Top Stories, October 8th

Ribbon Cut On Pedestrian Bridge

10/8/10 - More than 30-people attended the ceremonial ribbon cutting for the pedestrian bridge in the tower parking lot in Beaver Dam yesterday. The bridge was needed after culverts were removed under the Tower Parking lot last year in an effort to reduce flooding problems in the downtown. The culvert removal created an open channel for the Beaver Dam River through the parking lot. Mayor Tom Kennedy says the progress made in the past two years couldn’t have been done without the cooperation of various entities. The improvements were part of Phase II revitalization plan that also includes decorative matching fencing in the area where ten downtown buildings once stood over the river.

Park Avenue Closed Beginning Today

10/8/10 - One of Beaver Dam’s busier streets will be closed today (Fr). Park Avenue will be closed to through-traffic between Spring Street and Lincoln Avenue for utility work on the new police station. The work is expected to be completed by the end of the day, but Park Avenue will remain closed until Monday to allow concrete to cure properly. Local businesses can still be accessed from Lincoln Avenue.

Winterization Begins in BD

10/8/10 - City officials in Beaver Dam are getting ready for winter. The Parks and Forestry Department has announced that city park piers will be removed from Beaver Dam Lake beginning the week of October 18, weather permitting. However, two boat piers will remain at Tahoe Park and Waterworks Park until ice-up, or until the weather makes it necessary to remove them. Restrooms at city parks will also be winterized and closed for the season beginning the week of the eighteenth.

Restitution Ordered In Tire Store Embezzlement

10/8/10 - A Horicon Man has been ordered to pay $65,000 in restitution for stealing from his former employers. A Dodge County judge yesterday ordered Michael N. Wagner to pay the money back to the Neosho tire store he managed. The 43-year-old pleaded “no contest” in June to a half dozen felony theft and forgery charges and had a dozen other charges dismissed but read into the record. Wagner stolen cash and also wrote checks to himself for personal reasons throughout the course of his ten year employment. He told authorities that the owner of the store told him that if he ever needed personal money (quote) “just handle it and pay me back.” The owner denied that such a conversation ever took place. Wagner has a sentencing hearing scheduled in December.

Marshall Woman Waives Prelim

10/8/10 - A Marshall woman, accused of bilking an elderly man out of tens of thousands of dollars, has waived her right to a preliminary hearing. Nicole Lueck is charged with felony Theft for allegedly taking the money from the Dodge County man over a five year period. According to the criminal complaint, the 22-year-old knew the man her whole life, and he thought of her as a daughter. Lueck reportedly exploited that relationship to get thousands of dollars in cash on a monthly basis, driving him to the bank to make the withdrawal. She allegedly made up stories and forged letters detailing a variety of medical issues, like brain tumors, to justify the need for the money. The victim was under the impression it would be paid back. Lueck did not deny receiving the cash but contends he gave it to her willingly. If convicted on the felony charge, she could spend up to ten years in prison. Lueck has an arraignment hearing scheduled later this month.

Chase Suspect Arraigned

10/8/10 - A Markesan man charged in Dodge County with running from police entered a not guilty plea at arraignment this week. Sheriffs deputies on patrol in Fox Lake attempted to pull over a vehicle allegedly driven by Benjamin Wills on May 30 after receiving reports from Green Lake County that he had fled from them earlier in the evening. Dodge County deputies say the 27-year-old fled at a high rate of speed and crashed into a front end loader in the Highway 33 construction zone. Wills and another man reportedly fled on foot. According to the criminal complaint, Wills went to a convenience store and called police to report his vehicle stolen. Authorities say they have both a witness and video footage showing Wills exit the vehicle after the accident. The felony charge carries a maximum three-and-a-half years in prison but because Wills is a repeat offender, he could have up to four years added to the sentence. Wills still faces charges in Green Lake County court on felony Fleeing charges from earlier that evening. Court activity is on the calendar next month.

BD Man Arrested For 6th OWI

10/8/10 - A Beaver Dam man was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of sixth offense OWI. The Wisconsin State Patrol says 50-year-old Matthew O. Keller was pulled over for speeding on Highway 33 at Parallel Street at 2:45pm. Keller’s most recent offense occurred in June of 2006. He pleaded “no contest” to a fifth offense operating while intoxicated charge in January of 2007 was sentenced to one year in jail and had his license suspended for three years.

Madison Man In Jail For Triple Fatal OWI

10/8/10 - An alleged drunk driver who’s accused of killing three people near Madison was released from the hospital last night, and was sent to jail. The 31-year-old Madison man faces three possible charges of drunken homicide. The State Patrol has not sent its reports to prosecutors yet. Authorities have not released the victims’ names. But the Minneapolis Star Tribune said two were members of the University of Minnesota’s Spirit Squad – 23-year-old Wilfredo Ugarte of Puerto Rico and 19-year-old Marcus Johnson of Milwaukee. They were among five people heading from Minneapolis to Milwaukee on Interstate 39-90-94 when they stopped to change a flat tire just north of Madison early yesterday. The State Patrol said the alleged drunk driver veered out of his lane and hit the car, which was on the shoulder of the median. Two of the people killed were outside the vehicle. And a third person outside escaped injury by jumping over the median. A 20-year-old Milwaukee woman who was inside the stopped vehicle was killed. The other person inside was not hurt.

Asst Police Chief Cited For OWI

10/8/10 - An assistant police chief in Milwaukee has been cited for drunk driving. The department said 55-year-old Edward Liebrecht was driving his own vehicle when it slammed into a tree. It happened about 3:40am Thursday morning in the Bay View neighborhood on Milwaukee’s south side. Liebrecht was not hurt, and he was not armed at the time. Milwaukee County sheriff’s deputies investigated the crash, and they gave Liebrecht his first O-W-I citation – along with citations for having a prohibited blood alcohol content and unsafe lane deviation. He’s been with the Milwaukee police force for 36 years, and is one of four assistant chiefs under Ed Flynn. Officials said his police powers have been suspended, while an internal investigation takes place.

AG Candidates Square Off

10/8/10 - The two candidates for Wisconsin attorney general explained their sharp differences in philosophy during a forum yesterday at the Marquette Law School. Republican incumbent J-B Van Hollen is going for his second four-year term. He said he uses his experience as a prosecutor to help law enforcement and district attorneys around the state do their jobs better. But Democrat Scott Hassett said the attorney general should be more than the state’s top cop. Hassett – a trial lawyer and a former D-N-R secretary – said the Justice Department has lost its mission on larger matters like consumer protection. And he accused Van Hollen of politicizing the Justice Department by vowing to join a lawsuit to kill the national health reform law – suing to require more voter verifications in 2008 – and not challenging a federal judge’s ruling that threatened to halt U-W Madison’s embryonic stem cell research. Van Hollen said the governor never consulted his office before getting an outside lawyer in the stem cell case. And the incumbent said his decisions are based on legal analysis instead of politics. Also, Hassett said Van Hollen should have acted sooner when he discovered last year that former Calumet County D-A Ken Kratz sent racy text messages to a domestic abuse victim while prosecuting her ex-boyfriend. Hassett said the Justice Department should have filed a complaint with the Office of Lawyer Regulation, instead of pressuring Kratz to do that himself. Van Hollen said his department did all it could do.

No New Crimes Follow GPS Failure

10/8/10 - Wisconsin officials say they’re certain that no new crimes were committed by offenders who had their G-P-S monitoring cut-off this week. The state contracts with B-I Incorporated – which lost its national tracking system for about 12 hours after it reached its limit for storing data. The devices kept recording offenders’ movements, but corrections agencies throughout the country could not see the data. State corrections’ spokeswoman Linda Eggert said her department later examined the offenders’ G-P-S movements, and was certain that the shutdown did not cause any new crimes. The shutdown affected about 300 Wisconsinites – and most of them were sex offenders. Police and probation agents held about 140 offenders at county jails until their tracking was backed up, and officials could confirm where they had been during the outage. Eggert said the offenders were never aware that they were not being tracked. B-I reached its limit for storing two-point-one billion pieces of data from throughout the country – anything from G-P-S addresses to blood alcohol readings. The firm expanded its capacity to three billion items. And it’s working on a system to provide warnings just as the storage unit is about to fill up again.

Enbridge Settlement Reached

10/8/10 - An oil pipeline company has agreed to pay a million-dollars to settle a state pollution lawsuit. The Justice Department sued Enbridge Energy last week, saying it ran its oil terminal at Superior without the required state permits at various times since 2001. Enbridge was also accused of not making timely repairs to seals on its storage tanks, and under-paying emission fees. Enbridge said it reported many of the violations itself, and they called the million-dollar settlement a fair resolution of the case. The company also said it’s been working with the state D-N-R to resolve the violations. It’s not the first major problem Enbridge has had this year. Its crude oil pipelines had spills near Chicago and in Michigan.

Medicare Choices Reduced

10/8/10 - Wisconsin seniors are expected to have fewer choices next year for their Medicare Part-“D” prescription drug plans. And they’ll be more expensive, too. A national analysis says Part-“D” premiums will rise by 10-percent on average. Dean Health of Madison is dropping its Medicare prescription plan, forcing about 12-thousand seniors to look elsewhere for their coverage. And experts say other plans will fall by the wayside because the federal government wants to avoid duplications. Julie Short of the Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups says her Elder Law Center is getting 70-to-100 calls a day from seniors asking what to do. Short says seniors should consider all their options during their annual enrollment for Part-“D” benefits, which begins in mid-November. People can compare different plans on Medicare’s Web site. You’ll find it at Medicare-Dot-Gov.

Download Tax Revenue Below Projections

10/8/10 - It’s been a year since a new sales tax on digital downloads took effect, but the state says there’s no telling exactly how much revenue it’s generated. In October 2009, a 5-percent sales tax was imposed on music, movies, pictures, and ring tones downloaded from the Internet. State officials projected that over two years the tax would generate roughly 11-million dollars for Wisconsin’s general fund. Recent figures from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau show Wisconsin's overall sales tax receipts were about 70-million dollars short of projections, although an increase incorporate income tax revenue made up for that loss. Even if those trends don't change, the next state budget is projected to be at least two and a half billion dollars in the hole.