome you back to this second hour of warnings with pack right low powered by up north news all across the civic media radio network.
I've got your go for the green and gold
text to win contest keyword coming up in just a bit.
First a hello from Robin Tigerton.
Good morning.
He says it's partly cloudy and foggy.
53 degrees visibility down to one mile.
Remember drive with your headlights on.
I've seen several vehicles driving by without their headlights on.
So as he's got a doctor's appointment in Shawno yesterday, apparently for an ear infection.
Said he used to listen to WSPT for years.
always love the variety of music.
And also listen to civic media too, of course, I've got lawns and Tigerton today, the morning dew has kept the grass growing, especially in the shaded areas got five yards to mow in Tigerton with the warmer weather, you know, hanging on and this warmer weather really has hung on very nicely.
So, you know, that and that's that's great.
So
Um, so Rob, thank you for the, for the good morning out there.
We appreciate it very much.
And now let's turn to the business at hand.
And that of course would be the goal for the green and gold text to win contest.
And Oh, look, we get, we get the music that too.
That's fantastic.
He puts a lot of work into this.
There you go.
So anyway, the go for the green and gold contest means you get to win cash and jewelry as part of a daily prize $200 plus a gold plated chain goes to one of the many entries that will come in today and every day seven different chances to enter the contest seven different keywords on all the different programs.
Your job before the end of each of those hours is to text it into us using the civic media app.
And then, along with all those chances for a daily prize, every entry is in the running for the grand prize in this multi-station, multi-state game.
One lucky winner we'll get for the whole enchilada two club level indoor seats.
to see a football game, Green Bay versus Minnesota.
It's a Green Bay home game on November 23rd, plus a gas card to get you to the game.
Total value of the grand prize package is more than $1,500.
And so now, let's get to that word.
It is zone.
Z-O-N-E.
Zone.
And you've got until eight o'clock to use your Civic Media app and text us the word zone.
Then your next chance to enter will be during the 9 o'clock hour of Matt and Aaron Air in the Go for the Green and Gold contest across Civic Media.
And I always am so happy to see how quickly they come in.
And I feel like just wanting to share some of the love here, TJ and Oshkosh, Mark and Jefferson, Whistler and Rich and Richland Center, Tom and New Berlin is out there.
There's Julianne and Cronin Wetter, Tom and Jackson, Chuck and East Troy.
Everybody getting out there with their their chance to win.
And I again, I don't I don't know that we see Parker the data on which
which words get plucked at which point.
But I would like to think and take credit for that most of the daily winners sent their entry in during the 7am hour on our
that I prove it and and until somebody can disprove it, you know, I get to claim otherwise.
Isn't that how politics works today?
I'm pretty sure.
And kind of get to say however you want.
So there you go.
Meanwhile, Tony's asking the civic media going to have World Series to the Cleveland Milwaukee series.
Somebody's already putting the Brewers and the Guardians in the World Series and wants tickets.
Well, Tony, when that doesn't happen, we can now thank you for jinxing things.
I think that's how this works here.
If you were running a radio station and you had these great tickets throughout the course of the season and then you had them for the postseason, would you tell anybody?
Well, I'm not saying that we
go away.
What tickets?
No, I don't know.
They were regular season only.
Why would we have postseason tickets when we had regular season tickets all year round?
We give them up for the postseason.
We don't know how that works.
It could be.
I don't I don't either.
So you're you're the one who's down there at Civic Media World HQ.
So again, without jinxing the brewers, we've charged you with finding out
if, you know, there will be postseason tickets that will be given away, or if they're being used by, you know, I figured John and Gordy have the most seniority.
So I figured they're just hoarding them
Yes.
Okay.
Yes, that's exactly what it is.
I can do that now, you know, I mean, yeah.
People of our age, we can't do a lot, but we do remember eBay.
And I'm just imagining John and Gordy on eBay right now going quick before management finds out how much can we get for these things.
It could happen.
But first to get there, we've got to figure out in the National League Division series, whether we are going to be playing the Chicago Cubs or the San Diego Padres.
And we still don't know the answer to that because the Padres were winners yesterday over the Cubs.
And that means a deciding third game is going to be taking place today.
I wanted to get the right game time on here and naturally I don't have that screen in front of me right here.
So the Padres beat the Cubs three to nothing.
And so here's the schedule for today's games.
Now the one series is already complete.
The Los Angeles Dodgers swept the Cincinnati Reds in two games.
It's a best of three series here.
And in the other three series, they're now tied at a game of peace.
And so it breaks down this way.
The deciding game between Tony's Cleveland Guardians and the Detroit Tigers will be at two o'clock this afternoon.
Then the Padres and Cubs will play at four o'clock this afternoon at Wrigley Field.
And then the Socks and the Yankees will play at seven o'clock tonight.
And
that, you know, obviously we'll be paying more attention to the Padres Cubs game, but
I never turned down a chance to watch socks Yankees.
No, because it's I mean, that's that's just a good old fashioned rivalry there.
And for me, it always harkens back to 2004, when again, the Red Sox were like the Cubs, they had gone forever without winning a World Series.
day.
Yes, exactly.
And back in the 2004 postseason, I was on a work trip.
I was in
Madison, if I'm not mistaken, for a week to learn a whole new newsroom computer program.
And so they put us up in a hotel and then we had these classes every day to make sure that we knew how to operate this thing.
Well, at night, you go down to the hotel bar, and it was game four of the American League Championship Series.
And the Yankees are already up three games to none.
And so that at first night, we're all there having our beverages, expecting the Yankees are going to sweep and Boston wins.
Okay, that's fine.
You know, next day we do our classes, we go to the hotel bar and Boston wins again.
And, you know, the next night afterwards, we go to and
And Boston wins again.
And now it's suddenly it's going to a deciding seventh game and never had a team come down from three nothing in the league championship series to win the next four and go to the World Series.
And so of course, by that time, of course, we're all brewers fans.
But at that moment, we're all socks.
Oh, yeah.
All ever the places packed and Boston goes on to win that seventh game and goes on to the World Series.
And so yeah, for that brief time, you know, we're all kind of socks fans.
because it had never been done before.
And it was the Yankees.
It's always
Yes.
If those things are the
Yeah.
So I mean, it won't be exactly the same tonight, but it is it's going to be an interesting series.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, by beating the Reds and eliminating them go on to play the Philadelphia Phillies.
So
Again, in theory, not to get ahead of myself, but we'll be playing the Padres or the Cubs.
And if the Brewers come out on top of that series, then we would take on the winner of the series between the Dodgers and Fills to see who goes to the World Series.
That would be fun.
Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, the Yankees, you know, the big city teams, they're already set.
They don't need any extra help from us.
Again, our goal for the Green Angle Text-to-Win Contest, the word is zone that you want to text in to us using the Civic Media app before eight o'clock this morning.
And now the Packers have a bye week.
We've already mentioned the Brewers waiting to play the Padres or Cubs starting Saturday.
And then there's Badger Football.
The Badgers will be in Ann Arbor, taking on Michigan.
Pre-game coverage will begin at nine o'clock on stations in Richland Center, Amory, Wisconsin Rapids, and Ripon.
Parker will not be listening in.
He will be paying attention to the Whitewater game.
Yes.
Do you have the YX schedule in front of you since we've got the conference schedule getting underway?
I mean, can you at least start by telling us who Whitewater is playing?
Oh yes, they do.
I got, I have it here.
It's a stout stout at Eau Claire.
I believe
at Platteville,
Yeah.
And river, river falls at Oshkosh and La Crosse at Whitewater.
And that's all happening on Saturday afternoon.
Yeah.
So that we'll get the, the conference season underway there.
Uh, and
your your upset that there's going to be 20,000 people at is it called Warhawk Stadium?
What does it used to
I was just gonna say,
Okay, got it.
All right.
So now you're up to speed on everything happening sports wise as we kind of get a very early look into the weekend here.
Hey, reminder, we've got a couple of different newsletters that you should be signing up for and enjoying.
There's the new civic media daily newsletter called civic media today and over civic media today dot substack.com again civic media today dot substack
dot com.
And of course, over here at up north news, we've got plenty to share with you as well.
We've got our Sunday mornings with pack right low newsletter with a little Wisconsin politics bent to it.
And of course, our weekday newsletter as well that Ellie Bordeaux puts together.
And you can do all that up north news w i dot com.
Coming up in 15 minutes, Secretary Amy Pahachek of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
I'm pack right low.
This is the civic media radio network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Again, if you're a little late to join us here, the go for the green and gold text to win contest is underway for this hour.
And this hour's word is zone Z O N E Z is in zebra zone.
Text that before eight o'clock and be in the running for a little cash and jewelry for a daily prize and some tickets to see a Green Bay versus Minnesota game next month at Green Bay.
Great indoor tickets.
to see a really great game, what promises to be a great division game as well.
Zone is what you want to send.
Looking at a few things that I'm trying to catch up on, there's some stories that I haven't taken the time to share recently.
And I really am overdue to provide the follow-up on what has happened with former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gabelman and his expensive
Non-investigation investigation into the 2020 election the details here from Henry Redman in the Wisconsin examiner former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gabemann's license to practice law in Wisconsin should be suspended for three years according to a third-party referee agreeing with the state office of lawyer regulations allegations that he violated standards for professional conduct during his much maligned
review of the 2020 presidential election.
Let's Henry Redmond's phrasing of the much maligned review, I would go with something more like, you know, incompetent and borderline criminal.
And other people noticed that as well.
His lack of ethics, his improper conduct.
Again, just basically it was an allegation or an investigation in name only.
It was based on a lie that there were these irregularities about the 2020 presidential election.
And Gabelman, in a very Trumpian way, assumed that he had a blank check to do whatever he wanted to threaten people however he wanted.
And now, you know, a couple of years later, the Office of Lawyer Regulation has reviewed
some of the complaints against him and found a recommendation to suspend his law license for three years.
Now it'll be the Wisconsin Supreme Court that has the final say in the matter and we don't, I don't see a timeline here on how that's going to unfold or win but
To me, I mean, if he gets a three-year suspension of his law license, well, okay, A, at least it'll be consequences, which is more than we can say for things like, you know, the Warsaw mayor moving a ballot dropbox.
But I would argue that it's still not nearly enough.
And I feel like even though people will want to get back to normal, if we get to go back to normal after this age of Trumpism, I'm going to be amongst those people saying, no, we're
we're not just gonna let things go.
There are people who have trampled on the Constitution, whose conduct has led to things that have included, I don't know, children starving to death in Africa and people being deported, people being taken into custody even though they're American citizens.
And so this Gableman review I'd like to think is just the start of some...
long overdue accountability for what's happening for people that really just want to trample on our democracy and it's a pastime that we do something about it.
In another story, there's a lot to be said, of course, about what Derek Van Orden has been doing.
The congressman in his whole red scare thing of trying to get people fired and, of course, his continued belligerence as somebody who does and has done
really next to nothing in his job, especially for Wisconsin farmers.
We have a trade war here, a made up trade war that is going to be costing farmers dearly.
And yet somehow he is still getting traction out of serving on the ag committee.
And the latest example came the other day, again, from both WKBT, Channel 8, and also from the Monroe Herald.
And the headline says Congressman Van Orden visits Tomah Cranberry Bog to discuss agriculture policy.
And it's got a, you know, there's the video of the Congressman touring some bogs, allegedly to discuss farming issues and pending legislation.
Van Orden emphasized reducing regulations to help farmers produce high quality food.
And so again, a lot about
what he'd like to see but he's been in Congress for a while now and Hasn't done anything about it because all he's been able to do is go along with plans to keep the federal government shut down and There's nothing in this story about his ongoing campaign to get people fired in other words he faced no tough questioning whatsoever it was
It was stenography.
It was another puff piece about a congressman going to a farm or a cranberry bog in this case and getting to say whatever he wants to say without facing any accountability for his recent actions, which go run counter to the First Amendment or question about his actions in the real world of farming, not just the things he wants to say about policy.
And the same thing happened in the Monroe County Herald where it says Van Orden highlights farm bill priorities during visit to Tolma Cranberry Bog.
And again, it's just seriously empty words about farm policies rather than asking, what have you done and why haven't you done anything?
We're still going without a new farm bill in the state and now we have
you know, China that is getting all of its soybeans from Brazil and now Argentina.
We can't even talk about doing, say, a bailout to Wisconsin farmers because the government is now shut down.
And so I again want to salute the folks at Channel 13 in Eau Claire for at least trying, week before last, to hold Derek Van Orden to account for, again, a member of Congress threatening people
threatening to defund cities and the Mayo Clinic and get people fired.
And they deserve credit for attempting some accountability.
These other outlets, you got to stop doing these puff pieces, the stakes are too high, cover what's really out there, not what the Congressman wants you to cover.
Department of Workforce Development Secretary Amy Pahacheck is coming up next.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
Secretary Amy Fajacek, hello.
Good morning.
How are you?
Thank you for being here.
Hello.
Good morning.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to be joining you today,
Pat.
The economy isn't as rosy as it used to be.
And as a result, there might be a need for workforce development services.
Seems like a good time to find out what the Wisconsin DWD is all about.
So do you want to start first with just an overarching view of the mission of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development?
Absolutely.
I would love to.
And Pat, you are spot on.
There is a lot of uncertainty in the economy and the job market these days.
And we know Wisconsinites are feeling it.
And whether that's folks looking for a new job, a career change, or entering or re-entering the workforce, the Department of Workforce Development has many services to support not only our job seekers, but our businesses here in the great state of Wisconsin.
So our agency is charged with connecting employers and workers
across the state.
So we do that through a variety of different ways.
We have 28 physical brick and mortar job centers all around the state, but we will meet folks anywhere at a Starbucks at a library.
And we also have virtual services that are clearly online and statewide and available from the comfort of somebody's own home.
And all of the services we offer are at no cost.
So some of the things that we can do is we can connect local job seekers with training, certifications,
resources.
We can help folks write resumes.
We can help them find a job.
We are the state's labor exchange, so we have all of the open positions on the Job Center of Wisconsin for our employers that are looking for work so we can do a skills assessment and see what might be a great match for individuals.
We can also help people with things like apprenticeships or internships.
And we really have a lot of services also centered around historically underutilized, qualified
This is individuals with disabilities.
We've got resources.
We've got funding to help folks.
And we work with businesses as well, connecting with these qualified job pools.
And we can do career fairs for businesses.
No cost.
We can set up businesses with apprenticeships, again, with internships, make those connections.
We can provide training.
And we also have grants like Wisconsin Fast Forward, which are training grants that go to income.
new employees and their business led opportunities.
We distribute over 5 million in grants every year.
We have a lot of other wonderful things, but I think that is sort of a good overview and kind of a big intro into what we do here for the state.
And you know, before we even get into more specifics about this, I'm sure folks have already been intrigued to want to learn more.
So help me if I'm I'm going to give two web addresses and let me know if there's others we should put up there.
overall department address for the Department of Workforce Development, the DWD is DWD.wisconsin.gov.
But also if you're on Instagram, you can go to WI workforce.
Again, on Instagram, it's WI workforce.
And you'll get to the Department of Workforce Development.
Is there any other any other avenues you want people to know about if they want to learn more?
Yeah, absolutely.
Our website is like you referenced.
It's right there.
And if they want to talk to somebody, there's lots of different phone numbers depending on the program, but we are there at the ready to help direct folks to the right location.
Okay, sounds good.
We're talking to Amy Pahacheck, Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development about the increased number of job seekers and that.
that has just been the way things have gone in the 2025 economy.
At this point, you've had people losing their jobs in the public sector.
You've certainly had uncertainty because of tariffs.
You now have agricultural issues with a trade war that the president has got going on right now.
So in all of these things, I mean, I don't know if we want to take any one thing, but somebody has either
been laid off, they've lost their job, maybe they're thinking about a change.
And so for all the things we just talked about, what is the best very first step that they can take?
Well, if somebody's laid off, they should go ahead and file for unemployment, which is the temporary income through unemployment insurance that we
run here for the state of Wisconsin.
And I do have to say two quick things just about the progressive history of our wonderful state.
Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to pass both a state run unemployment system back in the 1930s.
We were also the first state in the nation to have a constitutionally valid workers compensation program and the first state in the nation to pass a state apprenticeship program all the way back in 1911.
So wonderful history there and all of these
programs are available.
But if I have lost my job, I want to immediately file for unemployment so I can start to access some of those unemployment payments that folks are entitled to that is not taxpayer money that is an insurance program that employers pay into through their state taxes.
So that is, you know, their state programs.
So that is basically there as a safety net to keep not only that individual and their family with income while they are looking for
a job but it also keeps our local economies healthy because when folks receive those payments of course they're buying groceries and paying rent and putting gas in their car right which keeps all of our businesses moving forward but at that point maybe you're thinking about a career change maybe you're thinking about a certification and we have job counselors that will go and do a skills assessment talk to you about your interests what schooling you may want to attend or maybe you want a certification or apprenticeship we
can help find you resources not only to pay for those trainings or schooling, but also additional resources that we can help provide, including access to childcare.
Maybe somebody's having a hard time putting food at the table.
We are there to connect those dots and really act as the convener of different resources available to people because we know that really going to work every day, it has a lot.
You need a good job, but you also need to be able to feed the kids.
and make sure you have those first really important needs met in your family.
So we are here to help hit all of those needs.
And I do, Pat, also want to talk a little bit more about the apprenticeship program because it is wildly popular here in Wisconsin and it has expanded significantly over the last five years.
We've been breaking records in terms of numbers of registered apprenticeships, numbers of youth apprentices, with a record number of employer partners.
in a record number of new career pathways.
I know many of your listeners think of apprentices and they think of the trades, which are still some of the highest paid and highest enrollment numbers that we have.
So those are our electricians, our welders, our plumbers, they're wonderful occupations.
But in Wisconsin, we've been leading the way and we have rolled out the first in the nation four year registered nurse, which is a bachelor's degree apprentice.
And
we have teaching apprentice IT, cybersecurity.
HR finance.
And what makes Wisconsin different than all of the other states is that we require an earn while you learn model, which means that folks are paid not only for their hands on work experience while they're learning their craft and their skills, but also for their associated time in the classroom.
So this is typically a zero out of pocket zero debt while you're earning money way to get a degree or certification in virtual
any industry, any occupation that includes tourism, farming.
food preparation, amazing opportunities here.
So I'm happy to be able to highlight what a great program that we have in the state of Wisconsin.
We're talking to Secretary Amy Pahacheck from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
We've hit several of the areas that DWD works on, but there are also things like disability employment services and veterans employment services.
Do you want to touch on those a little bit about again some of the other ways that
people can provide assistance in getting into the workforce.
Absolutely, Pat.
So thanks for bringing that up.
So some of the trends we've been seeing here in the state of Wisconsin over the last five years have been record high jobs, record high employment.
I've already talked about the record high number of apprentices.
And one of the other areas that you just asked about, I'm happy to highlight, which is we have had a record number of individuals with disabilities enter into the workforce.
And that has been very strategic on our part because when you talk about record high jobs, we've also had record low unemployment.
We over the last five years have had more jobs in Wisconsin than physical bodies to fill those jobs.
And we call that the worker quantity challenge.
And that is not unique to Wisconsin.
That is an issue that's facing the entire nation.
But what makes us different in Wisconsin is our very innovative approaches to helping overcome that gap.
of, again, more opportunity than physical bodies.
And that also has a lot to do with demographics.
We've known that there's been low birth rates for several generations.
Our baby boomers are retiring.
And here in Wisconsin, over the last 20 years, we've had net zero to negative in migration.
Last year, we had up 20,000 folks.
So we had 20,000 more people come than leave, which was great.
But we need to keep going in that direction because of all of our record breaking performance.
And one of the ways we've been doing that, again,
is connecting everybody who wants a job with a job and the resources they need to have competitive employment.
And historically, folks with disabilities have been, I would say, overlooked in most industries and sectors.
And what we have is an entire team of over 300 people statewide that are career counselors.
They're social workers.
They have an amazing ability to sit and work with somebody.
And disabilities can mean over
of things.
It can be a physical impairment like a orthopedic injury or somebody who has a hearing impairment or a visual impairment or it could be somebody who has a neurodivergence.
They might have autism or be on the spectrum and we have the ability to work with folks depending on their needs and we can provide not only customized training and counseling but also
adaptive technology.
So some somebody may need hearing aids to be able to perform the functions of their job at a work site.
And we can provide that medical adaptive equipment at no cost to the person.
We also work with employers to make sure that they have an organizational environment that supports different abilities.
And we can even provide a job coach on site for up to six months to work with that person and the employer every single day to make sure that both sides have needs.
being met and it is an amazing program.
So we again stand at the ready.
You also referenced veterans employment services.
We have a whole team of veterans employment folks who are by nature.
They are all veterans themselves.
So they understand some of the unique challenges that our wonderful servicemen and women go through when they come back to civilian employment.
And last year I'm proud to say that Wisconsin last year was fourth in the nation in terms of our veterans employment services.
is in our ability to place veterans with our wonderful employers here in the state.
And we know that veterans make some of the best, most loyal, dedicated, and just perfect employees for our workforce here.
So much to learn and to get more information.
Again, the department's website is DWD for Department of Workforce Development, dwd.wisconsin.gov over on Instagram, W I workforce.
And as the secretary mentioned, plenty of phone numbers that can get you to just the right place.
Secretary Amy Pahacheck, Secretary of the Department of Workforce Development, thank you so much for visiting with us.
It was great to hear all about the wonderful things you do.
Thank you so much for having me.
That was our pleasure.
And of course, one of the things that I really took note of her saying was about Wisconsin population, you know, inflow or outflow.
And, you know, for a time there, Wisconsin had one of the strongest economic recoveries.
coming out of the pandemic.
And a lot of that dealt with the way that Governor Tony Evers was handling the federal pandemic aid, making sure that it went to Main Street businesses.
Meanwhile, the legislature was pretty much a wall at this point, but
Now we've once again had this downturn in our economy being caused out of Washington DC.
And so after years of chasing away some of our youngest, best and brightest, we were just starting to see population inflows coming back to Wisconsin.
And now we have to once again worry about the signals being sent by folks who just want to take care of those at the very top and not the people who would like to move to Wisconsin, live in Wisconsin, raise their family in Wisconsin and even retire here.
We'll have more coming up, including Chad Holmes in our next hour.
and political strategist Joseph Pecky.
And again, our text-to-win contest prize for the top of the
hour is ZONE Z-O-N-E.
I'm Pat Whitewell.
This is the Civic Media Media Network.
All right, you've only got a few minutes left here to text us the word zone through the Civic Media app.
Again, get the app downloaded wherever you get your apps.
And then there are a couple of different ways to reach out to us.
There's the text feature and there's the voice note feature where you can leave us a little voice message.
But for this, you want to use that text message feature and text the word zone.
Z as in zebra, Z-O-N-E, and you got to do that for eight o'clock to be in the running for a daily prize, $200 cash and a gold play to chain, but also to be in the running for the grand prize tickets to see Green Bay versus Minnesota in Green Bay next month.
Great club level indoor seats to watch the game, but again to enter a zone, Z-O-N-E.
And it and I was like giving a little shout out to folks who are listening and putting things in Jessica in cut of hay Thank you for being part of the show here.
There's Connie Mary and Tosa always nice to see your name there and who to go and Marie from Brookfield Christie in Eau Claire and Curt from Eau Claire is our most recent Entrant in the text to win contest and again your next chance will be during the nine o'clock hour with Jane Matt and Aaron Greg Bach for Matt and air on air
All right, let's head to the Civic Media Newsroom in Chippewa Falls where we are joined by James Kelly to hear about some of the stories that he is following for Civic Media.
James, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
I'm doing great.
How you doing?
I'm doing all right.
Thanks.
It's good to see you there and to talk about some of the stories that you're working on.
We've definitely talked about your top story at length because it's based out of Chippewa Falls, but definitely worth a mention again.
The kind of program you don't expect to see a news story like this, and yet it has dragged on for
weeks, months actually.
And now you have this service for homeless veterans that is just not happening in Chippewa Falls right now.
Yeah, Klein Hall officially closed earlier this week.
It had essentially closed earlier this month.
The last veteran moved out on September 9th.
So they've mostly just been cleaning up the facility without the new funding.
And the time to receive that funding has also long since passed.
So right now we're at a stage where we have two competing bills and there's a lot of finger pointing going on about who's responsible for this $1.9 million not being available for these two facilities in Chippewa Falls and Green Bay and neither one of those can.
has been scheduled for a public hearing yet.
So it's going to be a little while.
It is going to be a little while and there's really no reason to.
I keep talking about the legislature and their fall session.
There really hasn't been a fall session.
There have been committee hearings, but you've had a state senate that has not come in and apparently will not come into session where they could take up this bill.
Now this bill is all about, or these bills I should say, are all about funding Klein Hall, the services that are provided to homeless veterans that had been zeroed out by the Joint Finance Committee in the budget.
And now the finger pointing going back and forth is, you know, is that funding supposed to be restored?
through a specific line item in the budget, a specific appropriation, or should the governor just transfer the money from some other bucket, which he says is, you know, not like waving a magic wand.
And it just is way past time for folks on both sides of the aisle to stop with the finger pointing and, you know, to get this figured out one way or another, because
I mean, once the funding comes, Klein Hall can operate again.
Yeah,
I will say it's specifically Klein Hall officials say that if that funding does come back, they'd probably use a new facility just because Klein Hall is not infrastructurally the most sound.
They had to spend a lot of money on heating in particular months.
So they would say they'd probably upgrade buildings if they are going to receive new funding.
Yeah, and that was part of the issue is why governor evers asked for $1.9 million for these programs was because of the facilities and the extra cost that's associated with them and you know whether whether when republicans zeroed it out if they meant to put it back in in a different way with a different facility and they just
you know, didn't.
Again, we don't know the motivations, we just know what the end result is right now, and that those services are still very much necessary for, you know, the hundreds of homeless veterans in Wisconsin.
And so hopefully we see some kind of action on that happening soon.
We've talked quite a bit about how some of the communities that you cover deal with affordable housing and just the
the quantity of housing stock, what's the latest out of Menominee?
Yeah, so the Menominee Housing Committee was formed to kind of address those issues.
One of the big problems with building affordable housing is how do you make it an attractive developmental prospect for the developers?
It takes a lot of state or federal money to kind of bridge that gap between the amount of money it costs to build the facility and how much revenue you can actually take in from it.
So the Menominee Housing Committee made a couple recommendations that the city council adopted that's using more tax increment financing for these projects and kind of easing development
There was a third recommendation that the city council hasn't adopted yet, which is reducing the lot size for single family homes.
So basically making the property smaller so you can build more of them.
That's one of those things that when it comes around in any community, a lot of people start to say, well, we don't really want higher density housing.
We don't want to change the fabric of our neighborhood, which is a phrase that gets passed around a lot.
Oh, without a doubt, when you when you get to talking about the folks who can afford to live on, you know, an acre of land, don't necessarily want to see a bunch of eight plexes across the street.
And yet if you're going to have a healthy economy, you have to have that mix of housing.
And so decisions have to be made at the local level about this.
So that's certainly what's being followed in Menominee that James is following for us.
And then finally, let's wrap up in Superior, the other refinery there.
And of course, we already
know the problems that can come with fossil fuels, but producing them as well can lead to some air quality issues.
Yeah, so Centavis Energy from Canada bought this refinery in 2021.
It's the state's only oil refinery.
And since the since late 2023, the DNR alleges there have been 27 violations, including emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and greenhouse gases.
Officials from the company say it's a short term issue stemming from the rebuilding project they did $1.2 billion after a 2018 explosion at the refinery.
But they also do have a high priority violation of the Clean Air Act from the
EPA that's been in place for four out of the last 12 quarters.
So a lot of residents there are concerned about the future of their air quality.
James Kelly reporting on these stories and more for Civic Media.
Catch him on our local Civic Media stations and of course online where he does daily updates as well for some of the stations up here in Northwest Wisconsin.
James, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Have a good one.
All right, you as well.
And of course, in the era that we live in now, oil refinery polluting.
They'll probably get a gold medal from the White House.
We'll have Joseph Becky and Chad Holmes after the news.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
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