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Daily Bread for 1.14.20

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy, with a high of thirty-nine.  Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:45 PM, for 9h 22m 32s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 82.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the one thousand one hundred sixty-second day.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM

On this day in 1784, United States Congress of the Confederation ratifies the Treaty of Paris.

Recommended for reading in full —

David J. Lynch reports Trump’s trade deal with China won’t give many U.S. companies relief, as most tariffs will remain:

Nearly two-thirds of everything Americans buy from China will face tariffs, compared with less than 1 percent before the president began his anti-China campaign, according to an analysis.

Riccardo Torres reports Millions paid to advisers on Foxconn project:

Some consulting firms have already received thousands — and in one case, millions —of dollars working on the project for the state, Racine County and Mount Pleasant.

In total, among the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., Racine County and the Village of Mount Pleasant, consultants and other firms have been paid more than $5.3 million from 2017 to October 2019.

Mount Pleasant has paid out the most, more than $3.6 million during that time period. Much of that money is related to work done to secure the land and infrastructure needed for the project.

….

According to documents obtained through open-records requests, in 2017 Kapur and Associates received $86,700 from Mount Pleasant. In 2018, it received $240,000; in 2019, through October, the firm had received $208,000.

That is a total of $534,700 from Mount Pleasant, and the total is growing.

….

Besides Kapur and Associates, Mount Pleasant has paid the law firm of von Briesen and Roper, S.C., $2.26 million in total since 2017. Alan Marcuvitz, attorney with von Briesen, has been working with the village on land acquisition for the village and other legal matters with Foxconn.

Mueller Communications LLC, communication consultant for the village on Foxconn, has received more than $684,000 since 2017.

Ehlers, Inc., financial adviser to the village on Foxconn, has received more than $114,000 from the village since 2017.

Since 2017, the county has paid Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, S.C., more than $575,000 for legal services; PFM received more than $259,000 for financial services; Quarles and Brady, LLP, received more than $138,000 for legal services; and Moody’s Corp., received $18,500 for financial services.

The county also paid more than $545,000 toward an underwriter discount related to bonding the county did on the project.

Since 2017, the state has paid Foley and Lardner, LLP, more than $177,000 for legal services; Baker, Tilly, Vircho, Krause, LLP received $16,500 for “third-party analysis;” and Display Supply Chain Consultants, LLC received $2,500 for a “display industry tutorial.”

Corrine Hess reports Foxconn Promised Wisconsin ‘Innovation Centers,’ But Hasn’t Yet Delivered:

Foxconn bought buildings in the cities’ downtowns, promising to employ hundreds of workers at each site. The company said it would recruit from nearby colleges.

Two years later, nothing has opened. And none of the 1,200 jobs have been filled.

The innovation centers themselves were vaguely explained as a place to foster entrepreneurship.

Matt Jewell, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, said he hoped his students could work at Foxconn. But he’s unclear what the company is doing.

“As a general term, innovation center doesn’t say anything specific to us, so we were from the start trying to understand what they meant by that,” Jewell said.

(Emphasis added.)

Who Invented JELLO?:

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