Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:32 and sunset 8:29 for 14h 57m 48s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1969, Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, launches from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
With President Joe Biden and Donald Trump again eying Wisconsin as a crucial presidential election battleground, some cash-strapped municipalities hope their campaigns will pick up the tab for their expensive visits to the state.
Those include the cities of Green Bay and Eau Claire, where officials said they still haven’t been reimbursed for tens of thousands of dollars in costs related to public safety and operational support during campaign visits dating back to 2016.
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Officials in Green Bay say Donald Trump’s campaign has refused to reimburse the city for more than $42,700 in public safety and operations costs from rallies in 2024 and 2016.
President Biden has not visited Green Bay this year, but the campaign has reimbursed the city for $7,000 in costs related to first lady Jill Biden’s visit.
Green Bay says the campaigns of two Democrats still owe the city for costs stemming from events in 2016: Hillary Clinton (about $12,500) and Bernie Sanders (nearly $2,000).
Officials in Eau Claire, which hosted Trump and Clinton in 2016, say the city is still owed nearly $47,000 and $7,000 from each visit respectively, but they are next [sic] expecting to be paid.
Madison, the site of a rally for President Biden on July 5, follows a long-standing practice of not billing campaigns for visits. It does not plan to invoice Biden’s campaign.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see morning and evening showers with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset 8:36 for 15h 15m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 12.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Lee Resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain, although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not adopted until July 4.
Wisconsin will get $49 million in federal support to develop a tech hub for biohealth, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Tuesday.
The goal of the state’s tech hub project is to advance technology to improve diagnosis and treatment for illness and centers on personalized health care — tailoring medical care to the distinctive genetic differences among patients.
“Wisconsin’s biohealth tech hub will be an economic driver for the state,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) said in a news conference she held Monday to preview the announcement. “It will help entrepreneurs scale up their operations and grow. It will help expand lab space and support new research. It will support people at all educational levels get the skills that they need to land a job in this emerging sector, and it will serve as a central hub for private and public partners in biotech to coordinate and collaborate so that our state can drive innovation that benefits people around the world.”
Wisconsin’s project was one of 12 tech hub proposals in the U.S. selected for full funding, Baldwin said, winnowed from nearly 200 applications initially. The tech hub program was established under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act.
Baldwin said the Wisconsin project has been projected to create more than 30,000 jobs and spark $9 billion in economic development over the next decade.
A project — public or private — should be judged by its promises measured against its results. And so, for this project: 30,000 jobs and $9 billion in economic development over a decade. If that result should come to pass, the project will be a notable success.
It’s a relatively small federal investment for these possible results. To come even part way to the stated goal would be a worthy accomplishment. It will take years, however, to see how far Wisconsin goes.
This federal biohealth project joins Microsoft’s recent private tech project in Wisconsin as a low-risk, high-reward effort. Both of those newer ventures seem as far from Wisconsin’s expenditure-heavy Foxconn project, for example, as one could get. (It would be impossible to go farther away from Foxconn, truly: to travel more would be to round the globe only to head in the direction one started.) SeeWisconsin Tries to Leave Foxconn (and Its Misguided Boosters) Behind.
As Foxconn recedes into our past, the more absurd its proponents seem, and the more ridiculous the times in which those proponents held sway. There were some like this in Whitewater in the last decade, at the ‘Greater Whitewater’ Committee and the old CDA. SeeA Sham News Story on Foxconn and Foxconn: Heckuva Supply Chain They Have There…
NASA TV – Kennedy Space Center, Florida – 25 June 2024 1. Various of ‘GOES-U’ satellite launch from the Kennedy Space Center STORYLINE: A Falcon Heavy rocket launched a new weather satellite into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday. The ‘GOES-U’ satellite is the newest and final addition to NOAA’s GOES-R series of satellites. GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite Series. This latest satellite will assist with weather-observing and environmental monitoring by tracking local weather events that affect public safety like thunderstorms, hurricanes, wildfires, and solar storms.
Friday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 7:10 for 12h 19m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1765, the British Parliament passes the Stamp Act that introduces a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.
Three years ago, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration released a Vision 2030 plan, which laid out a roadmap for the state workforce in the coming decade. Because of the continued popularity of remote work, it called for consolidating state office space and for selling multiple state buildings in the coming years.
In all, state officials say Wisconsin could save $9 billion in occupancy costs plus more than a half a billion dollars in deferred maintenance expensive by cutting down on office space, according to an update to the plan released last spring.
There’s a hard-nosed (but short-sighted) attitude that says state office workers should sit all day at their office desks. As it turns out, those state office desks are in state office buildings, and state office buildings do not pay for themselves. If workers who do not interact directly with the public can do their work remotely, then the rest of Wisconsin should not be paying for office buildings for those very workers.
It shows a lack of foresight to say one is holding office workers accountable for their in-person attendance when that in-person attendance does not account for wasted money on state buildings.
The State of Wisconsin can and should sell office buildings that have become relics of a last-century service model.
Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 43. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset 4:22 for 9h 02m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1903, the Wright brothers make the first controlled powered, heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
By John T. Daniels – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppprs.00626.
School districts in Wisconsin would have to comply with competitive bidding requirements for construction projects costing more than $150,000 under a new legislative proposal.
Municipalities, meanwhile, have to seek a competitive bid for any project over $25,000. The same proposed legislation would increase that threshold for municipalities to $50,000.
During a public hearing Thursday before the Assembly Committee on Local Government, Chris Kulow, government relations director for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, testified against the bill. He argued that requiring a competitive bidding process would take away local control.
Kulow said most school boards are already using competitive bidding. He said having to choose the lowest bidder could mean having to sacrifice the best quality.
“Currently, districts that have long-standing relationships with local contractors have the opportunity to work with them to negotiate deals that include spending resources locally, keeping those dollars in the community,” Kulow said. “They result in the hiring of parents whose children attend the schools. They want to do a good job, and they’re less likely to ask for extra charges.”
All school boards, not merely most, should use competitive bidding for large projects. Kulow’s argument about districts with long-standing relationships with local contractors is unsupported by his testimony. He’s telling a story about local, but his story offers not measurement but instead only unsubstantiated-yet-beguiling claims: “spending resources locally,” “dollars in the community,” “hiring of parents whose children attend the schools,” etc.
Sounds great, right? How often, how much, how many?
Kulow — who asserted his points as a representative of educational boards — offered in his testimony no evidence whatever. Not a shred. See testimony of Chris Kulow, Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Local Government, 12.14.23, video @ 1:17:23. A former superintendent, now part of the school board association’s staff, followed Kulow’s presentation with his own singular experiences in one school district.
Honest to goodness. A knowledgeable or educated person should expect more than this. A student who turned in a term paper so vacuous would deserve a poor grade (or a chance at a re-write); an adult representative of school boards doing the equivalent deserves the intellectual scorn of his fellow Wisconsinites. Our millions of fellow Wisconsin adults did not, each of them, fall off of turnip trucks yesterday.
These men represent school boards; many more men and women are on school boards. There are thousands of superintendents and other administrators in over four hundred school districts in this state. Anyone — any single one — who was graduated from high school, college, or a graduate program with a presentation as light as Kulow’s either learned too little or has forgotten too much.
Those who wish to argue against required competitive bidding — a practice adopted in 47 of 50 states — need to do better than this.
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:04 AM and sunset 7:53 PM for 13h 49m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM. On this day in 1978,…
Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 19m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.1% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1950, the Korean War begins when North Korea invades South…
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:24 AM and sunset 8:19 PM for 14h 55m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.3% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1854, the Milwaukee and Mississippi railroad reached Madison, connecting the city…
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with intermittent thunderstorms and a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:34 AM and sunset 8:08 PM for 14h 33m 39s of daytime. The moon is in its third quarter with 49.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1949, the Soviet Union lifts its blockade…
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:36 PM for 13h 22m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 37.5% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1912, the British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in…
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 32. Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 5:34 PM for 10h 52m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.3% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1947, in New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first “instant camera,” the…
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 34. Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:35 PM for 9h 10m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM. On this day in 1914, the Ford Motor Company announces…
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:56 AM and sunset 4:25 PM for 9h 29m 25s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM. On this day in 1963, President John F.…
Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with high of 77. Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset 6:56 PM for 12h 16m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 35.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM. On this day in 1796, George Washington’s Farewell Address…
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with high of 79. Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 7:02 PM for 12h 25m 20s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 61.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1959, the first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a…
