News 01.18.17
18 January 2017 News
The Dodge County Sheriff is warning residents about dangerous ice conditions on area lakes. Sheriff Dale Schmidt says rescue personnel responded to two separate incidents of vehicles breaking through thin ice on two different lakes Sunday. Schmidt says fortunately nobody was hurt when vehicles went through the ice on Fox Lake and Lake Sinissippi. In the Fox Lake incident a man was fishing with his pet dog when his vehicle went through the ice. The man was arrested for OWI 5th offense and transported to jail.
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Ribbon cutting ceremonies were held Monday in Fond du Lac for Mercury Marine’s new 49,000 square foot EDP paint plant. Workers in the plant will apply a state of the art coating system that gives the outboard engines superior corrosion resistance and warranty protection. The plant, which broke ground in 2015, will more than double the capacity of the current facility. Mercury Marine President, John Pfeifer, says the expansion will improve flexibility, quality and the environment, while also reinforcing the company’s commitment to growth in Fond du Lac. Since 2009, Mercury Marine has invested more than $730 million in capital investments and R&D. Projects such as these support growth and the company’s commitment to provide the most advanced products, and to increase manufacturing capacity within its Fond du Lac facilities. Close to 90 percent of work done on the EDP expansion involves Fond du Lac- or Wisconsin-based companies such as TTX, CD Smith, Excel Engineering and many more.
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The Wisconsin state Senate spent its first day in session helping a cheese distributor. The first bill introduced in the Senate that was to be voted on Tuesday is designed to assist with Plymouth-based Masters Gallery Foods building of a $30 million cheese packaging and distribution plant in the village of Oostburg. The bill would allow Oostburg, in Sheboygan County, to create a new tax incremental district for the 150,000-sqaure-foot facility expected to create 120 jobs over three years. The proposal has bipartisan support. The Senate also plans to vote on rule changes for the next two years. They are largely technical and include removing a requirement from the days when smoking was allowed in the Capitol that the Senate chamber be properly ventilated.
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The parents of one of two Wisconsin girls who were 12 when they allegedly stabbed another girl 19 times to impress the fictional internet character “Slender Man” say they were as shocked as anyone by the 2014 attack. In an interview Monday with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Bill and Kristi Weier, parents of Anissa Weier, say she’s remorseful. The couple also says Anissa shouldn’t be tried as an adult because they say Wisconsin laws haven’t kept up with the science of juvenile brain development. The interview came ahead of an HBO documentary, “Beware the Slenderman.” Anissa, now 15, and 14-year-old Morgan Geyser have pleaded not guilty in adult court by reason of mental disease to attempted homicide in the 2014 stabbing of classmate Payton Leutner in Waukesha.
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Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature are circulating a bill to legalize medical marijuana. The proposal by state Sen. Jon Erpenbach and Rep. Chris Taylor comes after Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he would be open to the idea. Republicans have typically been against any attempts to legalize marijuana. Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he is against medical marijuana. And Gov. Scott Walker also says he opposes it. But Erpenbach and Taylor are looking for co-sponsors with a deadline of Jan. 26. They say in their letter seeking supporters that the public supports such a move to help those who are suffering with debilitating illness. It would be up to Republicans who control both the Senate and Assembly on whether to hold a hearing on the measure.
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Police chiefs from around the country have converged in Janesville to discuss ways to reduce the use of deadly force. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who is from Janesville, hosted a listening session Monday focusing on a training program from the D.C.-based nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum. PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler says officers learn techniques to slow down threatening situations to avoid the use of force. He believes it can especially reduce the use of force in situations involving mentally ill and unarmed individuals. Janesville Police Chief David Moore, whose department sent six officers to the training last month and plans to train all its officers over the next three years, hopes others across the country will follow suit.
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