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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, welcome back.
Nice to have you here up north.
It's 7 0 6 on a Tuesday morning, December 16th.
Coming up later this hour, we will talk to our friend Hans Brighton Moser, a dairy farmer from up in the Merrill area, along with Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.
We'll be talking a bit about last weekend's annual convention for the Wisconsin Farmers Union, what are the big issues across rural Wisconsin, and in the topic of rural tourism.
There are definitely some ideas for gift giving for the holiday season that would involve, you know, an experience.
Instead of giving somebody something tangible, give them the gift of an experience at one of the many places in rural Wisconsin that you could visit all on a tank of gas.
So we'll talk to Sheila about that along with Hans coming up in just a little bit.
A reminder that we can
We make available to you a daily newsletter that you can sign up for at UpNorthNewsWI.com hit subscribe in the banner at the top of the homepage there.
Among the stories that are in there stories about the Eagle River Ice Castle story about Wayne Laravy and Larry McCarron being rated the number one most liked local football announcers in all of the NFL.
And then there's also a
link to an article about Wisconsin Eye.
If you missed it yesterday, we had John Hankison, the president and CEO of Wisconsin Eye, talking about why Wisconsin's version of C-SPAN has had to go dark.
And that includes not being able to access some 30,000 hours worth of archives from 18 years of covering state government.
I was a state legislator during the first four years that Wisconsin Eye was active.
And it was such a positive experience in part because there was there's something you didn't see on Wisconsin Eye that you do see sometimes on C-SPAN.
What you don't see are people mugging it up for the cameras, playing to the cameras.
In Congress, you'll see them
bring out these big old charts on easels and they're definitely just talking to the TV cameras rather than actually trying to debate each other in the House chamber or the Senate chamber as the case may be.
In Wisconsin, you really just get a good look at what your legislators are doing along with other events that are taking place in and around the state capital.
It's a fantastic resource.
But even as somebody who was a legislator in its early years,
I did not know that over these past 18 years, there has not been any regular source of state funding for Wisconsinite.
And John Hanks pointed out that it was set up that way with a purpose.
If there weren't any state dollars going in, then politicians couldn't threaten to yank the funding or or in any other way, you know, coerce or influence the coverage of Wisconsinite.
That's a completely fair point to make.
However, after 18 years of service now, and proving itself as a valuable part of government transparency, it seems to me there should be some way to have some state sponsorship of it that is handled in a way that is less likely to be influenced by politics, and John Hanks has mentioned, perhaps an endowment, that you fund an endowment at a certain amount
and you know that earns interest and earnings and then an independent board you know make sure that those funds are allocated to Wisconsinite.
That's one way that you could go.
It just seems to me that coverage of and our ability to see our state government should not be reliant upon the charitable whims of organizations or rich people or companies.
It's something we should want to support.
And maybe we just put some better guardrails around it so that there can't be political influence.
It's a real shame that Wisconsinite has gone dark.
I mean, thankfully, it's at a time when the legislature isn't doing anything.
It'll be back in session in January.
There's a chance that by then they will have worked out some kind of a bipartisan arrangement, either to set up the endowment or to have some temporary funding so that Wisconsinite can go back on the air.
John Hanks went out of his way yesterday to praise Assembly Speaker Robin Voss saying that he has been a strong supporter of Wisconsin.
I well, this is Speaker Voss's chance to prove that and to show that transparency and state government is important enough to have, you know, ongoing consistent financial support from the legislature.
But again, to read more about that, we have an article at up North news.
W I dot com and you can read about it in the newsletter today as well.
If you missed it earlier, we talked about a couple of different cases that have been showing how Republicans in the legislature are not really focused on, shall we say, customer service these days.
From Laura Schulte in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, lawmakers are now blocking an attempt
to increase the amount of funding for a state agency so that they can reduce the amount of time that you have to wait to get a professional license.
The Department of Safety and Professional Services, they're the folks in charge of licensing professions, doctors, nurses, contractors, builders, things like that.
And in October, they requested nearly $2 million to hire employees and to employ new technology.
in order to reduce wait time for callers.
But the legislators on the Joint Finance Committee controlled by Republicans have a unique little rule that if even one member objects anonymously, then that halts that agency's ability to use the funding that it had raised through licensing fees.
This isn't some kind of new allocation of dollars.
This is
the licensing fees that people are paying in, but now they're waiting on the phone a long time.
They're waiting a long time for licenses to be approved.
We could use some of their own funds to increase customer service.
But with that one anonymous objection on the Joint Finance Committee, there is no way for the agency to hire more staff.
There is no way to pay for the technology that can make it easier to answer common questions about licensing.
The secretary of that department, Dan Harris, says Wisconsinites could face longer delays for licenses.
Beyond the 30 minute wait time, people are already experiencing when they call in with questions about their application.
He said, we're seeking to ensure that we continue to put people who live here, people who want to move here in a position to be successful in their career and their lives and by extension for the state to be successful.
But delays have continued to build as the legislature continues to underfund agencies, schools, all the things that we pay our tax dollars for.
Governor Evers had earlier used a portion of COVID relief funding to hire some temporary staff in a call center, but that funding expired at the end of last year, which led to an increase in the wait times.
The governor's spokesperson said that
Recent upgrades have allowed the agency to approve more licenses than ever before, but that maintaining that level of efficiency would take investment.
But when the Journal Sentinel tried to reach out to the two Republican co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee, Howard Markline of Spring Green and Mark Born of Beaver Dam, they did not respond to a request for information about
the objection that was raised in the Joint Finance Committee, or who raised it.
And it just seems that this leans right into the self-fulfilling prophecy that Republicans have about government, saying, well, government is dysfunctional, governance is broken, government doesn't work.
Well, yeah, when you set it up that way, when you set it up to fail.
Alicia puts on YouTube, they shouldn't be allowed to object anonymously.
And they aren't any longer in some instances based on a Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruling, but not in all instances.
And in this instance, they were able to block it.
It's one way that Republicans in Madison have not exactly been focused on doing their jobs and spending your tax dollars more efficiently.
Instead, they spend your tax dollars on
other matters.
For example, a fake investigation that they are about to launch against State Attorney General Josh Call, so conveniently timed for when Josh Call is running for re-election.
This news comes from Jesse O'Poyne in the Journal Sentinel, who says that Republicans have announced an investigation of, quote unquote, external influences in the State Department of Justice announced by Senate Republican leader Devin Lemahue.
It'll be led by Senate President Mary Falskowski of Tomahawk and they put out a lot of bluster about transparency and accountability from the Department of Justice.
Make sure they're operating within statutory authority and not serving the agenda of third parties and outside organizations.
What could they be referring to?
I will tell you, as Jesse writes in her story here, it's all about the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University Law School.
which is funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and focuses in part on climate issues.
The group has been helping in several states to help provide things like special assistant attorney generals on environmental litigation.
And in Wisconsin, that includes a $90,000 a year position that's funded by the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center.
Similar positions have been appointed in about a dozen other states and let me tell you something when Republicans who typically take the side of big industry who has all kinds of big attorneys and big lobbying dollars finds out that how dare a billionaire like Michael Bloomberg suddenly help fund, you know, making sure that corporations can't pollute.
Wow, they get their knickers in a twist real quick here and want to launch a quote-unquote investigation about this.
A Department of Justice spokesperson said the work was intended to expand what's already being done by the Department of Justice's Public Protection Unit, and that's the thing.
Josh Call and the Department of Justice would not take on this kind of support for something they weren't already believing in and feeling was of value.
But as I mentioned a couple of moments ago, the state legislature is expert at underfunding agencies for the work that they could be doing on behalf of you and me.
And it has forced the need to look outside for extra assistance.
Remember what we talked about during election years, when again, there was such a level of underfunding for local elections.
that local officials had partnered with other organizations who wanted to actually help election days move more efficiently and votes to get counted more effectively and Republicans again slammed that and said, nope, we can't have that kind of outside money in here.
Well, fine, then you support the stuff that needs to be done.
Oh, we can't do that.
We got to give these tax breaks to these very rich people that you'd otherwise be fighting with.
The Department of Justice
through a spokesperson put out a statement that referred to this essentially as a partisan stunt.
If I've got the wording right here, yep, a partisan stunt.
And it is what seems to be, again, what they do best is to launch fake investigations and to raise wild accusations when suddenly they find that people are standing up for the taxpayers.
and for the voters.
But now we will see this investigation because of it.
Republicans and Eric Tony, who will be running against Josh Call, will be able to use the word investigation to say, Josh Call, who's under investigation because, you know, the word fake is silent when they're proposing it.
Again, Hans Breitmoser and Sheila Everhart will be joining us in about 15 minutes here and then in our eight o'clock hour, Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area and Cam Stevenson from Courier Newsroom out in Washington.
Live from the lake, I'm Pat Critello from Up North News.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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started.
coming up on 723 on a Tuesday on this final week for the program here so we get one more visit here with Dan Hagen from NewsWatch 12 WJFWTV in Rhinelander.
Dan, how are you?
I'm doing great.
It's been so fun to be on this every single Tuesday.
Pat, thank you for the opportunity.
Parker, thanks for hanging with me.
So I'm I'm sad this is over but uh it's been a great run so
thank you Pat
for including me.
Well I I can't tell you how much I appreciate it because uh as you know it is very easy for any news outlet to become very Madison Milwaukee centric and that's understandable that's you know the capital is there a lot of you know a lot of people a lot of industry but we've got to cover
whole state and anybody who works in a newsroom around Greater Wisconsin knows the challenges and so for us to have your voice telling us what's happening in the Rhinelander area means a lot to us at Up North News and I'm sure to Civic Media as well so thanks for your willingness to you know get up early and share a little of what you're doing with us as well.
It's very kind of you.
Of course, and I'm just happy I can get some shine to the people up here, like you say.
People gravitate to those bigger cities,
but
there's a lot of cool things happening up here.
And some terrible things.
We might get to the eight kids stuck in an RV, unfortunately, in Tomahawk, but, you know.
Eight kids stuck in an RV, is this the one where their parents were out getting marijuana?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, we, you know, again, we get stories like that everywhere and, you know, big cities, but small towns too, where you have these things.
And, you know, again, it's just, it's so unfortunate.
And we're glad that we also get to cover some of the lighter sides of things.
You're counting the number of birds up there.
I understand.
That's right.
It's how many birds are in the Northwoods?
Yeah, I
think Parker and I were talking about this during the break, at least.
at least 12.
I don't see any right now.
Maybe they're all gone.
Those are all partridges and pear trees and then we have to find something else when the season is over.
But who's who's counting what?
Yeah, so volunteers.
This is a citizen science project for the Audubon Society and every
like winter season on the same day every winter season in certain communities they count the birds.
So Monday volunteers will go just count birds and what they see I believe today is Manaqua and Thursday is Manitouish waters.
So the idea is just every single year so you have this kind of cool data set that actually spans more than 120 years.
That is very cool.
Because again, yeah, any one year is interesting, but when you can actually see patterns over a long period of time, it really does speak to you about anything from climate to the development of humans as cities and towns grow and things like that.
So yeah, that's very interesting that people are willing to do it.
I know a couple of people up in the Ashland area who do a fish count.
Every spring, I think it is.
I think they go in or near streams and they count the fish that are in there.
And God bless them.
That was not something on my list, but you know what?
I talked to those folks.
It wasn't on their list either, but they were like newly retired and thought, well, this sounds like an interesting activity.
This is a way to contribute.
I'm good for
that.
Maybe I'll be doing that when I'm retired in 2080.
I don't know.
They'll probably have
the
science to keep me alive.
We might not have birds by that time.
Who knows?
That's true.
That's true.
Yeah.
Would I even want immortality at this point, you know, if it was
offered?
Exactly,
right?
2050.
Yeah.
So you had that Canada trip recently, so it sounds like you're going to be working through the holidays here.
Yep, so I'll be working the Christmas week.
We'll have Christmas day off as the whole new station, but Yeah, that's okay.
It's it's kind of slow.
You can kind of take it easy a little bit But I'll be skiing as often as I can.
I went to Minakville Winter Park this weekend So that was good conditions there and they're actually gonna hold a grand opening for a new
um redesigned sledding hill uh that's more epic than it was before so uh that's something to look forward to for some kids in the area
uh how did things go last week we caught you at the hodag dome in between pickleball games and you were you were being summoned back to the court were you were you able to put those guys back in their place
i played so terribly that day i just got creamed um i don't know what it is i think the these older folks they're just like machines
Meanwhile, I have the whims of confidence going back and forth with how I play, so.
are weirdly good at
Oh, they are.
And, you know, these are like the Crumbilla Crumb, I think, of the Gen Xers and probably not baby boomers.
No, well, maybe a few.
There's some in there.
Yeah, they're not all just living on Gerritol and Price's Right Rewinds.
Arthur puts on Facebook, I live in Madison, but I appreciate hearing from all parts of Wisconsin.
It's the main reason I follow this program and I'm going to miss it.
Thank you, Arthur.
I appreciate that.
Tony says, if you do a podcast, next telling my comments out loud to myself won't be the same as typing all my thoughts live.
Okay, if I ever do a podcast, Tony, I'll make sure that there's a live comment section.
He also says,
about counting birds.
I just do that to keep kids distracted and quiet.
The snipe hunting stopped working, so we're counting fish now.
Hey, whatever works, you know?
Whatever works.
Kids go count fish.
I'd love that.
We, ours, we used to tell when they were little, just run around the house.
See how many times you can run around the house.
And it would, it worked for a while.
You know, they'd be like, I ran around the house 10 times.
Oh, I'll bet you could do 10 more.
And they do.
And it makes, it begs bedtime so much easier.
There you go.
Free parenting tips here from the radio show as well.
Yeah, they got us with the quiet game in school.
You just had game at
the end of something.
The quiet game, yes.
And it just, it works.
Yep.
Uh, our, we had a teacher, uh, actually it was a nun who would make us write pages out of the dictionary instead of just, just quiet time.
It was, you just, here's, here's a dictionary page.
Write it all out.
I'd have, I'd have rather had the quiet contest, but you know, my penmanship was spectacular.
I can imagine.
Yeah.
I never did that.
Uh, my cursive is notoriously bad.
I could have used that cursive.
I know.
Oh my, okay.
This is the guy, this is the guy, Dan Hagen, Renaissance man.
He can do math.
He can do math with Roman numerals.
That's what we got going here with this guy.
Dan Hagen, catch him on NewsWatch 12, WJFWTV in Rhinelander.
Dan, it's been a pleasure.
Thank you so
much.
It has been fun.
Thank you so
much, Pat.
Thank you
for including me and good luck the rest of this week.
Thank you very much.
Have a good holiday season as well.
We'll talk to you a little bit later on.
Coming up, Hans Breitmoser and Sheila Harsdorf joining us and then Cam Stevenson and Dan Schaefer in
our 8 o'clock hour.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back.
It is a Tuesday morning.
It is 7.35.
Normally when we visit with Hans Breitenmoser and Sheila Everhart from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.
Hans just sent me a note having technical difficulties as we like to say and so he should be joining us in a bit but Sheila Everhart always ready to take things and run with them from the Agricultural Tourism Association and we'll talk a bit about Wisconsin Farmers Union as well.
Sheila, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
Very excited on this December Tuesday.
Yes.
Well, I know that
Hans, if Winnie can join us, we'll want to talk about the Wisconsin Farmers Union Convention.
So let's hold off on that for a couple of minutes here and talk a bit more from an agricultural tourism perspective about how, you know, there's plenty of gifts that you can wrap up with paper and bows, tangible things, you know, books and things like that.
But there's also the gift of experiences.
And you're here to tell us that there are plenty of opportunities to experience the recreational side of rural
Wisconsin and maybe give some of those for gifts.
You want to tell us about some ideas?
Absolutely.
2025-2026 is the gift of experiences.
It's all about
creating memories and doing things together, whether it's your girlfriends, whether it's couples, whether it's a family.
It's all about making experiences on the farm.
So we invite everyone to go to WIAgtourism.com to look at those farms that are featuring activities on their farms, even in the winter farm tours, horse-drawn sleigh rides, Christmas on the farm,
experiences, making your own porch pots.
We have so many opportunities out there, and it's all about experiences.
You know, that shiny thing is nice.
Those new pairs of socks are nice.
However, those experiences will help you create lifeline memories.
Absolutely.
Sheila ever hearts with us from the Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Association.
Can people learn more at
WIagTourism.com if they head over there.
Yes, and especially I would invite them to look at our blog section on that website because there are blogs that feature so many of the farms and it will tell you exactly what you can purchase at their farms and cheese boxes and candy boxes and winery, all kinds of things that you can purchase.
Okay, so again, wiagtourism.com is a website there.
I think that I see Hans Brighton Moser joining us as well.
Hey, Hans, how are
Nope, that's okay.
Totally allowed.
We you and I have made a career out of talking about the technical issues that come with the lack of broadband across rural Wisconsin.
So it seems fitting that our final visit might be in that vein, you know,
You know how
what a lot I am, but just a quick story.
So for Christmas, we give all of our landlords and neighbors and employees and so forth.
We give them cheese packages made with using sartori cheese where our milk goes.
But during this time of the year, my office becomes the refrigerator to keep all this cheese cool.
And I think my computer literally froze up.
Oh, no.
I can see where that would be an issue.
Yes.
All right.
Um, so you want to tell us a bit about your, uh, your impressions of the Wisconsin farmers union annual convention?
Um, uh, it was, it was good for my soul to be around people who, um, understand some of the, uh, issues.
And by that, I mean, not just the symptoms, but also root causes.
So there was, uh, as, as usual, lively discussion about everything from, um, you know, uh,
consumer protections and water quality to antitrust legislation, of course.
And this year, one of the new topics that was discussed at length was the data centers.
We all need the data, but we got to figure out how we can make sure that where these things are placed, do the most good for the communities that they're placed in.
So those were some of the topics that we discussed.
And the kids had a good time at the water park, of course, but also with the youth conference that was held as well.
Sure, sure.
Sheila, were you at the Farmers Union Convention as well?
I certainly was and we always appreciate the Wisconsin Farmers Union supporting small farms that are engaged with agricultural tourism and very on board supporting the wedding barn issue.
There were policies, priorities for 2026, concentration in the agriculture industry, protection of immigrant rights, family farming and dairy policy reform, and quality healthcare in Wisconsin.
where there are standards, orders of business, and we have a new leadership team that will help us navigate through 2025 and 2026.
That's
great.
And then you were telling me that you saw Hans here in a video talking about rural issues, right?
Absolutely.
Hans is a star.
So if you see him out and about in Lincoln County, be sure to grab his autograph.
Hans is in a YouTube video that was made in his high quality.
It's called All of America Am I. And it is talking about what is happening in the United States on our small and medium farms and how our farmers are directly impacted and what could be done to help.
Hans, how do you plead?
They asked me to do a thing and I kind of forgot about it and then they showed up with cameras hung out all day and I'm like well I
We're kind of chopping second crop today.
So we got to keep her moving.
But they did an excellent job.
It really is an excellent job.
And there's a few different farmers featured in there talking about their operations and talking about rural economies and how they work and how public policy impacts them.
So I think they did a really nice job.
Oh, there it is.
I'm calling it up right now.
I searched for all of America MI.
And that comes up as the first thing in the Google
Do you know what comes of second?
Neil Diamond's coming to America.
So you're right up there.
You and Neil Diamond are the first two returns on a Google search.
arrived.
I am I am so glad Sheila brought this to our attention.
This is just great.
Hans, we got less than two minutes here and then we're going to do our 12 days of community kindness segment.
So I want to kind of bookend things.
It was from your one of your very first appearances on our show that you helped us understand that
you know, when we think of monopolies, we think of like the old standard oil thing or AT&T, there was only one phone company.
But we have every right to be concerned, even if there's not just one company controlling things, the number is small enough that this is something that is really underappreciated and needs to be addressed.
Do you want to close with, you know, 30 seconds of comments on, you know, again, why this is something more people should ask their politicians to fight?
your
And we've had a lot of good guests, Sheila, of course, but so many others that we got on the show and had a voice because of you.
But I do feel like the antitrust legislation is the one thing that I really wanted to talk about the most over the course of this time on your show because it
It is so impactful.
You don't have to have a retail outlet that controls 100% of the stuff.
But if they control 85%, that's plenty to move the needle on our ability for consumers to get reasonably priced products that are of high quality.
And it also is so impactful at the farm gate as well, what we are paid for our prices when there's minimal retail outlets that are giants.
packing plants that are giants and processors of all sorts.
This is the type of thing that voters have to be concerned about because public policy can change that.
Well thank you again for for bringing it to everybody's attention.
I know we will be talking more as far as other up north news articles and videos and things.
Sheila will be doing the same thing with wedding barns and other agricultural tourism areas.
Again learn more at WIagTourism.com.
Thanks again to both of you so much.
Have a great holiday season and we'll talk again soon.
Thank you, Pat.
All right.
Thank you.
Let's now turn our attention to our 12 days of community kindness.
And this time around, we're going to learn more about the Madison Reading Project with Emily Wills, the Project Development Director.
Emily, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
I'm doing so well.
Thank
you.
Well, thank you for being a part of our little project here to help highlight some of the groups around Wisconsin that are doing good works in their community.
Tell us more about what the Madison Reading Project is.
Sure.
So Madison Reading Project is an organization that serves children, families, and educators with free books and literacy resources really all across Dane County and even sometimes beyond Dane County.
We've been around for 11
years now and our mission is all about inspiring kids with books that are going to engage and excite them and help them see themselves as
readers.
I've mentioned to folks a couple of times that for a number of years, I served on the board of directors for a group called Literacy Volunteers of the Chippewa Valley.
So I mean, you're speaking to the choir here, but talk a bit about the importance of literacy when it comes to not just young children, but frankly, some of our youth who may have fallen behind in their earlier years.
Yeah, that's falling behind, especially Wisconsin.
Some stats have come out recently that kids really are struggling.
And even if some people feel like the pandemic was a few years ago, we've moved on.
Those were some key learning years for kids.
And so we're sort of trying to help kids see themselves as readers, get them excited about reading, and reading really opens every other door.
There's not a day in life where you won't encounter new words, written words, and being able to read those words with confidence can change a kid's life.
We spoke a lot in our efforts that people hear literacy and they think it's just about people who don't know how to read.
That's not necessarily the case.
It's about people who could read better, who could read at what you would call a higher grade level.
And that frankly, again, I'm getting away from the kids a bit, but it helps with your career or anything else that you want to do is if you can step up your level of literacy, there's a role there to be played.
So bringing it back to the kids, how does your organization get books out to the community?
That's a great question.
We have programs that serve kids from birth.
So new parents who have babies born at Meritor and St.
Mary's hospitals here in Madison each get a book pack starting from day one with a book, How to Read to an Infant and Why It's Important to Read to an Infant.
And then we go up from there.
We are the local affiliate for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which sends one free book every single month to every child under the age of five.
They just sign up online and it's completely free.
We have free book fairs and two big red reading buses that go out to visit communities and schools and after school programs.
Really everywhere a child is, we try to be there too.
We're joined by Emily Wills from the Madison Reading Project.
You can learn more at madisonreadingproject.com where I'm sure you're very happy to take financial donations.
I'm sure the question comes up, are you looking for book donations as well or do you just purchase new books with donations that come in?
A big part of our mission is getting kids really excited to read and especially reaching those reluctant readers.
I like to say that if you love reading, you will love an old book.
You know those torn pages and scuffed up edges mean that that book has been loved.
If you're a reluctant reader, having a brand new book that's something sparkly, shiny, and new might be the thing that gets you to crack open the spine.
So we do take book donations.
We request that all donations be brand new books.
And any books that don't quite meet our standards to God on ourselves, we help distribute
and little free libraries in our community.
So they still get out there.
Very nice.
Again, madisonreadingproject.com is the web address.
Emily Wills, thank you very much for being part of our 12 Days of Community Kindness, telling us more.
Have a good holiday season.
Thanks so much, Pat.
Happy holidays.
Thank you, Emily.
Appreciate that.
Coming up in our next hour, Cam Stevenson from Courier Newsroom, live from Washington, D.C., and we'll be talking to Dan Schaefer from the Recombobulation Area as well.
I'm Pat Rightlow from UpNorth News.
Follow what we do at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Back after the 8 o'clock news with more guests, this is the Civic Media
Radio Network.
It is 7.52 now and time to bring in James Kelly from our Chippewa Valley newsroom for Civic Media.
You can hear him on 93.5, the TAP, WCFW, HD2 in the Chippewa Valley.
You can also see his handiwork on the web.
For 93.5, the TAP, the website is thetap.fm, thetap.fm.
James, good morning, how are you?
Good morning.
That intro song, it's almost 20 degrees, feels like summer.
Yes, I know.
Isn't it funny how sometimes a song can just do that, take you back to a time and make you feel a little bit better, you know?
And instead, nope, we're back here.
We're waiting at the bus stop.
It's really, really cold.
But at least in 2026 at the bus stop in Eau Claire, the burden will be a little bit lighter for the youngins.
Oh yeah, we talked about this a little bit when the budget passed that they were gonna be kind of expanding this free service for kids.
The goal is to just get them comfortable using the transit system now, realize how useful it can be, and when they grow up and remain in the area, they're more willing to pay the bus fare to continue using it.
But I think the interesting part about this new policy that's set to go into effect on January 1st is that it also covers the Northern Light Service that
kind of shared ride, municipally run service on the north side of the city.
The pilot program is currently scheduled to go through July still, but any kid 13 years or older will be allowed to use it for free just like they were going to be able to use the bus for free.
I
guess
kids younger than 13 can still use it for free, just not alone.
Well, right, right.
So that's Eau Claire Transit that is doing that.
And it's good to get that started early because whether they stay in the Chippewa Valley or if they go elsewhere, there are more communities that are embracing bus rapid transit lines.
There's also, you know, a lot of dedicated
bus lanes where I grew up on the east side of St.
Paul's.
Now they've created an entire dedicated bus corridor parallel to I-94 because so many people want to use it.
We have plenty of people that want to talk down public transit but a lot of people understand what an asset it is and so for Eau Claire Transit to encourage ridership early is just a great thing.
Let's go over to Dunn County and talk about what the community foundation there is up to.
Yeah, the Community Foundation of Dunn County is currently accepting grant applications from nonprofits, local community groups, even government organizations through their biannual.
just giving away this kind of grant funding to make Dunn County a better place.
There are a lot of things that are eligible for this grant funding.
It could be arts, it could be education, recreation.
You know, if you want to build a playground in Dunn County, you could be eligible for a grant.
These community impact grants are very flexible and they're looking to give away at least $80,000 in grant funding through this cycle.
And if you don't know too much about writing grants, which can be a very complicated process, they're going to have a grant writing workshop on January 13th at the Menominee
market food co-op just kind of get everybody comfortable putting in their strongest applications so they can give the money to the best causes.
Very nice we're talking to James Kelly from Civic Media's Chippewa Valley newsroom here and let's head down now to Augusta just south of Eau Claire and what's happening with the community covered there.
Yes while some people may think now that the federal government has reopened all of the food assistance programs are just right back up and running.
Not quite the case.
The Augusta community cupboard is raising donations, just any non-perishable food items.
It's at Augusta City Hall.
You can either, there's three trees up there that are very well decorated, hard to miss.
So you can leave non-perishable food items under any of those three trees in the mood of the season.
Or if you want to just make a monetary donation, you can drop it off at the City Clerk or drop it off in the night drop there at City Hall.
So just another good way for people to give back during the holiday season, make sure everybody can get a good meal.
That's right.
So again, that's for the Augusta community cupboard.
All right, let's end with what let's nerd out now on civics.
Shall we?
What's happening in Eau Claire?
Is that a particular area of interest?
I love civics.
Absolutely.
You bet.
Yeah, the the national or the state competition for the civics B is going to be held at South Middle School in Eau Claire on May 9th.
They are currently taking applications.
So if you're a student from grades six to eight,
You can send in an essay about 250 words, just on anything that's a local community issue.
If you're having triple finding a local community issue in Eau Claire, there's a website there that might be able to help you find one or two stories about what's going on in the area.
But it's a nice little...
you know, local event.
Hopefully a lot of local kids will be participating in it because it's so close to home.
It's easy to get to.
And it's really a great event and the winner will represent Wisconsin at the National Civics Bee in Washington, D.C.
next fall.
Very nice.
All right.
Well, we went through those kind of quickly because I wanted to leave enough time.
Ford and Promptu, Civics Bee.
James Kelly taking on Parker Olsen right now in a Civics Bee.
Parker Olsen who's never written in cursive.
Yeah,
There's just a generational divide between these two, believe it or not.
You guys just blurred out the answer.
What do we call the first 10 amendments to the Constitution?
Bill
of Rights.
Oh, Bill of Rights.
Yesterday was the yesterday Bill of Rights
Day here in the Chippewa Valley?
It was Bill of Rights Day, absolutely.
How many amendments does the Constitution have?
Oh, is it 27 now?
Oh, very good.
Oh, James, you're on fire over here.
Okay.
What are the three branches of government?
Judicial, we'll accept that.
I wanted to give
Parker a chance to get in there.
There you go.
Well, because a lot of people say, well, it's the Senate and the House and the presidency or something like, no, no.
There's a whole third one.
Yep, exactly.
So who's in charge of the executive branch?
I think
the president.
More often times than not there.
How many members are in the House of Representatives?
No, I was gonna say 435 435 is exactly that.
Yes.
Let's see What else have I got here?
Oh if both the president and vice president can no longer serve who becomes president
and who after
yet, and it's one we might need to know about
I've never considered going down to the fourth tier.
Trump and then JD Vance and then Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and it got me thinking, who is the President Pro Tem of the U.S.
Senate?
Because that would be the next person in line.
I've never gone down that far in the thought process.
You know who that is?
It's Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is in his 90s.
That's our presidential line of succession, boys and girls, and that civics quiz has been brought to you by James Kelly's appearance from 93.5 The Tap.
Follow him at thetap.fm.
James, thank you very much.
Thanks, guys.
All right, we'll see you a little later.
Our new civics bee champion, James Kelly, I should say, as well.
Anyway, we'll be back with Cam Stevenson from Courier Newsroom coming up next.
I'm Pat Critello from Up North News.
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