State Headlines From Wisconsin Public Radio, October 21
High School Changes: No Math Or English, But Vocations
By Shawn Johnson, Wisconsin Public Radio
High schools would be allowed to drop math and English graduation requirements to set up vocational-only diplomas under a bill being backed by Gov. Scott Walker.
The plan in the governor's special session on jobs would let local school boards decide their own curricula and create vocational diplomas that carry the same weight as regular high school degrees. Oshkosh Assembly Republican Michelle Litjens supported the change at a public hearing. She says right now students don't always see a connection between the classes they're taking and the labor market, "And sometimes they're right. For the student who doesn't have the desire to pursue a higher education, who just doesn't want to sit still in an English class anymore, why are they there?"
Democratic sponsor Mark Radcliffe of Black River Falls says learning a trade should not be looked down upon, "We have to be realistic---I mean just be real about it. These kids if they have an opportunity to switch that out with something, they should have that opportunity. Not every kid fits the same mold."
But while the plan enjoys some bipartisan support, it also has lawmakers from both parties wary. Baraboo Democrat Fred Clark says he's all for expanding vocational education, "But how do we assure a student that the welding skills that they may have traded off for reduced time learning to read and write are going to be valuable for them 20 years out."
And Hudson Republican Dean Knudson says he's leery of dropping English graduation requirements. He says modern workers need it, "You're going to have to read the operating manual for the new machine that just came or write the manual if you're creating that machine."
The state Department of Public Instruction also testified against the plan, saying it would create a two-tiered system of education. And representatives from the tech college system warned that many businesses want their employees to understand English and math.
Winter To Be Colder, Snowier
By Mike Simonson, Wisconsin Public Radio
The winter forecast is out from the NOAA. They say Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan will have a colder and snowier winter than usual.
For folks who prefer snowier and colder…this is great news. Bayfield County’s Howling Wolf Resort owner Cheryl Peterson loves it. She’s hoping to do a good snowmobiling business.
“Hopefully if we get some good snow, we can have a business and save on the heating bill a little bit,” Peterson says.
More snow means more insulation. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Center Deputy Director Mike Halpert says the national picture is warmer and drier in the drought-plagued Southern Plains and wetter and colder for the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes states. Lower water temperatures in the Pacific will cause the La Nina effect, so Halpert says it isn’t good news.
“No, it’s not. I guess it’s not that surprising since last winter we were dealing with a moderate to even strong La Nina and we’ve seen the redevelopment of the La Nina. That does play a large role in our winter weather. So back to back La Nina years,” Halpert says.
More snow could also mean more flooding next spring in the Northern Plains states. Whatever the outcome, National Weather Service Warning Meteorologist Carol Christenson in Duluth says she’s looking forward to it.
“Every winter in this area is interesting, so yes, I am,” Christenson says.
The other option is Hawaii…which NOAA says will be warmer than normal.
Collective Bargaining Lawsuit Dismissed
By Shawn Johnson, Wisconsin Public Radio
The lawsuit that temporarily blocked Wisconsin's collective bargaining law earlier this year has been officially dismissed.
The fanfare over this case disappeared after the state Supreme Court ruled it could not be used to stop the collective bargaining plan from becoming law. But the underlying complaint remained alive even after that ruling. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne still wanted to charge Republican legislative leaders with violating Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law. He said they should still be fined for breaking the law in their haste to pass the collective bargaining plan.
But Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi issued an order that takes full effect today that officially dismissed the case. Her reason? Because of the legislature's constitutional immunity from civil lawsuits during session, Sumi said the lawmakers being charged were never properly served.
District Attorney Ozanne says that constitutional immunity makes it hard to enforce the open meetings law against any legislators, "At some level how can you hold the members of the body liable when the body itself is exempt."
Ozanne supports amending the Constitution so that the Open Meetings Law applies to legislators in the same way it applies to other public officials.
Even if Ozanne's complaint against legislators had proceeded, the stakes were nowhere near as high as they were earlier this year. The maximum fine someone can get for breaking the Open Meetings Law is $300.
Sex Education Requirements Could Change
By Teresa Shipley, Wisconsin Public Radio
Wisconsin legislators are introducing a bill that would change the way school districts are required teach sex education to students.
Republican Sen. Mary Lazich of New Berlin co-authored the bill. She says it'll give school districts more local control than they currently have about what to teach, "Curriculum in a Madison classroom may not be the best practice in a Superior classroom. Current law does not recognize flexibility for school districts. Rather the law tells local officials that regard less of the parent and school district needs, they must teach this issue the way the state government mandates," Lazich says.
Wisconsin's current law says that if districts teach sex ed, they must provide certain information, including contraceptive use, abstinence and how to deal with abuse.
Lazich's bill would allow schools to design their own curriculums without having to adhere to current state standards. It also puts a stronger focus on teaching abstinence.
Democratic Rep. Tamara Grigsby of Milwaukee authored the current law that requires comprehensive sexual education. She says Lazich's bill would be a step backward, "We are not looking at science, we are not looking at what works. We are not looking at what's best for communities. I mean, are we seriously calling this the 'Strong Communities, Healthy Kids Act?' We're not looking at that. We're looking at partisan politics here and radical agendas. We're not looking at what's best for our children."
Sen. Lazich says her bill won't prevent school districts from continuing to teach comprehensive sex ed, it just doesn't require them to do so.
State Assembly Says 'No' To Earn-A-Buck
By Shawn Johnson, Wisconsin Public Radio
A plan headed to the governor's desk would end the hunting program known as Earn-a-Buck in Wisconsin.
Earn-a-Buck requires hunters to shoot a doe before they can shoot a buck, the aim being controlling overpopulation of Wisconsin's deer herd. While it's not used everywhere or every year by the Department of Natural Resources, Hazelhurst Republican Tom Tiffany says it should never be used again, "All you have to do is listen to the hunters out there and they'll tell you how much they detested this program."
But critics say Earn-a-Buck is one of the state's best tools for controlling overpopulation and there will be consequences to ending it. Trempealeau Democrat Chris Danou noted that the agriculture and forestry industries want to keep the program because deer damage hurts their crops, "Once you pass this bill and you start getting complaints about ag damage and damage to the forestry industry and everything else, you own it."
The plan to end Earn-a-Buck passed the Assembly on a bipartisan 64-to-33 vote. Gov. Scott Walker supported ending the program while a candidate.
Immigration Enforcement Raises Questions
By Gilman Halsted, Wisconsin Public Radio
Two recent immigration enforcement operations in Wisconsin have raised questions about how federal agents target illegal immigrants for arrest.
In July, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, arrested 30 Milwaukee men on immigration violations. The agency claimed all of them had gang affiliations. But immigration attorney Erich Straub says three men who contacted him after their arrests didn't fit that profile, "None of the three of them had been involved in gang activity, two of them had no activity on their record whatsoever very, very minimal contact with law enforcement. So we were very concerned when we saw that operation. It was sort of an example of ICE running amok so to speak. "
In late September ICE arrested 34 more immigrants in Wisconsin. Straub's office got no calls for help after that raid. He says that could be the result of a new policy announced in June by ICE director John Morton. It called for more discretion in arresting immigrants who don't pose a public safety risk. But Straub says the union representing ICE agents is speaking out against this softer policy.
In a recent article in The New Republic Union leader Chris Crane called his supervisors "a bunch of attorneys who never put handcuffs on anybody." Straub says that's a sign that the agency is at war with itself, "On numerous occasions over the last couple of years I have had ICE officers openly express dissatisfaction or outright antagonism towards decisions made by judicial officers and even take actions that were contrary to those orders."
Straub says that's surprising given that ICE is deporting people at a rate ten percent higher now than under the Bush administration.
Storm Damage Set At $2.7 Million
By Mike Simonson, Wisconsin Public Radio
The first state disaster money from the July 1 timber blow-down storm in northwestern Wisconsin is going to Burnett County. Five towns will get a total of $191,000. That's still just a drop in the bucket for communities in Burnett, Washburn and Douglas Counties. Overall clean-up costs from that storm are estimated at $2.7 million.
Meanwhile, the cost of the nearly 100,000 acre fire in northern Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area has been released. It's more than $21 million.
U.S. Forest Service Team spokesman Dave Daniels says the big price tag is because the forest fire is in a national wilderness area, "You can't just drive to the fire because it's a wilderness area and there are no roads. The roads have to do with waterways and lakes and portages and all the rest. So for many of these crews, they've had to learn and be taught safe canoeing skills, believe it or not." More than 900 firefighters were used at the two month old fire's peak which is now 91 percent contained. Daniels, a retired Wisconsin DNR forester from Rhinelander, says the $21 million will be paid for by the U.S. Forest Service, "It goes through Forest Service accounts but at the end of the day, it's all of us taxpayers."
Eventually, Mother Nature is expected to finish this fire. Daniels says they've seen their first snowflakes this week.
Walker Predicts Job Growth
By Shamane Mills, Wisconsin Public Radio
Gov. Walker says within six months to a year Wisconsin's unemployment rate will go down as jobs are created. But one critic predicts the jobless rate will be higher because of the administration's policies. Gov. Walker has been holding roundtable discussions with invited guests representing industries that he says create jobs. The latest forum was in a Madison research park and included realtors, builders, health executives and a dairy group. At least two speakers called for a regulatory conformity.
Gov. Walker says this could stabilize the business climate, but what matters to the public, he says, is whether jobs are created, "In the end people want results. And so six months, a year from now, as more jobs are created in the state of Wisconsin hopefully because of the things we've done because of the things to become more stable here"
Outside the governor's job forum were critics of budget policies they say will result in 15,000 jobs lost. The bulk of those are in the private sector, according to Jack Norman from the Institute for Wisconsin's Future. He says there's a 'ripple effect' of less spending by state workers contributing more for health care and pension, "You can multiply this all over the state: the social worker or the guard who makes $40,000 a year is going to lose over $70 a week in take home pay. So that's $70 that will not be spent at the local hardware store"
Norman predicts the state's jobless rate could be a half percentage point higher next year largely because of state cuts to local governments. Gov. Walker has pledged to grow jobs in the state by 250,000 within four years.
UW-Madison Accused Of Admissions Bias
By Teresa Shipley, Wisconsin Public Radio
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is defending its admissions policies against a conservative group that says the school is unfairly biased toward minorities. The matter got a hearing Monday at the state Capitol.
Last month Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity in Virginia created a stir when he presented his group's study that found the UW-Madison is more likely to admit African American and Latino students than whites or Asians who may have higher test scores, "Academic qualifications that are required from people of one skin color are different from the academic qualifications that are required from people of a different skin color."
Officials from UW-Madison say Clegg's study is unfairly biased, not the university's admission policies. Paul DeLuca is the school's provost, "No student is accepted solely because of race or ethnicity or any other non-academic factor, for that matter."
UW officials say they have a holistic review process, of which academics is the most important part. But they say many other factors play a role in whether a student is admitted, such as extracurricular activities, teacher recommendations, and race and ethnicity.
This year, UW admitted more than 14,000 freshman. About 1,100 were African American or Hispanic.
Clegg says UW-Madison's policies are illegal under federal law and that he hopes the state legislature will force a change, "And if that doesn't happen, then I hope somebody will sue, and the courts will end this discrimination."
But to Clegg's knowledge, nobody is planning on suing right now. And Republican Rep. Steve Nass who chairs the committee says that he doesn't plan to hold more hearings on the subject, and that he won't introduce legislation to try to change UW's admission policies.
Supreme Court Delays Legal Defense Decision
By Gilman Halsted, Wisconsin Public Radio
The state Supreme Court has postponed a final decision on whether to require judges to appoint lawyers at public expense in civil cases. A majority of the court rejected the petition brought by Legal Action of Wisconsin.
Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson made several attempts to re-word the petition in a way that would give judges full discretion in deciding when to appoint publicly funded lawyers for people too poor to afford one. She said such cases include everything from people facing termination of parental rights for their children to an eviction order from a landlord or mortgage foreclosure by a bank.
But Justice David Prosser said financially strapped counties simply can't afford to pay for the increased number of appointed attorneys such a rule would require, "Just to pass the buck and say this is going to fall on the counties and it's not our job to figure out how they pay for it. I just don't think that's responsible."
Prosser says the court should explore other ways to help people who can't afford an attorney represent themselves in court. That proposal will be taken up at the court's next open conference in November. The court also voted down a series of proposals from Chief Justice Abrahamson aimed at preventing tied votes by the court when one or more justice is unable to sit on a case.
Badger State Games To Continue
By Glen Moberg, Wisconsin Public Radio
The Badger State Winter and Summer Games will take place this year after all, with ownership of the brand transferred from the Madison based Wisconsin Sports Development Corporation to the Wausau Central Wisconsin Visitors Bureau.
Wausau Visitors Bureau executive director Darien Schaeffer made the announcement at a news conference Monday morning, "It's important for us to make sure everybody knows that it's games on, meaning the Badger State Games are on and we are dedicated to making sure that both the winter and summer games move forward and be successful in the future years."
The visitors bureau will not only run the Wausau-based winter games, but will also take over management and marketing for the Fox Valley-based summer games. Dan Doyle, CEO of the Wisconsin Sports Development Corporation, says that was a crucial part of the deal, "Wausau, while you have a grand tradition of operating the winter games, (there's) no association whatsoever with the summer games. No relationships really with the venues, no familiarity with the events. We came up with a formula that we thought would work."
The formula keeps the summer games in their current venues for at least the next three years. The winter games will take place in the Wausau area the first weekend of February. The purchase price of the games was $15,000, with the money funding athletic scholarships. The Sports Development Corporation had announced the end of the games only two months ago.
Norwegian Royalty Wows Wisconsinites
By Jim Leino, Wisconsin Public Radio
Royalty visited the head of the Great Lakes Monday at the highest point of Duluth overlooking Lake Superior. Norwegian King Harald visited the same spot his father and mother appeared 72 years ago.
Tim Stanton from Menomonie says he came to the ceremony because of his long-time Norwegian friend Per Andersen, who lived in Norway until only a few years ago, "We wanted to bring Per up to see the King of Norway. I've never seen the king of Norway, so, oh it's cool! I shouldn't have said it that way! Yeah, it's really interesting."
Linda Oestriech from Minocqua says making the long drive to Duluth was worth it. She says attending the event is an important way to keep in touch with her Norwegian roots, "Oh, our personal connection; I'm very, very proud of my heritage and we enjoy all the customs and celebrations at the holiday-time. Overall, it's just wonderful to carry on."
King Harald says he was moved to be re-dedicating Enger Tower after his parents, Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Martha first dedicated the five story stone landmark in 1939. The King spoke of the impact Lake Superior had on early Norwegian immigrants moving to Minnesota and Wisconsin, "Standing here, I can easily understand why so many Norwegian immigrants decided to settle in this area by the splendid shores of Lake Superior. They must have missed Norway and those they left behind, but I'm sure they found comfort in this peaceful and beautiful landscape."
And a youth ensemble sang traditional Norwegian folk songs to make sure King Harald and Queen Sonya felt at home.
Local Governments Consider Vehicle Registration Tax
By Kristen Durst, Wisconsin Public Radio
Some local governments are considering imposing a "wheel tax" to help balance budgets. But some state lawmakers say that voters, not local governments, should get the final say.
Currently in Wisconsin only the cities of Beloit, Mayville, Milwaukee and the county of St. Croix impose an annual vehicle registration tax, also known as a "wheel tax." Residents with vehicles pay the tax ranging from $10 to $20 on top of their annual registration fee.
The cities of Sheboygan and Janesville are also currently considering imposing a wheel tax. Eric Levitt is Janesville's city manager, "Probably we would have not have proposed a wheel tax had our revenues not decreased. Our state revenues collective between our state road revenues and our state shared revenues decreased between $800,000 to $900,000 and the wheel tax makes up about $550,000 of that."
Republican Rep. Dean Knutson of Hudson has some concerns that tight budgets and the property tax caps that he helped pass, might tempt more cities to follow suit, "I proposed AB 295 because voters deserve to have their voices heard before a local municipality enacts a wheel tax."
Knutson's bill would require voter approval before a municipality or county could impose a wheel tax. It would also require localities with existing wheel taxes to go back to voters for their approval.