Hometown Broadcasting News Thursday 4/30/20
30 April 2020 News
Arson Suspect Provided Tip That Led To His Own Arrest
While authorities in Fond du Lac County were looking for tips on suspicious fires last month, a 43-year-old North Fond du Lac man provided one that put him under suspicion and ultimately led to his arrest for arson. According to the criminal complaint Michael Miller told a North Fond du Lac Police officer he had seen a suspicious black car on Washington Avenue the night of two fires. One of the fires was a block away from where Miller lives and he had ties to residents living at the scene of those two fires. Miller was eventually interviewed and allegedly admitted to setting 12 fires from December of 2018 through this month. He’s being held in the County Jail on a $200,000 cash bond and has a preliminary hearing on May 7th.
Fatal Fire In Sheboygan
A house fire in Sheboygan Tuesday afternoon claimed a life. The fire was in the 2300 block of South 9th Street on the city’s south side. Sheboygan Fire Chief Eric Montellano says firefighters entered the structure and found one victim on the second floor of the home. Thirty-eight-year-old Zachary Zirtzlaff was taken to the hospital where efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. The cause of the fire appears to be accidental, but is still under investigation.
Additional Arrest In Columbia Correctional Escape
(Katherine Wooderick, Columbia County Sheriff’s photo)
The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office this week announced the arrest of an additional person allegedly involved in the escape of two inmates from Columbia Correctional Institution. Tuesday detectives from the Sheriff’s Office with the assistance of Madison Police took 46-year-old Katherine Wooderick of Madison into custody on two counts of escape as party to a crime. She allegedly picked up Thomas Deering and James Newman at the Poynette Piggly Wiggly after they escaped from the prison in Portage April 16th. A civilian kitchen worker at the prison, 46-year-old Holly Zimdahl of Poynette, is also facing charges for her role in their escape. They were later arrested at a shelter in Illinois.
Ripon Fortunate So Far
A member of the Ripon Community COVID-19 Task Force says the city is fortunate it’s not experiencing more cases of the pandemic than it has. Jeff Puhlmann-Becker says the few that have been reported by businesses including one case in the school district and one at Alliance Laundry Systems has been manageable. “We do know that some of our businesses have reported that there have been one or two tests here or there that have been positive and contained. When you look at our hospital the size of our health care response teams and emergency teams that is very containable and manageable.” He says the biggest need in the community right now have been food and groceries because people have been laid off of work and not because the community has taken a direct hit from the Coronavirus.
College Prep Testing Also Different With COVID 19
College preparatory testing and Advanced Placement testing are both being handled a little differently this spring due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Ripon Schools Superintendent Mary Whitrock says some of the needed testing have been waived or will require taking during the summer. “Where students take the ACT and we take our state assessments those things have been waived to a great degree. Our students have taken the ACT; we do have some students that do have to take make up tests though. They will be looking at dates down the road for those kinds of things.” She says on the other hand students weren’t able to take all of the content for Advanced Placement courses to earn college credit so that testing will basically involve a test based on an essay.
Temporary Food Benefits For Children Missing School Meals
To ensure the 400,000 Wisconsin children that receive free or reduced price meals through the National School Lunch Program continue receiving meals during the pandemic the state’s Department of Health Services is pumping more than $140 million dollars into food benefits for those families. The benefits will cover the days that schools would have been in session into early June. The federal funding is being provided through the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The program is referred to as Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer or P-EBT because the benefits will be put on cards for families to use to purchase food at grocery stores or farmers’ markets, as available.
COVID 19 Child Care Grant Proposal Submitted
The state’s Department of Children and Families has submitted a request to the Joint Finance Committee to use $51 million to support Wisconsin’s early care and education community. The funding comes as part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. The grant proposal breaks the total $51 million allocation into smaller funds, with each addressing a critical challenge identified by child care providers and legislative leaders. The proposed programs include a grant to support those providing care for essential workforce families, a grant to provide hazard pay for early care educators working during the public health emergency, and a grant to support programs which closed during the outbreak. When the proposed program is approved, the department can begin taking applications and distributing funds.
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