Good morning, I'm Wayne Mauser for Civic Media News.
Storms Monday night led to at least two tornadoes in northeast Wisconsin.
They were in Shawnaw County.
Tornado warnings and watches were issued for various parts of northeast Wisconsin Monday night.
Storms moved through the EAA Air Venture Grounds Monday, prompting some visitors to take shelter inside the museum as others camping on the ground sought cover.
The weather cleared the one time for the afternoon air show, which drew visitors from across the country to the flight line to watch pilots perform stunts and flying formation.
This year's event placed a special emphasis on military planes as a nod to the country's 250th anniversary celebration with representation from nearly every branch of the military.
Meanwhile, a Tyler Hubbard concert drew a large crowd to EA Aventure on opening night with the show getting underway around 8 p.m.
inside an area of the grounds called Theater in the Woods.
Hubbard, formerly of Florida, Georgia Line, brought a second wave of attendees to the grounds for the performance.
Opening night concerts at Theater in the Woods have become a tradition for many Aventure attendees.
Sheboygan County Sheriff's officials say a 27-year-old Howard Grove man died early Monday morning after his vehicle left the roadway and crashed into a cornfield in the town of Herman.
The County Emergency Communication Center received an automatic crash notification around 12.20 a.m.
for the area near Garten Road and Bridgewood Road.
The initial investigation determined the man was driving alone in a Jaguar heading east on Garten Road when it left the road and crashed into a cornfield just east of Bridgewood Road.
died at the scene despite life-saving efforts.
The 66-year-old Fond du Lac man facing 10 counts of possession of child pornography was arraigned Monday in Fond du Lac County Court.
Jeffrey Riggs entered not guilty pleas to the charges.
A plea and sentencing hearing is scheduled for October 5th.
According to the criminal complaint, detectives searched his home last October and seized several electronic devices.
A forensic review of those devices uncovered a significant amount of child sexual abuse material.
While many communities will be hosting national night-outs early next month, Greenlake provides something different.
Bob Nelson reports for Civic Media News.
Each year, a different community hosts the Greenlake County First Responder community event.
Chief Deputy Sheriff Matt Van Nicolk says it's Princeton's turn and it'll be in their beautiful city park on Tuesday, August 18 from 4 30 to 7 p.m.
We'll have folks from the Sheriff's Office, all the police departments in the county.
Fire, EMS, everybody's going to be there and there's going to be food and games for all those who attend.
He says it's a great way to celebrate what law enforcement, fire and EMS provide for their communities and have some fun as well.
There is no cost to attend.
I'm Pop Nelson for Civic Media News.
Fondland County Sheriff Ryan Walshmit says there will be public information sessions around the county before the county board makes a decision about a new jail and
or just the center.
Tonight, the board will get an update on schematic designs and phased options for the jail.
Last month, the board heard a presentation on an assessment of the justice system and bed count for the county jail, along with projections for what will be needed in the future.
Wall Schmidt says schematic designs will differ because one possible site for a new jail is across the street from the current one in Fond du Lac, and it would be a vertical design.
Meanwhile, the other site on Scott Road near the Highway 151 and Hickory Street interchange would be horizontal or pod-like, similar to what Green Lake County has.
certain when information sessions are scheduled, there will be one in Ripon.
The board's meeting tonight is at 6 p.m.
at the City County Government Center in Fond du Lac.
The Adult and Teen Services Librarian for the Rip and Public Library says their first downtown historic walk last Friday was a success.
Susie Meng said it began at the library and proceeded down historic Watson Street, ending up at the historic society where lemonade and cookies were served.
Participants then had the option to be bussed out to the Little White Schoolhouse for a tour of that historic structure.
Meng said there will be two more downtown Rip and Historic Walks on Friday and Saturday, August 7th and 8th from 2 until
4 p.m.
and 10 a.m.
to noon, respectively, to register call the Ripon Library at 920-748-5530.
The walks are being made possible by the library, Ripon Historic Society, Ripon Chamber of Commerce, Ripon Historic Preservation Commission, and diverse options.
I'm Wayne Mauser for Civic Media News.
At this time joining us.
So we have a Joe then hyzen who's vice president of membership and resource development for Envision Greater Fonda lack good morning
Good morning.
How you doing
sir?
I'm good nice sunny day finally air quality might be Normal or it's almost normal.
So
hard to remember what normal is yeah
nine days of having that Canadian wildfire smoke.
So anyway, um
What are we talking about today, Joe?
What do you want to talk about?
Well, there's always something to talk about.
I think in light of the nice weather here, maybe I can plug our upcoming golf outing in Wappan.
I think that that's a good thing for people to have on their radar because it is golf season after all.
OK.
Tell us about
it.
So we've been doing this outing for a number of years now.
But it actually goes back further than Envision because this is an outing that the WAPON Chamber has done for many years.
And when Envision Greater Fond du Lac merged with the WAPON Chamber to form the WAPON Business Alliance, this is one of those keynote events that we've continued on.
So it's a great outing.
It serves, of course, the WAPON community, but it's open to all.
And it's a good gathering of the business community.
at a really good course.
If anybody's listening that hasn't golfed the rock in Wappan, it's a
really
wonderful course.
It's a good challenging one.
Two distinctly different nines, so wood and then a link style.
But we always were proud of putting on a very good outing.
lot of prizes that folks can win, a lot of networking opportunities.
That's really what we're trying to set the stage for at Envision is building connections across our membership base and across business to business types of relationships.
And so our outing is really focused on that.
So it has a solid function for those who are in business.
Okay.
So when is it now?
Yeah, this year we're backing it up a little bit in the calendar.
We're going to be on Friday, September 11th.
And that will be in conjunction with, this is the exciting part, in conjunction with Waupon's Volksfest, which kicks off that Friday for the weekend.
So Volksfest under the Big Ten in Waupon on the west side, around the east side of town.
That one has been going for a number of years, a whole
epic German festival, great food, great music.
What we decided this year was come play in the golf outing and then when your round is finished we'll send you right over to Volksfest with a ticket for a drink and a sandwich and then we'll do our awards over there and we'll just keep the party going.
So I just looked at the lineup.
I think we have a band from three to
three to five.
I can't remember the name of them, like the Something Dutchman, I think.
Yeah, exactly.
And Wopan, that's a safe bet.
Maybe they just rebranded just for the day, because they know they're playing Wopan.
But no, that one sounded interesting.
And I think Copper Box starts in the evening, starting at about seven.
So there should be a good crowd.
Volkswagen is a great festival for anybody who hasn't attended.
But
Here's a good way to get your first drink there for free and your sandwich.
Come play in the outing, make some good connections, and then head right over and keep the party going.
So you don't have to dress and leader hose into play golf, do you?
I think we should give a prize if anybody does.
I think that would really be a nice... I'd pay to see it.
With with the hats and with the feathers in them and everything right so
And if you want to come play some polka music out on the course Bob, we'd be happy to have you I think it'd be a fun addition to the whole the whole vibe of the
day Oh, so after nine you serve beer and pretzels, right?
There we go All right, so I imagine you have to register do you register as an individual are you doing four sums?
What's what's the story?
Yeah, you could do either.
Preferably you bring your team with you, but we're happy to make connections as well.
If you want to register as a TUSM or even a single, we can get you paired with people.
Again, the whole point of our outings is networking, and so we make a big focus on that, and we'll try to get you on teams that make some sense if there's other individuals or TUSMs that would make sense for you to spend the day playing with.
But we're also very open or we're very encouraging of sponsors to participate.
So if you're listening now and you think, yeah, I'd like to be part of that.
I'm not a golfer.
We're happy to take you because, for example, the other outing that we just ran in Fond du Lac, we had 17 of the 18 tee boxes had someone sitting there under a canopy ready to network.
And so it really adds to the experience of the day when you know you have somebody to talk to, even when you're waiting for the team in front of you, there's always somebody to be networking with.
And it provides a lot of value for a sponsor to know that you're going to be talking, you're going to have a captive audience of over a hundred business people coming through the table that you set up throughout the day.
OK, so imagine you can register on the Envision website.
You will be able to.
Actually, I'm coming off a three-day vacation here, Bob, so I don't know if it's live yet or not, but it is on our website.
It should be live, but you just go to our events calendar, check on that date on September, Friday, September 11th.
You see that there, click on it, and then the registration should be right through the website.
Otherwise, you can always call.
We're always available for a phone call.
nine two zero nine two one ninety five hundred and i would be happy to answer your questions that way
well i thought the game of golf was all about networking anyway right
that's what i tell my wife yeah i want her to know that it's all business you know that if i happen to enjoy myself that's just a nice byproduct but really we're there for business you know
all right uh... joe anything else that you wanted to uh... promote as far as envision those
I think we talked a little while back about a new benefit that we have for our members that
can
help save folks money on health insurance as an employer who provides health insurance benefit
or maybe
wants
to
get into providing health insurance benefits.
That's still out there and we'd love for more people to consider it.
It does offer real cost savings for you in light of big increases that are out there in the market right now.
So there's two programs that you can take advantage of.
You can find those on our website.
But if you're interested in just talking a little bit about it, we have a great opportunity coming up on August 18th at the Hoya Hop House in Mopon, where we have an info session starting at 3.30.
And then our regular networking business connection after that.
So come to the brewery, have a drink, talk about this insurance program, see if it might be a fit for you.
And if it's not,
All you're out is an hour of your time and you get a free beer, so I don't see the downside in that.
All right, Joe, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
Appreciate that.
Thanks for having me.
And we've been talking with Joe Van Heisen, who is the VP of Membership and Resource Development for InVisionGrader Fond du Lac.
Joining us this morning, we have Ron Rivard, who's the superintendent of the Ripon area school district.
Good morning.
Good morning, Bob.
Thanks for having me back.
Not that far away from school starting.
We'll get to that eventually, but gearing up for an operational referendum.
I know the board is next month is when the question will be formed.
But a lot of information, you presented a lot of information to the board on a community survey and
other things last night.
Yeah.
So
tell us about that if you would Ron.
Sure, sure no problem Bob.
We did, we launched a survey on June 8th to gather some community feedback and the survey was open until the 30th of June and I'm very excited to say that we had over 260 responses so I feel like it was a decently reliable
number for us to inform the board and give a sense of what the community is thinking.
So we asked some questions around what the community thought was the most important for us to align our priorities.
Should we have an operational referendum passed?
So what do we use that money for basically?
And they identified, there is a common theme for sure about
supporting students after they graduate, whether it's partnering with for your technical, for your colleges or technical schools, looking at employability skills.
helping students make sure that they graduate and can be successful after in addition to things like mental health was a priority that was identified, supporting students with disabilities, and providing a lot of course offerings for students.
And that's something that I would say in my short time here in Ripon has been
a sense of pride by people in the area knowing that there are 61 different course offerings for kids in high school to be able to start dabbling and explore a little bit to know what that might be a passion for them.
So those were the things that came out in terms of priority in the survey.
And then our board is committed definitely on the fiscally responsible side of things.
and what they were, what they actually asked the community was how would you...
feel about an operational referendum that is school tax neutral, meaning no additional tax, just continuing with the current operational referendums that are in place.
And of those 260 responses, over 85% were either indefinitely in support or likely in support of a tax neutral.
Referendum so I think the this we asked the community to speak and they spoke pretty clearly and that was shared with the board yesterday and a lot of the feedback in discussion yesterday with the board was in support of those same priorities and being Tax neutral at this point.
Mm-hmm.
Well wasn't a Premious referendums were at least one of them.
I think was tax neutral
So
yes, so we've actually I thank you for bringing that up so since 2009 the Ripon area school district has had a $500,000 operational referendum that has been I guess supported
three times.
So in 2009, that was the inception of that $500,000 operational referendum and it had been renewed three times.
So that was the neutral piece of what you're talking about.
And it was actually in line in 2009 when there was a big change in state funding.
And then again in 2022,
There was a freeze to state funding for education and then there was another referendum that was most recently passed in 2022 for eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars in response to the state freezing the Educational funding so I would say kudos to the community as they responded to the
the climate at the state level, making sure that we could still provide the same type of education for the students in the community in spite of all those other things.
As far as the community survey goes, how does that align with your strategic planning?
Yeah, great question.
So one of the questions we asked on that survey was how familiar are the community?
members with our strategic plan because we're about to revise it and we receive some pretty compelling information that suggests we need to do a better job to be honest communicating our strategic plan and our strategic goals and that's something that our board and I are very much committed to as we look at
Revising our strategic plan coming up in September.
We're going to be doing that a group of community members and teachers and administrators Will be coming together to revisit that and when we do our commitment Both as a board and for myself is to report out on those goals Have some metrics that we can track so we can demonstrate to the community.
Hey, we're committed
to not only revising our strategic plan, but making it be a living document rather than something that we just do and check off.
So we want to continue to measure and report out with a lot more frequency.
And similarly, Bob, as long as we're talking about the same type of thing, we asked another question about
Do people in the community know about our financial situation as a school district and very similar to strategic planning?
There was a little bit of knowledge or very limited.
So we want to increase that communication and help people understand what the situation is like so they can make a more informed decision should we go to a vote in November.
Yeah, it looked like the state aid was going to be
Decreasing coming in at least the projections we're seeing
so yeah it I Think for us we're we're down just a little bit and because we have some exemptions given declining enrollment however when they The state aid formula
It's just hard to predict, so we try to be conservative so we don't get caught in that regard.
I think where we're going to end up is a net gain, but minimal.
Obviously not even inflationary, but anything that's in the black instead of the red, we appreciate and try to use the best that we can.
Okay, gearing up for school, I have to ask you this question, because I noticed Labor Day is a full week into September this year, so when does school start?
The day after Labor Day.
Really?
It's the first day of school for us.
Yep, certainly is.
We will have, we'll welcome staff back.
on August 24th, which is exciting for us.
Oh, you know what?
Actually, I misspoke.
September 1st, I believe, is the first day of school because that's statutory.
I'm sorry, it's not Labor Day, so I apologize.
In any case, we welcome staff back on August 24th for some in-service training.
And we're looking forward to that.
Always try to do our best to capitalize on the excitement of everybody coming back to school.
And we have a few things up our sleeve and we're looking forward to surprising staff and motivating everybody to get excited for the 26-27 school year.
Okay.
So the kids will have an extra Monday off in September.
Because
of
Labor Day.
That is correct.
That is correct.
Yes.
And again, I apologize.
I hope for all the listeners out there, September 1st is the first day of school.
That is correct.
Well, I had to check on the calendar.
I wasn't sure myself.
I was like, wow.
It's like, OK.
Yeah.
Well, September 1st is a Tuesday.
So this is the latest Labor Day could possibly be.
That's always the first Monday of September.
All right.
Well, I'm sure the kids and also the staff are excited about returning to school for 26 27 Indeed
indeed.
It's funny at the I would say also parents are probably excited for the kids to start school usually at the in June the the excitement level from staff is pretty high and kids is very high and then
in the in the fall sometimes there's a little bit of a shift but we're definitely excited to welcome everybody back and kick off another great school year for sure.
All right well Ron thank you for joining us this morning appreciate your time.
Yeah hey as always I appreciate it Bob.
We've been talking with Ron Rivard who is the superintendent of the Rippon area school district.
At this time joining us.
So we have a Joe then hyzen who's vice president of membership and resource development for Envision Greater Fonda lack good morning
Good morning.
How you doing
sir?
I'm good nice sunny day finally air quality might be Normal or it's almost normal.
So
hard to remember what normal is yeah
nine days of having that Canadian wildfire smoke.
So anyway, um
What are we talking about today, Joe?
What do you want to talk about?
Well, there's always something to talk about.
I think in light of the nice weather here, maybe I can plug our upcoming golf outing in Wappan.
I think that that's a good thing for people to have on their radar because it is golf season after all.
OK.
Tell us about
it.
So we've been doing this outing for a number of years now.
But it actually goes back further than Envision because this is an outing that the WAPON Chamber has done for many years.
And when Envision Greater Fond du Lac merged with the WAPON Chamber to form the WAPON Business Alliance, this is one of those keynote events that we've continued on.
So it's a great outing.
It serves, of course, the WAPON community, but it's open to all.
And it's a good gathering of the business community.
at a really good course.
If anybody's listening that hasn't golfed the rock in Wappan, it's a
really
wonderful course.
It's a good challenging one.
Two distinctly different nines, so wood and then a link style.
But we always were proud of putting on a very good outing.
lot of prizes that folks can win, a lot of networking opportunities.
That's really what we're trying to set the stage for at Envision is building connections across our membership base and across business to business types of relationships.
And so our outing is really focused on that.
So it has a solid function for those who are in business.
Okay.
So when is it now?
Yeah, this year we're backing it up a little bit in the calendar.
We're going to be on Friday, September 11th.
And that will be in conjunction with, this is the exciting part, in conjunction with Waupon's Volksfest, which kicks off that Friday for the weekend.
So Volksfest under the Big Ten in Waupon on the west side, around the east side of town.
That one has been going for a number of years, a whole
epic German festival, great food, great music.
What we decided this year was come play in the golf outing and then when your round is finished we'll send you right over to Volksfest with a ticket for a drink and a sandwich and then we'll do our awards over there and we'll just keep the party going.
So I just looked at the lineup.
I think we have a band from three to
three to five.
I can't remember the name of them, like the Something Dutchman, I think.
Yeah, exactly.
And Wopan, that's a safe bet.
Maybe they just rebranded just for the day, because they know they're playing Wopan.
But no, that one sounded interesting.
And I think Copper Box starts in the evening, starting at about seven.
So there should be a good crowd.
Volkswagen is a great festival for anybody who hasn't attended.
But
Here's a good way to get your first drink there for free and your sandwich.
Come play in the outing, make some good connections, and then head right over and keep the party going.
So you don't have to dress and leader hose into play golf, do you?
I think we should give a prize if anybody does.
I think that would really be a nice... I'd pay to see it.
With with the hats and with the feathers in them and everything right so
And if you want to come play some polka music out on the course Bob, we'd be happy to have you I think it'd be a fun addition to the whole the whole vibe of the
day Oh, so after nine you serve beer and pretzels, right?
There we go All right, so I imagine you have to register do you register as an individual are you doing four sums?
What's what's the story?
Yeah, you could do either.
Preferably you bring your team with you, but we're happy to make connections as well.
If you want to register as a TUSM or even a single, we can get you paired with people.
Again, the whole point of our outings is networking, and so we make a big focus on that, and we'll try to get you on teams that make some sense if there's other individuals or TUSMs that would make sense for you to spend the day playing with.
But we're also very open or we're very encouraging of sponsors to participate.
So if you're listening now and you think, yeah, I'd like to be part of that.
I'm not a golfer.
We're happy to take you because, for example, the other outing that we just ran in Fond du Lac, we had 17 of the 18 tee boxes had someone sitting there under a canopy ready to network.
And so it really adds to the experience of the day when you know you have somebody to talk to, even when you're waiting for the team in front of you, there's always somebody to be networking with.
And it provides a lot of value for a sponsor to know that you're going to be talking, you're going to have a captive audience of over a hundred business people coming through the table that you set up throughout the day.
OK, so imagine you can register on the Envision website.
You will be able to.
Actually, I'm coming off a three-day vacation here, Bob, so I don't know if it's live yet or not, but it is on our website.
It should be live, but you just go to our events calendar, check on that date on September, Friday, September 11th.
You see that there, click on it, and then the registration should be right through the website.
Otherwise, you can always call.
We're always available for a phone call.
nine two zero nine two one ninety five hundred and i would be happy to answer your questions that way
well i thought the game of golf was all about networking anyway right
that's what i tell my wife yeah i want her to know that it's all business you know that if i happen to enjoy myself that's just a nice byproduct but really we're there for business you know
all right uh... joe anything else that you wanted to uh... promote as far as envision those
I think we talked a little while back about a new benefit that we have for our members that
can
help save folks money on health insurance as an employer who provides health insurance benefit
or maybe
wants
to
get into providing health insurance benefits.
That's still out there and we'd love for more people to consider it.
It does offer real cost savings for you in light of big increases that are out there in the market right now.
So there's two programs that you can take advantage of.
You can find those on our website.
But if you're interested in just talking a little bit about it, we have a great opportunity coming up on August 18th at the Hoya Hop House in Mopon, where we have an info session starting at 3.30.
And then our regular networking business connection after that.
So come to the brewery, have a drink, talk about this insurance program, see if it might be a fit for you.
And if it's not,
All you're out is an hour of your time and you get a free beer, so I don't see the downside in that.
All right, Joe, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
Appreciate that.
Thanks for having me.
And we've been talking with Joe Van Heisen, who is the VP of Membership and Resource Development for InVisionGrader Fond du Lac.