The Wisconsin Elections Commission will hold a particularly long and extensive meeting tomorrow, Sept. 25. Part of the meeting will be devoted to getting feedback on plans to spend the $7 million federal grant for election security. Approximately $2.4 million of that money has been allocated to hire additional staff for security purposes, particularly before the November election. This money will be used to hire six additional staff for the next four years.
Citizen Action of Wisconsin Organizing Co-op of Western Wisconsin recently held a forum on healthcare, concentrating on things that can be done for healthcare providers and ways to make it possible to provide more health care providers in the market.
MENOMONIE - League of Women Voters of Greater Chippewa Valley this week announced a forum for the three candidates for Assembly District 29 on Sept. 25, 6:30 p.m. in the community room of the Judicial Center, 615 Stokke Parkway, Menomonie. Candidates to represent Assembly District 29 are: Republican Rob Stafsholt, Libertarian Brian Corriea and Democrat John Calabrese.
“Can you fix Syria?” a woman asked me. “No,” I said as I shook my head. “Syria is a bit above my pay-grade. My international work [as State Senator] is limited to work with our Native Tribes.”
Native Tribes are sovereign nations.
Tribes have their own government including legislatures and courts. Many federal laws and treaties govern Wisconsin Tribes. But so do our state laws.
On August 27 the Menomonie School Board held its normal monthly special meeting, followed by the Annual Meeting and Budget Hearing. The annual meeting is an opportunity for school district residents to express concerns and to learn about plans for the upcoming year. We videotaped the meetings. The agendas and the annual budget summary are attached.
Public education has been a cornerstone of American life since the formation of the first schools in the early 1600s. Since that time, the mechanisms through which schools are funded have become considerably more complex. In Wisconsin, a desire for quality education and the costs of making such an investment has led to a funding system that can vary significantly by where a school is located.
C. Review District Calendar, Graduation Date, and Professional Development Schedule for 2018-19
D. Build Your Own Curriculum - this is a tool for teachers and parents to look at the different classes and to build a curriculum for a student. It should be available on the district website by Aug 21. There is a demonstration of the tool in the video.
The upcoming primary election is very important for the future of Wisconsin. You will have a chance to vote in primaries for many state legislative offices, and to select the Democratic candidate for Governor.
Unfortunately due to lack of staff and conflicts, we will not be recording this month's Menomonie School Board Meeting. Take this as a subtle hint that it would be helpful to have more community members step up to learn how to do video and audio recordings of meetings so these important parts of our democracy can get covered. If any of these items interest you please consider attending the meeting Monday Night.
We are starting a new project aimed at recording local government meetings. This is, in essence, an experiment. This is the first of those recordings, of the Menomonie School Board meeting from this Monday. Some of these meeting rooms are challenging due to arrangement, lighting, sound, etc. We will attempt to improve the quality of these meetings as time goes on.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission will hold a particularly long and extensive meeting tomorrow, Sept. 25. Part of the meeting will be devoted to getting feedback on plans to spend the $7 million federal grant for election security. Approximately $2.4 million of that money has been allocated to hire additional staff for security purposes, particularly before the November election. This money will be used to hire six additional staff for the next four years. These positions are being filled fairly late because although the commission had requested additional security funds, they were turned down until the grant from the federal government was available.
There has been pressure brought to bear to do more extensive auditing of election results at the local level (by policy local election officials are allowed to conduct vote audits, but are not required to do anything beyond doing tests of the accuracy of the voting machines). Certainly some of the feedback will be to request full audits, further security training, and new equipment for voting.
The meeting will be held from 10:00 to 4:00 in the State Capitol, Room 413N, GAR Hall. The agenda for the meeting is available at the elections commission website.
