State Appeals Court Judge Lisa Neubauer on Wednesday conceded a race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to her colleague Brian Hagedorn.
The concession comes more than a week after an election during which Neubauer trailed Hagedorn by about 6,000 votes and concludes a bitter competition for the 10-year term.
“I love being a judge. I treasure our state, our judiciary and its role in our democracy but this race was never about me. It was really about the integrity and the independence of our courts,” Neubauer said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We knew it was going to be close. We laid it all out there. We put everything we had into this race.”
[…]
But outside spending throughout the race favored Neubauer.
It is worth noting that Neubauer is up for reelection to the Appeals Court next April and she lost every county in that court’s jurisdiction. Some good conservative lawyer or judge should go for it.
The first image of a black hole has been captured by astronomers, heralding a revolution in our understanding of the universe’s most enigmatic objects.
The picture shows a halo of dust and gas, tracing the outline of a colossal black hole, at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, 55 million light years from Earth.
The black hole itself – a cosmic trapdoor from which neither light nor matter can escape – is unseeable. But the latest observations take astronomers right to its threshold for the first time, illuminating the event horizon beyond which all known physical laws break down.
Wow. There’s a 50/50 chance that the supposed winner will just win by 2 votes, but it’s a good reminder to always vote.
A newly discovered and unopened ballot could lead to a tie in the still-unsettled race for McFarland village president — a race in which the incumbent held a one-vote winning margin.
McFarland village staff found the unopened absentee ballot Monday morning in a bin used to store and transfer absentee ballots in last week’s election and subsequent recount, Village Administrator Matthew Schuenke said.
“It was found sealed within an envelope used for absentee voting and it is not open,” he said. “The contents are presently unknown, but it does appear to contain a ballot.”
Incumbent Brad Czebotar received 1,187 votes in last Tuesday’s election, while his opponent, Carolyn Clow, received 1,186 votes in the race to lead the community of about 7,800 on Lake Waubesa southeast of Madison. Czebotar’s one-vote lead held up after a recount last week that Clow requested.
(CNN)The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine will not consider race or national origin as a factor in its admissions process, according to an agreement the school entered with the Department of Education in February.
The agreement concludes a 14-year-long investigation into the school’s use of affirmative action in its admissions process after someone who did not end up applying to the school filed a complaint with the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights in 2004. The Department of Education’s office began the investigation in July 2005, according to department spokeswoman Elizabeth Hill.
The agreement states that the school of medicine will stop considering race and/or national origin “as part of the holistic admissions process.” If the school decides to use race as a factor in the admissions process again, it must notify the Department of Education and provide a “reasoned, principled explanation” for why it plans to do so, according to the agreement.
The complainant said that the Texas Tech School of Medicine’s “expected use of race as one of many factors in the admissions process” was a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a letter from the Department of Education obtained by CNN.
On a more serious note… 14 YEARS!?!? How is that kind of lethargy in our justice system providing justice for anyone?
Note that all seven sitting School Board members supported the passage of the $47 million project. They sincerely believe that Jackson needs a better building and that the high school needs upgrades for safety and STEM education purposes.
So does Superintendent Don Kirkegaard.
So does the business community for economic development purposes. It’s hard to recruit talented employees without a first-class school system.
None of them will drop this issue from their priority lists for the district. They will undoubtedly listen to the voters and come back with a lesser number in 2020.
This is the vein that I commented on yesterday. There is an arrogance and condescension dripping from the view that all of the “right” people in town supported the referendum but the little people were too stupid to vote correctly. There is no willingness to accept the will of the people. No, the only thought is to bring a referendum back in another election with better packaging. This kind of elitism and disdain for regular folks is the same attitude that feeds support for Trump.
While a majority of residents who voted did not support the referendum, this provides the West Bend School Board and me with valuable information regarding improvements.
I sincerely hope that residents feel they had adequate information to make their decision. Through informational meetings, mailings, website posts, social media posts and emails, we tried to offer all the details on the proposal.
In addition, I am grateful to have met many people in the community through my presentations and less formal interactions.
As the West Bend School District and the board move forward, we will continue to engage with the community on the issues of facilities improvements and their funding. We will seek feedback from some who voted “no” and some who voted “yes” to gain insight on their reasons for their vote.
The vision of the West Bend School District is “Excellence for All.” Let there be no doubt that regardless of referendum voting results, our staff each day lives that vision to provide the best education and the best experience possible for the amazing children we are lucky to serve.
That’s a very nice note. As a citizen of the district, I appreciate his attitude, willingness to accept the will of the voters – even though he disagrees with it – and the forward-looking focus on executing the mission of the district. Well done.
The voters in the West Bend School District voiced a definitive “no” to the referendum question to raise taxes and borrow $47 million to build and renovate buildings. Now that the School Board has that answer, they must plan to meet the needs of the district within the taxpayers’ means.
Going into the election, the superintendent and School Board president said that there was not a “plan B” if the referendum did not pass. Such a statement is a gross admission of poor management. That kind of planning is like a guy running up his credit cards and neglecting his house because he plans to win the lottery. Well, the district did not win the referendum lottery. Now they need to manage the taxpayers’ finances responsibly.
When it comes to schools, everything is driven by one number: enrollment. It determines both the revenue and expense side of the equation. According to the most recent enrollment projections prepared for the West Bend School Board by the Applied Population Laboratory at UW-Madison, enrollment for the district will be declining substantially for the foreseeable future. Using four modeling techniques, they project that by the 2027-2028 school year, enrollment will decline between 11.6 percent and 20.3 percent across the district. That is between 772 and 1,345 fewer kids in the district in less than 10 years.
This decline in enrollment is not a reflection on the West Bend School District. It is a trend that is impacting government schools across the state due to the availability of more school options and a demographic shift of young adults having fewer kids. The decline in enrollment is neither good nor bad. It just is. And our government schools are responsible for providing a great education for the kids we have — not the kids they wish we had. This is the reality that the School Board must manage to.
On the revenue side, this means that the district can expect flat to declining revenue every year. Most of the district’s revenue comes from two sources. The property tax levy raises about $38.5 million. Due to revenue limits imposed 25 years ago, the school district is limited by how much they can raise property taxes every year. State taxpayers kick in about $30.7 million to the West Bend School District. Both the revenue limits and state aid are driven by enrollment. As enrollment declines, the School Board can expect less state aid and they will not be able to raise property taxes enough to compensate due to revenue limits.
The good news is that as revenue declines with enrollment, so do expenses. While it is difficult to reduce spending with a decline in enrollment of one child, a reduction in enrollment of 10 percent to 20 percent is a different story. All fixed costs become variable costs with time. Roughly 70 percent of the district’s expenses are for salaries and benefits for employees. The other 30 percent goes to everything else. It is reasonable to expect that the district should reduce the number of employees commensurate to the number of children being educated. Likewise, with 1.14 million square feet of buildings in the district, it is reasonable to expect that the district can reduce the number of buildings to match what the kids need.
What does this mean in real terms? It means that the West Bend School Board should plan on reducing the number of employees in a controlled manner. The easy way is to not backfill retirements and resignations, but if that is not enough, then separations based on the needs of the kids and the district must be done. It is not an attack on teachers to let them go when they are not needed. It is responsible planning to meet the needs of fewer kids.
Similarly, as the buildings in the district become less utilized, the School Board must consider plans to consolidate facilities. The school district has five elementary schools. Would four be enough if there are 20 percent fewer kids? Of course. This is always a contentious issue, but it does not have to be. The mission of the school district is to educate kids — not operate unnecessary buildings.
As the School Board manages a projected decline in enrollment, they should also work to eliminate unnecessary expenses by fully utilizing Act 10. For example, asking employees to pay the same percentage of their health insurance premiums that most taxpayers pay would free up hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. This budgetary liquidity would allow the district to pay great teachers more money by implementing the merit pay system that was abandoned last year.
The voters of the West Bend School District sent a very clear message to the School Board. The voters expect the School Board to work with the money they already have. Knowing that the district is facing a systemic decline in enrollment, the School Board must manage to that reality.
Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said Tuesday several of Tony Evers’ cabinet picks were in danger of being rejected by Senate Republicans following the guv’s decision to rescind appointments to the PSC, UW Regents and other bodies.
Fitzgerald said some members of his caucus wanted to vote down the picks to show their anger at the guv’s moves. Fitzgerald said he planned to see how the legal fight over those appointments plays out before deciding how to proceed, but he made clear Senate Republicans wanted to see the picks to the PSC and Board of Regents, among others, restored.
“I think some of those cabinet members are going to be in trouble,” Fitzgerald said.
The Columbia County District Attorney’s Office is apparently closed indefinitely, and nobody’s saying why — not even to judges and county leaders.
On Monday morning, a sign affixed to the DA’s office public window on the first floor of the Columbia County Courthouse stated: “Office temporarily closed — no staff available. Please check back this afternoon — sorry for the inconvenience.”
At about 2 p.m. Monday, Assistant District Attorney Jordan Lippert told the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office officers who operate the security system at the courthouse’s entrance that pretrial conferences have been canceled.
Lippert declined to say anything on the record as to why the office is closed and when it might reopen.
“I have no comments,” he said.
[…]
It was not clear whether the closure is related to Friday’s unanimous decision by the County Board’s Human Resources Department, that an unnamed employee has filed a “credible” harassment complaint against at least one person in the DA’s office, also unnamed.
The committee’s decision, made after a protracted closed-session discussion Friday, is based on a letter the complaining employee submitted to Ruf in February. Ruf said he could not comment on the nature of the alleged harassment. The matter has been turned over to the County Board’s Judiciary Committee for further investigation; the Judiciary Committee oversees the operations of the DA’s office.
Nine pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have been found guilty of public nuisance charges for their role in a civil disobedience movement that called for free elections in the city.
Among them are three prominent activists, seen as figureheads of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
They could be jailed for up to seven years for their part in the “Umbrella Movement” protests of 2014.
Thousands marched demanding the right for Hong Kong to choose its own leader.
Those convicted include the so-called “Occupy trio” – sociology professor Chan Kin-man, 60, law professor Benny Tai, 54, and Baptist minister Chu Yiu-ming, 75.
Going into the election, the superintendent and School Board president said that there was not a “plan B” if the referendum did not pass. Such a statement is a gross admission of poor management. That kind of planning is like a guy running up his credit cards and neglecting his house because he plans to win the lottery. Well, the district did not win the referendum lottery. Now they need to manage the taxpayers’ finances responsibly.
When it comes to schools, everything is driven by one number: enrollment. It determines both the revenue and expense side of the equation. According to the most recent enrollment projections prepared for the West Bend School Board by the Applied Population Laboratory at UW-Madison, enrollment for the district will be declining substantially for the foreseeable future. Using four modeling techniques, they project that by the 2027-2028 school year, enrollment will decline between 11.6 percent and 20.3 percent across the district. That is between 772 and 1,345 fewer kids in the district in less than 10 years.
This decline in enrollment is not a reflection on the West Bend School District. It is a trend that is impacting government schools across the state due to the availability of more school options and a demographic shift of young adults having fewer kids. The decline in enrollment is neither good nor bad. It just is. And our government schools are responsible for providing a great education for the kids we have — not the kids they wish we had. This is the reality that the School Board must manage to.
Conservative Brian Hagedorn added to his narrow lead over rival Lisa Nuebauer in the state Supreme Court race after the first wave of county canvasses were completed, according to a WisPolitics.com tally.
And he’s likely to get another bump once Outagamie County finishes its canvass after it already discovered a reporting error due to the technical issues it had on the night of the election.
Hagedorn emerged from Election Day with a 5,960-vote leader over Neubauer. The tally shows Hagedorn has added 111 votes in the 24 counties that either posted final results on their websites or relayed the information following a request from WisPolitics.com.
[…]
Outagamie County has since posted updated unofficial nights that added 69 votes to Hagedorn’s margin. The AP numbers had Hagedorn at 19,206 and Neubauer at 15,419. The updated unofficial numbers pushed Hagedorn to 19,662 and Neubauer to 15,766.
Black holes are some of the most intriguing and mysterious objects in the universe, inspiring entire libraries of both scientific research and science fiction, from Einstein to the movie Interstellar. Yet despite the hold that their inconceivable gravity has on our imaginations, as well as our understanding of physics, humans have never actually seen a black hole.
That appears set to change Wednesday with the impending release of the first image taken of Sagittarius A, the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. It’s a landmark moment for both science and technology made possible by the Event Horizon Telescope, which is actually an array telescopes spread out across the Earth.
[…]
The EHT is actually an array of radio telescopes on different sides of the globe that are linked to create what’s called a Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) the size of the Earth itself. The basic idea here is that radio telescopes in different locations are combining their signals to boost their power.
If you’ve seen pictures of the Very Large Array in New Mexico (featured prominently in the 1997 movie Contact) with its multiple telescopic dishes all working together, then you can visualize the concept: Just imagine Jodie Foster tapping into an array of dishes that are separated not by meters but by thousands of miles instead.
This planet-sized observatory is necessary because, as the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory explains in the below animation, while Sagittarius A is 4 million times as massive as our sun, it’s still really far away — a distance of about 26,000 light years.
This is, of course, good news for all people interested in not getting sucked into a black hole, but it makes the thing very hard to photograph; it would be comparable to trying to see the dimples on a golf ball in Los Angeles… from New York. Better get out your super zoom lens, which is also kind of what the Event Horizon Telescope is.
The ouster of Secret Service Director Randolph D. ‘Tex” Alles on Monday was not unexpected, and, in fact, was welcomed by most members of the law enforcement agency, sources tell DailyMail.com.
‘The sentiment at the agency is “good riddance,”‘ they say.
‘Alles seemed more interested in making friends with agents than fixing the problems that plague the once-proud agency,’ according to agency sources. ‘He proved to be the exact opposite of what was needed to reform the agency. ‘
His idea for trimming costs was to get rid of protection for members of the Trump family.
Nothing changed within the Secret Service since the party-crashing Salahis went prancing into the White House State Dinner back in 2009, or since the Secret Service prostitution scandal in 2012 or since Omar Gonzalez was able to penetrate his way into the White House with a knife before being apprehended in 2014.
The change comes on the heels of an embarrassing episode at Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago resort club in Palm Beach, Florida, involving a Chinese national on a club guest list who was arrested with devices bearing computer malware.
During the April 1 council meeting aldermen unanimously adopted a new debt management policy that recognizes the city’s concerted effort to pay down debt.
“It does not bind and cannot bind future councils to borrow money or make financial decisions,” Sadownikow said. “What it can do is put a policy in place that recognizes the work that’s been done the last eight years to reduce the city’s overall debt.”
“Our goal is not just to be in the middle but to be a minimum of 10 percent better than that,” said Sadownikow. “If we want to develop a new industrial park, we may have to go into debt for a period of time to do that but the policy requires a public two-third vote to make that happen.”
The overriding theme of the policy, according to Sadownikow, is communication with the community.
“The idea is complete transparency,” he said. “Open discussion and community involvement, education, and advanced knowledge will be taking place if we’re going to break the debt policy.”
Sadownikow said the reason they adopted the new debt management policy was because city leaders realized how hamstrung they were with $84 million in debt.
“I get people in the grocery stores and others coming up to me saying ‘you can’t cut taxes forever.’ Well, part of that is true but, just like at home if you pay off your house you suddenly have $500 or an extra $1,000 or $2,000 to spend on other stuff… that’s what we’ve been able to do in West Bend,” he said.
Reducing the debt, according to Sadownikow, means about $3 million to $4 million in principal and interest payments that the city can now use to invest back into employees, parks, and roads.
“We wanted to gain more financial independence to make other decisions around the community,” he said. “Zero debt is a good idea but very few of us can own a house or a car if you didn’t utilize your own common sense and fiscal management.”
It’s wonderful to see this kind of leadership and responsibility in our city government!
When the school referendum failed in West Bend last week, the pro-referendum folks were all over the place looking for people to blame. It has become an insidious facet of the modern political left that they can’t tolerate any disagreement with their agenda. Instead of accepting that we had a rigorous debate and a majority of the people disagreed with the referendum, they demonize opponents and consider them evil, vile people.
One of the objects of their hate has become the Washington County Insider. As many of you know, the WCI has been a robust local news outlet for Washington County that I frequently reference on this site. The owner, Judy Steffes, is a lifelong Bender and has been intrepid in covering local news in various outlets for years. After the decline in local journalism (a national trend), Steffes stepped up to try to keep local journalism alive by creating the Washington County Insider. Like many folks in the county, the WCI is a staple read for me to find out what is going on locally.
Anyway, after the referendum failed, many folks on the Left were all over Facebook* and other social media outlets blaming the WCI for the failure. They accused WCI of only publishing negative stories, filtering comments, and refusing to publish pro-referendum letters to the editor. The truth is far from their accusations. WCI has become a valuable source of local news that has scrupulous journalistic ethics. But they needed someone to hate because they can’t accept that a majority of the voters in the district simply disagree with them. So the hate flowed on social media and spleens were vented on WCI. By the end of the week, local businesses and non-profits who advertise on WCI began receiving the email below and receiving phone calls at their businesses to the same effect:
Attached you will find our request that you no longer support Washington County Insider as a paid advertiser. We believe that being aligned to this business is counterintuitive to the values of both our community and your company. In the letter attached you will find a compilation of quotes from local individuals who have taken issue with the practices of WCI and the owner of the website.
Please know this group has formed in an effort to simply share the sentiment of thousands of residents who will no longer support this divisive behavior. Our first step is to make advertisers aware of the negative impact of being associated with WCI. Should it be necessary, we’ll move forward to coordinate an active boycott of advertisers.
In this age of incivility, destructive social media is common place. The only way we can be a part of the solution is to be better; by building up our community, speaking with positive intention, and using our consumer power to only support like minded businesses.
Thank you!
Note the rank hypocrisy… “the only way we can be part of the solution is to be better, by building up our community, speaking with positive intention,” so “we’ll move forward to coordinate an active boycott of advertisers.” This is what has become a typical cry-bully tactic. Spew hate and divisiveness while claiming it’s for the sake of civility and a better world. They are so filled with hate that they seek to destroy people who disagree with them – or even those who publish opinions of others who disagree with them.
What does this mean? Well, it depends. The email is unsigned and comes from an anonymous email address. This could be the work of a single crank. Or it could be the work of the same handful of lefty cranks who are always agitating in the community. I seriously doubt that it represents the “sentiment of thousands of residents” that it pretends. It is difficult to believe that thousands of people could share this sentiment and yet not a single one of them is willing to sign their name to it. So when it comes to the threats made in the email, it is a paper tiger. And if a business is seriously worried about a boycott from an anonymous email crank, then I would question their business judgment.
But pulling back the lens and putting this email in the context of the larger community discussion, it is troubling. It shows that there are some in our community who can’t just disagree with their neighbors and have a discussion about it. Instead, they work to personally and professionally destroy people who disagree with them. It is a vile, hateful, destructive attitude that has, sadly, infected too many in our community.
*NOTE: as soon as I published this, the FB post linked was removed despite having 112 comments – including a supportive one from school board member Tiffany Larson.
Three vice presidents came together at Texas A&M for “An Inside Look at the American Vice Presidency” and honored the lives of Barbara and George H.W. Bush by visiting their final resting place.
Friday evening, standing Vice President Mike Pence, along with former Vice Presidents Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney participated in the ConocoPhillips White House Lecture Series. Moments before the start of the event, all three vice presidents and Second Lady Karen Pence took a moment to pay tribute to George and Barbara Bush by bringing lilacs from a plant that the Bushes had planted at the Vice Presidents’ residence.
Whoops rang through the crowd when Pence introduced himself to the Aggies in the audience. Pence thanked filmmaker Jeffrey Roth, who is currently working on a new film titled “President in Waiting.” The film explores the office of the vice president through personal interviews with vice presidents and the president who they served under. The event featured a preview of Roth’s film.
“Having seen just a small sampling of his artistry and previous work, I know this is going to be a very special, special documentary about the institution of the vice presidency and all 48 of us who have been privileged to serve in it,” Pence said.
Pence said he is often asked which vice president among his 47 predecessors he most identifies with. He said that while both Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney — who Pence has known and worked with personally — have been extraordinary men, George H.W. Bush is ultimately the man with whom he most identifies.
“The more I thought about the question the more I thought that before any of the three of us ever served in this role, this library’s namesake had already set the goal standard of modern vice presidents,” Pence said. “And to be honest with you, I can probably most identify with Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush because he served as a sound counselor and a loyal adviser to an outsider, who came to Washington, D.C., to shake things up.”
A Wisconsin school district is testing a system that uses GPS on buses to track students, which officials say will help improve safety.
Two buses used by the Hortonville Area School District have been keeping data on when students get on and off for the past two months. Wisconsin Public Radio reported.
The buses have UniteGPS system tablets, which accept swipes from about 130 student identification cards. The information is sent to a website that school officials can access in real time.
“Our parents appreciate the reasonable precautions we take to make sure that we not only provide a secure environment, but that we know exactly what’s going on in terms of their child’s safety,” said Scott Colantonio, technology director at the Hortonville district.
The pilot program aims to allow the district to more easily track students who may get on the wrong bus or miss a bus transfer, which can leave parents worrying about where their kids are, said Harry Steenbock, the district’s transportation director. Issues occur on a daily basis, but happen more frequently when a substitute driver is on a route.
Scientists estimate that at least 100 million and maybe as many as a billion birds die each year in the US when they collide with buildings, especially glass-covered or illuminated skyscrapers. And, in a new report, conservationists now have a better idea which American cities are the deadliest for those on the wing.
Chicago, with its many glass superstructures that spike into what is the busiest US avian airspace during migration, is the most dangerous city for those feathered travelers. More than 5 million birds from at least 250 different species fly through the Windy City’s downtown every fall and spring.
They journey twice a year, many thousands of miles, going north in the spring from Central and South America, across the Great Lakes to Canada, and back south in the fall.
The Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) was due to look at the ethics around AI, machine learning and facial recognition.
One member resigned and there were calls for another to be removed.
[…]
There had been an outcry over the appointment of Kay Coles James, who is president of conservative thinktank The Heritage Foundation. Thousands of Google employees signed a petition calling for her removal, over what they described as “anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant” comments.
A man attempting to poach a rhino in the Kruger National Park was crushed to death by an elephant before being eaten by a pride of lions leaving behind his skull and a pair of pants.
