Top Stories July 17th

Drug Collection Today in Fox Lake


7/17/10 - A prescription drug collection will be held today in Fox Lake. Jim Geidd with the Kiwanis Club says the drop-off is the third in a series of summer collections. He says the local Kiwanis is sponsoring the drop-offs for several reasons, not the least of which is the effect that medications have on the water supply when they’re flushed down the toilet or wind up in a landfill. Beaver Dam Police Detective Ryan Klavekoske says prescriptions medications also attract a criminal element and overdoes deaths are up sharply in recent years. The Prescription Drug Drop-Off will be held in the Fox Lake Community Center parking lot today from 10am to 2pm.

Cold Case Gets another Look

7/17/10 - A 20-year-old murder case is about to get another look. Fond du Lac County Sheriff Mick Fink is hoping modern technology will help in finding the person who killed 18-year-old Berit Beck sometime in the summer of 1990. Fink and the only other person who worked the murder poured over 600 pages on the case before two deputies took that evidence to the State Crime Lab this week. The details of the case are this: Beck was last seen at a Walgreens in the Forest Mall shopping center and her van was found in the parking lot outside. Six weeks later her body was found just outside of Waupun. Fink says he’s hopeful that the killer left behind some DNA, something they couldn’t test for back when the murder took place.

Man Facing Several Charges after High Speed Chase

7/17/10 - Three local law enforcement agencies were involved in a high speed chase Thursday night that reached speeds in excess of 100-miles-per-hour. It started just before seven p.m. on Highway 16/60 east of Columbus. Dodge County Patrol Captain Molly Soblewski says one of her deputies attempted to pull over a vehicle allegedly driven by 28-year-old Seth Christian for speeding but he took off. Christian is said to have went through two stoplights in Columbus before deputies lost sight of him. A short time later, Dane County authorities located the vehicle and found Christian in a nearby tavern. He was taken to jail and Soblewski says he faces a number of charges.

GOP Group Files Challenge Against Baldwin

7/17/10 - A Republican group has filed a challenge against nomination papers for Madison Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin. The Young Republicans of Dane County say those papers are invalid because they list her campaign office as her address instead of her voting address. A spokesperson for the Government Accountability Board says state election officials have allowed Baldwin to do that for more than a decade. Baldwin is openly gay. She received threats after her first election to Congress in 1998. The challenges to those nomination papers will be heard by the GAB next Wednesday and Thursday.

Late Blight Returns to Wisconsin

7/17/10 - Late blight appears to have returned to Wisconsin this year. The first case this season of the fungus affecting tomato and potato crops was found this week in Marquette County. Amanda Gevens, a plant pathologist with UW-Extension, says a commercial potato grower discovered the blight on a small portion of his crop. Late blight is a type of water mold that thrives in wet conditions. It produces lesions on the leaves, which then also appear on the tomatoes and potatoes themselves. Gevens says the spores usually can move through the air up to 40 miles and can develop in less than a week. Gevens says they’re working to contain the outbreak in Marquette County, but gardeners are urged to carefully check their crops. Fungicides can typically be used to help protect against late blight.

Some GM or Chrysler Dealerships Will Stay Open

7/17/10 - A retailer’s group says it knows of at least two dozen GM or Chrysler dealers in Wisconsin which will stay open. That’s out of roughly 200 local dealerships that were initially terminated by Chrysler or given “wind down” notices by GM last year. The Wisconsin Automobile and Truck Dealers Association says 100 GM and Chrysler dealers that were slated for closing were eligible for arbitration. Out of that, 52 applied. General counsel Chris Snyder says he has information from a Madison law firm that handled some of those cases. He says half were offered reinstatement without going to an arbitration hearing. Five others eventually won arbitration. The rest either took cash settlements, lost arbitration, or withdrew.

GAB Looking for Contract Sunshine Law Compliance

7/17/10 - The head of the Government Accountability Board says there are some issues with getting state agencies to comply with a contract sunshine law. The law passed four years ago requires state agencies to report the details of contracts worth at least $10,000, which are then posted online. A review by an Appleton newspaper earlier this year found only 14 of 89 agencies had anything listed on the site. GAB Director Kevin Kennedy says they can’t easily force those to comply, since the law provides little in the way of an enforcement mechanism. He says their only real option is to go in and audit agencies, which they lack the staffing to carry out. Kennedy says they also want a way to list agencies that didn’t have any large contracts to report, so the public can clearly see why an agency might not have any info listed on the site.

Sachdeva Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charges

7/17/10 - Former Koss Corporation financial officer Sue Sachdeva pleads guilty to all six felony fraud charges and agrees to pay 34 million dollars in restitution. The plea deal apparently does not include a specific recommendation from the prosecutor for the length of prison sentence she should be given. Federal Judge Lynn Adelman can accept or reject the terms of the agreement. Sachdeva admitted stealing the money from the headphone manufacturing company and used it to pay for an extravagant lifestyle. Among the things she will have to forfeit are a Mercedes-Benz automobile and a vacation timeshare unit in Hawaii.

Crews Hoping to Fix Flood Gate Before Storms Return

7/17/10 - Emergency crews have been brought in to repair a gate which was designed to keep the waters of the Menomonee River from flowing into the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's deep tunnels. The flow of water from the river during and after recent heavy rains was so strong it blew that gate off its supports. If more heavy rain comes before it is fixed, the district says it will cause big problems -- and storms are in the forecast for tonight and early tomorrow morning. That could cause an overflow of wastewater into local rivers and Lake Michigan. That has happened three times so far this year.

Car Trick Leads to Homicide Charges

7/17/10 - The driver of a pickup truck doing donuts now faces homicide charges for his carelessness. Edward Meyer lost control and rolled his truck in Walworth County. His 19 year old friend, Brandon Jeters, was killed. A third person in the truck suffered minor injuries. Witnesses say the driver had been doing donuts before the truck flipped in the town of Richmond at about 6:05 p.m. Wednesday.