It's Wayne Mauser, local news.
Good morning.
I'm Wayne Mauser for Civic Media News.
Appledon police say a tragedy was miraculously avoided after the driver and two children were uninjured in a rollover crash.
The crash happened sometime last week, but Appledon police released information on Saturday.
Officers found the car flipped over on its roof laying in a ditch off the highway.
The kids were in the back seat.
Police say the children were sitting in improperly installed car seats but without injuries.
The children and the driver were evaluated at a local hospital.
Following an investigation, the driver was arrested and confined on charges of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing injury, second offense with a minor child in the vehicle, operating while revoked, failure to install ignition interlock device, possession of open intoxicants in a motor vehicle, and violation
of child safety restraints.
The OWI charge means this is the suspect's second offense.
Having a minor child in the vehicle is an aggravating factor, meaning potential fines or jail time could be doubled.
Police highlighted the crash to implore everyone not to drink and drive.
75 veterans who served during the global war on terror are back home after a four-day retreat to New York to see a number of historic sites.
The veterans left the Fox Valley Thursday for what organizers called a mission of healing.
They returned home Sunday after a trip that gave them a chance to reflect on their own service while connecting with people who have lived through some of these same experiences.
The veterans visited the 9-1-1 Memorial and Museum, the Freedom Tower, and the Statue of Liberty.
said the retreat was never meant to be just a free trip to New York.
The veterans also shared meals, stories, and time together, building connections with people who understand the bond that comes from serving.
They also spent time with 9-11 first responders hearing their stories of service, loss, and resilience.
Organizers said the goal of the retreat was to celebrate the veterans and their families while helping them find a healthier path forward.
The 27-year-old Marcus Ann woman suspected of driving a UTV during a fatal accident was bound over for trial during a preliminary hearing in Green Lake County Court on Thursday.
Megan Zimmerman was also arraigned, pleading not guilty to two counts of homicide by the intoxicated use of a vehicle and one count of first-degree recklessly endangering safety.
The April 18 crash led to the deaths of Nicole Dever and Timothy Camphouse of Fairwater and injured Christopher Keller of Riffin.
The crash occurred on Princeton Road near Honeysuckle on November 19.
The 33-year-old Watoma woman suspected of shooting her boyfriend to death was bound over for trial during a preliminary hearing in Washera County Court on Friday.
Christo Masiaga is charged with first degree intentional homicide.
A not guilty plea was also ordered.
According to the criminal complaint, she called 911 the night of July 9th from a home on 19th Avenue in the town of Marion.
A deputy found a 28-year-old man lying just inside the door with what appeared to be gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen.
Despite life-saving efforts, he died.
Masiaga told deputies the two had fought over the gun and it went off.
But investigators found multiple shell casings in the home.
A handgun Masiaga had recently purchased
and text messages from the victim who feared she was going to kill him.
Detective Seimas, Heaga's statements didn't match the physical evidence.
A status conference is scheduled in the case on November 23rd.
An attorney for the 37-year-old Wild Rose Mann, who fled to Utah after stabbing and killing his grandmother, says a psychiatric evaluation supports his client's plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Randy Jenks' lawyer revealed as much during a hearing in Washera County Court Friday,
Drinks is facing one count of first-degree intentional homicide.
District Attorney Matthew Lucic will likely ask for a second evaluation during hearing this Friday.
According to the criminal complaint, police were called to a Mount Morris home to do a welfare check on a 75-year-old woman.
They found Patricia May Glenn lying on the floor with dry blood around her.
Relatives told police Drinks confessed to the murder.
According to the complaint, a relative told investigators Drinks said his grandmother had, quote,
pushed him too far."
Drinks had been living in his grandmother's home for more than a year.
He fled to Langdon, Utah, where he has relatives.
He was arrested there on March 8th, a day after his grandmother was found deceased.
Acting on tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Dodge County Sheriff's Department investigated two men suspected of possessing child pornography.
Charges were requested from the DA's office against 60-year-old John Bauer of Mayville and 42-year-old Jason Van Dyke of Burnett.
Bauer made his initial appearance in Dodge County Court Wednesday on three counts of possession of child porn.
He's free on a $3,000 signature bond.
Van Dyke also made his initial appearance in Dodge County Court on Wednesday.
He also faces three counts of possession of child porn.
He's being held in the Dodge County Jail on a $10,000 cash bond and will be back in court Thursday for a preliminary hearing.
The Ripon Public Library, in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin Extension Fond du Lac County, will offer a six-week course on end-of-life planning called Planning Ahead.
Bob Nelson has more about the program.
The program will be held at the Rippon Senior Activity Center from 10 to 11 30 a.m.
each Wednesday beginning October 7th and running through November 11th.
Adult and teen services librarian Susie Mink says the program will cover six different topics related to end-of-life decisions.
So financial stability and thinking about how you're taking care of your finances
funeral planning, grief, estate planning, all those types of things that you would be talking about at the end of your life.
You have to register if you want to participate in the program.
You can call 920-906-4622 or register online.
More information is available on the library's events calendar for October.
I'm Bob Nelson for Civic Media News.
I'm Wayne Mauser reporting for Civic Media News.
For Civic Media News, I'm Connie Feldman.
The NFL has sidelined Packers running back Josh Jacobs while criminal charges against him move through the court.
Jacobs is now on the commissioner's exempt list so he cannot practice or attend games with Green Bay.
He was charged Thursday with misdemeanor battery and criminal damage to property following a May arrest.
Jacobs denies the accusations.
His lawyers say he intends to return to the Packers and the NFL after the review is finished.
Two teenage boys died Saturday when their car went off the road and hit a tree in Marinette County.
Marinette Sheriff's deputies say the crash happened shortly before 11 p.m.
on County Highway G east of Crivets.
They say the teen driver lost control on a curve, went into a ditch, and hit a tree.
The Sheriff's office identified the driver as 16-year-old Landon England from Menominee, Michigan.
17-year-old Princeton Welty from Crivets was also killed in the crash.
A nationwide bench warrant has been issued for an Eau Claire woman who failed to appear at her sentencing hearing on charges of child neglect.
Civic media's James Kelly has more.
According to court documents, 36-year-old Tony Hammons was scheduled to appear in court on August 28 for sentencing after pleading no contests to four counts of chronic neglect of a child as party to a crime.
An investigation was launched after school employees reported malnourishment concerns with her four children.
Their step-parent, Mary Bentley Orem, was also sentenced to over four years in prison in October.
I'm James Kelly for Civic Media News.
Online court records show an attorney has had periodic contact with Hammons in the last week.
More state tax money than expected could leave Wisconsin with a nearly $3 billion surplus.
However, there's still no agreement on how to use it.
New figures show tax collections rose 3.4% from the year before and came in about 2% higher than projected.
Republican budget leaders say they want to revisit tax relief and property tax help, along with the support for schools.
75 veterans who served during the global war on terror are back home in Wisconsin after a four-day mission of healing retreat.
The veterans left the Fox Valley last Thursday to tour the 9-11 Memorial and Museum in New York, along with the Freedom Tower and Statue of Liberty.
Organizers say the trip is a chance for veterans to reflect on their own service, while sharing the bond that comes with those who've lived through some of the same experiences.
The trip is offered at no cost to veterans as a way to celebrate the veterans and their families, organizers say, while helping them find a healthier path forward.
Heavy rain on Saturday brought IndyCar's only double-header of the season to a halt at the Milwaukee Mile on Saturday, intensifying rain forced drivers off the track on lap 90.
Race 1 was delayed further by storms yesterday morning, but did eventually resume, and drivers completed both races yesterday.
That Saturday soaker was a precursor to a hot and humid weather pattern setting in across our state.
National Weather Service forecasters say it'll be hot and stormy over the next few days in much of Wisconsin.
Temps are expected to be in the upper 80s and 90s with chances for scattered afternoon and evening storms.
More details coming up in weather.
And that's your state news update.
I'm Connie Feldman for Civic Media News.
It's the Cubs and the Brewers.
Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with sports where the Brewers opening a four game series tonight in Wrigley Field against the Cubs.
Milwaukee with an eight game lead over Chicago heading into tonight's game.
And yet the crew is still not a favorite in the postseason manager Pat Murphy.
People like to say we're the underdogs.
Well, that's fine.
We're just trying to say we have to play a certain way.
The expectation can't be we got a better record than them.
So we're better at this, this and this.
We have to play a certain way.
And yeah, it'll be a great opportunity.
to be a great environment.
The Cubs losing at home last night to the Reds seven of five Cubs manager Craig Council.
Three home runs are going to kill you in the start.
I mean that's just too many.
You're not you're not having a good start if you give up three home runs.
You got to limit that part of the game.
NFL the Packers made some trades at the deadline yesterday to form a 53 man roster.
They added running back Caleb Johnson from the Steelers and tight end Mark Redman from the Rams.
They gave up quarterback Kyle McCord to the Dolphins for a future six round pick with sports.
Mike Clemens.
Mostly sunny today with a high right around 85 this afternoon.
Tonight partly cloudy 72 tomorrow sunshine 85 and then we do have a chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms on Tuesday night into Wednesday.
I'm meteorologist Sean Cable.
Local news, local sports and local people you know.
Your hometown station 93.1
and
AM 1600 The Wave.
Adam Sontag, the city administrator for the city of Rippon is joining us this morning.
Good morning, Adam.
Good morning.
Thanks for having me again.
I appreciate you coming in.
Of course.
The city is looking at an energy plan or actually developed an energy plan.
I guess this was a couple years in the making, maybe?
About maybe a little less than a year.
We had applied for funding through the Public Service Commission.
through what is called a Rural Energy Startup Program, R-E-S-P.
So the PSC gave us an R-E-S-P grant for $75,000 to complete our first energy plan and really the idea was to look up
Look at the city's current energy consumption And find areas and where we you know can save money become more efficient The city has executed plans in the past right or projects in the past we've you know
taken street lights and made them LED.
We've retrofitted LED in terms of, you know, lighting and buildings, all that stuff.
So some smaller projects.
But what we sort of learned during some of the projects we've been doing, whether it's senior activity center, library, public works building, all of those buildings are built to be really efficient.
But
we didn't really have a chance in the design there to talk a lot about renewables or how
kind of go that next step beyond just designing an efficient building.
So the study and the plan really was kind of setting us up for the future as to making energy planning a bigger priority for
projects as well as just kind of reviewing what we were currently doing.
So there's a presentation done.
We contracted with a company out of Green Bay called GDS and Associates.
They do a lot of energy planning across the state.
for schools and municipalities and private businesses and Generally speaking, you know the they looked at you know our newer buildings and said these have all been designed and are operating really efficiently You could probably could tweak some things, but generally speaking pretty good They looked at our wastewater treatment plant, which is our by far our largest energy user and they looked at
our city hall, which city hall is is not very efficient.
It's been built on three different times.
So we looked at other projects like solar.
We looked at our fleet as well and making sure we are looking at renewable options there because, you know, our squad cars don't get a lot of miles per gallon, right?
They're idling a lot of the things we can do there.
And then we have, you know, one vehicle like a Maverick that's
partial hybrid and that thing can get up to 60, 70 miles per gallon at times.
So, you know, right, right, getting the right vehicle for the, the actual use.
So it's more efficient.
So that was presented.
Some good information in there is also information for the public.
We wanted to make it more outreach as well and provide resources for.
businesses and community members, whether it's focus on energy, financing grants, things like that that are available for people to maybe become more energy efficient as well.
Our view from the city's perspective, we've done some things that have...
been more efficient, but the cost of electricity is going to do nothing but likely go up.
So what can we do to at least kind of, you know, stabilize that for ourselves in our budgets and in our spending?
So this was like a a ten-year plan.
Yeah about ten-year planning had different suggestions and in projects and then what it allows us to do is is basically build off of this grant the PSC then has other grants and So you can you can apply once you have the plan to actually implement a project So we'll look next into you know, what makes sense You know, it's it's not like we're gonna go all and buy you know a bunch of electric vehicles for our
Public Works Department, it's not like we're gonna go put putting up solar everywhere But where this makes sense and over time Where where we can implement and track things and and make you know the right investment.
We'll we'll use this plan as kind of another Checkbox right to make sure when we're planning a project or we see a problem.
We can address it
Okay Another thing that is being done is kind of a revamp of the city's zoning code
yes it's been uh that's been over a year in in the making but yes the um the city contracted about a year plus ago to um work on a zoning code update and really there's there's not a lot changing in terms of the the content of the zoning code it's more formatting um there are certainly um
You know some challenges within the current zoning code how it reads and how people like you know just have to interact with it.
It's just pages upon pages and it Contradicts itself and it's been basically added upon and you know cobbled together over
30 plus years right so kind of resetting it all into more Easier to use format that's more searchable or table-ized and then just looking at some of the uses and Making sure it makes sense where we're what we're allowing in certain districts and what we're not allowing what's permitted what's required a conditional use You know making sure definitions make sense for today versus you know
It's just like, you know, work from home, for example, versus home occupations versus a residential business activity.
There's a lot of different little things.
So the council or the plan commission held a public hearing in August.
The common council reviewed the initial changes last week.
And then in early September, we'll look at the full package.
Okay.
So when this comes to development, this is a way for the city to make sure that everything is zoned properly.
Yeah, it provides the framework for how we we develop as a community so the zoning code is uses right land use So it at times maybe makes it more easier for development Other times it maybe makes it more challenging for you know obvious reasons You don't want to make you know you want complementary development and complementary uses so you don't have conflicts
Um, so generally speaking, you have your residential districts or commercial districts.
Uh, you have your industrial districts and in some conservancy institutional and it's, it's enough.
None of that's really changing.
It's just some of the, the uses within those are changing in terms of what's allowed and what's required for a conditional use and then what's not allowed.
We talked a little bit about the Pacific street bridge, not in great detail.
Yeah.
But the city has been awarded a major grant to correct this bridge problem.
Yeah, so the Pacific Street Bridge is our lowest rated bridge.
We've been a few years back, we had an engineering assessment done of all of our creek crossings, right?
Not everything is a bridge, but it's considered a bridge.
It's very bizarre, right?
We have, I think, 13 or so bridges in the city.
or crossings.
I believe three or four of those are DOT rated which means they are 20 foot span or more and if you're 20 foot span or more you're allowed to obtain funding to rebuild bridges at an 80-20 grant through the state and they have a program and they've had this program for a long time.
That leaves like eight or nine bridges in the city that are under 20 feet that basically are the cities to fund, right?
So Pacific Street being one of those East Jackson is one of them State Street Bridge.
We reconstructed a few years ago It was a few thousand dollar project and that was just kind of two box culverts, but there's utilities and other things, right?
So it gets pretty expensive pretty quickly, but Pacific Street Bridge was by far the the lowest rated bridges Rated a two and the state came out with what's called the local small structure improvement program and that program was at a 90-10
And what the state recognized is that they had a lot of bridges that weren't eligible for that other program, right?
Pacific Street Bridge is only 19 feet.
It's one foot short, right?
Not eligible, right?
Yet a bridge right down the road on Eureka is eligible because it's 20 plus feet.
So we rewarded $1.6 million at a 90-10.
split with the state will work on finalizing those plans over the next couple of years.
We'll also look at Pacific Street as that's been on our capital plan as the road is pretty rough shaped.
There's other utilities there.
There's lift stations.
There's property acquisition.
There's floodplain considerations that need to be made.
So it's a pretty major project.
So it's pretty expensive.
And we obviously put inflationary impacts in there as well.
So hopefully it comes in under that number.
and in total we hope to do a pretty big project there all together.
The bridge is just sort of the first funded piece of that and we'll begin planning that out.
So as you can see there now there's a couple like blocks on the side and it's kind of shrunken and that's because somebody hit one of the posts or the guardrails on the side and we couldn't actually repair it because we would have to like
repair the entire bridge.
We couldn't put it back the way it was because that's not how you're supposed to build a bridge anymore.
Just how they constructed it previously is not compliant and not safe.
So the condition continues to fail.
It's still safe to cross at this point, and we would assume by the time we repair it, it'll still be safe to cross, but certainly it has seen better days.
And it's 60, 70 plus years old, I believe, some of the elements of the bridge.
So that's one, we still have eight more to tackle over time.
So we hope the state continues to fund these programs because they are very helpful and these things are not cheap, and we have a number of them in our community.
Adam, thank you for joining us.
Of course.
Thank
you.
Appreciate it.
We've been talking with Adam Sontag, who is the city administrator for the city of Rippon.
Adam Sontag, the city administrator for the city of Rippon is joining us this morning.
Good morning, Adam.
Good morning.
Thanks for having me again.
I
appreciate you coming in.
Of course.
The city is looking at an energy plan or actually developed an energy plan.
I guess this was a couple years in the making, maybe?
Maybe a little less than a year.
We had applied for funding through the Public Service Commission.
through what is called like a rural, I think enterprise, sorry, rural energy startup program, RESP.
So the PSC gave us an RESP grant for $75,000 to complete our first energy plan.
And really the idea was to look at the city's current energy consumption and find areas in where we
you know, can save money, become more efficient.
The city has executed plans in the past, right, or projects in the past.
We've, you know, taken street lights and made them LED.
We've retrofitted LED in terms of, you know, light lighting and buildings, all that stuff.
So some smaller projects.
But what we sort of learned during some of the projects we've been doing, whether it's senior activity center, library, public works building, all of those buildings are built to be really
efficient, but we didn't really have a chance in the design there to talk a lot about renewables or how to kind of go that next step beyond just designing an efficient building.
So the study and the plan really was kind of setting us up for the future as to making energy planning a bigger priority for
projects as well as just kind of reviewing what we were currently doing.
So there's a presentation done.
We contracted with a company out of Green Bay called GDS and Associates.
They do a lot of energy planning across the state.
for schools and municipalities and private businesses and Generally speaking, you know the they looked at you know our newer buildings and said these have all been designed and are operating really efficiently You could probably could tweak some things, but generally speaking pretty good They looked at our wastewater treatment plant, which is our by far our largest energy user and they looked at
our city hall, which city hall is not very efficient.
It's been built on three different times.
So we looked at other projects like solar.
We looked at our fleet as well and making sure we are looking at renewable options there because, you know, our squad cars don't get a lot of miles per gallon, right?
They're idling a lot and the things we can do there.
And then we have, you know, one vehicle like a Maverick that's
partial hybrid and that thing can get up to 60, 70 miles per gallon at times.
So, you know, right, right, getting the right vehicle for the, the actual use.
So it's more efficient.
So that was presented some good information in there.
Is it also information for the public?
We wanted to make it more outreach as well and provide resources for.
businesses and community members, whether it's focus on energy, financing grants, things like that that are available for people to maybe become more energy efficient as well.
Our view from the city's perspective, we've done some things that have...
been more efficient, but the cost of electricity is going to do nothing but likely go up.
So what can we do to at least kind of stabilize that for ourselves in our budgets and in our spending?
So this was like a 10-year plan?
Yeah, it's about a 10-year plan.
It had different suggestions and projects.
And then what it allows us to do is basically build off of this grant.
The PSC then has other grants.
And so you can apply once you have the plan to actually implement a project.
So we'll look next into what makes sense.
It's not like we're going to go all in by a bunch of electric vehicles for our
Public Works Department, it's not like we're gonna go putting up solar everywhere, but where this makes sense and over time Where where we can implement and track things and and make you know the right investment we'll use this plan as kind of another Checkbox right to make sure when we're planning a project or we see a problem.
We can address it
Okay Another thing that is being done is kind of a revamp of the city's zoning code
yes it's been uh that's been over a year in in the making but yes the um the city contracted about a year plus ago to um work on a zoning code update and really there's there's not a lot changing in terms of the the content of the zoning code it's more formatting um there are certainly um
You know some challenges within the current zoning code how it reads and how people like you know just have to interact with it.
It's just pages upon pages and it Contradicts itself and it's been basically added upon and you know cobbled together over
30 plus years right so kind of resetting it all into more Easier to use format that's more searchable or table-ized and then just looking at some of the uses and Making sure it makes sense where we're what we're allowing in certain districts and what we're not allowing what's permitted what's required a conditional use You know making sure definitions make sense for today versus you know
It's just like, you know, work from home, for example, versus home occupations versus a residential business activity.
There's a lot of different little things.
So the council or the plan commission held a public hearing in August.
The common council reviewed the initial changes last week.
And then in early September, we'll look at the full package.
Okay.
So when this comes to development, this is a way for the city to make sure that everything is zoned properly.
Yeah, it provides the framework for how we we develop as a community so the zoning code is uses right land use So it at times maybe makes it more easier for development other times it maybe makes it more challenging for you know obvious reasons You don't want to make you know, you want complementary development and complementary uses so you don't have conflicts So generally speaking you have your residential districts your commercial districts
You have your industrial districts and then some conservancy institutional and it's it's enough none of that's really changing It's just some of the the uses within those are changing in terms of what's allowed and what's required for conditional use and then what's not allowed
We talked a little bit about the Pacific Street bridge not in Great detail.
Yeah, but the city has been awarded a major grant to
Correct this bridge problem.
Yeah, so the Pacific Street bridge is our lowest rated bridge We've been a few years back We had an engineering assessment done of all of our creek crossings right not everything is a bridge, but it's considered a bridge
It's very it's very bizarre, right?
We have I think 13 or so bridges in the city or crossings I believe three or four of those are DOT rated which means they are 20 foot span or more and if you're 20 foot span or more you're allowed to obtain funding to rebuild bridges at an 80 20 grant through the state and I have a program and I've had this program for a long time that leaves like eight or nine bridges in the city that are under
20 feet that you basically are the cities to fund, right?
So Pacific Street being one of those East Jackson is one of them State Street Bridge.
We reconstructed a few years ago.
It was a few thousand dollar project and that was just kind of two box culverts, but there's utilities and other things, right?
So it gets pretty expensive pretty quickly, but Pacific Street Bridge was by far the lowest rated bridges rated a two and the state came out with what's called the local small structure improvement program and that program was at a 90-10
And what the state recognized is that they had a lot of bridges that weren't eligible for that other program, right?
Pacific Street Bridge is only 19 feet.
It's one foot short, right?
Not eligible, right?
Yet a bridge right down the road on Eureka is eligible because it's 20 plus feet.
So we were awarded $1.6 million at a 90-10.
split with the state.
We'll work on finalizing those plans over the next couple of years.
We'll also look at Pacific Street as that's been on our capital plan.
The road is pretty in rough shape.
There's other utilities there.
There's lift stations.
There's property acquisition.
There's floodplain considerations that need to be made.
So it's a pretty major project.
So it's pretty expensive.
And we obviously put inflationary impacts in there as well.
So hopefully it comes in under that number.
and in total we hope to do a pretty big project there all together.
The bridge is just sort of the first funded piece of that and we'll begin planning that out.
So as you can see there now there's a couple like blocks on the side and it's kind of shrunken and that's because somebody hit one of the posts or the guardrails on the side and we couldn't actually repair it because we would have to like
repair the entire bridge.
We couldn't put it back the way it was because that's not how you're supposed to build a bridge anymore.
Just how they constructed it previously is not compliant and not safe.
So the condition continues to fail.
It's still safe to cross at this point, and we would assume by the time we repair it, it'll still be safe to cross, but certainly it has seen better days.
And it's 60, 70 plus years old, I believe, some of the elements of the bridge.
So that's one, we still have eight more to tackle over time.
So we hope the state continues to fund these programs because they are very helpful, and these things are not cheap, and we have a number of them in our community.
Adam, thank you for joining us.
Of course.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
We've been talking with Adam Sontag, who is the city administrator for the city of Rippon.