Promoting a Superior Part of the State (Hour 2)

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

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

Hey, good morning.

It is 7 0 6.

Nice to have you back here up north on this Tuesday morning, October 14th.

Still ahead, we will be talking to Jim Payne, the mayor of Superior.

There's been a little bit of chatter about Superior days.

which is a big lobbying effort by folks up in far northwest Wisconsin who go all the way down to Madison and visit with not just their state legislators, but legislators small around the state to say, hey, don't forget about us up north.

And here are some of our priorities and things that we hope you can support.

And there may be some that think that after 40 years, what was once a novel idea is has kind of run its course.

Does the mayor of superior agree with that?

We'll ask him coming up at the bottom of this hour.

We'll be talking to Dan Hagen from News Watch 12, WJFWTV in Rhinelander, and we will be talking to James Kelly from Civic Media from the newsroom in Chippewa Falls about stories that he's following.

And Parker Olson is producing things down in Madison Studio A2.

And as always, we invite you to join us with your questions or comments or recipes.

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Wisconsin is waking up today with news parker that the Milwaukee Brewers ran into an absolute buzz saw in Dodger's pitcher Blake Snell who

Except for one little one little blip What was coming really close to pitching a perfect game and did face the minimum number of batters through eight innings Which hasn't happened since Don Larson pitched a perfect game in the World Series for the Yankees in 1956 This guy was just that good He put the pitches right where he wanted them and the Brewer hitters batters have probably the better word here could not solve it and like you were saying it was

Again, you don't like to see a pitcher's duel if you're looking for action in a baseball game, but if you're a bit of a purist for a second You can appreciate what kind of a game this guy threw

it was fun to watch I Hate that he doesn't play for us.

He's one of those guys

Yeah, he is now we We you know the Brewers did put up a threat in the ninth inning got the bases loaded Scored a one run, but the Dodgers had already scored two unfortunately And so two to one was the final so the Dodgers go up one game to love in the best of seven National League Championship series which resumes this evening that American Family Field pregame coverage for game two starts at 630

on several civic media radio stations.

Freddie Peralta will take to the mound.

And if the Dodgers announced their starter, I don't have it in front of me.

But here's the point.

His name is not Blake Snow.

Thank you.

So, so we're, we're good.

Fernando Valenzuela has passed away.

So he's not getting up there on the mound for them.

I believe Clayton is Clayton Kershaw.

Is he like still busy in the bullpen?

Is he?

I don't know what he is doing right now, but he is still

with him.

He might be starting for all I know.

I'm looking right now to see.

All right.

Well, while you do that, I'll tell you that Rob says good morning from Tigerton.

It's partly cloudy and 45 degrees.

We've got a very beautiful sunrise, he said.

Yesterday I picked up a mowing job.

It was 72 in Tigerton after the sun came out yesterday afternoon.

He said today I got paperwork from the state to do so that I can get it faxed in on Wednesday.

in case you're ever wondering who still uses a fax machine.

I'll tell you who the State Department of Revenue still does.

There was once upon a time we're now going back 20 some years.

right before my time in the legislature.

And for a short time, we had somebody come in and clean the house, we had two kids at the time, we both had busy jobs.

And we thought, well, let's, let's give this a try.

So for a while, we had a wonderful person who came in.

And of course, us being a couple of firstborns, and me thinking about maybe, you know, first off, I was already a TV anchor, and I thought, well, what if I ever run for election or something?

So you want to do this by the book.

And so this was not a cash under the table kind of thing.

It was I went through all the paperwork to get a whatever it was called at the time of business identification number or something and follow all the steps that any business would to make sure that you're paying somebody but you're also paying your share of like the payroll taxes or whatever.

And that experience helped me understand

how people become Republicans, how they become small government conservatives that want to blow up the whole system and put your income tax form on a postcard.

I happen to know and still appreciate that life is not that simple and that you actually need to have these kinds of rules and standards for a reason.

But it's also why I'm the first person to say, you know, these rules and standards and things, they should be examined every so often so that a small business operator doesn't just throw up their hands and go, I give up.

I'm just not even going to try to follow the rules because it was.

It was the most Byzantine thing I've ever had to deal with.

You can't get a live body if you need help.

Now again, I'm talking 15 plus years ago, so things might be different now.

Now you can have an AI chat bot help.

Yeah, so right.

So when Rob says he's doing paperwork from the state today for his lawn mowing, Rob, I hope it's going well.

I wish you all the luck in the world because I've been in your shoes and it is not easy to play by the rules.

It's still, it ultimately is the better thing to do.

But boy, sometimes they do not make it easy to be a small business person nowadays.

I would just be happy if we wouldn't have to do that if we had a more progressive taxation system, one that actually

taxed people, you know, who were making seven figure incomes, you know, a little higher percentage than the person who's got a lawnmowing business.

But instead, we've got a system set up now where you to to to play by the rules is rather onerous as other people kind of skate on their duties because we have

Since 2010, since 2011 or so, we've had governments in place that have very much been about taxing the middle class while giving breaks to those at the very top.

And the latest example of that can be seen in Milwaukee now, where the mayor is proposing raising what's called the wheel tax.

And he wants to raise that

fee to $40, which would generate an additional two and a half million dollars in revenue.

It is it is not a wheel tax like taxing, you know, the tires on your car.

It's a vehicle fee.

And it is currently on top of the state registration cost, which is $85.

to get your tabs for your license plate, and then plus whatever it is that you pay at the local level.

Well, as of 2025, that's now 51 different municipalities and 14 different counties.

And all of those wheel taxes generate more than $60 million in revenue.

And there is a very honest debate to be had about whether

there should be a wheel tax.

Now, this is not something that was, you know, recently created.

The ability for local governments in Wisconsin to assess a wheel tax has been around since 1967.

But it's really exploded since 2010.

And here's why.

Prior to

the takeover of the current Republican Party in Wisconsin after the 2010 elections, you know, when Scott Walker came into office and others.

Prior to that, Democrats, Republicans alike, understood

the function of state government and its role to be supportive in the state's infrastructure, in the state's education, and the other things that a state can do when you have five million people, now coming up on six million people, when you can pool those resources.

You can do so much for having some of the best roads in the nation, some of the best universities in the nation.

You can try to have the best technical colleges in the nation.

You can protect your natural resources.

And starting in 2011 or so, you had a party that's been in control of the legislature ever since that lives and dies by one creed, austerity.

You know, just a way for saying, you know, shrinking government, but they're not really shrinking government.

They're all about passing the buck.

They're all about kicking the can.

And in this case, it's often been to the local units of government.

We have talked so much about it from an education standpoint.

The reason that you're seeing all these school referendums now, I mean, it's not that complicated.

It's because the legislature got lazy.

Lazy legislators controlled by Republicans since 2011 have decided that they don't want to pay

fully what had been the state's share for public education it's better to vilify public education and then kick the can down to the school boards and say here you you want more money why don't you ask the local property taxpayers to hike their own taxes and so that's what has had to happen because the legislators say it's not our problem anymore we don't feel like supporting everyone in the state we'd rather just take care of our people

Similarly, for local municipal governments, it's also been a case of, you know, you guys can go to referendum if you want more money or better yet, you've got this ability to levy a wheel tax.

So you guys go ahead and you take the heat for jacking up costs for people who operate cars.

Now, again, they didn't create the wheel tax and there there is a debate to be had about whether there is a role for a wheel tax if a

If a local entity wants better roads, bigger projects, they can assess a wheel tax.

Similarly, counties can levy a local county sales tax, and it can either be for a one-time project or more likely something that is, you know, running perpetually to, again, make up for a lazy legislature that wants to do everything possible to say, well, we are shrinking government at our end.

When things aren't really shrinking, they're just not holding up their end of the deal and passing the buck to the local units of government, the school boards, the county boards, the city councils, and to the local taxpayers.

And that's why you have instances like the Milwaukee mayor and Cavalier Johnson is now going to take a lot of heat for proposing a higher wheel tax.

But again, he's not alone.

There are municipalities all over the state, ranging from here's Boscobel that charges a wheel tax of $10.

Meanwhile, you've got Jamesville that charges $40.

And all kinds of numbers in between on all these different municipalities and counties that do this.

When the right answer would be for a state legislature that collects income taxes, which are more progressive.

the wealthier you are you pay a higher percentage than somebody who's you know a factory worker or a teacher or a firefighter and then be able to divvy that out rather than saying well the the wheel tax that somebody pays for their old beater is the same wheel tax as somebody pays for you know their brand new convertible and good luck to you on that.

We frankly deserve better than that but for now we have the system that we have and that's why you have the mayor proposing his wheel tax and in a little bit we're gonna talk to Superior Mayor Jim Payne about you know the budget situation up there and we're also gonna talk about Superior Days, the lobbying effort down in Madison where folks from Northwest Wisconsin go on down there and talk about the ways that the state budget does or does not take care of priorities in our state.

All right.

Well, again, we've mentioned that the the Brewers fall to the Dodgers two to one and game two will be coming up this evening.

6 30 pregame coverage begins on stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh Racine Park Falls and Hayward.

Some folks are going to have a local break coming up.

Others are going to stick around while we talk to Dan Hagen from News Watch 12.

And we're going to talk a little hunting when we come back and hear your marriage campaign in about eight minutes.

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listening to Civic Media.

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Welcome back.

It's a Tuesday morning.

It's October 14th and so nice to have our friend Dan Hagen back from NewsWatch 12, WJFW in Rhinelander.

Welcome back, Dan.

How are you?

Yeah, I'm doing pretty well.

I wish the Brewers were the one last night, but let's even up the series tonight.

Yeah.

Last week you were out hunting.

How did that go?

It did not, I mean...

it's like fishing you know you can't expect to get something every single time but so it was fun in that sense but this buck is alluding me but I just made a

Made a move yesterday I bought some designated hunting clothes that I'm gonna wash with special detergent that has no scent on it because I had this dough hanging around me for the longest time But it just wouldn't get close and it seemed kind of you know jumpy so I think it's because of my scent so I'm gonna try that and hopefully This buck that's been on my trail cam finally goes in front of me for a midday snack

I always wonder about that, you know, the whole, you know, smelling and the sounds that are made.

Now I have personal history with that because my dad got dressed as soul was not the world's most patient person and with both fishing and hunting Apparently his firstborn son talked too much And so was that was not always welcome on these trips But I'm like, you know people people talking their boats all the time and the fish are still there the fish are still hungry But you know dear especially as I suppose are a bit more people get into the scent and there's all kinds of

There's all kinds of things people try to do to have no scent or to have a scent that attracts and I don't know I guess I Don't know that the science is conclusive because otherwise everybody would have success every time but you got to try what you can try right

Yeah, so I'm just trying new things, you know, you can go with a deer estrus So that would be like, you know simulating a doe's pheromones, but there's also buck urine

Which

you know would make a buck angry and come over there so

That's spending money for no real reason probably at the end of the

day.

But at the end if it's an activity that you enjoy, you know, that's what you do.

And I was telling Dan over the break that my two older grandsons who have lived in Idaho were back in Idaho this week and each got a

very large deer.

These aren't these little tiny Wisconsin white tails.

These are big old like mule deer or something.

I mean, just the the antler rack on this on these things are enormous in both the 11 year old and the 19 year old got them.

And in the case of the 11 year old got his from 300 yards away.

Oh, my gosh.

What a shot.

A great shot.

But I'm also like, did you have a howitzer?

What is it that he was using for that?

But you know, their their dad is a hunting guide.

So I should not really be all that surprised.

But the other thing I showed you in the picture, I'm not sure if you picked up on it right away.

All kinds of snow because they're up in the mountains of Idaho.

And yeah, they are snow covered already.

Yay.

You know, I think I'm this is controversial, Pat, but I'm thinking snow right now.

I want snow to ski.

I'm sure many of the viewers know

there are people that are ready for winter recreation.

Snow before Halloween is not

on the docket for me.

I still have PTSD from snow on Halloween, but that that's a that's a 1991 thing that we'll cover another time.

What else has kept you busy besides the hunting here?

Well, this, well, I was I did a half marathon this weekend, the three eagle half marathon.

So that was from Eagle River to three lakes.

Wow.

I did it in an hour 43.

So I was pretty proud of that.

I'm hoping to get two hours.

But I do want to mention the the story of the of the week.

And

that is a 10 year old from Phillips, Wisconsin.

His name is Colton goal and he won the national mullets competition in the kids division.

Yes.

So he has a beautiful flowing mullet.

He's been working on it for years and he came down to like, I think 30 people.

You raised more than $3,500 for the wounded warriors program and he got enough votes.

So he's taken home $10,000.

So congratulations.

Also known as the Coltonator.

the

cultivator because if you have them all, you need a

good nickname.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

That's awesome.

I mean, is that have you ever had one down?

I have not had a mullet.

You know, I wasn't alive in the 80s.

So Pat, maybe you can attest to

that.

I can I had I had what's called the big 80s hair, you know, where just the volume was insane, the exact same hairstyle, but there's just so much more of it, you know, that you got to cut like once every couple months or so.

And even then it just grew like a weed.

But no, not necessarily a mullet per se.

And I'm not sure how prevalent

you find mullets these days, you know, except for like contests, you know,

how many people aren't

wearing them unironically.

Put it that way.

Yeah, I know one person with a mullet.

many bulls.

He's in my bowling league.

That's awesome.

What

do I

always say?

There wouldn't be stereotypes if some people didn't insist on living up to them.

That's exactly where we find ourselves these days.

So, oh, that's no, that's good.

So there and there it is right at the top at wjfw.com is a Phillips boy recounts his exciting national mullet competition victory.

And that that boys and girls that is that is a fine looking mullet right there.

Good for him.

Didn't the

brewers have a mullet thing like two or three years ago?

Wasn't there like a summer of the mullet on the brewers?

Oh, probably.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

Let's see what else we got going on here.

You had the Crown and Water Fire Department had an open house day for the community.

You had the neighbors place holding their annual empty bowls fundraiser.

Nicolet College hosts their Indigenous People's Day celebration.

Mayor Doug Denney in Wausau.

You remember the the the ballot box?

Oh,

yes.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yep.

Yep.

So he's finally going in front of the ethics board of the city for that when he removed that Unilaterally.

Yeah.

And so I believe as he met with the ethics board, I think did that just happen?

Yeah.

So on Friday, he went in front of the ethics board the

The hearing took the entire day, multiple people testified, including the mayor.

And so they are going to make a determination soon on whether he violated the ethics code of conduct.

All right, so there we go.

So we'll follow that up with with you.

And of course, with with our friend Chad Holmes at 98, 9wxco as well, we'll talk to him about that tomorrow in our eight o'clock hour.

But again, for all the details of what else is happening in the Northwoods, you can tune into News Watch 12 WJFW where you will find Dan Hagan at wjfw.com.

Fresh off is his half marathon, which only is going to power him for more, more pickleball.

still ahead.

That's

right.

And I'm going to be showing you a buck picture next Tuesday.

You can count on it.

Excellent.

All right.

Good luck.

Thank you, Dan.

Have a great day.

All right.

Superior Mayor Jim Payne on the way.

I'm Pat right low.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

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Time to go way up north with Superior Mayor Jim Payne.

Talk about some of the issues that while you're hearing about in the Northwestern corner of the state, Jim, good morning, how are you?

I'm very good how

are

you Pat?

Very good and you are joining us actually from Madison this morning because again the work of mayors and local government officials everywhere occasionally involves those treks to Madison to remind people hey we're up here too don't forget about us.

I try to get as many in before it snows as I can when it's only a five-hour drive.

Yeah, only at that point.

And I recall, you know, some of the legislators I served with, I know one who regularly flew, but others who would make that long drive and, you know, you hear a lot of books on tape.

or you know, or if you've got the hands free device, you can make a lot of calls.

But those are those are some long trips.

Absolutely.

And we're gonna, in fact, let's let's start with the superior days, which is kind of an annual lobbying trek from the superior area down to the state capital.

And it's been going on for I believe 41 years now.

And so I remember when it first happened, and it was very new and novel.

And you now have

groups from other parts of the state.

There's the Chippewa Valley Rally and others who come have, you know, have all kinds of local civic and business leaders come to the state capital and let legislators from throughout the state know more about that area.

Is it something that is still, A, is it still happening with regularity and B, do you continue to see value in it?

Yes, it still happens every single year in the spring time.

Most of the time as early as February, but we've experimented with some other times.

This coming spring will be our 41st year.

And because we did manage a very abbreviated version during the pandemic year of 2021, we've had consistency.

And so even when it was very challenging to get down here, we still made some sort of a presence.

And does it make a difference?

I mean, you have an area up there that is strongly democratic, ranging from Superior, Ashland, Bayfield, Bad River, some of that area, and then a whole lot of rural area south of there that is predominantly Republican, and Superior Days is advertised as this bipartisan way to come together and talk about the area's priorities.

Do you feel like it's still serving value that way?

Absolutely.

I think you described it well, you know, if you just look at election results, these northern counties are very blue.

But, you know, even when we're turning in 70% for Democratic candidates, that's 30% of the population that's still voting for Republicans.

And when we bring a group of about 100 people to superior days, up to 50% of those people or more might actually be Republicans are right of center, you know.

And so coming together to agree on

that matter to all of us seems very challenging but we manage it every single year and more than just what we're bringing to the Capitol and educating people down here a lot of us are the ones being educated because even among two or three legislative issues

Many of the delegates will really only be joining for one that that matters to them, but they're learning about the others.

So it's folks from the business community learning about the crisis and education funding or students in the high school learning how local government revenue works and why that matters to them.

And it may only be one to three days down here, but those are issues that they're now fluent on throughout the political conversations the entire session.

We are talking with Jim Payne, the mayor of Superior, and talking a bit about Superior Days.

And part of the reason I wanted to bring it up is that a former Republican state representative from that area, Angie Sapic, made some comments to Wisconsin Public Radio while promoting a book.

which seems rather odd after one term in the assembly, but all about politics.

And the person asking the questions made note that she had been absent for for the two years of Superior Days while she was in office.

Now she did say that it has been a positive thing for everybody.

She did talk about, you know, family commitments and things like that.

But what really stuck out to me was her line that said, I think they are going to cancel Superior Days in the future because it's just not as effective.

as it was in the very beginning.

You agree or disagree with that sentiment?

Well, it's certainly been more effective than she ever was in the legislature She never accomplished anything and superior days has a very lengthy list of accomplishments Generally every single year we're checking off some accomplishments.

Maybe we don't get all the bills We want passed out of the legislature, but we meet with agencies as well Throughout the governor's administration.

That's multiple governors of both parties But really she wouldn't know the effectiveness of superiors.

She has never been she's never been to a single meeting about it up nor

or down in Madison where we're having the conversations, not just with legislators, but with each other about what matters to us and how we can make a better community.

So we're explaining to Madison how they can help us, but we're also meeting amongst ourselves.

This is leaders and citizens from across the North, but especially Superior in Douglas County, talking about how we can improve our own communities.

We gather in one space and do the work of politics together.

which is the only way it's ever gotten done.

So it was pretty offensive to hear somebody that thought of herself as one of our representatives that refused to represent us, that refused to even have conversations about what actually mattered to the people she was supposed to be representing.

Yeah, I also took issue with another line from the interview where she talked about the gerrymandering of the lines back and forth.

The lines weren't gerrymandered back and forth.

They were gerrymandered wants to remove

all democratic representation from a heavily democratic area.

And then with the fair maps, once again, you had democratic representation from the area.

So I just felt a need to correct on the record, gerrymandering.

While both parties have done it over history, in this particular case, it was done one way and finally undone to make things, shall we say, a bit more representative for Northwest Wisconsin.

I mean, at least fair, you know, the way the 73rd assembly district, that's what we're talking about, was drawn.

It was the textbook actual definition of gerrymandering.

It looked like a salamander, and it looked like a giant monster, and it had the effect it was intended to have.

When Angie Sappock was elected, you saw this very strange thing happen in the actual turnout.

the closer you got to her actual home where she lived, the worse she performed.

She had to pick up votes from as far away as possible from people that didn't actually know her and only voted on a purely partisan basis.

She could have never won an election when there was an actual opponent and people actually knew the candidates.

Talking to Superior Mayor Jim Payne, we were speaking earlier about wheel taxes in the state and how some municipalities have felt the need to either adopt one or increase one.

And all of the other funding challenges that come with local units of government, we're getting to that time of year, where things for the City of Superior and the budget that you're hoping to have adopted for the next year and how that might have been impacted by things like the new state budget that recently passed.

I just released my budget this last week and it does propose a minor levy decreases actually not that minor it comes up to 1.55% which won't make a huge difference for people but it won't be raising their city tax bills now they still have a pretty significant tax levy and likely an increasing one from the school district because the this last budget.

continue to fail to fix the school funding formula.

And so the state is not adequately funding our schools, which means that taxpayers are.

Now, as a mayor, I don't have a lot of control over that except through vehicles like Superior Days, but I didn't want us to be part of the problem.

So our levy will go down even while we're continuing to make increased investments in public safety and infrastructure.

And you're also working on and we've spoken before about Connect Superior and again, setting up a unique project that includes public investment in infrastructure for telecommunications so that private industries can come in and better serve the residents of Superior.

We spoke last time about the ongoing construction and expansion of that network.

Let's talk for a minute about who's actually gonna be using the network, the prospect for...

competition, because if I saw it correctly, you've got a new company that is looking to provide services on that network.

Yeah, that's right.

There's actually been

Significant expansion since the last time we talked about it.

First, we entered an entire new neighborhood.

A large part of Spears North End is now lit up and can be connected to Connect Spear.

But yeah, Norvato is joining the network.

We just signed the agreement last week and it's a well-established internet service provider, but they also provide things like phone and cable TV service.

So for those folks that wanted to get off of Charter, but were relying on these other services,

Beyond just connecting to the internet.

They now have another option.

So we're not just

adding more people to the market, it's expanding the market itself.

You can now purchase more services from Connect Superior, so we expect it to continue to grow pretty rapidly.

And in case I glossed it over too much if people didn't hear our last conversation, and they wonder, you know, why are we talking about Superior?

Because this is something you might want to adopt in your own hometown.

Can you briefly give the overview of what Connect Superior is and how it's different from anything else that has been tried in Wisconsin so far?

Yeah, the legislature several years ago made it very, very difficult next to impossible for municipalities to create their own internet networks because they wanted to protect private monopolies.

We got around that by only building the network.

We don't sell the internet to anybody.

We just own the wires themselves, that fiber that connects to your house.

Then that creates an actual, like a super highway that internet service providers can all operate on.

And so as a customer, I'm a customer.

I can go online.

I can choose from any of the now three providers and any of the packages that they offer with a single click of a button.

I don't give a credit card.

I don't put a ton of information down.

And I am just connected almost immediately and I can change just as easily.

So it's the private sector competing on public infrastructure, which is I think the best relationship between

It gives you the competition and the innovation that the private sector can provide with the public security of public infrastructure.

Right.

And the more reliable service that can come when it's the public that owns the infrastructure itself.

And that takes us finally briefly to the water utility.

We've talked before about Superior has the only privately owned water utility in the state.

You recently started the process of having a consultant study whether city taxpayers should once again own their own water utility.

Is that process underway now?

It is.

Yeah, we've had the first meeting on it and it's developing very quickly.

I think a lot of people are alarmed to see the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has authorized the sale of our water, our utility, to a private international corporation, BlackRock.

So we are still the only place on Lake Superior where that water is sold at profit, which is...

historically treated as something you do not do with Great Lakes water.

Well, that's happening in Superior, Wisconsin.

We're the only people in Wisconsin that don't own our own water.

Now, we're also exploring the electric and gas utilities as well.

So,

we're underway.

So, consultant looking into that and we'll get updates from Superior Mayor Jim Payne.

Mayor, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Have a great day.

Thank you.

and safe travels back up from Madison as well.

We'll keep things rolling here in our eight o'clock hour with Cam Stephenson from Courier Newsroom and Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

What a range in temperatures we have this morning.

It ranges from 30 degrees up there in superior to near 60 degrees in the southeastern corner of the state.

We've got 46 in Oshkosh, 48 right now in La Crosse, 46 in Amory, 48 degrees in the Chippewa Valley, including Chippewa Falls, where we find James Kelly from Civic Media covering stories for the Civic Media Newsroom from downtown

Chippewa Falls.

James, how are you?

I'm good.

A little sad that we're to the days where I'm coming into the office and almost pitch black darkness.

I know.

I know.

It was so much nicer the other four or five months when we had some daylight on either side of the workday.

But, you know, it's the deal we make.

We don't have to put up with some of the

I'm trying to think of all the things down south like cockroaches as big as your shoe and Other other wildlife that can't make it up here.

It's those hardy midwestern winters that keep us from that.

Yeah, we're getting rid of the mosquitoes

hard trying so hard to look at the bright side of this of having snow not too in the in the not too distant future in the darkness that comes with it Anyway, James has his brewer's cap on rather than you know, the team of his his hometown previously because they play in baseball anymore

Not welcome.

Welcome back on the bandwagon.

Uh, and unlike a lot of us, uh, James has watched enough baseball and I promise we'll get to news.

This isn't another sports segment.

Listen, if you want to talk about baseball all day, I'm, I'm here.

I was going to say, uh, uh, James says he's actually watched and paid a lot of attention to Blake Snell, the Dodgers picture.

And it was not surprised to see just how very good he was.

Yeah.

And that's true.

He is unbelievable stuff.

You forget he won a couple of youngs to

say young.

Something I did not really know till last night, did not really pay attention to that.

And I like the way you said it over the break.

You could watch baseball for another 10,000 years and not see a double play like that one last night.

That was, I mean, was everybody, that look, that photo of South Freelike looking just, what the heck just

happened?

I'm confused.

I can't believe the umpire called that like off the wall correctly.

Like that's an unbelievable call in that situation.

Yes, it was just it was wild as we all tried to make sense of it.

And it was just it was super cool that way.

So anyway, James is here to cover some of the other news force.

And that includes a new transfer agreement between UW Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley Technical College.

This is something that's been a statewide Wisconsin issue for decades, literally, is, you know, that rather than being

possessive, very protective of your turf, is that you look for ways to actually cooperate when students want to go between these institutions.

Yeah, so Chippewa Valley Technical College is a great way for students, especially students who maybe don't want to pay the big tuition money to UW system in those first two years to kind of make that transfer between here.

I'll get my associate's degree.

It's a little more affordable.

It's closer to home.

We can save money there.

And then if you want to continue to go on to get your bachelors in business through this new agreement, you can do that.

And you can guarantee all 60 credits from that associate degree are going to transfer over one of those.

kind of minor annoying issues with transferring schools is that sometimes you find out like okay well my language requirement didn't really transfer over and my math requirement didn't really transfer over so you find yourself in a new college saying well I now have to go take all these gen eds again and now I'm spending extra money on these credits that are not in my major and you know this is just a good overall deal and there's also going to be a a handful of $2,000 scholarships available for students transferring.

This is again, this literally spans generations now of, is this redundant that you can take these classes literally in Eau Claire across the street from each other, the technical college and the UW campus?

Or should you just be taking the one classes at one and the more the trades and things like that and the other?

And obviously there's a lot more to a well-rounded education.

And so it's nice to see this development of a better transfer agreement.

for business students between UW Eau Claire and Chippewa Valley Technical College.

Let's head west over to St.

Croix County now, where the Economic Development Corporation has an annual event going on.

Yeah, they've opened up their nominations for their Business of the Year awards for 2025.

There's five categories.

It's small, large, the nonprofit, the county impact award, and the emerging business of the year.

So this is a great opportunity for local residents to get their.

favorite businesses up for this award.

There's going to be a banquet in February.

Businesses can also nominate themselves if they feel so inclined to pat their own back.

And the nominations are going to be open until December 2nd.

OK.

And then finally, let's talk about a nonprofit that has worked with adaptive recreational sports and the ways that they're getting that done.

Yeah, so this Northland Adaptive Recreation Group, they have one major fundraiser every year.

It's called the Shoot for Fun event.

And they had their third largest fundraising efforts in their 27 years of doing that this year.

They raised $107,000, which is huge because their big thing is kind of setting up athletes with disabilities, residents with disabilities with the equipment they need to participate in sports like cycling or archery, rowing, whatever.

That equipment is pretty expensive.

It can run from $10,000 to $30,000.

So having this big fundraiser where you bring in over $100,000 is going to help a lot of people.

They serve over 350 residents across the Northland.

Wow, that is extremely impressive.

So this is all the, these are things that James Kelly is following through our Chippewa Valley Newsroom.

You can get the updates at 93.5, the TAP.

That's also on the Chippewa, I'm sorry, Chippewa, the Civic Media app, where you can also see current headlines, weather, upcoming local sports.

You can go right to the station's website, thetap.fm to learn more about that because I feel like we've only scratched the surface of what's on your workday today, James.

Oh, yeah, there's quite a few things.

You know, I try to avoid the things that I know you're going to cover.

It's teamwork.

Teamwork effort,

Pat.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Exactly.

Thank you, James.

Appreciate it very much.

Thanks, guys.

All right.

Have a great day.

And I wanted to take note of a comment that was on the text line here.

It was from David New Berlin, who noted that civic media has changed formats with its station in the Milwaukee area to an all news format.

which we're quite supportive of because again, you know, local radio is is is the best kind of radio that there is.

We are thrilled to have a statewide show.

And the fact that it's not only statewide on some of the stations of the Civic Media radio network.

But if you live in one of those areas and want to catch the show, but you can't get it over radio, you can still get us through the Civic Media app or Facebook or YouTube.

And Dave from New Berlin writes in that he just found us on YouTube.

So we appreciate that very much, Dave.

Thank you.

for now watching as well as listening.

Cam Stevenson standing by coming up next from Washington DC.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

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