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Slurping from a coffee cup that says, I am silently correcting your grammar.
I am Pat Critello.
It's nice to have you back here up north at 7.06 on a Thursday morning, December 18th, 2025.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.
Coming up later on, we will have Sean O'Malley talking about your money and your markets and that address from the
White House yesterday by President Grumpy, screaming about how the economy is not as bad as you think it is and that it's all somebody else's fault.
And Sean will take a look at the numbers and probably have to correct the record coming up in just a little bit.
Also, I'm going to have a few words to say in just a few minutes here about your property tax bills.
They are higher, by and large, and there's a perfectly good reason for it, and there's a new report out that tries to lay out the reason, but they're too kind.
They need more than 2,000 words to say something that could really be summed up in maybe two words, lazy legislature, or something like that.
So that's coming up.
But first, let's see, from Robin Tigerton, because we only get two more weather reports from him today and tomorrow.
Good morning from Tigerton with drizzle and 38 degrees.
I was in Chano yesterday for a doctor's appointment, then stacking up on salt for a possible flash freeze later today.
And watch out for those snow squalls as well.
Yes, Rob, you be careful out there on the roads as well.
We were discussing earlier in our history lesson Christmas songs and that there there should be like I don't know if it's a Hall of Fame balloting thing Parker or what but at some point there's this designation of this is that person's song and Nobody else gets to sing it.
We were talking about all I want for Christmas by Mariah Carey Every other version I've heard it's like why why are you even trying to do that?
Why?
And so Jim and Campbell Sport texted in saying that he and his wife were discussing the same thing.
And he had these suggestions that Holly Jolly Christmas should only belong to Burl Ives.
The Christmas song Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, Nat King Cole.
Happy Christmas Wars Over by John Lennon and to just keep it going.
And, you know, sometimes the person who wrote the song and maybe even sang it the first time, it's not necessarily
their song.
For example, Dolly Parton wrote, I will always love you.
But as soon as Whitney Houston sang it in the bodyguard, it was like, sorry, Dolly, this is not your song anymore.
This is now Whitney Houston's.
Similarly, Billy Joel wrote Shameless.
But a year or two later, Garth Brooks recorded Shameless.
At that point, it's like, Billy, I'm sorry, it's no longer your song.
lost.
It all started with the thorough Ravenscroft singing, you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
And I mean, you can all have fun with it if you want, but as far as playing it on the radio, I just want to hear the one.
I just want to hear the original.
So what about you?
Do you have versions of songs that you'd be really happy just to hear that one person's version and nobody else really needs to?
Because it's not like we're done making Christmas songs.
There are more Christmas songs all the time.
You know, Kelly Clarkson did Underneath the Tree not that long ago, and I really like that one.
So there's always new stuff that's coming along.
It's just that some of the classics, they got to be classics because one person did it and they did it just right.
Oh, yeah.
kind of throws you off in your thinking.
Maybe this person has a really good take on it and they don't.
It's kind of very, it's very vanilla by comparison.
Now Greg asks what about little drummer boy?
Why do we need more versions?
Well for that one I'd have to know which version you're talking about is it is it like the
Oh, I forget who did the like the real original.
It's one of those, uh, coral groups or something like that.
Or are you talking about, uh, Bing Crosby and David Bowie doing little drummer boy piece on earth?
Cause that one, again, that one doesn't have to be, be remade by anybody.
And, uh, Tony asking, so this is a classic radio show.
Well.
only in the sense that nobody should try to do a show like this anymore.
There's only so much there's only so much sarcasm and old man stories that we can fit into one morning radio show.
Nobody else needs to be doing that.
So
that's that's
whatever we
Yeah, do what we want.
Let's see.
Chad Holmes is also coming up in our next hour here as well.
And then from a sports standpoint, let's work our way backwards.
On Saturday, the Packers are in Chicago taking on the Bears.
Coverage begins at five o'clock Saturday evening on several civic media stations.
On Friday, the Badger Men's basketball team is back in action against Villanova.
Let's see if they have learned anything from the long layoffs since that last embarrassment.
You can hear the game 630 Friday night on a few civic.
radio stations.
And then tonight, the Badger volleyball team in the final four, and they will be taking on Kentucky and hopefully moving on to the national championship game on Sunday.
Oh, wait, I forgot the River Falls football team.
That's Saturday, right?
All right.
Tom and Hartford on the text line.
Silent night done by Mercy Me, the Christian rock band, is a favorite of his.
So.
I've not heard that one.
Now I have something else that I get to look up.
Always on the lookout for my next favorite Christmas song.
All right, let's talk about a new report that came out from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan research group that does great work taking budget items and policy items and kind of putting them into plain English as best they can.
And I grant you, not everybody sits around reading reports that are put out by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
But I do, and other reporters do.
And frankly, a lot of other people would learn a lot and have maybe a better appreciation for what has to happen at the state or local government level if you looked at what they did.
And they looked at the big hike in local property taxes this month.
All the property tax bills came out last week, this week.
They got to get paid first half, at least pretty soon here.
the average K-12 property tax bill is up 7.8%.
That's the highest increase in more than three decades.
And a lot of people will look at that line under the school district on a property tax bill, see a much higher number, and assume it is the school district's fault that they are getting greedy, that they are trumping up the schools with gold-plated toilets and things like that.
And that is decidedly not the case.
The report says, and in a story about it by Jesse O'Poyne in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
points out that there are a couple of different factors that lead to this jump in property taxes and greed by your local school board is not one of the reasons.
There were decisions made in the most recent state budget by the legislature and then the follow-up would be the referendums that were held by local property tax payers and voters in their local school districts.
Now the new state budget as approved by the legislature and signed by the governor included an increase in how much school districts are allowed to raise for revenue.
Again, you got to keep in mind that your school district cannot just wave a wand and say we want to increase the amount of spending like massively.
There are actually state imposed limits that say this is the most you can raise
the taxes by and spending, and you've got to stay within that, and the legislature can alter that level.
Well, the level also got altered because of a veto in the last-date budget by Governor Tony Evers, who wanted to give school districts more wiggle room than the Republican-led legislature was willing to give school districts.
And so as a result,
for the next 400 years because of the way the veto was written, school districts can increase their state-imposed limits by $325 a student.
And Republicans are out here screaming that it's a 400-year tax increase from Governor Evers.
For 400 years, your taxes are guaranteed to go up.
They're not.
That's an increase in the amount they, the school districts, are allowed to increase their revenue, but they don't have to do it in taxes.
They don't have to do it at all if they don't vote to, but they also don't have to do it if the legislature were to fund that part of it with state dollars that come from things like a state income tax, which is far more fair to far more people than a property tax.
But if a legislature chooses not to increase state funding and a school district wants to increase their revenue by $325 a student, then they got to go to the voters and say, would you be okay raising your property taxes?
And by and large, voters have been saying, yes, they understand that the legislature is not lifting up its share of the load.
It is passing the buck quite literally.
onto local districts and therefore onto local property taxpayers.
The higher property taxes that you're seeing in Wisconsin right now are the direct result of a Republican-led legislature that put in zero new dollars in state general aid to school districts.
No increase at all in general school aid.
Did prices stay steady?
Did nobody in school districts get a raise or earn a raise?
No.
And so if the legislature puts in zero dollars, and they've got the ability to raise anywhere from zero to $325 per pupil, the only place they can go for that is the property tax levy.
Thankfully, voters have been understanding this, but getting a little bit less so, and they're getting very frustrated.
And it is why I have said repeatedly, when there is a referendum in your district, say yes to the referendum.
Say no to the legislators who put you in that position of having to vote to raise your own property taxes So the Wisconsin policy form again great organization great work Took a little over 2,000 words to say what could have been said in a much more succinct manner a lazy legislature Passing the buck to property taxpayers once we all understand that the sooner we can make decisions to
potentially have new legislators that will put a focus not on anything extravagant, but on simply enabling school districts to keep up with inflation.
If you've never heard this stat before, brace yourself.
For the past 18 years now, 18 years, state funding has not kept up with the pace of inflation.
If there had been no new dollars,
put into school districts other than keeping up with the rate of inflation.
Schools would be in a healthy place, property taxes would still be at a more affordable level, and we wouldn't be facing this crisis.
This is a manufactured crisis by Republicans in the legislature who simply want to pass the buck.
In much the same way as we discussed recently how they're not applying money from professional fees,
into the department that processes professional licenses.
That money could be applied and it could reduce wait times and improve customer services, but they don't want to do that because it gets in the way of their narrative that government is broken and government is only broken when they seem to be in charge and do stuff like this.
Sean Duffy's coming up to talk about your money.
Sean Duffy.
Sean
O'Malley.
Sean Duffy, whoa.
Wow.
Wouldn't that be something?
That would be a whole different thing.
We'll talk about the possibilities later.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
It is Pat Critello, right?
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Greg on YouTube is rightly asking, hey, is Ron Johnson coming on after Sean Duffy this morning, Pat?
No, no, no, Sean O'Malley is coming on.
Tony noting that on our last couple of shows here, we're hearing from lots of longtime listeners, when is Derek Van Orden calling in?
I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting for that one.
Alicia says there's a legislator yelling about a 25% increase on his school district taxes.
Apparently forgot there was a referendum that passed last November, because again, his or her neighbors want to continue supporting
their local schools.
A reminder that Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom.
You can head over to couriernewsroom.com to read news from all of our various state outlets, including Up North News, get links to podcasts and merchandise and more.
A little late this morning, but Parker has some entertainment headlines for us.
And
on YouTube.
This is interesting.
Okay, now, first off, that it's not until 2029.
I mean, talk about planning ahead.
But no, seriously, who knows if they'll be a YouTube in 2029?
You know, it's like saying, we've talked about companies in the past that you thought were going to be around forever.
And then they weren't, you know, it might be called something totally different by then.
Maybe Elon Musk will buy it and it'll be called, you know, X tube, something, something amazingly stupid like that.
Anyway, but it is, it's interesting that even though it is, you know, almost four years away.
Moving from a national televised network to YouTube, where anybody can see it, is rightly being described as a watershed moment for the entertainment business.
I can't say that I'm terribly surprised simply because much like the, you know, the Grammys, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, you know, all of these things, people look at it and they go, I
don't know what these are.
Our
entertainment audience is so fractured these days.
And especially the Emmys, more so than the Oscar.
I mean, when was the last time a TV network actually won a whole bunch of Emmys?
You know, they put it on their network and they watch as HBO and Prime and all these others, Netflix, get all these awards.
So if it's just not
You know, the ratings haven't been great.
So sure, why not?
Why not move the Oscars to YouTube?
But by 2029, we're all going to be streaming everything anyway.
So, I mean, it seems like they're just getting ahead of the game.
up.
No, I'm down right at the moment on the broadcast.
networks simply because again, it's, they're so outnumbered by all these other places that don't, you know, that don't play by the same rules, which is not to say there isn't a place for broadcasting.
Of course there is, but with such a fractured entertainment audience, it's, it's tough to have any single.
Big moment for a network.
It's why they pay so much for the Super Bowl.
Yeah, and you know the the final four and things like that So so yeah, again, it's it's years away, but the Oscars are heading for streaming
well, what what do I like to say?
There is no five-year plan
Well, there's a lot that can happen to that.
So what else we got?
going for you.
I still love that you say Warner Bros.
mean.
Warner Brothers, the name of the company, but anyway, Netflix's CEO says they have a commitment to movies in the theater and that, you know, not everything that Warner Brothers Discovery makes would immediately go to Netflix, which, you know, that makes sense.
People still do like to go to the movies.
I mean, we went, you know, this past weekend to see Wicked for Good and
It's not it's the thing is it's not the only way to see movies now So you're not gonna have movies making as much as you know gone with the wind back in the day and things like that But you know your your Marvel movies and other things people are gonna want to see that in a theater So, you know, let's let's not tap dance on the grave of movie theaters yet.
No, there will be a place for it It's just that they they won't be there for months
They'll be there for a certain window and then everybody else can stream it at home because they've decided they're okay seeing movies that way
No, because again, there's there's
If you're just looking for like a really good story and things like that, I mean, with with Rob Reiner's passing, we talked about a lot of his movies.
Those are not movies that you race out to see in a theater nowadays.
They are great TV movies.
They are.
But you at least want for people that love to see films on the big screen, you want to at least have that initial, you know, release.
on the silver screen and then have a streaming option.
I'm not, I am not taking sides in the Warner Brothers dispute, whether it's Netflix or Paramount.
Well, I guess I'm taking sides if it's anybody but Paramount because, you know, they're, they're just turning into, into, you know, evil incorporated at this point.
But, uh, you're, you're looking for that commitment to all modes of entertainment.
Uh, we're not going all streaming.
Just like broadcast TV isn't going away.
Neither are the movie theaters.
Uh, you got one more.
Seriously, share?
I mean, will it be an auto tune that sounds like share because I mean.
I think she'll be fine.
I would look forward to that.
There will be a lot of people will be curious to see.
And I say that without even knowing how old she is, other than it's been a while.
She's
a
good entertainer.
And let's see if she, like Keith Richards, who turned 82 today, can still get it done.
Sean O'Malley is coming up after the break.
I'm Pat Critello.
You're up north.
All right, we're back at 735 joined by Sean O'Malley, finance and economics expert talking about your money in the markets.
There's some breaking news about the president's own business dealings, converting his company from a media company to a nuclear fusion company that we're going to get into in just a bit.
There are brand new inflation numbers that just came out minutes ago, at least we think.
Well, maybe there's something wrong with these numbers.
But what we're, where we really got to start is the president's quote unquote speech on the economy.
And pardon me a minute while I back away, Sean, from the microphone so I can do this properly.
Why is the president yelling during his speech?
Why he yelled the whole thing saying you're not feeling what you're actually feeling and I'm sure he's gonna point to these new inflation numbers that came out minutes ago and say you see inflation is entirely in check It says the consumer price index rose 2.7% in November from the same time last year core inflation rose an annual rate of 2.6%
Was the president like telegraphing what these numbers were going to be this morning?
His focus on affordability is going to bring down prices immediately.
And I thought, okay, that tells me you're probably going to cook the numbers immediately because you can't actually impact prices.
I mean, that's a buying and selling decision that the market determines based on supply and demand as any good economist knows.
So I
was
expecting something more in line with what we saw in September, which was a 3.0% increase in inflation and CPI and To see it come in drastically lower Makes me very suspicious about those numbers in their entirety.
It's it's too much of a drop.
I mean you normally don't see
inflation drop that rapidly.
You are not alone.
New York Times chief economics correspondent Ben Kasselman just posted, I would take these numbers with a hefty dose of salt.
Economists warned that distortions related to the shutdown could bias the inflation numbers downward.
It certainly looks possible that that's what happened here.
So yeah, they're
But so so now we get back to the speech where the president says are you gonna believe me or your lion eyes as you look at the price tags on the shelves there Was he trying to convince Americans or was he trying to convince himself that you know, there isn't still an affordability crisis in this country
I think he was he was trying to say You know don't don't believe what you're seeing on the shelves, you know believe what I'm telling you and I don't I think you
I don't know if he recognizes, well, I don't know what he recognizes, honestly.
His cognitive decline is pretty significant at this point.
But I think he's primarily trying to preach to the choir, if you will.
He's trying to win back the the Maga Republicans, which they have been leaving him.
So he's he's trying to hang on to the base, because it's I think it's all he's got
left.
Okay.
Sean O'Malley joining us here.
We're talking about your money, the markets, the economy.
Again, because of the shutdown,
There were numbers that didn't come out.
But there are jobs numbers that indicate where jobs went in November after going down in October.
But I mean, it feels like anemic is still an apt word for describing the jobs picture in this country.
Oh, yeah, I mean, you had you had unemployment go from, you know, I mean, 4.4% in September to 4.6% in November.
Now that one sounds
pretty right.
You know, you're definitely seeing more people having trouble finding jobs, you're having people hang on to the jobs that they've got, even though they're not happy with them.
And one statistic I saw that was particularly interesting is that the number of people with more than one job is has been going up significantly.
And is that basically, you know, a new high for for the, you know, the last several years up at 5.7%.
You know, this is this is
a situation where the jobs picture is not looking particularly promising and people are doing what they have to do to, you know, keep their, you know, themselves afloat financially.
Yeah, especially to either afford things like childcare or perhaps a parent now has to stay home because childcare isn't affordable or available.
And so the other spouse is now the one working two jobs, you know, in order to try to keep up with things.
So, I mean,
All in all, what was the word during the Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan phase, malaise.
Yes,
malaise.
That we're getting close to bringing back those stagflation malaise and other elements of things that did not seem to be the case as we were coming out of the pandemic.
But we certainly are not in the same economy that we were, you know, a year and a half ago.
President Trump delivered a speech trying to talk up the economy in particular when, you know, as someone who tracks it and has tracked it for decades, I know it's not great.
And I, you know, I was tracking it and tracked all the numbers last year.
And I know we are absolutely worse in every category across the board, you know, unemployment's higher.
Um, you know, prices continue to go up and, and I think for a lot of Americans, you know, it's a very tough environment.
GDP is, is down
from what it
Yeah, so to say America is back, it's like, well, back to what exactly is what we're wondering here.
We're talking to Sean O'Malley, a Hudson native with a long Wall Street career in anti-money laundering, financial risk management, data analytics and compliance, fraud and risk management.
And we've looked at the inflation numbers.
We have talked about the jobs numbers.
Let's look now at the Federal Reserve that, you know, determines interest rates and, you know, is a foundational part of our economy and what developed there in terms of, you know, we know Trump has wanted to influence the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
What is happening on that front?
Very interesting what happened right after the Open Market Committee meeting where they did drop interest rates a quarterly point.
So Trump should be happy about that.
But what they did was also something very unusual.
They basically reappointed 11 of the 12 current governors on the Federal Reserve Board.
They're 12 plus the chairman.
We know that Trump has been putting a lot of pressure.
on chairman Powell, Jerome Powell, who he appointed ironically, of course.
And Powell's term is coming up next year.
And there's been a lot of talk and a lot of concern, particularly since Trump tried to fire one of the Fed governors and lost in court, of course, so she still has her job.
And he wants the Federal Reserve to cut rates to lower rates because what happens when you cut interest rates?
Usually the stock market goes on a tear.
And that's what he wants.
That's his barometer, his metric that he uses to gauge economic success.
So what the Federal Reserve did is they reappointed 11 of the 12 governors for a five-year term.
Now, normally, these people are appointed on a rolling 14-year schedule.
So this is something new.
But what it effectively does is that it makes the Federal Reserve
Trump proof Because all of all of their appointments aren't going to come up again until After the end of Trump's second term here no matter what
hold on confused Are they do they who when you say that they were unanimously reappointed by who?
Who does the reappointment is this Congress or are they reappointing themselves to five-year terms
it's
But to go
Okay, okay.
I've found the Associated Press story.
The Federal Reserve Governing Board unanimously approved the reappointment of nearly all of the Fed's 12 regional bank presidents as a way to make them Trump-proof here.
And I mean, it really is a sign of the times here that we have to Trump-proof things in order to maintain what little independence is left in some of the agencies of our government.
Right, because what Trump has been doing, I mean, what he's doing on tariffs, you know, let's be really candid about this.
He is totally screwing over the US economy with this.
Okay, he's raising prices.
He's lowering jobs.
He's lowering, you know, slowing economic activity.
And on top of that, the trade deficit, which it was designed to attack, has actually grown.
So it has been a failure in every single way possible.
And the problem is it's doing damage
to the U.S.
economy and will continue to do so unless it is stopped.
You know, we saw what happened with Smoot-Hawley.
That's what really pushed economic activity, you know, all the way down, you know, just, I mean, to a highly significant degree because they thought, oh, this is the solution.
It's, tariffs are never the solution unless you're trying to, you know, actively protect a particular industry or penalize
The producer country of some product or or raw material.
Well, that's what was it's interesting that Trump said last night that he's taking all of that all of those tariff dollars That were paid in by foreign countries.
No, they weren't and he's now sending out, you know, these warrior rebate checks of 1776 dollars And yet a court at any point could say actually no you have to refund all of this because you your tariffs were not legal
Right, you've got the Costco lawsuit that is attempting to do exactly that for at least Costco you also have another you know Class action suit against it and let's not forget you you still are waiting to hear from the Supreme Court.
Let's not forget Yeah, they went and had the hearing but now they're saying well, you know, maybe the release of judgment before the end of the year But some people are saying no, it's gonna be 2026, but the thing is it's people are expecting that
He's going to lose, as he does most of his lawsuits in court cases.
And then he's going to try to claim under, there are a couple of other provisions that he can try to claim under and basically kind of restart the whole legal process again, which sounds just like Trump.
Well, here's another thing that sounds like Trump.
His media company is apparently no longer going to be a media company.
It's now going to be in the business of nuclear fusion.
Trump media and technology group and TAE technology is a fusion power company said they've agreed to an all-stock merger valued at more than six billion dollars It would transform at Trump's company
into, again, clean fusion, which is a still experimental technology of a clean energy alternative that could provide the enormous amounts of electricity needed by AI data centers.
The deal, however, is likely to draw scrutiny as it would indirectly put a company owned by the president in competition with other firms looking to power and profit from the AI revolution.
I want to see my shocked face that the president is looking to give himself a personal
stake and an advantage over competitors?
unbelievable.
Sean, I've really appreciated getting these updates from you.
It's good to check in with an old high school friend who's done such wonderful things and brings such great perspective to all of this.
Thanks for being a part of the radio show and I hope we get to keep partnering on other endeavors in the very near future.
All right.
Thanks, Sean.
Happy holidays to you coming up.
We will be talking in our next hour with Chad Holmes from our station in Warsaw.
Joseph Peckie is coming up as well.
Live from the lake.
I'm Pat Crite low from up north news.
Follow us at up north news wi.com.
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.
7.52 on a Thursday morning.
Let's check in with James Kelly, Civic Media reporter in our Chippewa Valley newsroom.
James, how are you?
Good morning.
How you doing?
We're good.
Thanks.
We've been having a good chat about Christmas music and the songs that should just belong to a single artist.
No more remakes are allowed.
You got any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I've been thinking about this for an hour now since that conversation happened.
And I can't decide if DMX's version of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer belongs to him or if it should never be played again.
I just know every time I hear it, I think.
Did you say
DMX has done a version of Rudolph?
Oh, and you know what, Pat?
It's exactly what you're imagining in your head.
No.
It's exactly what you're imagining.
I'm working on it.
You're, you're on this, right?
Tell me.
That's my question.
I'm almost positive it's clean.
I think it's the actual lyrics, just DMX
version.
All right.
Oh my goodness.
This is so worth waiting for.
Here we go.
Oh my.
Oh, please don't swear.
Oh, I know.
That
might
be he might have just taken ownership of that song right there from from from Beyond the Grave.
Oh my goodness
Oh, that's great.
James, that was the best Christmas present.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I got you.
Well
done.
You totally did.
It is raining and 39 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley.
It looks just so gross out there, and the temperatures are going to drop all day.
And so that all is going to freeze up at some point.
And at some point, it's going to become snow again, although we're losing some snow cover here.
But at some point, they'll have to plow the streets in Eau Claire again.
And James, you're here to tell us that folks got to step up.
Yeah, the city manager's weekly report last week had a little note about some parts of the city maybe aren't adhering to those alternate side parking rules as closely as they should be.
They noted Randall Park neighborhood.
And I am now just apparently the alternate side parking guy during the
winter on the show.
I
don't want anybody to get a ticket.
You're going to feel really dumb if you if you park on the wrong side of the street, you wake up in the morning to go to work and find out that your car has been towed.
Just follow the alternate side parking rules.
All
right.
I
mean,
just put the post it.
No, right there on the door going into
the garage,
you know, and get it right.
So I'm sure it's not just Eau Claire where this is an issue, but they clearly are letting people know they got to do better the next time they get some snow.
It's still early season.
Yep.
One of the big stories from the Northwestern part of the state this week deals with the Enbridge line five pipeline.
running across far northern Wisconsin, especially the Bad River Tribal community.
What's happening there?
Yeah, Earth Justice is a law firm that's representing the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
They filed a new lawsuit this week against the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers that alleges that they're violating a couple of federal clean water and environmental protection standards when they issued the permits for this project.
There's also this ongoing state contested case hearing.
The hearing part of that wrapped up earlier last month, and there should be a decision sometime in the next few months, but
you know, whoever's on the wrong side of that decision is likely to appeal it to the next highest court.
So it's probably going to be a while before all of this works out.
And Enbridge Energy had a deadline of June to reroute this pipeline.
So we'll see what happens with that.
My goodness.
Yeah,
this thing just drags on and on and on.
And so this is only the latest development.
Next item comes out of Dunn County.
Yeah, the DUN Economic Development announced the distribution of over $114,000 in grant funding to 27 small businesses and startups across the area.
It's just kind of a way to help them expand their inventory, get some technical assistance, make some technology upgrades.
One of the major recipients, if you remember, back in May, town and country antiques in Menominee suffered a huge fire, lost pretty much all of their inventory.
They
received one of the bigger portions of this grant funding.
So good way to...
kind of get everybody going during the holiday season, make the inventory upgrades, make sure everyone can buy the things they want to buy and that they're making money in small businesses.
All right, good to hear.
And you got one more for the season for us.
One more for the season.
Yeah, the Wisconsin Credit Union had a couple fundraisers going on, a couple drives initiatives.
One was the Shop Small Share Joy Kindness Counts event.
They handed out 313 gift cards to members that supported 47 local small businesses around the Western Wisconsin region.
Definitely a good way for them to kind of expand that, giving back beyond their own members and benefit the overall community as well.
They also had their 15th anniversary of their m-
tree fundraiser.
This year, they collected over $3,000 and over 2700 kind of warm items, hats, gloves, that kind of thing.
And since it began 15 years ago, it's over $42,000 collected now and over 3500 warm weather items for families in need.
I like that.
And especially with the gift cards, are you much of a gift card person when you do gifts or do you still buy like things that you are tangible that you wrap up, things like that?
It depends on what it is, you know, if it's someone I don't really know all that well or don't really know what to get, gift card you can't go wrong with.
Just go spend it on whatever you want to spend it on.
I've given you a gift.
There you go.
No, we were out to dinner with another couple last night and they were just raving about a particular restaurant and then we exchanged cards and it turns out we both put gift cards in each other's and thankfully they just laughed because they opened up and the gift card from us was from that very
restaurant that they were raving about and we thought this conversation could be totally different if they were trashing this restaurant we're like here's your here's your Christmas present it's a
gift card to this restaurant.
That's a great gift though because you know like they like this place this is a good gift card they're gonna use it there's you know the gift cards where it's like it's just a Visa card you can go spend it home whatever you want it's $50 on it yeah I mean that's a little lazy but I try not to do that.
But there's times when it really is helpful.
Like I've said with a lot of young adults, you never go wrong with a gas cart.
you know, never, uh, any, anything that, uh, that they don't have to, you know,
unless you have an
electric
vehicle these days.
Well, yeah, there is that.
But anyway, uh, hey, have a good trip home for the holidays and thanks for all these updates.
Uh, really appreciate it, James.
Absolutely, Pat.
Thanks for always having me on.
I hope you guys both have a great holiday.
Thank you so much.
You can get James Kelly's Chippewa Valley updates from 93 five of the tap here in the Chippewa Valley or on the civic media app and you can read all about his headlines, whether local sports and more on the web.
at thetap.fm, again, thetap.fm.
Coming up in our next hour, we will be talking to Chad Holmes from our Civic Media Station in Wasaw and Joe Zipecki as well.
I'm Pat Critello.
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