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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by UpNorth News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpNorth News, Pat Craiglow.
And good morning, welcome back.
Nice to have you here UpNorth.
It's 7.06 on a Wednesday morning, October 22nd.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison, A2.
Ellie Bordeaux, UpNorth News newsletter editor joining us in just a second, and then we'll also be talking this hour.
to the president of the Verroqua School Board about the school funding system in the state.
It stinks.
That includes this new state budget where the best Republicans would agree to with Governor Tony Evers was some additional school funds in some parts of the budget, but a basically 0% increase in general state aid and inflation's not 0%.
So that's making it harder for school districts to avoid another round of referendums.
And so we'll talk about the system.
We've got Civic Media Sports Editor Jimmy Kuska coming up.
And then looking ahead at 835, Dr. Kristen Lyrely will join us.
Normally she's here Mondays and Fridays, but it's going to join us because
Yesterday, there was a virtual press conference with a bipartisan group of Wisconsin lawmakers working on legislation that would increase access to resources and education about menopause.
And they were joined by actress Halle Berry, who has been a menopause activist, trying to get people to learn more about symptoms, treating them, research, things like that.
And so we'll play back some of her remarks and talk to Dr. Lirely about that from the standpoint of an OBGYN, that again, coming up at 835.
Temperatures around the state right now range from 37 degrees in Manitowish waters and Sol and Springs to 48 degrees in Shawnau.
Pretty much all of Wisconsin is at some point in the mid 40s right now.
It's 41 here in Chippewa Falls.
And again, things will be getting a bit more seasonable for temperatures after today's last shot of a little bit of rain before things move out of the area and we get some pleasant weather for the rest of the week.
Rob says, good morning from Tigerton.
It's cloudy with showers and 43.
We've got about a tenth of an inch of rain overnight.
He says it felt like November with a high of 43 and a wind chill of 38 for much of the day yesterday.
Says he has a meeting in Chano today and some errands to run.
They may be one of the first times that Rob has not talked about mowing.
Although I don't doubt that he, like us here, still has some mowing jobs mostly to
grind up the leaves and mulch them up and get them out of the way.
But again, you know, we've got temperatures in the mid 40s, by and large, around Wisconsin.
So stay inside, pour yourself a cup of coffee and read up on that Up North News daily newsletter, sign up for that UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Ellie Bordeaux puts it together for us and joins us now on Wednesday mornings.
Ellie, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
I'm great.
How are you guys?
That's good.
It's nice to see you.
It's nice to have you here today talking about the things that you put in.
And let's start with something local that you ask people to submit ideas or photos about.
And that would be pizza places in their area.
And I get the feeling a lot of people, if they've got a place they really like, there's like a sense of pride, they want to tell you about it.
How was the response?
Yes, absolutely.
I love getting responses.
I love our Locos Love section because it allows us to highlight some small businesses around the state, those kinds of things.
But I do think that is very true.
People have a lot of pride in their pizza places around the state.
I got so many emails and so many responses of people saying,
This is the best pizza place in the state.
This is so great.
You need to check this out.
So many recommendations.
We've got some from Fond du Lac, Janesville, Eau Claire.
So we every Friday have a different Locals Love section.
And last week was pizza.
This upcoming week we're doing burgers.
So be sure to send those in.
I want to hear about your best burger places.
I want to know where to check out around the state.
So it's really great.
I'm guessing as I was looking at some of the reviews like Paul here says about whiskers and Eau Claire.
It's what I like to call the most Wisconsin place I've ever been to.
There is also axe throwing, which is also very fun.
Their Midwest deep dish pizza is the absolute best.
I am not aware of any place Paul other than that place that combines pizzas and axe throwing.
I'm still not really sure how we how we've allowed axe throwing in public places like restaurants, but
Was that one of the more unusual ones that you saw of everything that was put in?
Yeah, I would say that one was a little bit more unusual.
I have also never heard of the combination of axe throwing and pizza in the same place, but hey, to each their own.
If it works, it works.
So I like it.
There was Harry's prohibition bistro in Sheboygan that said the moment you walk in and smell the wood fired pizza oven and the 1920s decor brings you back in time.
My favorite is the walnut pizza with Italian sausage.
The burst of cream cheese with each bite adds an extra great flavor from Meryl.
Meryl is the person who submitted this.
That's new on so many levels, the walnut, the cream cheese.
I'm sure you heard some other interesting flavor combinations in pizza.
Yeah, we've got another one from Eau Cart Lake about a beef marsala pizza.
That's something that I have never heard of before, but hey, sounds great.
That sounds like something I need to check out.
I'm interested.
So so not only can we talk about the local pizza places, but the different pizza combinations.
And before before we get going to folks here, when we talk about pizza combinations, you don't have to send in the Hawaiian one,
the
ham and the pineapple.
That's right up there with candy corn.
It's going right into the garbage
can.
No,
just Parker.
Come on, man,
killing me.
I agree with that either.
So y'all can have whatever weird takes you on, but I want to hear them.
We've already heard that one.
We've heard that one to death.
But now we're hearing these new ones.
You know, a beef mars, I've heard of chicken marsala, beef marsala pizza.
And then you've got the walnut pizza with Italian sausage and a little bit of cream cheese.
So what else we got out there?
I definitely invite comments coming out.
Oh, no, not Tony too.
Tony pineapple was made for pizza.
Oh no.
God, we're going to miss you and all your comments used to send to us.
Anyway, so now that I've opened up that can of sardines or whatever it else you like on your pizza, people have really taken to it.
What are you looking for next?
So we're looking for burgers next.
So this Friday, we're going to be featuring your favorite burger spots.
I want to hear them send them in, send us some unique burgers that you have seen around the state.
What are some weird flavor combinations that maybe you wouldn't think about kind of like a beef marsala pizza?
What would be the equivalent?
that to a burger
I will say that in the Madison area one of the things I miss is at the Great Dane and the Great Dane has a a burger patty and a broad patty and then you know like I think it's fried onions and something else and it's on a pretzel bun and
I might have to leave and drive down to Madison for lunch.
That's just, I miss it so much.
I got a couple of great places up in Eau Claire.
There's the Amber Inn.
Again, just this little tiny corner bar, but just amazing burgers off their little griddle there behind the bar.
Courtenhouse makes great burgers too.
So yeah, we definitely want everybody else's favorites.
Ellie, you got a favorite in the economy walk area?
I'm trying to think.
I would say honestly my favorite is probably, I would say the most unique is Crafty Cow in O'Connor Walk.
They've got like a
peanut butter burger, which is very interesting.
But
I know it sounds
weird, but it works.
They have a location I believe in Milwaukee as well.
But yeah, I would say Crafty Cow is like our
biggest spot in Okonomak for burgers.
But I do think too, it's like kind of the smaller underground places that also sometimes have the best, you know, like you don't expect it, but for some reason it, it's the best.
No, you know, you remind me that also in downtown Eau Claire, the livery has a unique burger.
I haven't had it for a bit, but I know that there's like some pepper jelly that's on it.
And I forget what kind of cheese is on there.
Parker, anything from a whitewater
standpoint?
There is a place in whitewater that has a peanut butter burger.
I can't remember.
I
think
it's at
Fat Jacks.
But yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.
Yeah, Fat Jacks.
There you go.
Okay.
Okay.
So there you go.
We want we want your burger places.
We want to know exactly what it is that that makes them so good.
The weird flavor combinations.
We will definitely take it all here.
Oh, here's one from the livery.
It's it's a gorgonzola cheese and a bacon onion balsamic jam, a bacon onion balsamic jam with arugula on a brioche bun.
Oh, that sounds good.
It is I'd rather have the pretzel, but I am not brioche to me is like too sweet for a hamburger bun I want that is like, you know French toast that brioche is the is the best for that Really went into food talk here today.
Didn't
we?
Talked about pizza.
We've talked about burgers.
Let's talk about fish, but we're
not
eating these ones because they're made of paper
so
oh right yeah um so in july people from around the world um participated with the sierra club of the wisconsin chapter and they set the world record for the largest display of origami fish ever created with
86,262 origami fish.
And so the display was set up in the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee with each one with a message to shut down line five.
And so now that display is moving to the state capitol, moving to Madison.
So they're looking for volunteers to help with setup.
They're looking for help with prep preparing for the display.
They're looking for people to come attend the press conference.
That'll be later.
So all that information is in.
the newsletter as well.
And yeah, it's just a big message of first state lawmakers of a call to shut down line five.
So that's why they've done that.
We had that in our on the radio show and in the newsletter back in May, as by setting this world record for collecting origami fish, they could call attention to Enbridge's line five, how they want to reroute it around the Bad River Reservation.
But the tribal community is like, well, yeah, you can go around it, but you're still putting a pipeline through the through the Bad River, you know, watershed.
And so the court fights go on on all of that.
And so this was their way of calling attention.
They had a website
fishforfuture.org, again, fishforfuture.org, where you can read more about the collection and everything they want to do now to display it.
So a nice little follow-up on there.
And then finally, Ellie, you've got a new feature called Civic Check-In.
As we described it in the last hour, there's a lot of big words out there, authoritarianism, fascism, oligarchy, things like that.
And they sound like, you know, unattainable, but
It really is important in this day and age to brush up on these terms because they they demonstrate, you know, that there's some real threats to democracy and freedom in this country.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's why we wanted to include this section is a lot of these words are being thrown around a lot more recently.
And some of these words, I would say people maybe haven't heard since high school, like since their high school civics civics class, you know, and so I think it's important for all of us to brush up on our knowledge of different
political words and understanding what it means for you in your daily life are these patterns that you're seeing now, like being able to come to recognize those in your own way and that kind of thing.
So today we focused on an oligarchy and talking about the different types of oligarchies, what that means, the patterns to recognize.
So every week we take a different type of term and kind of define it, go in depth with it and then ask for your thoughts.
What what do you see in our day and age now?
And I think that's a great thing to do because again, words can get thrown about without having them be technically correct.
For me, the most glaring example are all the folks on the political right who love to scream socialism, that this is socialist, clearly demonstrating that they're not completely grasping what socialism actually means.
But they love to throw out that big word.
Well,
If people are going to be saying that things are perhaps similar to an oligarchy or fascist, it might be important to again, brush up on what it means to see that in that context, those words are being correctly used right now, unlike socialism over the past decade or two.
So to read more about that and everything else that Ellie Bordeaux puts together, head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and click subscribe up in the top banner.
Ellie, thank you so much.
Good to talk to you.
Yeah, thank you.
Have a good one.
Yep, you as well.
Appreciate it very much.
Let's take a look at sports now at 719, where again, we've got just one little note I want to pass along, the Packers taking on Aaron Rodgers at Pittsburgh, Sunday at 720, pregame starting at five on several civic media stations.
A homeroom segment is coming up in 15 minutes.
I'm Pat Krightlo.
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.
Let's talk a little more sports here at 722, just about 723 on this Wednesday morning.
Let's work our way backwards from Sunday.
where the Packers will be taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers, Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
It's a Sunday night game, 720 kickoff, and so coverage will begin at 5 p.m.
Sunday on several civic media stations.
This is the part where producer Parker Olson makes his bold prediction on how the Packers are going to do against Aaron Rodgers.
The first time they've actually played him, Aaron Rodgers, if he defeats the Packers, it will be the 25th NFL team he's defeated, which would
Tie him with like everybody else for most number of times a quarterback has defeated all the other teams in the NFL.
How's he going to do?
I don't know.
He's looked really good, which like really worries me.
I think.
I think he might kind of tear up the secondary that we have,
but he was also 71 years old.
So it's very possible that his, you know, he could fall and break a hip.
Oh, did
you
think?
Yeah.
We get, we get Micah Parsons from the Cowboys.
And he goes after Aaron Roger.
Oh boy.
You could not have predicted this a couple of years ago, could you?
That this is the match that we're talking about.
But that is potentially what's in the works for, for Sunday.
For Saturday, you've got the Badgers at Oregon.
That again is a late game.
Coverage will begin at 4 p.m.
Saturday on several civic media stations.
Head over to civicmedia.us to learn more.
The Badger Men's Basketball Team.
It's an exhibition game, but their season's underway.
You can catch some games.
On the civic media radio network on Friday there at Milwaukee's five serve forum to take on Oklahoma That's Friday at 7 p.m.
As part of the I wish we had the right echo sound effect here the bad boy mower series
There that's perfect.
It was like so technical So yeah, we're taking on Oklahoma Badgers Oklahoma men's basketball Friday at seven and then there's an exhibition game next Wednesday at the Cole Center versus Platteville and in the season opener the following Monday November 3rd at the Cole Center versus Campbell University the Campbell fighting camels getting the Badger men's basketball team going so again Friday night's game against Oklahoma 7 p.m
Pregame starts at 6 30 on civic media stations in Wisconsin Rapids and Amory and Richland Center.
Can you believe we're talking basketball and hockey already?
Yeah, you know, it's weird to me that they're playing Oklahoma first before they play Platteville.
That seems a
punch in the mouth to start and then a
cupcake
after truck.
trial trial by fire.
Yeah.
Tony puts on YouTube Steelers defenses and very good.
Joe Flacco lit them up and he's 80 years old.
Well, there you go.
So good point.
Yeah, there there is that possibility there.
Alright, some of the other stories that we wanted to cover here for you include this whole notion of Donald Trump, President of the United States and his unique solutions to problems.
And not necessarily our problems, but he had a problem with with the trade deficit and found his own unique way to start a trade war with China, which is ending up hurting farmers in Wisconsin and across the country, whose soybean markets to China have dried up as China has decided to buy its soybeans from Brazil and Argentina.
And now we get word from President Trump.
that to help out his buddy in Argentina, he's going to looking to purchasing more beef from Argentina.
Not sitting real well with the aforementioned Wisconsin farmers and ranchers in other states who are looking at this guy, many of whom they voted for and saying, you're killing us here, man.
Well, at least one Wisconsin dairy farmer has gone public with an alternative to that.
And Larry Lee wrote about it over at Brownfield Ag News saying that Mike Yeager, a dairy farmer from Mineral Point, has an alternative to Trump's sweetheart deal with Argentina.
And he says, I think maybe we need to encourage the sales of dairy cows strictly going to slaughter.
That'll put more beef on the market and ultimately take care of the surplus of milk.
So you might be taking care of two birds with one stone.
Trump says by putting more Argentine beef on the market, it would help bring consumer prices down.
But again, we've got this surplus of milk here.
We've got a surplus of dairy cows.
And so perhaps culling the herd might be a better alternative that benefits Wisconsin farmers and the Wisconsin marketplace.
Because from a national standpoint, you've got the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund and United Stock Growers of America and other farming groups.
All of them have been some of Trump's biggest supporters and they are all sharply critical of Trump's idea because of what it could do to ranchers and to feedlot operators, plus it runs counter to the stated purpose of Trump's tariffs, which is to encourage more domestic production.
and help American ranchers compete.
But American ranchers and cattle farmers can't compete if they're being undercut by Argentine beef.
Now at the moment, Argentine beef accounts for a very small slice of beef imports, about 2%.
And a lot of that is just for ground beef, so it may not do much for steak prices and things like that.
But it has the potential, every bit that comes in is, you know, a supply from US farmers that isn't getting used.
Now, beef prices have been soaring thanks in part to the smallest U.S.
herd size for beef cattle since 1961.
Due to years of low cattle prices and now drought and Trump slapping a 50% tariff on beef from Brazil.
And oh, by the way, did I mention there's also Trump's ag secretary saying that, you know, there's an infestation of New World screwworm from Mexico.
and that there may be problems with hoof and mouth disease in Argentina that might affect Argentine beef imports.
There's no shortage of reasons why you wouldn't do whatever you could from an American rural farmer and rancher perspective to help them, and at the same time, put more beef on the marketplace that could help drive prices down for consumers.
There's only one real wrong way to go about doing this.
And it's the one that the president of the United States is seeking right now to undercut American farmers, first the soybean farmers, now the cattle farmers and ranchers as well.
Our homeroom segment coming up about the crazy state school funding system is coming up right after this break.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Nice to have you back at 735 on this Wednesday morning.
Now there are local news updates throughout the course of our show here, six to nine weekdays on the Civic Media Radio Network.
But even as those local updates are happening on most stations, we continue yammering over here from Chippewa Falls and Madison and if you'd ever like to
Listen into the show that way or watch what we're doing.
There's always the civic media app where you can tune into One of the other stations that continues to play the network feed you can certainly watch what we do on YouTube or Facebook That would be the up north news Facebook or YouTube pages or the civic media YouTube and Facebook pages or you could sign up for us as a podcast head over to Spotify or Apple and follow the program that way and
You'll never miss a minute of what it is that we are talking about over here on weekday mornings Like at 7 35 7 36 now On wednesday morning for our homeroom segment when we talk about public education in wisconsin And uh, you know, it's it's many positive qualities and the many threats that are out there from privatization from people playing politics with our schools Please people playing politics with school funding in our state.
We have a state funding system that is
Much more convoluted than it needs to be and each session of the legislature every two years when they write a new state budget Now they try to work around the system as best they can and in this last state budget legislative Republicans and Democratic governor Tony Evers finally reached a deal, but it is a deal that
is not exactly sitting well with a large number of school districts that are not seeing much of an increase in general state aides.
They're seeing some increased dollars in other parts of the budget, like special education.
But on the whole, they're still having a tough time keeping up with inflation.
conceivably leading to another record round of school referendums across the state.
So joining us to talk more about it is the president of the school board in Verruqua, Angie Lawrence, who was also part of a news conference last week with some state lawmakers to describe the problems in the system and how school districts have to live with the reality of them in the here and now.
And Angie Lawrence joins us now from Verruqua.
Angie, good morning.
How are
you?
Good morning, Pat.
I'm great.
How are you?
It's nice to have you.
I'm very well.
Thank you very much.
So we saw you in this news conference last week talking about the system here, which again, if you take the party labels out of it and you just look at the system itself, this is not something that you or probably any other school board president would drop on a napkin someplace and put into effect.
And yet you have to learn it and deal with the realities of the here and now.
So let folks know what you were saying last week about
general state aid in this new state budget and what it means for school districts like yours?
So number one, we don't even get the budget until October.
So that's one of the problems.
I mean, school starts our annual budget starts in July.
So I don't know how many businesses run their business by not having a budget until five, six months after their annual year begins.
So that's one issue.
So when this came out, this recent budget came out and their decisions, it affected a lot of school districts, millions and millions of dollars that they thought that they were going to receive and then they didn't receive.
That wasn't the case in our district.
We received a little over $8,000 less than what we had anticipated, but it didn't affect us as it did many other schools.
What has affected us is the voucher program.
So the voucher program, and I can give you an example, the Academy of Excellence in Milwaukee, for example, they are going to receive over 50 million dollars this year from our local taxpayers.
Their last year, only 18% of their students were, they either met,
They only met expectations, 18%.
Zero exceeded expectations in language arts.
And then in math, only 13% of their students met expectations with 0% exceeding expectations.
I don't know about anybody out there, but if your school district had that type of...
success or failure, I think that you would be trying to contact the DPI, you would try to get the DPI in there, you would be trying to perhaps close the school because they were incapable of meeting the expectations for children and their educational outcomes.
That's one of the issues.
Our school district spent almost $1.2 million from our local taxpayers for the voucher program this last year.
So once again, we're supposed to provide a high quality of education for every student and it's just not happening with this voucher program.
They have no accountability.
They are
They say on the website that they hope that you'll take the test.
But if you don't want to, that's all you have to do is send them an email.
So they're not even advocating for students and families to take the test to see how accountable their educational system is in Milwaukee.
They also have only 800 of their students actually attend in brick and mortar buildings in Milwaukee.
So that means that there's, because they have about 3,700 students in their program they did last year.
And so that means that there's 2,900 students that are homeschooled, which that was not the intent of the voucher program.
And they're not.
perhaps testing.
They don't know if they're doing the students are doing the work or if the parents are doing the work.
They don't know if the students are taking the test or the parents are taking the test.
And there's no accountability for these dollars.
So I don't believe that that's our legislators intent, but that's what's happening.
It would be like the Verroqua area school district saying we're going to create a voucher school because we have brick and mortar.
And we're going to include all of the Amish population.
And we're not going to have licensed teachers.
We're just going to let them teach.
And we're going to let them follow their curriculum, whatever that might be.
And then we're going to receive funding for it.
And once again, I do not think that's the intent of our legislators, but that is something that
could happen that would bring dollars to our school district without us really having to do anything at all.
I mean, that's ludicrous.
We are not going to do that.
But those are the types of things that can happen because of how the voucher program is running.
And then you spoke out about referendums.
So.
We have passed two referendum referendum die in the last four or five years.
One was brick and mortar.
We added a very large technical education component to our school and updated the equipment, which was very much necessary and then made some repairs that were needed.
And that was a $20 million referendum.
And we're very, very fortunate to have support of our community, but we did have a failed referendum.
And that was operational.
And then we had to go back to the community and ask for the dollars again.
And that this time when we did pass, it was only for two years.
So now we're going to have to go to a referendum again in another year to ask our community to assist in funding our school.
This costs a lot of money.
It's a huge amount of time and effort to explain why we need it.
Our community, like I said, is very philanthropic.
They support schools.
But why are we going every two or three years to referendum?
And a big part of it is the state budget.
The state budget.
Only lasts for two years, so we never know what's going to happen in the next two years if they're going to take money away from us, if they're going to add a small amount, if it's going to meet inflation.
So this has become a huge problem for trying to operate our school districts and prepare for the future.
And there's also a bunch of inequity.
I mean, I could go on and on forever with this, but it's creating more inequity for students because your poor communities are failing at a very large rate their referendum that they're trying to pass.
And your wealthy school districts are passing their referendum.
And so that's creating, like I said, a huge separation between the haves and the have nots.
I believe in every child receiving a very high level of education, and I'm sure all your listeners do as well.
But why is our state and all our tax dollars not going to the state?
And then all of those dollars are being dispersed equally with every student versus having to go to a referendum and trying to pass something and spending, like I said, a very large amount of money, a very large amount of time and energy.
You don't know if it's going to pass or
not.
No,
how do you keep your teachers?
How do you keep your programs?
It doesn't make any sense.
No, there's there's such such uncertainty as a result of the system.
Angie Lawrence is the president of the school board in Varroqua and we're talking about the many flaws in the system that were frankly only exacerbated by this new state budget.
And for all of the for all the wisecracks about people talking about, you know, government schools and resources.
Well, imagine, you know, how much
How much fewer the challenges would be if you weren't skimming nearly a billion dollars a year off the top and taking that away and giving it to these schools that are not accountable, that are not nearly as transparent, that are doing things like you said where their students are opting out of standardized tests at an alarming rate and leading therefore to more referendums.
The system as much as we we say there are problems with it the fact of the matter is the the basics are pretty easy to understand We have a Wisconsin Constitution that says that you know education should be supported in its uniform away as practicable These are things that we we can get back to those standards.
There was a blue ribbon commission Dedicated to fixing this system with Republicans and Democrats on it and yet nothing has come of it since so Angie this is just all to say
We can identify the flaws in the system.
We can also fix the flaws in the system if we could get lawmakers that wanted to take your concerns seriously.
Well, it's not rocket science.
I mean, you're talking about deferring tax dollars, property tax dollars from different communities having to raise those tax dollars versus the state saying, you know what, we're going to raise taxes and it's all going to go to schools.
not all of the dollars obviously, but it's going to go to schools so that every child in the state of Wisconsin receives a high quality education and taxpayers should be able to understand that because they're already paying more in property taxation by passing a referendum.
I mean, and schools are fiscally responsible.
It's not like we're spending needless dollars to educate our kids.
And the budget is not meeting inflation.
Our state is becoming funded at a lower rate than all of the other, not all the other states, but it's, I think we're 24th right now.
Don't quote me on that as far as state funding.
So we can do way better.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, it was once upon a time when Wisconsin was in or near a top 10 for support of our public schools.
Some politicians said that was too much.
Well, now as we're dropping to the middle of the pack and below, you wonder at what point they're going to say, okay, that's that's enough.
We don't want to fall to the very bottom.
Well, unfortunately, it seems like some politicians want exactly that as part of the ongoing push to privatization.
And it's what we follow in this segment with good people like Angie Lawrence, who serves as president of the Verroqua School Board.
Angie, I really appreciate your expertise and your service.
Thank you so much for joining us today to share more of the background about it.
There's one more thing, you know, they say that they're funding students that have some type of a disability, but actually if you look at how their formula works out, we're not receiving hardly any dollars for students.
Exactly.
More things to examine there.
Angie, thank
you.
Have a great day.
You too.
All
right.
Coming up in the next hour, we'll be talking to Earl Ingram of the What's Going On with Earl Ingram podcast, that and more still ahead.
Dr. Kristen Lyrely joining us at 835.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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All right, let's visit now with Civic Media Sports Director Jimmy Koska.
Very busy time of year here.
We had been talking baseball.
We're moving into football, basketball, and hockey are getting underway here as well.
You got the Badgers, you know, men who are starting their exhibition season, high school football playoffs.
How do you even triage all this, Jimmy, when you're following it all?
One step at a time.
I mean football is kind of first and foremost I got the basketball football head on today because this is our all conference meeting today It's our kind of our final duty now that we because we're eliminated.
We're not in the playoffs.
This is our final duty as football coaches for the 2025 season And that and then we're on to the offseason with that but for the teams that are in the playoffs a player playoffs began last Saturday what?
very largely chalk in that round.
And then the 11 player playoffs begin this Friday.
And that's the remaining 224 teams that are playing in 11 players.
So this time of year is exciting.
Last night was the start of volleyball, of course, in soccer.
We have cross country sectionals this week.
Tennis is already at state.
Golf is already at state.
So there's, yeah, this time of year for high school alone is really busy.
But as you said,
There are also, obviously, there was the overlap with the brewers in action, as have even as of last week, the bucks got underway last night.
You've got the Packers going, the Badgers.
It is all happening right this second, right now in sports.
Well, let's start with something wildly speculative on the brewers, and then we'll get to the concrete stuff that's actually happening.
Brandon Woodruff, is he coming?
Well, what are we going to have for starting pitchers coming back next year?
Please don't break my heart.
it's kind of the same
it's kind of the same thing every offseason right like you look at it you're like well we don't really know what we're to come into next year with and then there's gonna be the offseason mover to where you're wondering okay what what just happened what are the Brewers doing and they show up in the in the spring and they've got a pitching staff and you can't name half the guys that's that's what's gonna happen again this year they're gonna keep
doing what they've been doing because, A, that's what they do and, B, they have to stay under a certain financial threshold that sometimes the doctors don't
know.
Yes, yes.
And that's what you're hearing is that, you know, Mark Ananasio and others need to open things up a little bit more, which, look, I am not here to defend or apologize, you know, billionaires and multimillionaires and all that.
I'm just trying to temper expectations when you're in the smallest market in the league.
Yeah.
The brewers share of spending on the roster compared to revenue is among the lowest to the major league baseball.
It's in the bottom 10.
Okay.
This is, you know, and, and you're right.
It's a small market.
There's not a, there's not a big, a big payout coming, if you will, from anything that happens to the market.
So.
No.
So you either have to, yeah.
bring that percentage up, which is a little bit less of a percentage for the ownership.
But you know what?
brings in more revenue, winning in the postseason and going deeper into it.
So yeah, I mean, even Freddie Peralta, as I understand, he's not, they don't have to trade him this coming year, but there might be reasons to trade him early while you can get the most value, especially a guy who you already know is going to reach 100 pitches, you know, by the sixth inning.
So he's in no danger of ever having a complete game.
So, you know, I don't know what his
if his value is really that much more this year compared to next year.
It's what they do with Corbin Burns, right?
It's what they've done historically is try to max out their value, especially pitchers.
They seem to find and develop pitchers like you wouldn't believe, and they've still got a strong farm system.
So that'll be an interesting case to follow.
I mean, if he goes, I think it just tracks with everything else the viewers have done.
Which, by the way, not the same as Corbin Burnson, the actor.
I learned that earlier today, the hard way.
All right, you mentioned high school.
football playoffs, which I'm sure are still on one or two civic media stations heading into the whole season.
Yeah, right
now, I think I've got five or six games scheduled this week across the network, and that's just Wisconsin teams.
We just added a bunch of stations on the U.P., and they do high school football as well.
And that's exciting.
We've got football on a number of signals around the state.
And as you might imagine, some of those stations are also doing some of the other sports.
I think last night, we had two soccer matches and then a volleyball match.
as well on the radio.
So for Civic Media Stations across the network, just check your local station.
We've got the calendars right up on the front page of those websites.
That is awesome.
All right, let's kind of speed through what we've got also on the Civic Media Calendar on Friday.
You've got the Badger Men's basketball team taking on Oklahoma.
It's an exhibition game.
The
easier of the two exhibition games, by the
way.
Yeah, coverage begins at 6.30 Friday on several stations and then Platteville the following week.
And then the regular season begins.
That's it.
Yeah, they'll play a flat bill on Wednesday next week.
A flat bill just graduated a trio of five-year seniors who contributed massive amounts to the program.
A bit of a different look this year.
But what is great about the flat bill Wisconsin game is they use that game, too, to fundraise for guarding against cancer.
So they do turn that into a fundraiser.
Of course, Jeff Gard, the head coach at flat bill, and Greg Gard, the head coach at Wisconsin, are brothers from Mighty Cobb, Wisconsin.
So there's fundraising.
components that as
well.
Okay.
And then you've got on Saturday, the Badger football team is at Oregon coverage begins at 4pm.
Kind of a later game there.
Any bold predictions on how that one's going to go, Jimmy?
It'll be the last night game the Badgers get this year.
OK, that's
it.
There's your prediction.
That's my
prediction because we had a thread yesterday in our civic media sports group chat about it.
I'm just so much in pain.
The Big 10 power rankings of the Badgers, 18th out of 18.
It is
sad times right
now.
18th in the Big 10.
Out of 18.
That hurts.
And then, of course, you've got the Packers Sunday against Pittsburgh, first time taking on Aaron Rodgers because we didn't plan when he was with the Jets at all.
How do you think that's going to go?
Um, the Steelers uniforms are going to be dominating the conversation.
I think
they're so gross.
Um, but you know, the, I think what'll be fun for people who file the Packers is they're going to see a lot of Wisconsin ties in the Steelers, um, between obviously Aaron Rodgers, but also TJ Wad, Hiana Benton.
You're also going to see Nick Herbig.
You're going to see a lot of familiar names on the Steelers roster.
So I think that'll be kind of fun in a way for people who.
really get deep into the lore of Wisconsin football or even high school football in Wisconsin.
I think that'll be kind of a fun treat for them.
And then finally, the World Series is going to be a Toronto versus the Dodgers.
For Toronto, that includes Marshfield native Dalton Varshow.
Are you going to be watching that?
Well, it's funny.
It's hard to watch a playoff sports on TV when you don't have like a satellite or over the air.
So if it's not on an app, I'm probably not going to get it.
But hey, I think they have it right.
Toronto is America's team right now.
Toronto is America's team.
I like that.
Oh, Canada.
Jimmy, Koska, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
We'll talk to you later.
All right, Earl Ingram is standing by, and then Dr. Kristen Lierly as well in the next hour.
I'm Pat Breitlo, this is Pacific Media Radio
Network.
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