Tuesday 1/15/19
15 January 2019 News
Grothman Waiting On Committee Assignments
Congressman Glenn Grothman would like to learn what committees he will be assigned during the new session in Congress. He says with Democrats taking control of the House things have been a little disorganized. In the past he’s served on the House’s Labor and Education, Government Oversight, and Budget Committees and hopes to be reassigned to some of those same committees. “I’d like to keep the same committees I had the last time. Because we are in the minority sometimes you have to accept two committees instead of three committees. In the last two cycles that I’ve been there I knew which committees I had before Christmas.” He says Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will let him know what committees he’s on, but Democrats have to let McCarthy know how many Republicans get to be on each committee.
Dodge County Jail Gets Opioid Treatment Grant
Dodge County’s Jail is getting a $35,000 state grant to help combat opioid abuse. The county will use the funds for a medication-assisted treatment program. Those participating in the program will receive a medication that counteracts heroin’s effects. That will be combined with a post-treatment plan that includes counseling and follow-up treatments. The state’s Department of Health Services has awarded 16 county jails across the state a total of $1.3 million in grants for similar programs.
Gannett Considering Buyout Offer
Newspaper publisher Gannett has recevied a $1.3 billion buy out offer from another newspaper chain MNG. Gannett is the biggest newspaper publisher in the country. MNG, also known as Digital First Media, already has a 7.5 percent stake in Gannett. Gannett owns USA Today and papers across the state including the Fond du Lac Reporter, Oshkosh Northwestern, Appleton Post Crescent, Green Bay Press Gazette, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Meanwhile among MNG’s holdings are the Boston Herald, Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News, and the Salt Lake Tribune.
Donations Affected By Change In The Tax Law
The President of the Ripon Area United Way’s Board of Directors says a change in tax credits for charitable giving is affecting the donations they are seeing. Jeff Puhlmann Becker says Ripon has a long history of being very generous, but there’s a whole lot of confusion about the tax law right now, which could affect attaining their $90,000 campaign goal. “We tended to think people give from the heart and it wouldn’t impact us as much. What we’re finding is maybe it’s not the people aren’t as generous but the confusion about the taxes has caused our giving to go down.” If you would like to give to the Ripon Area United Way send donations to them to P.O.Box 71 in Ripon, online go to riponareaunitedway.org or their Facebook page, or drop them in the box at Horicon Bank.
Senior Scams
Those attending a potluck dinner at the Ripon Senior Center last week also got briefed on the latest scams affecting seniors. Center Director Noreen Johnson says they always feature a speaker at the potluck dinners and this time it was someone from Horicon Bank who talked about scams. She says the best advice was the simplest. “Horicon came and talked about the scams and told people that if you don’t like the phone call they gave them permission to just hang up, just hang up don’t push any buttons.”She says pushing buttons to hear one of the caller’s options may let them know that number might be open to a scam. The bank’s representative also talked about the Grandparents scam where the caller poses as a grandchild who is in trouble and needs money to get out of it. Johnson it was also recommended that if you fall for a scam to contact your financial institution as soon as possible so they can try and mitigate some of the damage.
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