Top Stories March 23rd

Horicon Approves Public Works Contract


3/23/11 - The Horicon City Council approved a contract with the union that represents its public works employees last night. It’s a one year deal that’s retroactive to January 1st. Councilman Steve Neitzel says the contract is the same as the last one, but it will have employees paying 12.6% for their healthcare and 5.8% towards their retirement as outlined in Governor Walker’s budget repair bill. It also includes a 3-percent raise for employees on July 1st of this year. Neitzel says the exact same offer was extended to the local police union but they declined it. Police and firefighters are some of the only public employees exempt from the Governor’s bill.

State Aid Cuts to Waupun Not as Drastic as First Thought

3/23/11 - The cut in state aid to the city of Waupun won’t be nearly as significant as first thought. And that allowed the council to approve tentative contract agreements with local public unions. City Administrator Kyle Clark says they got numbers back last week that indicate a loss of shared revenue of $65,000 along with several other cuts. But with contributions from employees to their pension and health care benefits the net loss for the city in revenue was around $29,000. Clark says the employees made substantial concessions but he didn’t want to comment on those until the unions ratified them.

Memorial Service for Slain Officer Today

3/23/11 - The public is invited to the memorial service for Fond du Lac Police Officer Craig Birkholz tonight. Visitation is from 3 to 7 p.m. at Holy Family Catholic Church at 271 Fourth Street Way with a memorial service following. Meanwhile a squad car procession will start about Noon on South Main Street make its way to East Johnson Street and down County Highway K to the church. The public is also invited to line the procession route to pay their respects.

Fond du Lac Police Officer Ryan Williams, shot in the same incident that led to the death of Birkholz, remains in critical condition at a Neenah hospital. Dr. Ray Georgen of Theda Clark Medical Center says the next step is to remove Officer Williams from a ventilator. Williams was shot twice during Sunday morning’s shooting incident and although his bullet proof vest saved his life his lungs were badly bruised. Dr. Georgen says will make a full recovery and says he greatly respects the dangerous job that police officers do. (KFIZ, Fond du Lac)

Winter Storm Pounds Northern Wisconsin

3/23/11 - Parts of north central Wisconsin got up to a foot of snow last night – while a stretch from the Eau Claire area to Wausau to Green Bay had rare “thunder-snow.” According to the National Weather Service, the Wausau area had four-and-a-half inches of snow plus lightning strong enough to start a structure fire. Chelsea in Taylor County had the most snow as of one this morning – 12 inches. Around our area we’ve gotten a mixture of rain, snow, and sleet. And though there hasn’t been much accumulation many roads are snow covered and slippery.

DA Responds to Attorney General’s Appeal

3/23/11 - Dane County’s district attorney has asked a state appeals court to let a judge continue blocking the new law which limits public union bargaining powers. Ismael Ozanne filed a strong disagreement yesterday to the attorney general’s stance that Judge Maryann Sumi had no right to prevent the law from taking effect this Saturday as scheduled. Sumi is holding up the union restrictions until she can decide whether a legislative conference panel broke the state Open Meeting Law when it endorsed the bill two weeks ago. Ozanne said his complaint is based on the alleged illegal meeting – not the merits of the law itself. And if the attorney general had his way, Ozanne said a judge could never overturn a state law, even if it’s found that Legislature had ignored every requirement of the Open Meeting Law when passing it. The D-A said the Legislature did not exempt itself from legal punishments when it passed the public meeting law in 1975. He said the committee’s action should be voided – as well as the subsequent approvals by the Senate and Assembly. Ozanne said the Legislature can easily resolve the issue by voting a second time on the union bill. But Majority Republicans say they want the court issue resolved before doing anything. Ozanne is supposed to file responses today to other issues of the state’s appeal. The Justice Department hopes the appeals court can decide the matter by Friday.

Primaries to be Held Earlier

3/23/11 - Wisconsin’s next primaries for state-and-congressional offices will be held earlier than the usual mid-September. The Government Accountability Board agreed yesterday to move back the fall partisan primaries – but they did not recommend an exact date. The change must be made so the state can comply with a new federal law to mail ballots to troops and other overseas voters at least 45 days before the November elections. Last year, Wisconsin’s primary was just four days before the mailing deadline. And that didn’t give the state enough time to print ballots which reflected the primary results plus recounts. The state eventually reached a settlement in which they counted foreign ballots that were received up to 17 days after the November election – a week longer than the normal 10 days. Elections’ specialist Katie Mueller said local clerks around the state would like to have the fall primary in late July. But Senate Republican Mary Lazich (lah-zick) of New Berlin said the primaries should not be pushed back too far, so they don’t happen while the Legislature is still in session. That would give incumbents less time to campaign for their primaries. The primary date must eventually be approved by the Legislature.

Storm Causes TV Tower to Crash Down in Eau Claire

3/23/11 - The N-B-C T-V station for western Wisconsin remains off the air, after its two-thousand-foot transmitting tower was knocked down last night. W-E-A-U in Eau Claire said its tower near Fairchild fell in three directions – and only about 25-feet of it remains standing. It was windy-and-icy at the time, but the station says the tower has survived Wisconsin’s most brutal weather since 1966 – and officials are not sure how-or-why it fell. Stacy Tanner of the Fairchild Fire Department said nobody was hurt. And the only damage was to the tower, a building that powers it, and trees that were hit by falling cables. Part of the tower landed across Eau Claire County Trunk “H,” and it’s expected to be cleared today. W-E-A-U said there was a concern because a gas tank was leaking, and live power lines were down. But everything was shut off without incident. The tower fell about 90 minutes before W-E-A-U’s 10 o’clock newscast last night. It was shown on its Web site. The region’s most powerful country music station, W-A-X-X F-M, was also on that tower.

Mega Millions at $304M

3/23/11 - The Mega Millions’ jackpot is above 300-million-dollars for only the second time since Wisconsin started playing the game almost 14 months ago. Nobody won the 244-million-dollar prize last night, so it jumps to at least 304-million for the next drawing on Friday. Twenty-six people around the country matched all the regular numbers but not the Mega Ball to win the quarter-million-dollar second prize. But none of those tickets were from Wisconsin. And the number of smaller prizes in the Badger State was not immediately disclosed. The numbers were 1, 14, 35, 50, and 53. The Mega Ball was 43, and the Megaplier was four. The current jackpot has been building since February first. It’s the highest since January fourth, when two players in Idaho and Washington split a 380-million-dollar prize. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are one-in-176-million. Friday’s cash option is 194-million-dollars. Meanwhile, tonight’s jackpot in Powerball is also in triple digits, at 101-million.