Thank you, Governor Evers and members of the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate for your bipartisan effort to exempt the AmeriCorps Segal Education Award from state income tax. In particular, we acknowledge Representative David Bowen for his work submitting the proposal for inclusion in Governor Evers’s Executive Budget and Senator Dale Kooyenga for supporting the proposal […]
Category: Letter to the Editor
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Your Right to Know: No Private Email Accounts for Public Business
By Tom Kamenick, Wisconsin Watch Imagine that a developer has been lobbying your local town board to approve a controversial development. You file a record request asking for all emails between that developer and the board’s three members. None of them have official government email accounts, so they search their personal emails. Two members each […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Comparing PPP, ESSER in the Joint Finance Education Budget in Wisconsin
The leaders of the five largest school districts in Wisconsin have issued the following guest column in response to the recent action by the state legislature’s Joint Finance Committee: Recently, the Wisconsin legislature’s Joint Finance Committee approved a budget that was less than 10 percent of what Governor Tony Evers proposed in his executive budget. […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor, Sponsored
COVID-19 and Wisconsin Worker’s Compensation Claims
My name is Attorney Thomas Durkin, and I handle worker’s compensation cases, personal injury, and social security disability/SSI cases in Wisconsin. I get asked the question if COVID-19 can be considered a worker’s compensation injury for which benefits are payable in Wisconsin. The short answer is yes, but it depends upon many factors. Many viruses, […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Your Right to Know: Bar Wisconsin Lawmakers from Destroying Records
By Larry Gallup, Your Right to Know WISCONSIN- If you want to see all of the emails your mayor received and sent during the week of March 16-20, 2020, to find communications regarding the coronavirus outbreak, all you have to do is ask. Under state law, the mayor is required to retain these and provide […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: The State Needs to Re-Commit to Cities
By Brookfield Mayor Steven Ponto & Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway The cities of Brookfield and Madison are different in many ways. In one the majority votes red, the other blue. One is a suburban enclave, mostly white and upper middle-class. The other is the state’s second largest city and has a more diverse mix of […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Medicaid Expansion
Medicaid Expansion: How We Bounce Back by DHS Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake This week, Wisconsin’s budget committee voted – yet again – to turn down the opportunity to expand the state’s Medicaid program, thereby eliminating the opportunity to provide health care and long-term care services for more Wisconsinites and declining more than $1.6 billion in federal […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Avoid Building Fossil Fuel Infrastructure
By Sr. Rose Marie Dischler As a resident of Racine who lives just two miles south of the Oak Creek power plant, I care about our lands, water, air, and all communities in Wisconsin. Fossil fuels are a dirty and increasingly uneconomical way to provide for our energy needs. Wisconsin’s energy landscape has changed dramatically […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to Editor: Eliminating the State Income Tax on the AmeriCorps Education Award
By Jeanne Duffy Executive Director of Serve Wisconsin AmeriCorps members make a difference in Racine and communities throughout Wisconsin, and we can make a difference for them by exempting the AmeriCorps education award from state income tax. Each year, over 1,200 AmeriCorps members serve 1 million hours at nearly 350 service sites across Wisconsin. AmeriCorps […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Home Repairs
By Sr. Janet Weyker Home repairs can be expensive. However, not budgeting for them can be even more expensive, leading to the demise of the house itself. Earth is our home; it is in need of repair from the damages caused by misuse and over-use of resources. After months of diligent work, the Governor’s Task […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Coal Plant Retirements
By S. Janet Weyker The burning of fossil fuel is a leading contributor to climate change and poor air quality. Last week’s announcement that the U.S. will rejoin the Paris Climate Accord was good news for the environment. However, a report just released by the Sierra Club noted that 75% of the U.S.’s most coal-dependent […]
Posted inEvents, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Rally For a Choice Event
In the spirit of stepping forward to create an alternative platform for our voices to be heard, I have been helping with organizing an event for those who support a choice between in-person and virtual learning. Our “Rally For A Choice” is scheduled for this Saturday, January 23, 2021, at 11:00 a.m. at Monument Square. […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: We Energies’ Unfinished Business
By Carl Lindner Two years ago, almost to the day, a dozen or so members of the Clean Power Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin gathered in Ziegler Park, across from We Energies’ headquarters. They were there to protest the pollution and health hazards caused by the two large coal-burning plants in Oak Creek. Since 2017 the […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Military Veteran Commentary
By Chief of Police Art Howell In observation of the recent community conversation wherein it was suggested that military veterans be excluded from future employment opportunities with the Racine Police Department, a formal public response is in order. This conversation cannot proceed in earnest without first acknowledging the sacrifice of those who have given their […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Who’s Killing Who?
This year the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis Minnesota, caused America and the world to concede to the reality of unjustifiable murder of unarmed Black people by the police, and the unrestricted totality of the injustices of systemic racism. Frankly speaking, these murders of Blacks by police are mostly based on racial […]
