You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime,
anywhere.
You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7 0 6.
It is nice to have you back here up north on a Thursday morning.
It is November 6, 2025.
Assembly Democratic leader Greta Neubauer is standing by we will talk about things happening at the state Capitol, things not happening because of the government shutdown, and much more coming up over the course of this next half hour.
And then following that, we're going to be talking to an economic support specialist, who is right there on the front lines of people who have to sign up for SNAP or food share and rely on those benefits to avoid
you know eviction and be able to afford groceries and she'll talk about the safeguards in place to guard against that tired old talking point about all the fraud that is you know that they love to think is happening out there so that's coming up in our next half hour.
Parker Olson is producing things in Madison studio A2 and Parker I did make the one mistake.
When I was listening to Mike Clemens do sports just now and we have to put it on our to-do list He mentioned that the bucks are playing the bowls tomorrow night at the Pfizer forum.
That's fine perfectly fine regular season game But to get us care to get us to care about the regular season games or maybe make the players care about regular season games We have this thing called the NBA Cup The in season tournament is back
And at some point, I'm going to explain to you how the NBA Cup tournament works.
And when that happens, that's when you'll know Pat has run out of things to say, but it's come.
So at some point, we'll have to explain why, why, why tomorrow's game is different.
Can I just say, I don't care about the competition in the middle of the season.
I don't, I don't care at all about that, but it just looks ugly.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
They got the different colored courts that are trying to be all funky, you know, like they're like the city connect jerseys and all of that.
So
yeah,
things look a little different on your favorite NBA teams, court and the uniforms and everything else.
Yeah.
That's exactly what it's like.
Rob says good morning from Tigerton.
It is clear and 23 degrees.
Last night, I was in Wasaw for a highway 29 meeting for a future repaving project from Wasaw to Ringle in Marathon County.
He said, I learned Highway 29 has to compete with the interstate and other major four four lane highways for state funding for projects.
Yes, that is very true.
And finally, he says that last night I saw the Northern Lights.
I did not, but I woke up this morning.
First off, notice just how amazingly bright this particular moon is, because it's particularly close to Earth, very, very bright, but also the Northern Lights.
People were putting up social media posts overnight that were just stunning.
And we always appreciate that people with actual photography skills are willing to share those kinds of things.
So thanks to everybody.
For your phone calls, your texts, your voice notes, 8-5-5-7-5-CIVIC is how to reach us.
Let's turn now to State Assembly Representative Greta Neubauer, Democrat from Racine, who is the Assembly Minority Leader as well.
Joining us from Racine this morning, Representative Neubauer, good morning, how are you?
It is good to see you, Pat.
Sounds like you got a good night of sleep if you missed the
Northern Lights, huh?
Yeah, see, that's key.
Better to be well rested than to have stayed up too late for Northern Lights or weak packer victories or losses, whatever the case may be.
It's all about proper time and body management.
Now, Racine, we've got the fall session of the legislature going there.
We've talked already in the last hour about a committee hearing on a particular bill that would micromanage women.
healthcare for example, but I mean the real focus there rightfully so is the federal government shutdown and its impact on on your constituents and on people throughout Wisconsin and I've noticed that Democrats are particularly active in saying well well we want to keep the pressure on politically we have people in the here and now who are
or suffering and need assistance, I've noticed just a plethora of food drives and support for food banks going on.
Is that a fairly organized campaign?
Yeah, I appreciate you raising this.
So of course, we all need the federal government to get their act together.
Trump and Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House.
And it is their responsibility to get food out to people who need it and who are going to struggle this month.
We're entering the holiday season.
It's a horrible situation, one in eight people, of course, in Wisconsin, who use food share.
We also know that people are struggling now, right?
This started at the beginning of the month.
The SNAP benefits not going out or going out at lower rates.
And so our members have been
Really active, we've had at least 12 emergency food drives and events across the state.
Our members are volunteering, stocking shelves, loading trucks, organizing food collection and drop-offs.
We know that we have to do everything we can in this moment to ensure that our constituents do not go hungry.
Yeah, and it's not just legislators.
Sometimes it's potential candidates.
We talked to Emily Sefos last week, a state senate candidate who has just been
Non-stop collecting food all throughout the Fox Valley area to support pantries out there We did see you know legislators like here in the Chippewa Valley We had state representative Jody Emerson and state senator Jeff Smith speaking out along with the folks from the community table And they were surrounded at that function by a whole bunch of you know real normal folks And I think that's what this comes down to is the people who want to
just play politics with this and aren't looking at the people who it actually helps and the people that they are really hurting right now.
And it just looks more like you're putting a human face on the political games that they are playing.
Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely right.
The reality here is that we're talking about people going hungry in our state.
out 260,000 kids who are not going to have access to the SNAP benefits and the food that they rely on.
And that really is just completely unacceptable.
We know that Democrats are fighting hard in Washington because people's premiums are also going up in astronomical numbers.
And then we see the Trump administration focused on, I don't know, building a new ballroom, a gilded ballroom.
I mean, people see what's going on and they're not happy about it.
The most basic need, right, is access to food.
And that being cut off for folks in our state is just totally unacceptable.
And so we're going to do everything we can.
We sent a letter to the secretary of the USDA urging those contingency funds be released.
We've got
some bills right we would love the Republicans to take up here in Wisconsin like healthy school meals for all and a food security grant program that supports our local food banks but we cannot entirely fix this problem at the state level right we really do need Republicans at the federal level to be addressing this issue reopening the government and making sure that people have what they need to get by.
we're talking to a state assembly democratic leader Greta Neubauer from the Racine area about the federal government shutdown and then also things that are happening more in the state capital but before we turn to that you know just one more thing on the shutdown here and you've alluded to it about health insurance costs and again you have a
If I'm not mistaken, a record number of people in Wisconsin used the Affordable Care marketplace to get health care coverage in the past year.
And Governor Evers and the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, a week before last, put out very specific county specific numbers on just how high these premiums would go up.
So I can only imagine that before we even got to the snap cutoff, you were already hearing from constituents wondering,
why they're seeing these premium increases that are so much higher than last year.
Yeah, so more than 270,000 people in Wisconsin qualified for the ACA's premium enhanced tax credit last year.
And they saved an average of $664 a month.
Most people do not have an extra $664 a month to put towards their health care premiums.
And then of course, there are these
Really dramatic cases that we're now hearing about, some senior couples in certain counties could see premium hikes of more than $30,000.
I mean, people cannot afford that.
And so they will lose health insurance.
And that will have real consequences for them and their families.
This, of course, is essential health care that people need and have come to count on.
And so I'm glad to see that Democrats are sticking to their promises to follow.
through and make sure that people do not have to get these hits.
Republicans are giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country and taking people's health care away.
this is very clear.
It is very stark.
And I just hope that people know that this is what their Republican Congress people in Trump are doing in Washington.
And there are things that that can be done even say by the governor's office, you know, could apply for rural health transformation program funds.
And in fact, Congressman Derek Van Orden sent a letter to Governor Evers office on Tuesday, calling on him to apply for these funds, saying quote, if his administration fails to submit an
application, that would be an unacceptable failure of leadership.
The problem was Evers' office had already sent in the application the day before.
It just kind of feels like Congressman Van Orden and Brian Stile and others could be doing things other than trying to dictate to the governor and legislators and city councils what to do.
My gosh, they're just looking around for anybody to blame.
It's not them, the people who voted.
for the removal of these tax credits.
And I do think that people are going to see through that.
Yeah, we're talking to Representative Greta Neubauer, the Assembly Democratic Leader.
Let's switch gears, talk briefly about the Department of Public Instruction and the matter of how it investigates and handles the licensing of teachers who are accused of improper conduct.
State Superintendent Jill Underly has outlined what she would like to see to bring more clarity to the system.
Republicans have introduced their own
legislation about this and from your standpoint as Assembly Democratic leader do you feel like there is a bipartisan path forward toward getting these definitions of grooming more transparency to licensing or are we gonna get caught up in in another political spin cycle from people who don't really want to solve
problems?
Well, it's a good question and it remains to be seen.
But I think we all saw the story highlighting the cases of sexual misconduct and the process around licensure of teachers and we're troubled by that.
Of course, all of us want our kids to be safe.
It is our number one priority.
Everyone should feel safe when they go to school and every parent should feel confident that their kids are being well taken care of.
So I am hopeful that we are going to be able to make some improvements to this process.
As you mentioned, Superintendent Underly.
is interested in working on some more transparency for how those license removal processes work, and then the outcomes of those processes.
We also know that even if you lose your license to teach in a public school in Wisconsin, you can go teach in a private school.
It doesn't require a license, and that's a problem too.
And then of course, we've seen Republicans and Democrats interested in addressing the definition of grooming.
This is not something that's really covered in our statutes, but we know that
There are educators who have, you know, exchanged messages with students that while not maybe explicitly sexual in nature are problematic and are clearly moving towards a certain kind of outcome.
And so we are working to tighten up those definitions to ensure that we don't have any inappropriate behavior between teachers and students.
And so I'm hopeful that that is going to be a bipartisan bill.
We're in ongoing conversations with Republicans about that.
That's something our caucus has been interested in for quite
at some time and so it's good to see that there is some bipartisan interest.
Representative Greta Neubauer, the Assembly Democratic Leader is our guest.
And before we take a break here, just to let you know that coming up in our next half hour, we're going to be talking to an economic support specialist with AFSCME who helps people who first need food share and badger care and other lifelines to escape the cycle of poverty and get back on track to self-sufficiency.
So stick around for that as well, coming up about 15 minutes away.
And then in our eight o'clock hour, we will be talking
talking to Sean O'Malley about your money and the markets and the lack of government data to talk to us about the economy.
From the heart of America's Up North Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Crightlow.
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.
Nice to have you back, just about 7.23 on this Thursday morning.
We'll continue our conversation with State Representative Greta Neubauer in just a moment.
First, the shameless plug for the UpNorth News Daily Newsletter.
Sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Now, people did not vote in Wisconsin yesterday.
I will tell you a few people, just a few, called their town clerks or their city clerks and asked if the polls were open.
They'd been hearing about the elections in New York City and California and wanted to make sure they weren't missing anything here.
They were not.
There was nothing going on here.
But it's now, you know, a year away.
And in today's newsletter is an outline of the election dates for 2026.
You know, there's a general election in April for state Supreme Court and other local nonpartisan races.
The primary for that would be in February.
There, of course, is the November general election next year, but very important primary for governor, for Congress, for legislative seats that will be held in August.
Get the exact dates by getting signed up to our newsletter over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
State Representative Greta Neubauer, the Assembly Democratic Leader is with us now.
And Greta, I was mentioning Jody Emerson's name.
We talked to Representative Emerson from Eau Claire.
I want to say week before last, as she was unveiling a package of bills to support higher education in Wisconsin.
And it just reminds me that in this current fall session of the legislature, there could be a lot of things that are getting done, and a lot of them are on your to-do list.
So while you don't have the means right now to drive the entire legislative agenda, you've got the stuff you'd want to get done if you could.
Tell us a bit about what your priorities are this fall.
Yes, that is absolutely right.
We know that the people of Wisconsin want to see their legislators working hard on their behalf.
And so we are in Madison and in our districts working on the issues that we know are impacting Wisconsinites the most.
And of course, really at the top of that list is costs.
We know people are going to be especially squeezed, given what's going on at the federal government and the tariffs.
And so we are working every day.
to address the costs of education, including higher education and career training, housing, groceries with our healthy school meals for all bill, prescription drugs and health care.
We know that there's a lot that we can do at the state level.
And so we've got a number of bills that we've rolled out already.
I would say some of those key bills focused on K-12 education.
We know that people's property taxes have had to go up because they've passed local referendums to support their schools.
Been put in a terrible position, right?
The state has failed to adequately fund our schools.
And so local folks then have to ask, am I going to raise my own taxes or am I going to let my school
fall into disrepair.
Many of those referendums, of course, passing, but it really should not be on local folks and property taxes to fund education in the way that it does.
So we've got a general school aids bill that would really help there, put some more money into schools, keep those property taxes from going up.
We've got a number of bills focused on
creating good jobs in Wisconsin and supporting workers, repealing some of those Scott Walker era policies like right to work and reinstating prevailing wage.
We've got a number of bills coming still on public safety.
We all deserve to feel safe in the communities that we live and work and welcome the environment and health care.
So we've got a lot going on.
We're working closely with our Senate Democratic caucuses and partners across
the state to ensure that the people of Wisconsin can see that life would be different if Democrats were in control here in Wisconsin.
And yet as we talked to state representative Greta Neubauer, the assembly minority leader, what we have on the agenda, we've talked about a bill that would try to micromanage women's health care like ectopic pregnancies and things like that.
There is now a bill formally introduced to ban absentee ballot drop boxes
in Wisconsin, which of course would never get passed.
Neither of these would get passed a veto from the governor.
And yet those are the things being pushed.
How would you generalize what actually is making the agenda for these committees and the full assembly and Senate in this session?
Yeah, Republicans are doing culture wars.
There is a hearing this week to entirely ban hemp products, THC products in Wisconsin.
They're continuing to attack the LGBTQ community.
Frankly, Republicans know that they do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to the issues that Wisconsinites really care about, which are costs and having a good life in a safe community for them and their kids.
And so they're going to continue to try to drum up the culture wars, just like President
Trump who seems to keep pivoting when asked about people's costs.
So I don't think it's going to work.
Again, I think the voters see what's going on.
They see that Republicans are not interested in addressing the challenges that are really facing them and their families and I think they're going to want something different.
So they're going to look next year at the candidates that are running.
And obviously, as we've seen in the race for governor, about a half a dozen Democrats in there already, you've got Democratic primaries in congressional seats, no doubt for some legislative seats as well.
So along with emphasizing the importance of people showing up next August 11th for that primary, what is it that you want voters and frankly, your own local county parties and things like that?
What do you want them to know and to do and to keep in mind as we head
into what are going to be a series of Democratic primaries all around the state next year?
Yeah, well, I think what we saw in the elections this week is that there is room for all of us in the Democratic Party.
We saw some real progressives winning like Sir Ron Mamdani in New York City.
We saw some more moderate Democrats winning in Virginia and New Jersey and.
There's room for all of us because we all believe that Wisconsinites here and people across the country deserve better.
We believe that Trump is a threat to our well-being and to our democracy.
And so it'll be really interesting to see how these primaries play out.
And then, of course, we all got to stay focused on what comes after the primary, which is the general election.
And we, for the first time in 15 years, have the real opportunity to win a Democratic trifecta in Wisconsin and to really change the trajectory of
this state to invest in the people who make Wisconsin the great state that it is and chart a new path forward.
And so we're so excited about that opportunity next year.
State Assembly Representative Greta Neubauer, Assembly Democratic Leader Greta, always nice to catch up with you.
Thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you for having me.
All right.
And when we come back again, we'll talk to somebody on the front lines of making sure that people have the lifeline they need, that other people are trying to cut out from underneath them.
I'll be back.
I'm back right now.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We are talking with Misha Dancing Waters, Economic Support Specialist, a member of AFSCME Council 32 as well.
And you've spent just about nine years now helping Wisconsin families navigate some of these programs.
So Misha, let me start by asking you in your own words, what is it that you do?
What is it that you help families do when they come to you?
We can help them in a number of ways.
We do of course offer benefits like badger care for health insurance coverage, SNAP benefits to help with food, child care assistance for working families that need some help to pay for the cover or cover the costs of daycare for their children so that they can work.
There's also a number of other federally and state funded programs around Medicare and other things that we do.
So how does somebody get to you in the beginning or where is it that they go or call first and then they are set up to meet with you?
So the state of Wisconsin uses a consortia system and all of this counties are broken up into groups and my I work out of the capital consortium which has eight counties near and around Dane and Madison.
Some of the farther out even Richland Center, Sheboygan.
So it's a pretty large area.
And often people are referred to us by a friend or family member, organizations in the community, food banks are often have that information available.
People hear by word of mouth, you know, go to the job center to, you know, or call this number and apply for whatever it is that you might be eligible for.
So that's often, you know, people's first point of.
service with us is either coming into the lobby in person or calling us on the phone.
So when they sit down with you for the first time, what kind of information are you looking for from them to ensure that they do qualify for certain types of support?
Absolutely.
There's a lot of measures that are taken to avoid fraud and to make sure that the people that are getting benefits are truly eligible.
Before I did this job, I had no idea of the complexity and the intensity involved in verifying someone's citizenship identity, their employment history.
There's a lot of information that gets pulled into our system from other data exchanges, given our computer age.
So there are many, many ways that we're checking to see that things line up.
We're checking with other organizations.
the same information that you have on your end, and it's all feeding back to our system, letting us know, you know, this is verified, this is correct, this is who this person says they are, you know, this is how much they're earning.
So there's a fraud department that deals with anything that we find suspicious or think should be looked in on, and so they take it from there.
So I truly feel that our programs are
very heavily.
There's a great deal of integrity in the work.
Most of the people that I work with very much want to help people.
We very much want to assure that the work we're doing is correct.
So that's how I feel about the position and what I see on a daily basis is
those the fraud isn't isn't happening the way that people say that it is people that are getting benefits are truly eligible and truly it's based on the poverty limits.
So if they truly are in that income range, then they are eligible to get these benefits.
So you're asking for verification and information from folks and and
It's a general question, overly general, but how are they doing?
What are what are folks like when they first, when you first get to meet with them to talk about this matter?
Well, if they're new to things, it can be a little overwhelming.
There's a lot of questions we ask that can get kind of personal.
And like I said, we're really delving in to make sure that things are correct.
But often after talking a little bit,
the workers are able to really help somebody tune into some other resources, find out what they may be eligible for with us, how we can help, just sort of helping in a lot of ways.
I feel like on the phones a lot of times we're serving more than just the eligibility determination piece.
We're listening to people's stories.
We're trying to help them connect to things in the community that they need, trying to help them.
figure out how to piece it all together because that's really where people are right now is literally trying to piece life together.
How is it from your own personal standpoint?
How do you want them to feel when they're done having that first conversation with you?
Because I get a feeling they enter feeling overwhelmed.
Absolutely.
I come from a background of
doing teaching and training.
So I love to give people information so that they can feel empowered when they leave that situation, that they're more able to feel like there are things that they can access, that they're able to do that on their own.
They have a better idea of what that's going to look like for them.
So I think it puts them at ease often to get a little bit of information from us and understand more how all of these things work.
Do you get from a lot of them that they do want to work but they're in particular dire straits right now and so they're looking both at the very short term, you know, food and rent, but that they are looking for some direction in how to find employment after that?
Well, first I would say that most of our recipients do work.
People that get food share may be a two-parent family that they're both working.
It may be a single parent who's working two or three jobs, and they're still eligible for food share because the wages are so low.
So that's something I've heard a lot lately.
This thinking that people aren't working is truly not the case.
It's just that families, even working families, aren't able to make it right now.
And with food share, there is a work requirement.
unless you have some sort of exemption.
So someone who is disabled, for example, wouldn't be held to the work requirement, but Food Share requires participants to work 80 hours a month.
And if they aren't working 80 hours a month or participating in a program that we have accessible where they can have help finding a job or training to get a job, that would satisfy the work requirement.
They only can get three months worth of benefits and then it ends.
until at this point the end of December of 2027.
So there is something in place for people that are just not working and it doesn't allow them to just continuously get benefits without actually working or being in a program that's helping them find a job.
We're talking with Misha Dancing Waters.
She's an economic support specialist who helps families navigate through some of these programs like SNAP and access to healthcare and childcare assistance.
So let's turn our attention to the current situation because of the shutdown and with SNAP benefits being taken away at this point, and we don't know yet for how long.
What is happening out there with a lot of these families?
What are you hearing?
What are the situations that they're facing?
It's very scary for families right now.
This is the first month where the benefits won't be received.
So we're pretty early on in the month.
I'm certain that as this progresses and the longer it goes on, families are going to get more and more desperate.
Even before
their food share benefits were taken away or delayed for the month.
People were struggling to even pay rent and even do the basics.
You know, it's right now it's hard to pay the electric bill and eat or do I pay, they're having to choose what do I pay for, what do I wait on.
they, they aren't able to cover all of the needs.
And so that's where they're coming to us also looking for other resources in the community, like potentially energy assistance, which also is currently delayed.
So, you know, people
are getting into this situation that's really scary.
Where am I going to get my electric cutoff?
Am I going to lose my housing?
You know, which of these things is just falling out from under me right now?
And how do I try to pull it together?
Misha, how about from your standpoint?
And I'm not, I'm not asking you, you know,
politics, but just as somebody who has watched these families and is now watching what they're going through and obviously thinking about the work that you do, and how you feel about all of this happening as part of this political battle.
I'm sickened by how we're using the most vulnerable people in our society as pawns right now in a political game.
It's not okay.
These are just safety nets just to keep
those that are most at risk in our country from completely going under.
So I don't know how we change the issues of inflation and rising costs of everything, including rent, including food, just the basics for life are what people are struggling with right now.
And I, we need to end the shutdown.
We need to
get our food share restored so that people can eat.
But we also absolutely have to do something about the cost of health care.
Both for badger care recipients, for people that are getting their coverage to the marketplace that are no longer going to have any sort of subsidies.
And we also work somewhat with that process.
We process some of those.
federally funded marketplace or ACA applications for healthcare and if they're eligible for Badger care, they stay with us.
If they're not, they go back and they buy a plan.
We're looking at those plans costing three times more all of a sudden with no raise from work, no change in or deduction from anything else.
And even me in my county job right now,
We are looking at staggering increases for the coming year for the cost of insurance.
And it's horrifying right now that it's getting to the point where things are costing so much that no typical American person can afford it.
Misha Dancing Waters is an economic support specialist who we're talking to about healthcare and SNAP and other things that have been cut off or jeopardized because of the government shutdown.
Last question is about
What I hope you're seeing in terms of success stories and listeners here know I've shared my story a few times you know being raised by a mom newly single four kids This is the mid 1970s having to stand in line with her to get your little coupon book of food stamps But after a few years when the kids were all in school me and my younger siblings
she took, you know, third shift at a truck stop, waiting tables, and then got a better waitressing job and then a better job after that.
And has more than pay back the benefits that got her those years when kids were really little.
Now that's my story.
I'm hoping I'm expecting that you have heard similar stories.
The people that you once saw very early on in a time of crisis in their lives have become much more self-sufficient, but might not have or not for this aid.
It's not a place where people
Most people are there are getting food share benefits for a long, long time.
They graduate out, you know, they their income goes up when they get a new job and they move on to their employer's insurance.
And, you know, it's it's definitely used as a stepping stone for people.
I also grew up in those times of the 70s.
And I do remember the times where we're back then, my dad worked at a factory and just he made enough money.
for the whole family to survive.
That's no longer the case.
Economic support specialist, Misha Dancing Waters joining us this morning.
Misha, thank you very much for your time and for all that you do.
Thank you for spending some time with us today.
Thank you so much.
And Misha, by the way, was speaking in her capacity as a member of the AFSCME Public Employees Union, not for any employer.
And we appreciate that very much.
Joseph Peckie in our next hour, along with Sean O'Malley and Chad Holmes.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
It feels like all the cool kids are on substack these days, and Civic Media is no exception.
You can sign up for Civic Media's new daily newsletter.
filled with links to show highlights and more over at civicmediatoday.substack.com, civicmediatoday.substack.com.
That's one way to catch up with things you might have missed.
The other way would be to pod this program, head over to Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up to follow Mornings with Pat Krightlo, powered by Up North News.
And that way you'll never miss an episode, you'll never miss a guest, you'll never miss whatever earns me a rim shot from Parker over here, which
I try to minimize, but, you know, no guarantees.
James Kelly is here as well from our newsroom in the Chippewa Valley.
You can follow what he does at 93-5, the TAP.
That's WCFWHD2 on the Civic Media app.
You can also go to the website, thetap.fm, for headlines, weather, upcoming local sports and more.
James Kelly, how are you?
I was good until you mentioned all the cool kids were on substack.
I don't think I'm on substack.
So that probably means I'm not one
of the cool kids.
I'm definitely not.
Well, I'm worse than I'm a cool kid wannabe, whereas I have created a substack, but you won't find anything I've written there in well over a year.
So you got to embrace the nerd.
Yeah, I've got it.
Well, it's gathering dust.
And as as Dan Schaffer has learned when he helped start up civic media today, when you start something like this, there's a saying, you've got to feed the beast.
Yep, and now it's it's mandatory in radio.
I mean this show starts at 6 a.m.
Ready or not and we got to fill three hours We got to feed that beast every day on something like a substack You don't have to like I haven't for over a year But if you want it to be consistent if you want to get readers you got to feed the beast every day you got to put something in there and You know some days it's harder than others
Yeah, well you got to get after it.
That's what we do here
Yeah, that's exactly it.
So, you know the ones where you really got to do it You're here ready or not would be like talk shows or like a newscast and these are the things that you put together But you you carry a lot of good news as well including just down the road here the old st.
Joseph's Hospital in Chippewa Falls, which has been mothballed for a year and a half now Finally has a little bit of life again
Yeah, the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative purchased the site over the summer, planning to reopen it partially just to kind of act as a bridge before they can get their new hospital in Lake Halley opened.
But they opened up the Cancer Center this week.
They started medical oncology treatments on Monday, which is a huge step here because patients were driving an hour, an hour and a half to other facilities around the region.
So this is a really big difference for the area.
They're doing medical oncology and infusion therapy.
They have radiation therapy fast.
for 2026 and they're working on getting some other services ready to go for next year like inpatient care, emergency surgery, labor and delivery.
These are all things that people in Chippewa Falls specifically have really missed since losing St.
Joseph's because there's no other hospital here.
You got to go all the way down to Eau Claire.
Yeah, and even there you've got the, you know, one of the hospitals in Eau Claire also belong to HSHS.
And that's sitting there empty right now as well.
So it's nice to see that some health care services are slowly making a return here.
Also out of Eau Claire, out of the Chippewa Valley, you've got a museum there that is aware of the crisis that is affecting lower income families affected by the government shutdown and is doing a little something nice about that.
Yeah, the Children's Museum of Eau Claire is offering free admission throughout November for families who use snapper wick benefits to take advantage of it.
All you have to do is show your snapper wick card, your benefits that you get them.
Usually those families only pay about $4 per visit, so it's not, you know...
breaking the bank for them.
But it is a nice way to just make sure that their kids have a place to go after school, just kind of learn, play, be in a safe environment.
I used to go to the Children's Museum back home all the time.
I loved they had some some contraption where they'd put you in a little circle and they'd bring a giant bubble around you.
And I said, that is so cool.
I love being inside the bubble.
No, that's the good kind of bubble.
Nowadays, everybody's in like a political or media bubble.
And yeah, those are the bad bubbles.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You want you want to.
brace the good ones there.
First you made it sound like they're going to wrap you in bubble wrap and stick you in a mailbox or something.
No,
my mom would have loved that.
I broke
a lot of
bones as a child playing sports and overall just being a dummy.
And now she could never bubble wrap you, but look at you.
You survive and thrive, as they say.
And then finally, we'll talk about, again, with the cutoff of SNAP benefits and families wondering where that next meal is going to come from.
Look, it's one thing if you're bringing canned goods to a food pantry.
That's great.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But there's other ways where people would like to have meals that are done.
And you've got a couple of groups here that are working on that front.
Yeah, Chippewa Valley Indivisible and the Care Collective, Chippewa Valley Indivisible of course responsible for kind of those larger no-kings type protests in the area, but they're trying to just get meals out to people, especially people who may not be able to make it to a food pantry during their normal hours because, you know, they work.
They have jobs so they can't always just go to the food pantry and, you know, sometimes people just have...
a little bit of extra pride where they don't want to admit that they need to rely on something like a food pantry.
So these meals, they're hoping to pack over 100 meals at each one of these little events.
They did their first one on Tuesday and they have one pickup location so far at the Chippewa Falls YMCA.
They're working on other distribution sites, but it's a good way for people to just get an easy meal.
There's no, you know, checking to see, oh, do you really need this or not?
Like you can just go to the YMCA, pick up a meal, that's it.
It's just there.
And that's the best part here.
I need to point out that Tony, once again, is reminding me to promote myself.
Never mind the substack.
He says, if you go to Facebook, you can read some of our writing, and he's absolutely right.
If you head over to the Facebook page, Mornings with Pat Critello, you can watch this whole thing, because the video stream is there, so you can see what James is doing there in Chippewa Falls.
And you can also, we put up
text posts of some of the things that we talk about here, which come to think of it, I should be copying and pasting into that substack place.
Yeah.
Yeah, just two birds one stone.
I know that Tony, he's so smart.
I tell you, James Kelly, you can again, follow what he does by heading over to the tap 93.5.
That's WCFW HD two or head over to the tap dot FM on the website, not not a dot com or anything.
It's the tap dot FM.
All right, James.
Thanks so much.
Have a great day.
Thanks, guys.
Have a good one.
Alrighty.
Still to come.
We're going to have our busy eight o'clock hour on Thursdays.
We're going to be talking to Chad Holmes, see what he's covering in the Wasaw area.
We'll talk to Sean O'Malley about your money in the markets.
And then Joseph Peck, he's going to give us a little analysis of election night all across the country this week.
I'm Pat Crightlow live in Chippewa Falls from Up North News.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
