Stories 1 to 13 of 13
3/10/2010 Jail Meetings Not Sponsored By County A pair of Eau Claire County Jail informational meetings are scheduled for next week, but a county board supervisor wants you to know they are not being put on by the county. Board supervisor Howard Ludwigson says the meeting is being put on by people who don't want the jail built downtown, and that may not have been clear in the group's press releases. Ludwigson says that doesn't mean the information will be incorrect. Another board supervisor, Ken Fulgione, says the meetings are presented by an unofficial "Citizens Advisory Referendum Committee," composed mostly of members who oppose a downtown site, but he says they're not trying to mislead anyone. He says the committee wanted to dig into the cost figures released in the project. He says the committee feels the figures showing the downtown option to be much cheaper are confusing and don't present the whole picture. The meetings will be held at First Congregational Church on 3rd and Broadway in Eau Claire Sunday at 3pm and Wednesday at 7pm. Read More
3/10/2010 DNR Issues Air Quality Watch The Department of Natural Resources has issued an Air Quality Watch due to high particle pollutants in the air. The Watch covers the entire western and southern parts of the state and will be in effect from 11:00 Wednesday night through 11:00 Thursday night. An Air Quality Advisory for the immediate Chippewa Valley remains in effect through 9:00 Thursday morning. Read More
3/10/2010 Retired Public Employees Payments To Be Cut About 150 thousand of Wisconsin’s retired public employees will again have their monthly core payments cut. Last spring, those in the State Retirement System’s Core Fund had their payments cut for the first time ever, at just over two percent. And for the year starting May first, those payments will be cut another one point three percent. State employee trust funds’ secretary David Stella said it reflects the severity of the investment declines from 2008. The Core Fund is the more conservative of two funds operated by the state. The State Retirement System covers state and local government and school employees outside of Milwaukee city and county. Read More
3/10/2010 Marshfield In Running For High Speed Internet Experiment Marshfield joins four other Wisconsin cities that are interested in hosting an experiment by Google that could speed up local Internet service by up to 100 times. Madison and Superior were the first in Wisconsin to apply to host Google Fiber – a test fiber-optic network that would carry high speed Internet traffic. Marshfield has provided an initial survey sought by Google, and will decide what to do next if the city passes that test. Appleton and Milwaukee are the other cities that are interested. Applications are due in just over two weeks. Google says it will announce the winners by the end of the year. Several thousand people have nominated their communities for a test network that could be 300 times faster than DSL. Google has not said how many cities it will choose. Read More
3/10/2010 Former Prison Doc Sentenced For Patient Abuse A former doctor at the Stanley Prison will spend seven months in jail for abusing 3 inmates. Three victims told investigators Dr. Brian Bohlmann touched them inappropriately during medical exams in 2007. Bohlmann had been charged with 6 felony sexual assault charges, but reached an agreement to plead no contest to 7 misdemeanor charges of patient abuse. Bohlmann will also lose his license to practice medicine. He can reapply in 3 years. Bohlmann was a contract doctor with the prison and was later fired. Read More
3/10/2010 Bear Bites Woman's Fingers Off A Manitowoc woman is still hospitalized in good condition, after a bear bit off her fingers at the city zoo. Police said 47-year-old Tracy Weiler and her boyfriend went past some barriers at a cage, and she tried to feed one of the two Asiatic black bears. Officials say they’ll decide soon whether to seek charges. Weiler lost an entire thumb and an index finger on one of her hands – and she lost parts of her middle-and-ring fingers. Her 51-year-old boyfriend was bit when he tried to get the bear’s mouth away from Weiler’s hand. He was treated at a hospital and released on the same day of the incident last Friday. Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels said alcohol was a factor. Police have not yet released the victims’ blood alcohol contents. Officials say the bears will not be euthanized. Read More
3/9/2010 Teacher And Coach Resigns Spring Valley School Superintendent David Wellington says on Monday night a high school teacher and coach resigned. WEAU 13 News reports Wellington says the school board accepted the resignation of Brad Sauve. He was a high school teacher, athletic director and coach at Spring Valley High School. He was on administrative leave as of last Wednesday. Wellington says he would not comment on a personnel matter, so he could not provide details about the reasons behind putting Sauve on administrative leave. He said whenever allegations are made, the district takes them seriously. The district did a complete investigation to make sure everything is safe for students. He says everything is safe for their students. Read More
3/9/2010 Guilty Plea In Sex Assault Case The owner of an adult treatment home who is accused of having sex with a resident has pleaded guilty. 58 year old Bruce McIlquham of Eau Claire made the plea to one count of second-degree sexual assault. WEAU 13 News reports that according to the criminal complaint, the 45 year old victim told detectives McIlquham had sex with her three or four different times at the home on Park Ridge Drive in Eau Claire. The victim has a brain injury from a car crash. McIlquham is expected to be sentenced on May 17th. Read More
3/9/2010 DNR To Hold Public Deer Management Meetings The Department of Natural Resources will be holding a series of meetings in the region on deer management starting Wednesday. Hunters will have a chance to speak their mind following one of the worst hunts on record. Ed Culhane with the DNR says these are the annual deer unit management meetings. Culhane says the meetings will include a video presentation on emerging harvest patterns, unit-specific management, and hunter surveys. Hunters will have the chance to discuss preliminary deer population estimates, among other things. Wednesday's meetings will be in Clark County from 4 to 8:00 at Greenwood High School, and in Marathon County from 5 to 7:00 at John Muir Middle School in Wausau. Thursday's meeting will be at the Necedah Village Hall from 3 to 7 pm. The meeting for Barron and Polk Counties will be Monday, March 15th at 7:00 pm at the Turtle Lake High School Library, and for Chippewa, Dunn, Eau Claire, and Pepin Counties will be Monday from 3 to 7:00 with hourly presentations at the Dunn County Fish and Game Clubhouse in Menomonie. Read More
3/9/2010 Barrett Wants To Create Lost Recession Jobs Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says he’d try to create all the jobs that were lost in the recession if he’s elected Wisconsin’s governor. The main Democratic hopeful says the state should create 180 thousand jobs over three years – or about five thousand jobs a month. One of the two Republican candidates, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, says he’d create a quarter-million jobs over five years if he’s elected governor. That would be around 42 hundred a month. Barrett announced his number in Madison, where he toured some retail businesses. He said Walker’s numbers were arbitrary – but Barrett would not say how he came up with his figure. Read More
3/9/2010 Wisconsin Consumer Complaints Dropping According to statistics released Tuesday by the Wisconsin Better Business Bureau, complaints against companies located in Wisconsin dropped by more than 7 percent in the last year In 2009, the Wisconsin BBB processed 15,027 complaints, which was a 7.7 percent decrease from 2008. New car dealers were the top complaint category, receiving 439 complaints in 2009, roughly the same number it received in 2008. Mail order and catalog shopping services were number two with 435 complaints, and complaints against department stores took third place. Nationally, the cell phone industry received the largest number of complaints in 2009, the cable & satellite TV industry ranked second, followed by banks. Read More
3/9/2010 Governor Signs Health Transparency Bill Governor Jim Doyle signed into law Assembly Bill 614, the Health Care Transparency Bill, on Tuesday. “Nowhere else are people asked to buy a product before they know what the price is,” Governor Doyle said. “This bill is a practical step forward that will help people better understand what their health care costs are before making important health care decisions.” The new law requires health care providers to disclose the cost of the most common procedures they perform. It will help consumers get price estimates prior to a procedure, help them make apples-to-apples comparisons on prices, and help them determine out-of-pocket costs prior to services occurring. The Governor also called on the Legislature to quickly pass BadgerCare Plus Basic to help thousands of people purchase coverage that will provide basic care at no cost to taxpayers. The Basic plan, Senate Bill 484, will be paid for through a $130 monthly premium that enrollees pay, helping them see a doctor and get the medications they need. Read More
3/8/2010 Prepare For Daylight Savings Time You'll lose an hour of sleep coming up this weekend, as we "spring ahead" an hour for daylight savings time on Sunday morning. Dr. Allan Foster with the Red Cedar Medical Center Sleep Lab in Menomonie says that lost hour can leave you feeling tired for quite a while beyond the weekend, but you can ease the transition by starting to adjust now. He says you can try getting up and going to bed about 20 minutes earlier for two days at a time, until you're in sync with the new schedule. The week leading up to daylight savings time is national sleep awareness week. Foster says lack of sleep leads to many problems, including car accidents caused by overtired drivers, which kill around 25,000 people a year, plus workplace accidents. Foster says sleep problems like apnea, when a person stops breathing, can lead to serious health problems, and you should talk to your doctor if you have trouble sleeping or wake up without feeling rested. Read More