Top Stories, September 5th

Beaver Dam Municipal Meetings Resume After Labor Day

9/5/10 - There will be no regular meeting of the Beaver Dam Common Council this week because of the Labor Day Holiday. City officials did meet in special session last Monday to vote on a handful of time-sensitive issues, mostly related to downtown improvement. The city’s Operations Committee is also taking a rare Monday off while the Administrative Committee has posted no meeting notices until September 20. The Beaver Dam Police and Fire Commission is scheduled to meet for their regular meeting on Tuesday. The commission is expected to go into closed session to discuss the hiring of a new police chief. The field of candidates has been narrowed to four, interviews have been conducted and a decision could be made at any time. Also meeting this week: the city of Beaver Dam’s Ad-Hoc Community Center Planning Committee. The committee is tasked with considering a new community center and senior center in the former Herberger’s store inside the Beaver Dam mall. The committee will review a feasibility study when they meet on Wednesday.

Garbage Collection Delayed

9/5/10 - Garbage pick-up in Beaver Dam will be delayed by one day all this week because of the Labor Day holiday. Veolia Environmental will collect tomorrow’s (Monday’s) route on Tuesday; Tuesday’s route will be collected on Wednesday and that will continue all week with Friday’s route collected on Saturday. Brush collection provided by the Department of Public Works will also be delayed by one day next week. In addition, the Department of Public Works Garage will be closed on Labor Day.

Obama in Milwaukee on Labor Day Monday

9/5/10 - President Barack Obama will be in Milwaukee on Labor Day. Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Reince Priebus says in a statement that this visit is indicative of just how desperate the Democrats are about their chances of winning in November. Mordecai Lee, Political Science Professor at UW Milwaukee, disagrees. Lee says, while it is important for Obama to get U.S. Senator Russ Feingold reelected and get Tom Barrett into the governo’s office, Obama’s visit doesn’t necessarily mean that the Democrats are in trouble. The President was in Wisconsin just a couple of weeks ago attending fundraisers for Barrett and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Monday’s visit will be Obama’s fifth trip to the state since he was elected. He will speak on the economy at the annual Laborfest put on by the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.

Wisconsin School Get Adaptive Testing Funds

9/5/10 - Wisconsin and 30 other states will share millions of dollars in federal cash, for what educators say will be a faster, better way to measure school kids’ academic progress. The U.S. Education Department is providing 330-million dollars in Race to the Top funding, to two multi-state consortiums. Wisconsin’s part of what’s called the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, which is getting 160-million dollars to better measure students in grades 3-8, and the 11th grade, in math and English skills. In a conference call with reporters, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan outlined how the 31-state group will use its award. He says the SMARTER Consortium will test students using computer adaptive technology.

Jump in Milk Prices from July to August

9/5/10 - The price dairy farmers get for milk appears to have made a significant jump between July and August. But farmers say prices are still lower than they need. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Wisconsin milk was worth $15.20 per hundredweight in July, and is believed to have increased by a dollar in August. Although the official August number isn’t in yet, it’s expected to be the largest price increase from July to August this year among the U.S.’s top 10 dairy states. The prices are also about $4 higher than at this time last year. Dairy market specialist Bob Cropp says dairy farmers probably need prices in the $17-$18 dollars per hundredweight range to begin making money again.

Madison Company Threatens to Move Jobs

9/5/10 - About 200 employees at Wolf Appliance in Madison recently rejected a company demand for a 20-percent cut in pay and benefits. Now, the company is threatening to move those jobs to Kentucky. Jim Cavanaugh with the South Central Federation of Labor says there was no indication from the employer that the cuts were necessary for the business and it’s unclear how the union will respond. Company officials have indicated their hope that workers will take another vote on the concessions. The news comes just after the company announced earlier this week it plans to transfer 100 Subzero jobs from Madison to Arizona over the next two years to streamline production.

PSC Finalizes Wind Farm Siting Rules

9/5/10 - The Wisconsin Public Service Commission has finalized wind siting rules, but not everyone is pleased. Michael Vickerman, executive director of Renew Wisconsin, which advocated for the statewide standards, said the new rules will give the wind industry something the local rules don’t - certainty. Vickerman says the patchwork of local rules left the industry feeling it couldn’t have any confidence in what terms and conditions it would have to deal with – because those rules kept changing. In 2009, Wisconsin lawmakers passed an act directing the PSC to formulate the statewide rules, which the legislature must now approve.

NTSB Fatal Med-Flight Report Complete

9/5/10 - Federal investigators say pilot error and the lack of warning equipment caused a med-flight helicopter crash in 2008 that killed three people near La Crosse. The National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the crash Friday. A Med-Flight unit from U-W Madison had just flown a patient to a La Crosse hospital when it slammed into a bluff as it started to head home. It happened on a rainy-and-foggy night about four miles from the La Crosse airport. The crash killed Doctor Darren Bean, nurse Mark Coyne, and pilot Steve Lipperer. The safety board cited inadequate flight planning, as the pilot failed to maintain clearance from a cluster of trees at the top of a ridge-line. The report said the chopper did not have enough altitude – and it did not have an on-board warning system that could have alerted the pilot to the trees ahead of him.

Prominent Madison Businesswoman Arrested

9/5/10 - A well known Madison pharmacist and businesswoman was arrested last week for allegedly selling fake Viagra. Marla Ahlgrimm is owner of Women’s Health America and pharmacies that provide hormone replacement therapy. She was arrested along with 63 year old Balbir Bhogal Wednesday on federal charges alleging they imported and sold millions of doses of fake Viagra and other counterfeit drugs. Ahlgrimm, 55, has been honored for her civic-mindedness and serves on the UW Foundation.

Internet Cell Phone Use Up at UW Madison

9/5/10 - Many students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have the Internet right in the palm of their hand. The results of a campus survey done by the UW’s Division of Information Technology shows nearly 45-percent of students now have smart phones or similar handheld devices that connect directly to the Internet, such as iPhone or Blackberry. The numbers are up from about 24-percent in 2009 and the Division’s Brian Rust expects it to continue growing as students cell phone contracts expire and the technology continues to become more popular. Rust says this year’s survey of students shows they’re constantly interested in new ways to make technology play a bigger role in their education.