Deer Season Ends With Third Possible Hunter Shooting Death
11/30/15 – A shooting death last night in central Wisconsin is being investigated as a hunting-related incident. Marathon County sheriff’s officials were called around 9:15pm last to a wooded area near Spencer in the town of Brighton. The victim was a 50-year-old man whose name was not immediately released. The state D-N-R has joined local authorities in investigating. If it is ruled a hunting death, it would be the third shooting death in Wisconsin’s nine-day gun season which ended late Sunday afternoon. The last three deer gun seasons had been completed with no deaths. A man was killed opening weekend in Columbia County when he was wounded while passing a loaded rifle to a woman in a deer stand. A stray bullet killed a hunter in Waushara County last Monday. Four hunters have been wounded.
Local, Statewide Deer Harvest Totals Through Saturday
11/30/15 – Wisconsin hunters shot more deer in the first eight days of this year’s gun season, than in all nine days a year ago. The state D-N-R says more than 192-thousand deer were registered statewide through Saturday. That’s about 775 more animals than in all of last season, which was the lowest total in 30 years. Dodge County had 2984 deer taken. Columbia County reported 3772. Jefferson County hunters reported a harvest of 1534. The gun season ended Sunday. Hunters who were successful on the final day have until five this Monday evening to register their deer online or by phone. We expect to get final totals Monday night or early Tuesday. The D-N-R says almost 92-thousand bucks were harvested through Saturday, along with 101-thousand antlerless deer. For the second year in a row, does were off-limits in a number of northern Wisconsin counties in an effort to increase small herds in that region. As of Thanksgiving, 610-thousand Wisconsin deer licenses were sold — up two-tenths of one-percent from the year before.
Two Injured, Six Treated In Three-Vehicle Clyman Accident
11/30/15 – Two people were transported to the hospital and six others were treated at the scene of a three-vehicle accident Friday night near Clyman. According to Clyman Fire Chief Eric Howlett, a Ford Explorer driven by Richard Walter of Watertown was heading east on Highway J when he failed to stop for a stop sign and travelled into the northbound lanes of Highway 26. His vehicle was struck by a Toyota driven by Jean Flesch from Oconomowoc. Flesch and her passenger Robert Flesch were transported to Watertown Regional Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries. After the two vehicles collided, a third vehicle stopped at the stop sign on J waiting to turn was hit by the Walter vehicle after it collided with Flesch. That vehicle, a Dodge pickup truck driven by Clifford Maas of Clyman, sustained heavy damage. Maas and four occupants were all treated at the scene. Walter was not injured. The northbound lanes of Highway 26 were reduced to one lane for about an hour.
Kennedy: ‘Watermark Saved Taxpayers On Retention Pond’
11/30/15 – Beaver Dam’s planned Watermark Community and Senior Center is going to cost taxpayers around $200-thousand dollars to finish but if the project never came to fruition, taxpayers may have shelled out a lot more. That’s because Beaver Dam needs a site to build a state-mandated storm water pond next year and costs were mounting at the county-owned site the city was looking at – the former Monarch Range property on North Spring Street. The city had been haggling with the county for months over the Monarch site and if the purchase had been made, city residents likely would have been on the hook for the high costs of removing contaminated soil, estimated at over $600-thousand dollars. By constructing a pond on the current senior center land off Third Street, the cost will be half that, around $300-thousand dollars. Mayor Tom Kennedy told us recently on WBEV’s Community Comment that he knew all along the site of the current Senior Center on Third Street could be a real asset for the city. Once reconfigured, it is anticipated that the library entrance off North Spring Street will be eliminated in favor of access on Third Street where the Senior Center is currently located. Kennedy says the current senior center would not become the pond itself but it would accommodate new parking spaces that will be displaced when the pond is constructed on the current library parking lot and community garden space. The pond is expected to be constructed in 2016 while changes to library parking may have to wait until 2017. Kennedy says the city is no longer in talks with the county as the latest counter offer from the county was left on the table.
Dodge County Sheriff Hiring Corrections Workers
11/30/15 – The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office is looking to hire a handful of new employees. During a recent appearance on WBEV’s Community Comment, Chief Deputy Scott Smith said there are five openings in the corrections department and one opportunity in communications. Smith says the multi-step hiring process starts with testing. The sheriff’s office then requests the names of suitable candidates from civil services and makes selections from that list. Candidates must be a U.S. citizen with a high school diploma in addition to having good communication and problem solving skills. Smith says corrections staff typically starts at $18-$19 per hour, varying slightly based on prior experience. Communications officers start at $18-$21 an hour. Applications are due by December 18 and can be found on the human resources page of the Dodge County website.
Walker Addresses Corrections Shortage
11/30/15 – Governor Scott Walker addressed the shortage of corrections officers during an appearance last week in Beaver Dam. Wisconsin prisons have adopted a new overtime policy as it deals with a shortage of correctional officers. Newer officers have been getting overtime shifts if no one else volunteers to do them. Now, Corrections Secretary Ed Wall has adopted a rotation that adds veteran guards and sergeants to the O-T roster. In a memo, he says the larger pool of overtime candidates would reduce the load for individual officers and make the prisons safer as a result. Wall says he’ll also seek more pay for prison workers, with a goal of alleviating a shortage in which one of every ten officer posts is vacant. Walker echoed those sediments when asked by reporters to comment on the shortage. The governor said in the short-term, the department will continue to rely on overtime while in the long-term the state is going to have to look at other measures. He noted that the lower the unemployment rate the fewer the pool of available candidates for corrections so Walker says the state is going to have to find new ways to provide incentives moving forward. State Senate Democrat Jon Erpenbach of Middleton says the job would be more attractive with higher pay and better training. But he tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the spread-out overtime would drive away employees — and would do the opposite of what the agency is trying to achieve.
Born Update On Sex Offender Residency Bill
11/30/15 – State Representative Mark Born says that his bill restricting policies for the placement of violent sex offenders should be addressed in the spring session. On WBEV’s Community Comment this month, Born discussed the status of a bill that would more closely regulate so-called Chapter 980 sex offenders. Those are considered the “worst-of-the-worst” who have already finished their prison sentence but are considered by counselors to still be a danger to society resulting in court-ordered civil commitment. If they participate in treatment, federal law requires that they be allowed to be reassembled safely into society. Born says the constitutionality is pretty clear as a federal judge ruled that you cannot have a treatment program that does not allow offenders to work through it. The Beaver Dam Republican says many offenders have been successfully released but a problem was uncovered in May. Two violent sex offenders were placed in a Brownsville residence, right next door to two young children. It took a couple months, but Dodge County judges were eventually able to revoke the placement of Jonathan Miller and Robert Larson. Born stresses that his bill only addresses placement for supervised release and does not “weigh-in” on treatment or monitoring which he says functions fairly well. The bill was introduced earlier this month and has been assigned to the Assembly Corrections Committee. Born says the bill is expected to be addressed in caucus in December with committee hearings anticipated in January. In the Senate, Chair of the Public Safety Committee Senator Van Wanggaard is the lead sponsor and Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau is one of the co-authors.
Thousands Purged From Food Stamp Program
11/30/15 – Almost 15-thousand Wisconsinites have lost food stamp benefits because they did not look for work. The new state budget requires recipients in the Food-Share program to work at least 20 hours a week, or train for new employment in order to keep their benefits. State Health Services figures show that about a quarter of the nearly 61-thousand people affected by the new requirement lost Food-Share benefits from July through September. That’s after getting three months to meet the work mandate. About 45-hundred recipients found jobs using a training program that was available to them. Sherri Tussler of Milwaukee’s Hunger Task Force tells the Wisconsin State Journal the work mandate will “bankrupt” local food banks. She asked the state to waive the time limit for finding work. But officials quote U-S-D-A figures showing that states with rules similar to Wisconsin have resulted in higher percentages of people losing benefits — around 60-percent.
GOP Bill Would Make Fourth OWI A Felony
11/30/15 – Two Republican legislators are co-sponsoring a bill to make a person’s fourth-time drunken driving offense a felony under Wisconsin law. Right now, it’s only a felony if it is committed within five years of a previous offense. State Representative Jim Ott of Mequon introduced the Assembly version of the bill last week. Senator Alberta Darling of River Hills is the sponsor in the other chamber. They’ve tried this in the past, and failed, but Darling says attitudes are changing. Ott has said he wants to criminalize first-time drunken driving offenses. Wisconsin has some of the most-lenient drunken driving laws in the country.2015
