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And good morning, welcome back.
It is 7 0 6.
It's a Tuesday morning, December 9th.
Nice to have you back here up North.
Barker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2 coming up this hour.
We will be talking to the mayor of Superior, Jim Payne.
about a couple of different stories up there, one involving an officer shot and wounded, the other about affordable housing and a post that he put up over the weekend and the response to it.
I think we covered a lot of ground in just that post and the responses about the problems being faced by communities all over Wisconsin on the issue of affordable housing.
So you'll want to stick around for that.
You're also going to want to pay attention to the weather throughout the course of the day, especially in the western parts of the state and northwest Wisconsin in winter storm warning will go into effect later this afternoon for areas north of the I-94 corridor in western Wisconsin.
And then south of there, there will be some mixed precipitation, potentially some freezing rain as well.
In fact, as I look at what Rob has put up from Tigerton, good morning from Tigerton, Rob says, it's cloudy with freezing mist and 20
one degrees, got about a half inch of snow overnight, said he plowed and salted.
Whereas I'm in the category of, yeah, there's about two inches out there, but you know, there's three to five more coming.
So I'm going to wait, which, you know, of course gives that first layer time to freeze.
Why make anything easy on yourself, right?
But again, we've got this clipper system coming through a little heavier than your normal clipper.
And so pay attention both to your local forecast and to your local roads report and maybe consider delaying those drives if you don't have to make one today.
All right, it is time for our grown up gift list text to win contest.
This is a multi-station, multi-state game that you can take part in simply by having your Civic Media app handy.
and using it to text us a keyword that I'm about to give you.
You have to text it by eight o'clock because you'll have other chances to win throughout the course of the day with different keywords.
And it's done every other hour starting now.
So 7am, 9am, 11am, and then at 1pm, 3, 5 and 7pm, all of those chances to send in keywords and be in the running for a daily prize of $200 cash.
There will be three grand prize winners who will
from a brand new snowblower, a portable air conditioner, a stainless steel cookware set.
You can get the details on all the prizes by heading to civicmedia.us.
Here is the word, winter.
Seems appropriate, winter.
W-I-N-T-E-R, winter is the keyword in our grownup gift list, text to win contest.
Good luck and then be listening with Janne and Greg coming up after nine o'clock for your next chance to win.
Looking at some of the things that Sharita Booker has sent us, our social media manager, she puts up all kinds of social media posts about stories that we work on and also, you know, that we collect from around the state and around the country.
And on her list of stories that received the most engagements, you know, comments and likes and shares and things like that, there was the woman who was rather violently arrested at the Port Washington data center protest about a week ago or so.
There was also the announcement that Mandela Barnes is running for governor.
We put something on Instagram about that and it received a whole lot of input.
Obviously, as you would expect with the political story, the comments ran both ways there.
On the much lighter side, one of our most popular stories on Facebook from the past week was actor Hugh Jackman.
scooping up custard at cops as a part of his appearance to promote the movie Song Song Blue about a Milwaukee area couple and their Neil Diamond tribute band and it was nice to see Hugh Jackman really taking it embracing everything about his visit to Wisconsin.
So again, those are some of our top stories.
You can follow everything we do on social media by looking for up north news wi or head up north news wi.com for links and subscribe to our newsletter while you're over there as well All right details are going to be coming out soon about a Apparently the only way to call it is a bailout for farmers Now this isn't the same thing as like the bailout for the auto companies, you know after during the Great Recession
because by and large that got paid back with interest and we were able to save the auto industry from a recession that was not of our own making.
There were a lot of factors that had to come together to hurt the economy.
But the crisis that farmers are facing right now, that is entirely a man-made crisis and it's made by one man, the president of the United States.
And the real crime is that he did this last time too, where he
picked up a fight with China.
China said, well, I mean, we just won't buy your stuff then.
And a whole lot of farmers in Wisconsin and elsewhere had no place to go with their crops because China just went to Brazil and Argentina instead.
And taxpayers had to shell out somewhere north of $10 billion to send checks to farmers.
And it accomplished nothing.
China, by and large, did not return to the same level that they had because they have other options.
So here comes Donald Trump part two.
Well, you know, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me and anybody that didn't think Trump was going to do this again was sadly mistaken.
So here we are again.
And once again, as we know, China's gone to Argentina and Brazil.
Here's the thing.
So has Donald Trump $40 billion in assistance going to Argentina, the place that's
getting all of China's business because of Donald Trump's trade war.
So Donald Trump's giving 40 billion Argentina.
What's he giving quote unquote to farmers here in the States?
$12 billion.
That will not make up for the loss of markets.
It will keep them from going out of business.
But at best it is a bandaid to a program or problem rather that did not have to happen.
This is not to say that there isn't room for trade negotiations between countries of course there is but going nuclear from the get-go as Trump did right out of the box only invites this kind of inevitable outcome and Let's knock down a certain talking point right away with
Donald Trump saying, well, we have this money to give to our farmers because of all of the tariffs that are out there.
And we're just going to take this tariff money.
We've made so much money off the tariffs, and we're going to give that to our farmers.
That's not what happened.
That's not what's happening at all.
The money in tariffs has been paid by all of us consumers with higher prices.
As you've noticed, inflation has not come down.
And a big part of that reason is the tariffs that Trump has slapped on imported goods that Americans still want and Americans still want to buy, but Americans are paying for it, not foreign countries.
And so this is money that we're now, basically it's another tax.
We're sending more tax dollars to Washington, DC, and Donald Trump's going to send some of that to farmers.
But it's not going to make them whole because Trump has cost them their markets from places like Argentina, and he's giving Argentina $40 billion on top of it all.
Got it?
Makes sense?
No?
No.
Completely understandable.
That's what's new there.
Let's see.
Also in the news is somebody that we talked about last hour.
The clerk had a Cinnabon in Ashwabanan who went on a racist rant.
against a Somali-American couple and was promptly fired.
Well, we've reviewed all of that already and you've maybe seen the video already.
And there have been some folks on the far right who want to defend this woman.
But I would caution them not to because of all the places that I'm seeing stories written up about this that do not portray the woman in a flattering light, the New York Post
The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch, you know, Fox News, all of that.
The New York Post, which will take, you know, Donald Trump's side of things, 101% of the time, is not taking this woman's side because they, they did a little dig in here.
And again, this is from the New York Post story.
Serial criminal Cinnabon Worker in viral hate video denies she's racist for a bizarre reason.
The serial criminal Cinnabon employee at the center of a viral racist video in Wisconsin denied Monday that she is prejudiced, writes the New York Post, citing her quote, colored son.
Disgraced former worker Crystal Willse 43, who has been charged with more than a dozen various offenses over two decades, later appeared to have badly misused the outdated term for black people, saying her boy just had darker skin because of a health condition.
Willse also has a lengthy rap sheet The Post writes, which include charges of child endangerment, disorderly conduct, and drug possession, as well as traffic offenses, according to court records seen by The Post.
She lost her job after footage of her foul mouth, tape-filled outburst toward a Somali couple at the store branch in Ashwabadan last week was posted on TikTok.
Willsely reportedly repeatedly
called the Somali pair filming her the N word while also proudly declaring herself to be a racist.
Now, again, there's plenty of room for bigots in this country because, uh, well, somebody has set up a fundraiser on her behalf and so far the pledges are in six figures now.
More than $100,000 has been pledged.
Whether that's followed up, whether that money actually gets to this woman from all of these bigots is, uh, you know,
to be determined.
She puts on a voiceover to a TikTok video about the racism.
If you look at my Facebook from 2010, you'll see on there that I have a blended family and my son was colored.
Will's he then later appeared to go back on her claim the post rights about having a quote colored son by saying a health condition actually made his skin darker.
Addison's disease and he was discriminated called chocolate because of his brown skin explanation of racism.
She wrote in one comment.
Addison's disease is a rare disorder caused by an issue with the adrenal glands, which can result in darkening skin.
The post writes and goes on to say court record show.
She was charged with child endangerment, marijuana possession, marijuana drug paraphernalia in February, 2022 related to an incident when she was pulled over by state troopers in Ohio.
Her address at the time was listed as Green Bay.
She pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years probation and minor fines.
The New York Post writer
puts she has also left a trail of legal destruction across the Midwest with a history of more than a dozen charges dating back almost 25 years.
In June 2001, she was arrested for disorderly conduct and domestic abuse and was sentenced to 12 months probation later that year.
In September of 2002, she appeared in court in Menominee County charged with marijuana offenses.
A year later, she was arrested for disorderly conduct in Brown County and pleaded no contest.
In January 2009, arrested for disorderly conduct in Brown County, sentenced to three days in jail.
March 2015, driving without a license, operating a vehicle while intoxicated, driving under the influence in Hobart.
She pleaded guilty and was jailed for 20 days.
In June 2016, charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct in Audegame County, sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading no contest.
Two months later, in the Oneida Tribal community, she was arrested for DUI with a revoked license and driving without insurance, pleaded guilty by not contesting the charges, and yet people have put in six figures worth of support for her.
She claims that she was simply standing up for herself and turning into a defensive individual, and that does not make her racist.
The video is there.
The customer puts on the video.
They simply asked for more caramel on their roll at Cinnabon because they thought she hadn't put on enough and it appears she might have had some motivation for that.
Some personal motivation and some personal demons for which I can only say I hope she gets the help that she needs.
She needs help and apparently a little time behind bars isn't going to be the answer in this case.
The Mayor's Superior, Jim Payne, will be our guest coming up in 15 minutes.
I'm Pat Crightlow, you're listening to 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.
I feel like I should be doing my best Brent Musburger here from the old NFL today.
You are looking live.
at the Hodag Dome in beautiful Rhinelander where we find Dan Hagen in scantily clad in just a tank top and shorts, freshly off the pickleball courts where he must return again to endure another round of a sweat glazed competition with a Tuesday morning league that plays pickleball at the expanse that is the Hodag Dome.
Dan Hagen from NewsWatch 12, WJFWTV in Rhinelander.
Dan, how are
you?
I'm
doing well.
Yeah, you're taking me briefly from the Gen Xers who are whooping my butt back there.
But yeah, I'm standing in
the...
It's always the old guys.
...hitting in the hot egg dome.
So this is a massive facility brought to Rhinelander
a few
years ago.
And it's just been a boon for the community.
We've had softball tournaments here last weekend.
There's baseball tournaments here.
We've had sporting events inside here.
And we have about 20 people playing pickleball behind me.
And
we
have some walkers as well.
So it's been really great.
That is great.
And of course, folks who listen to this program know we talked a lot when the HODAC dome collapsed because of a winter storm.
Clearly, those repairs were made, and everything looks right as rain there.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, so backup generator failed last time.
That was
it.
That's working this time.
And yeah, it gets used every single day, so it's been
massive.
I could completely see that.
So we missed you the past couple of weeks.
You were up doing some cross-country skiing in Canada, a little training for the Berkebeiner.
How did that go?
It went great, yeah.
So my family went out there for the Thanksgiving week.
Anticipating we wouldn't have any snow in the Northwoods as the last few years have been an indication.
Ironically, there was snow here.
at least in the upper peninsula that would have been skiable.
But it was still an awesome trip.
It's Silver Star Mountain in British Columbia.
So that's getting my training off to a great start.
And then I went to Ironwood this past weekend to ski.
And I already got in the three hour ski, so I'm way ahead of schedule for the Burke of Honor.
Wow, you really are.
That's outstanding.
Hey, as I'm looking at some of the stories that folks can follow at wjfw.com that you and your team are working on.
Interestingly, we are going to be talking in 10 minutes with Jim Payne, the mayor of Superior, all about the issue of affordable housing.
And on the Channel 12 website right now, new housing development plan for Rhinelander amid shortage, because Rhinelander like Superior, like
practically every community around Wisconsin is wrestling with this notion of affordable housing.
It's not something you can't just snap your fingers and make something happen.
It really does take a community conversation and sounds like you guys are following developments in Rhinelander as well on that front.
Yeah, so Shore West Realty, Pete Tenderholt and Deb Mann have been doing some awesome work in Rhineland area.
They're bringing this housing complex.
They found a developer in Madison.
The mayor, Chris Hannes, has been working on this as well as the United County Economic Development Corporation and Tony Farrow.
So that's going to be massive for Rhineland and we need a lot more of that.
But one thing I will say is that a local artist slash older person just announced his bid for mayor in Rhinelander and the current mayor, Chris Hannes, is seeking reelection.
So we'll have a race in the spring
for that.
Oh, okay, so you have a contested election there.
Is that a two-year term for mayors?
Four-year?
I'm not sure myself.
I think it's four-year.
Okay.
I think it's four-year.
Yeah, I mean, everybody kind of sets their own rules there.
And these are, you know, ostensibly nonpartisan elections, however, you know, sometimes it becomes clear that somebody's a conservative or a liberal.
Here in the Chippewa Valley in Eau Claire, we talked last week to city council president Emily Berge.
She is not running for reelection as city council president.
in order to concentrate on her run for Congress in the third congressional district, but there are now two candidates running for that position as well.
And I guess this is where I rope Dan into, you know, an unsolicited PSA about the importance of these local elections that, yeah, we're gonna talk about governor later this year and everything, but any of us who've covered local government can tell you how important these local elections are to vet, you know, the people that will be in charge of your city, your county, your school board, your town, whatever the case may be.
I hope you agree with that, Dan.
I completely agree.
Yeah, it's it's a massive and Ryan Lanner.
There's a lot of grant funding out there.
So whether you get it or not, you know, that determines the winners and losers of where this money is allocated.
So very important.
We've got issues like PFAS, affordable housing, and just, you know, making sure the streets are cleared and paved and all all that
good stuff.
Oh, my gosh, from yes, from a PFAS standpoint, you guys have have your own problems there that you have to deal with and somehow find the money for.
That's right.
Yeah.
So
If we have one more well shut down in Rhinelander, we will not have enough water.
So that's
been an
issue for a couple of years now.
So it looks like we're going to go through a treatment process to try to clear out the PFOS from those two wells that were shut down.
And we need money to do
it.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, that's something I know we followed in Wasaw for quite a while.
And so, you know, different communities are having to wrestle with that and try not to go the way of some other Wisconsin communities that have had to have all of their water trucked in.
They're just living off of bottled water right now for that.
So, Dan, how's your holiday preps coming along?
We were talking before about whether people are sending Christmas cards anymore.
I don't know if you're a sender or if you're
a real tree person or a fake tree person?
How's all that coming along?
Bah humbug,
Pat.
I don't have a tree at the moment.
I haven't bought my Christmas gifts yet.
So this is a good reminder for me to get my button gear.
I don't know if I can say ass on the
radio.
No, you probably shouldn't.
So that's OK.
OK.
You know what?
That was me yesterday.
recognizing that the clock was ticking and that I needed to get a move on on, on spousal gift giving.
So I, I think I was able to get that done yesterday.
God bless the internet, you know, and then a couple of locally purchased things as well.
Cause again, small businesses everywhere in all these hometowns need your support.
Some are small, like in size, some are small businesses, but big places like the Hodag dome.
That's a
big place.
That's
right.
It's massive.
And it's a, it is a
Just been awesome.
So I better get back to pickleball.
They're eyeing me angrily.
They really
are.
Yes.
Usually
after I miss a shot, but this time it's just because they want.
Now you're just delaying the game.
Get in there, Dan.
We'll talk to you next week.
Thanks so much.
Thanks so much.
There's Dan Hagen from NewsWatch 12, WJFWTV in Rhinelander.
Always great to catch up with him.
And coming up in just a bit, we will be catching up with the mayor of Superior, Jim Payne.
And then in about 15 minutes, we will be continuing our 12 days of community kindness.
We will be talking all about a place that provides support
treatment for children and youth in Dane in Columbia County experiencing abuse and neglect.
So 12 days of community kindness also on the way.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
You're Up North.
Welcome back.
It is 735 on this Tuesday morning, December 9th, 2025.
I'm Pat Critello here in Chippewa Falls.
We'll talk to Superior Mayor Jim Payne in just a bit, followed by the latest in our 12 days of community kindness.
First a reminder, though, we've got our grown-up gift list text-to-win contest going on right now.
And before eight o'clock, the keyword that you want to be sending in is winter, W-I-N-T-E-R.
Again, get that Civic Media app.
Text us the word winter, and you will be entered for this hour's part of the contest.
There will be chances throughout the day, different keywords each time, and then one daily winner will be drawn from everyone to win a $200 cash prize and be in there running for some great grand prizes at the civicmedia.us to learn more.
All right, time to go way up north with Superior Mayor Jim Payne.
And when we set this up originally, it was to talk all about affordable housing.
because it's a serious issue that a lot of communities do face.
And the mayor had a very thoughtful post up on social media, so I wanted to get his thoughts on the ideas that need to be covered there.
But recent events have also made it necessary to get an update on something that could have been even more terribly tragic with a police officer being shot and wounded.
Let's get the latest on there.
Mayor Jim Payne, good morning, how are you?
I'm well.
Thank you, Pat.
Good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
So what is the latest you can tell us about the episode over the weekend for folks that may not have been up to speed on it?
Well, thank you.
First, it does seem like everything is resolving in a fairly straightforward way and everybody is okay.
What happened is very late on Saturday night, early Sunday morning, a suspect assaulted his girlfriend who fled and called the police when
uh police officer pulled him over he immediately opened fire on that officer uh shooting her twice uh once through her uh through her squad car she returned fire as did another police officer wounding the suspect and they were able to apprehend him uh a few hours later and while it was extremely dramatic extremely violent uh
I can say it looks like everybody is okay, including the suspect.
The officer will recover very well.
She was released from the hospital that day.
The suspect is, of course, in custody, and I feel very confident that he's going to face justice.
we're going to be able to secure guilty verdicts for pretty much all of its crimes.
All right, I appreciate the update.
Jim Payne is the mayor of Superior here.
And we were, of course, also going to talk next about affordable housing because it caught my eye, a post that you put up, and then, you know, some of the comments that came in as well because you need a full community discussion on this.
And I'm just going to read off a first part of it and then get your thoughts about your motivation for this.
When you posted, we need to be serious about meeting our affordable housing
goals.
Following some complaints from residents a few years back, I joined our housing authority board to increase oversight.
But also I saw some real opportunities to improve public housing.
Yesterday, a reporter asked me what I hope to accomplish.
It's a good question, especially as we search for a new executive director.
And then you laid out all of these points, almost a dozen different points.
And I set that all up just to again, let people know that affordable housing isn't just some kind of a
press a button and more units get built kind of thing and that, you know, there isn't one right answer for every community.
So what are the kinds of things you want the superior community thinking about and talking about?
Yeah, I think that's correct, Pat.
In fact, there's no one right answer for this community.
Affordable housing is one of the most challenging public policy issues that any community in the country will face.
It's a very persistent problem across the United States, really across the world.
And no expert has really cracked the code on how to provide it.
So I've always believed that when you have a complex policy, you not only need complex solutions, many, many solutions.
to address the crisis.
And in this context, what I was talking about the other day is our housing authority, public housing, which is roughly a 100 year old institution.
And it's an answer to the question, how do you house folks that for whatever reason, usually income related, cannot house themselves?
That is a social obligation is something we must do as a community.
but doing it is very challenging and In most ways we have been successful, but it's not serving everybody.
It's not helping everybody and so we do have to be better and So I we are in a leadership search and I would like a compassionate leader that does want to put residents first and make sure that We are focusing on people that are living in homelessness right now as well as the long-term stability and opportunity of the people that are
in public housing?
We're talking to Jim Payne, the mayor of Superior about the affordable housing issue.
And I always feel a personal stake in this because I hear people talking about, for example, Section 8, which is a federal program that makes rent more affordable for lower income families and being raised by a single mom, the oldest of four kids, including one with health issues.
For years, she could not work because of those health issues with a little brother.
And consequently, you know, between food stamps and section eight, these things were lifelines.
And, you know, since that time, she's, you know, been working for decades, paying far more back than she ever received.
And obviously the same goes for me with a college education and everything else.
But coming back to the root cause, we hear people saying, oh, the only people that live in affordable housing, these are these are troublemakers or these are lazy people or anything.
And once again, this painting with a broad brush is just so unhelpful on this topic.
Yeah, thanks for saying that.
And especially thanks for talking about your experience because it is easy to think of whether you support it or don't.
It's easy to think of those that live in public housing as a community instead of our community.
We are one community and many, many people in this community have benefited from some form of public housing or housing assistance in their lives, sometimes whether they know it or not.
And if they don't, they probably know somebody that does.
And even if living in public housing is not something that you have ever experienced, or if you've never needed help with affordability, there will be broader social impacts that affect us all.
You can address crime, you can address addiction, you can address economic opportunity by providing housing.
It's literally the silver bullet to most of our social and economic challenges.
House people and everything else is easier.
Yeah, I've got just less than two minutes to ask you about.
There's so many different areas here, like an unbiased eviction process, local labor protections, of course, responsive intake, you know, for people who find themselves homeless.
But I just want to ask you quickly in the minute here about a note where you say prioritize residents over private developers.
And that is a trap that I think some communities fall into unwittingly.
They do.
And obviously this stuff is very, very expensive and people can make money supplying housing.
That's fine as long as we're focused on providing safe and stable housing for people.
That has to be the mission.
However we get there, we can talk about as long as we're prioritizing putting people in safe and stable housing.
Yeah, because again, you can't have, you know, government doesn't build the housing necessarily.
This is, you know, the very definition of public-private partnerships.
But again, you've got a right size of the one for your community, and it's great that you make sure you let people know, prioritize the residents over the developers, and the rest will take care of itself.
Jim Payne, the mayor of Superior, again, it's a great, thoughtful post, a lot of feedback on it, so I look forward to continuing the conversation.
Thanks for the update on your officer there in Superior as well.
Probably talk to you after the holidays, so have a great holiday season, and we'll talk again soon.
Same to you, Pat.
Thank you.
All right, Jim.
Thank you so much.
And now let's turn our attention at just about 7.44 to our 12 days of community kindness.
Basically, we took the Giving Tuesday thing and we said, you know, we can do this for more than a day.
And we can certainly come up with
We've probably come up with 1,200 different groups and organizations that help out in hometowns all around Wisconsin for many reasons.
And today we're going to be talking to somebody from the Canopy Center, supporting children and youth in Dane and Columbia County.
And Sarah Burnt is here to join us from the Canopy Center.
Sarah, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
I'm doing well.
How about yourself?
Very good.
Thanks.
You're the development director there.
Tell us a bit more about what the Canopy Center does.
Sure.
We are a nonprofit that provides stabilizing services for children and youth who've experienced abuse and neglect.
So we walk alongside children and families during some of the most difficult times in their lives.
We advocate for children and youth in foster care.
We provide a safe place for children who've been separated from their families for safety concerns.
And we make healing possible for survivors of childhood sexual abuse through our no cost mental health clinic.
So there's advocacy, there's support, there's therapeutic treatment.
How many children roughly do you help in a given year?
We average between 200 and 250 children per year, but I always tell people our goal is not to serve more children each year.
It's to be able to serve all of the children who come through our doors.
So that can look different from year to year, but something that we're really proud of is that we walk alongside these children in youth for as long as they need it.
Sarah Burnt is with us from Canopy Center helping
Children and youth who have experienced abuse and neglect in Dane and Columbia County and yes by helping What 269 children last year that's certainly there's certainly others who have not received that kind of help But you know, maybe do not know that there's a place like yours that provides help How do people volunteer what what kinds of things can they help with?
So we have a number of volunteer opportunities.
We rely on volunteers to be able to provide the services that we do.
We have volunteers who work at our front desk and welcome families into the space and provide childcare for siblings whose sibling is receiving therapeutic treatment, giving parents a break.
We have more intense volunteer opportunities like our court appointed special advocates, which requires some more intense training, but those advocates are paired one to one with foster children and walk alongside them in their journey, writing reports to the court to advocate for their best interests.
Yeah, we're talking about families that need the whole scope of care, both the adults who may be facing all types of issues.
And as a result, the children will be facing issues as well.
And so that's where the Canopy Center comes in.
Canopycenter.org is the address.
There is a room, I notice here for cash donations as well as an Amazon wish list.
What are the kinds of items that Canopy Center needs the most?
So we have a number of items on our wish list to support our mental health clinic.
So we provide a lot of play therapy.
So you'll see toys, fidgets, other items like that.
And then we also have items that our CASA advocates use with the children and teens that they work with.
So oftentimes they'll meet with them and play a game or do a craft.
And so there's items like that on the wish list as well.
And you'll notice we also have some gift cards.
Oftentimes the best way to engage our teens is to meet for a cup of coffee or a cheeseburger and talk.
So we do that as well.
Yeah, again, never underestimate the power of gift cards for just the right given circumstance.
So again, how would you like people to learn more and make a donation?
Go to canopycenter.org.
You'll see our volunteer opportunities.
You'll see ways to give back.
We know that families are the backbone of our community and
It takes all of us to create the change we want to see for our neighbors.
Absolutely.
The Canopy Center providing advocacy support and therapeutic treatment for children and youth in Dane and Columbia County who have experienced abuse and neglect.
Sarah Burnt is the development director there.
Reach them at canopycenter.org.
Sarah, thank you very much for taking part in our 12 Days of Community Kindness.
We hope you have a good holiday season and find the opportunity to expand your mission to reach everybody who needs help.
and let's hope that that number of people who need help gets smaller and smaller all the time.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Thank you, Sarah.
Take care now.
Have a great day.
Still ahead in our eight o'clock hour, we will be talking to Ruth Conant from the Wisconsin Examiner about how in county jails across Wisconsin, we ask, should those jails be used for ice roundups of people who are not covered by an arrest warrant?
you know, like actual criminals.
Ruth Conniff has written a column about that, and we'll talk to her about that in her 8 o'clock hour.
I'm Pat Krightlo from Up North News.
This is the Civic Media Radio
Network.
You have got seven minutes or less to get the word winter texted into us as part of the grown-up gift list text-to-win contest.
Get that Civic Media app.
Text us the word winter, W-I-N-T-E-R.
Your next chance to play with a different keyword comes in the nine o'clock hour with Jane and Greg on Matt and Air on Air.
Let's turn now to James Kelly from Civic Media, the newsroom in Chippewa Falls to tell us about stories he's following across western Wisconsin.
Jim, good morning, how are ya?
Jim I
haven't
heard that one.
I haven't either.
I was looking over here.
I'm like, where did that come from?
And this says James clearly right here.
I there is somebody else.
Oh, you know who it is.
You know who it is.
James.
Jim Santel.
Jim Santel.
I would have went with Jimmy
Koska.
He puts James up on the screen.
on the the social media thing here so it says James Santel but he goes by Jim so I immediately saw the James and I just immediately converted it to Jim I apologize that's oh that's okay
I've been called Jim before I don't I don't take any offense to it
I was
actually named after Jim Kelly the quarterback.
My dad doesn't know that.
My
mom was
a really big fan.
Not Jimbo Fisher, the football coach.
Jimbo was a little too far.
James Kelly is here now to tell us about stories he's following in Western Wisconsin and we started with a little fun for a serious cause in the Menominee area.
Yeah, a nice little way to add some competition to a blood drive.
The American Red Cross has been looking for donations desperately for the past few months.
They've always been running low on donations of all kinds, specifically the universal donor O-negative.
So this week, the Battle of the Badges will take place in Menominee.
It'll be the Menominee Police Department and Fire Department.
That's starting today at Stout Craft Co.
in Menominee.
It'll be 8.30 a.m.
to 2.30 p.m.
today and 11 a.m.
to 5 p.m.
tomorrow.
Just trying to
which department can raise the most blood and blood drive.
That's
just a nice little
way to add some competition to the mix.
Absolutely.
Whatever gets those contributions up is definitely needed.
All right, next door to Chippewa County.
Let's see what they're doing there for some residents with dementia.
Yeah, the Chippewa County Sheriff's Office has received $2,100 in community impact grant funding from the Chippewa Valley Dementia Coalition.
this funding is meant to kind of research some new technology that can help families, particularly who may have a parent or a grandparent who has dementia and is at risk of maybe wandering out of the house, especially during the colder months.
So a little bit of technology research there.
And they can also provide their information for their family members directly to the county sheriff's office.
So if they do wander off and they do go missing for a time, it's easier to kind of get their information out there,
picture out there and get everybody looking.
OK, we're talking to James Kelly from Civic Media in our Chippewa Valley newsroom.
You can follow him at 93.5, the TAP, or WCFWHD2 here in the Chippewa Valley.
And on the web, you can see current headlines, weather, and upcoming local sports.
The website is thetap.fm, thetap.fm.
What's happening in the city of Menominee?
They've got a tree issue there.
Yeah, back to the city of Menominee.
This is an issue that affects a lot of cities across Wisconsin.
The Emerald Ash Board, those invasive beetles that are
killing all
the ash trees in the state over the winter, crews are going to be removing kind of the high priority safety type removals for these trees because the Emerald Ash Board can cause a lot of damage.
They're at risk of falling, especially when there's like wet, heavy snow.
The trees could fall over and cause some more damage.
So they're going to start with those high priority removals and then move to the
Elmwood addition neighborhood and then move to North Menominee just trying to get rid of those trees and they'll work on reseeding and planting them as well as they go.
All right and finally the issue of refugee resettlement comes up occasionally in Wisconsin and a congressman from up north who's running for governor is somebody especially vocal on that front.
Yeah, Congressman Tom Tiffany.
This is actually the second time he's introduced this bill called the CARE Act, which would essentially allow even local municipalities to reject refugee resettlement efforts.
This started after there were 75 refugees who were going to be relocated to the Chippewa Valley.
Even the Eau Claire County Board actually considered a resolution trying to pause it and voted against that resolution in the end, but this would give a lot of power to local municipalities to pause these federal efforts.
All
right, James Kelly follows that and more through 93 5 the tap here in the Chippewa Valley the tap.fm or of course through the civic media website James Thank you very much.
Hope you have a great start to the day.
Have a good one guys.
All right, and Well, let me let me pick up on that last point there from Congressman Tom Tiffany who is running for governor and again this so-called refugee resettlement bill and what he wants is the ability to veto
groups of people who are trying to escape war-torn areas and come build a better life in America.
And he basically wants an entire community to put a moat symbolically around themselves and say no.
Folks, we have been down this road before and I think sometimes people too easily forget our history where there may not have been direct signage.
as there was in the Deep South, but there were all kinds of ways where communities could veto anybody who didn't have the same color skin from living in their towns or anybody who was Jewish.
I think specifically of the city of Minneapolis had a terrible issue with this.
It finally took a young reform-minded politician named Hubert Humphrey to be elected mayor of Minneapolis and to help you eventually bring an end to that.
Tom Tiffany wants to bring that brand of racism back.
Tom Tiffany has made a very good living out of standing up for white guys who want to play the role of victim and be able to say it to people, you can't move here.
The same way that people wanted to say that to probably his relatives and many others saying, well, you came from Ireland or you came from Italy.
You're dirty.
You can't live here.
and now we're doing it for refugees from the Congo, from Afghanistan, from Somalia, and there's probably a bit more to it than just the fact that they're foreigners.
But Tom Tiffany has always known that you can make a pretty good living as a politician if you just stand up for those poor victimized white people and forget anything that the Bible might have told you about helping out your neighbor in a time of crisis.
So Tom Tiffany will propose this bill
But hopefully there are still enough good Americans out there that understand what we are built on, not just as a country, but our moral fiber as well.
Cam Stevenson from Courier Newsroom joins us live from the nation's capital to talk about what's happening out there.
And then later, Ruth Conniff from the Wisconsin Examiner will join us.
I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News, part of Courier Newsroom.
And these mornings, powered by Up North News, are brought to you here, weekday mornings on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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