Monday, November 30, 2020

DNR still wrong on land trade with lakeshore golf course project

People familiar with my blog know I have for years been posting about an effort to convert at an acknowledged expense to the environment writ large a privately-owned nature preserve in Sheboygan on the shores of Lake Michigan into an upscale golf course complex - 18-hole course, clubhouse, maintenance building, parking lot and more.

Bad enough that the company says a permanent transfer of some public acreage within the very popular, adjoining lakeside Kohler Andrae State Park is needed to make the private project work.

And a further mind-boggling insult is that the Wisconsin DNR remains joined with the developer in a lawsuit that seeks to bar citizens (opponents of the plan have created "Friends of the Black River Forest"- FBRF) from challenging the land: 

DNR and Kohler Company fight residents' right to challenge a state agency's actions

The Kohler Company and the DNR have petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court to review a recent appellate court decision which affirmed the right of FBRF and citizens to challenge a state agency's actions, particularly regarding the environment....

Kohler's appellate argument claimed that FBRF and park users, were not harmed by the land swap of state park land because the land swap in itself did not mean a course would be built. (In order to bring a suit a plaintiff must be harmed by an action,  i.e. have standing). The appellate judgement found that the land exchange decision anticipated that Kohler Co. would construct a golf course and noted the impact of the decision on the Friends’ members. 

So basically the state - that's the people, you and I - is arguing that the people can be barred from contesting the disposition of public land which is there for the people's use -  than 400,000 annually, according to recent DNR records - and which, in this case, is park land literally within a stone's throw of the people who have filed a legal contest.

What state park is next?

You can find scores of posts about the considerable history and environmental, procedural and legal issues in this matter by using the blog search box at the upper left on the website.

Here is one helpful example that includes photographs provided by the park's former long-time superintendent of some of the actual acreage inside the park - land that is integral to its design and function - which the developer says it needs for a road, parking lot and maintenance building that it can't find room for on the nature preserve site it wants to substantially clear-cut.

Public land which the DNR and its governing board are OK with transferring through a swap with the developer.

Let me emphasize:

* I'm not anti-golf. I used to play when I was younger.

* And I understand that things change.

But it's important to see the developer/DNR litigation's connections to other events during the Walker years, including the state's administrative end-run through an annexation to box out local opponents in the Town of Wilson where the nature preserve had long-been legally situated. 

And let's also note the DNR's work on a separate wetlands permit that raised some similar preservation issues that eventually helped knock out a controversial wetlands loss in Monroe County sought by a developer.

We expected favoritism in the application of and access to state power to be shown to businesses and influential individuals who wanted to acquire important public resources like groundwaterand even public lands for private use during the Walker years.

Here is another example from a few years ago that showed how this special privileged lane gets used: 

MADISON (AP) — Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials have come up with a way to give a northern lakefront parcel to one of Gov. Scott Walker’s key donors that they hope will save them another round of stinging criticism.

The agency plans to give Elizabeth Uihlein the 1.75 acres along Rest Lake in Manitowish Waters she wants so her condominium complex will have lake access, DNR real estate director Doug Haag said Monday. Uihlein and her husband in return will give the agency 42.7 private acres the couple is close to buying within the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest boundaries. The land includes 2,100 feet of frontage on Mann Lake, Haag said.

And if you read that and say, 'well, the DNR for the public actually got lots of nice acres through the swap,' you're missing the point, which is: 

Who but a relative handful of well-positioned people or businesses are even able to make these audacious, self-serving proposals in the first place?

Remember that people and businesses who want to share their good fortune and properties with the public do it all the time through outright gifts or conservation easement arrangements, and the DNR manages the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program which acquires land to blend into the public domain.

The Kohler Andrae State Park land swap is the Stewardship program in reverse, even though it nets the DNR acres and a building not included in the park's design.

Can the DNR shuffle off the acquired acreage to a gas station operation which says a new development at that spot only works if it can tear down the building for a parking lot there?

Two more things:

* No one is picking on Kohler interests. In fact, the state already did them a pretty big favor when it helped finance and acquire land for a special interstate highway interchange for another Kohler golf course in Sheboygan County.  

Public money goes to event-only I-43 ramp for PGA Championship

* And I know that Gov. Evers has been hamstrung by GOP moves which began even before he was sworn in, and that his opponents won't let him manage the public health during a deadly pandemic, let alone even confirm his completely-qualified Department of Health Services Secretary forced to remain in 'designee' status for nearly two years.

So I understand that perhaps provoking another fight with his opponents is not what he wants right now.

But - it's completely wrong on many levels that the DNR which is now freed from Walkerite management, and is now controlled by a Governor who has has repeatedly elevated conservation and science here and here and here, is continuing to participate in a lawsuit first brought during the Walker/Attorney General Brad Schimel era which validates their agendas while undermining the agency's mission statement  - 

To protect and enhance our natural resources:

our air, land and water;
our wildlife, fish and forests
and the ecosystems that sustain all life.

To provide a healthy, sustainable environment

and a full range of outdoor opportunities.

To ensure the right of all people

to use and enjoy these resources
in their work and leisure.

To work with people

to understand each other's views
and to carry out the public will.

And in this partnership

consider the future
and generations to follow.

Now maybe I'm missing something here - like an arcane legal procedure or requirement which requires a state agencies to remain in litigation even if it originated under a defeated administration.

Is there a standard, a rule, a precedent, a law - what? - that requires state agencies’ - with their chests of taxpayer dollars at the ready - to follow prior decisions in lockstep - no matter how flawed, no matter how often compounded while expenses mount for aggrieved taxpayers who have to fight the state to preserve what is already theirs.

It seems to me that the Evers administration was put into office by voters explicitly to assertively preserve public lands and defend citizen rights that were manipulated for private advantages during the Walker years.

Let me close with some words from former Kohler Andrae State Park Superintendent Jim Buchholz who precisely identified in 2016 what was so wrong with the land deal and which continues to explain why the state should have removed itself from this mess and lined up with the public interest years ago.

I encourage you to click on the link and read his statement in its entirety:

The Dept. of Natural Resources has no right and nor any responsibility to “give away” 4-plus acres of publicly-owned state park land to anyone, especially to a “for-profit” business or person for the purpose of increasing the revenue of such business or to increase the income of any person or corporation...
If this is approved for Kohler, “ I “ would like to request and expect approval for my own 4 acres so I could set up my own business, perhaps a hotdog stand.  Of course, like Kohler, I would have to ban park visitors from ever setting foot on my part of their public land again (unless they purchase one of my hotdogs of course).
This land transfer for private use should not be allowed regardless of the political involvement, DNR appointments and pressure from the Governor’s office. The DNR is supposed to represent the preservation and protections of all public lands.  Park visitors should not have to be denied access to their public lands just to appease a large corporate donor to a particular party or person. 
If so, all confidence is lost for this agency now and into the future.
   

Wisconsin's COVID case count blew past 400,000

[This post has been updated, as Wisconsin's COVID19 positive case count now exceeds 409,000.] 

A grim COVID milestone has been passed, as I predicted on Nov. 26 last week.

With Wisconsin's COVID19 case total exceeding 392,000, data show, it's likely that the tally will hit 400,000 during shopping hours on Black Friday 2020. 

And at current rates, the COVID19 positive case total this weekend will exceed the capacity of five Lambeau Fields at 81,000+ each, or more than 15 times the 26,000+ residents of Stevens Point.


And the numbers reported by the NY Times on Nov, 29 have worsened by another 22 deaths, more than 5,000 new cases and dozens of additional hospitalizations.

There are faces, names, families, and communities - real pain and suffering - behind every number. 

This is a catastrophe enabled by a United States President, a Wisconsin Supreme Court and a GOP-led state Legislature that has not met since mid-April. 

Editorial: Wisconsin is being swamped by the coronavirus pandemic. Republican leaders do nothing.

This is what happens when public servants fail the public. 

People die.

'More Than Just Numbers': CDC Official Says Wisconsin Has Staggering Number Of COVID-19 Cases, Deaths

----------------------------------

From 11/26/2020:

With Wisconsin's COVID19 case total exceeding 392,000, data show, it's likely that the tally will hit 400,000 during shopping hours on Black Friday 2020. 

And at current rates, the COVID19 positive case total this weekend will exceed the capacity of five Lambeau Fields at 81,000+ each, or more than 15 times the 26,000+ residents of Stevens Point.

Wisconsin began reporting COVID19 cases in mid-march; by October 27th the total stood at 206,311, data show, so reported infections have nearly doubled in just the last month.

And those numbers could easily worsen, for three reasons: 

1. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's gatherings in the next five weeks will inevitably lead to virus transmission. Experts say the worst is yet to come.

'The wave hasn't hit us yet': Medical experts worry huge surge of coronavirus deaths is coming to Wisconsin

2. The State Supreme Court seems likely to upend Gov. Evers' masking orders. 

3. Cold weather and flu season will create conditions in which COVID19 will thrive.

Meanwhile, 'there's reason to hope that the WI GOP-led legislature will reconvene after an eight-month+ vacation and pass its promised comprehensive package of COVID19-responsive public health and financial assistance measures,' said no one in Wisconsin.


Thursday, November 26, 2020

WI Sup. Ct. grabs The COVID Express wheel from vacationing GOP legislators

You would think that rational people holding the title of "Justice" on a deliberative body with the word "Supreme" in its title would make sure they played no role in enabling the spread of a deadly contagion among the citizens who pay those justices' salaries.


And who every year or two get to vote the Justices in or out.


But the Wisconsin Supreme Court's so-called 'conservative' majority continues to do just that.


These Justices didn't let the most inert Republican state legislative leaders in America who lollygagged around their home districts for the last eight months absorb their pivotal, earned share of responsibility for COVID19's rampage which continues to flood hospitals and morgues with unimaginable numbers of Wisconsin citizen victims.


Regardless, the 'conservative' Justices were willing to say, Hey, we got this, they said to the GOP legislative leaders: go ahead, partners, and play your games and feather your nests - and we'll break the Democratic Governor for you while you're at it.


Because, what are friends for if not giving cover during COVID?


Note, for example, that the GOP-run Legislature has not had the political courage to come into session since mid-April and do anything, including voting up or down on the Governor's statewide masking order - a reality noted by an actual local judge in a Republican County - 

Judge to Republican GOP legislators: If you want to end the Governor's mask mandate, do it yourself

Why did the GOP-run Legislature sit that one out?


Because they knew the public supported masking orders by a 40-point polling margin, so these self-preservationist - not 'conservative' -  legislators preferred not to lug baggage stuffed with so much dirty laundry into the November election, or the court of public opinion.


So the Wisconsin Supreme Court's supremely callous 'conservatives' who are beholden to the same monied special interests which help gerrymander-protected legislative leaders maintain their power stepped in and have taken the lead since May to shut down Gov. Evers' 'Safer-at-Home' COVID19 mitigating order. 


Not surprisingly, Wisconsin's COVID19 cases have exploded since then  by a factor of more than 33.


Of course killing statewide COVID-controls can be made - if one is creative - to dovetail with the WI GOP legislators' phony preference for local controls:

Top GOP lawmakers now want to leave virus plan in the hands of local officials

"As a Republican, I believe in local control," [GOP Assembly Speaker] Vos said Thursday.

Two things about that b.s. 

1. Republican legislators had been doing the opposite for eight years when Walker was there to rubber-stamp their power grabs:


GOP lawmakers passed 128 measures limiting local control since 2011  


2. The so-called conservative Justices aligned with Republicans just blocked Racine's local orders that suspended in-person classroom education because of spiking COVID tallies.


Remember when Speaker Vos said he preferred local officials set local COVID-related policies?


In case you forgot, here's that link and his sanctimonious verbiage, again:

As Wisconsinites try to understand what daily life is supposed to look like now that the state Supreme Court has eliminated the Evers administration's stay-at-home order, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said local officials should be able to largely handle the situation on their own. 
"As a Republican, I believe in local control," he said Thursday.

And do you remember that Speaker Vos represents people in Racine County? Never the less, you won't hear a peep out of Vos about the Supreme Court's obstruction of that local order and the larger diminution there of local control.


Sidebar: Can someone point me to the State Supreme Court's science advisers? They must have some, since the Justices continue to hold their meetings via Zoom conferencing that 'masks' the from the pandemic.


Masking order ruling expected soon


So the Court's so-called 'conservative' majority will continue to do the GOP Legislative leaders' dirty work for them, regardless of irony and respect for principles - from local control to putting everyday people over the narrowest of politics to true separation of powers.


Why? 


Because hacking away at Gov. Evers' credibility, the role of science, and the value of public health brought about by public officials is boilerplate Wisconsin GOP gospel.


That partisan playbook also allows Assembly Leader Vos to masquerade as a believer in bi-partisan give-and-take and phony-up a more marketable persona for future campaigns.


Just like it helped outgoing GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald spend the last eight months collecting full state legislators' public pay while campaigning and 'winning' an election to Congress in a district his own party had safely gerrymandered for Republican Party candidates.


That's the WI GOP and State Supreme Court's 'conservative' majority's joint agenda working well, writ large: hold onto power, keep the line moving, elevate ideology over common ground, undermine Democrats and devalue the public sphere through the 2022 elections, and beyond.


And if there are a lot more collateral casualties, and even regular people get sick, Republicans like Racine (again, Racine!) State Sen. Van Wanggaard have said: bring it on:

Leading WI GOP State Senator says 10x COVID cases not worth mask order

So when the final disease and mortality tolls are tallied, the failed businesses and their unemployed workers are toted up, and some value is attached to the damage done to children's educations and their earning potential by the pandemic made worse by partisan inaction and abject stupidity, let's in the name of truth-in-advertising add “Official Death Panel” to the State Supreme Court mission statement.


And require COVID-coddling justices to trade their black robes for gravediggers' coveralls.


WI COVID cases will surpass 400,000 by the weekend

11/28/20 update from 11/26/20. And it happened. Do not get used to this. This is not normal. 


There are faces, names, families, and communities - real pain and suffering - behind every number. 

This is a catastrophe enabled by a United States President, a Wisconsin Supreme Court and a GOP-leg state Legislature that has not met since mid-April. 

This is what happens when public servants fail the public. 

People die.

----------------------------------

With Wisconsin's COVID19 case total exceeding 392,000, data show, it's likely that the tally will hit 400,000 during shopping hours on Black Friday 2020

And at current rates, the COVID19 positive case total this weekend will exceed the capacity of five Lambeau Fields at 81,000+ each, or more than 15 times the 26,000+ residents of Stevens Point.

Wisconsin began reporting COVID19 cases in mid-march; by October 27th the total stood at 206,311, data show, so reported infections have nearly doubled in just the last month.

And those numbers could easily worsen, for three reasons: 

1. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's gatherings in the next five weeks will inevitably lead to virus transmission.

2. The State Supreme Court seems likely to upend Gov. Evers' masking orders. 

3. Cold weather and flu season will create conditions in which COVID19 will thrive.

Meanwhile, 'there's reason to hope that the WI GOP-led legislature will reconvene after an eight-month+ vacation and pass its promised comprehensive package of COVID19-responsive public health and financial assistance measures,' said no one in Wisconsin.


Tuesday, November 24, 2020

WI COVID cases up 33x since anti-Evers' ruling

Wisconsin's latest COVID19 data snapshot is an ugly one: a daily record of 104 deaths were reported Tuesday, said the state on Wednesday:

State reports record amount of new COVID-19 deaths in a single day

Other key numbers in the daily updates on the state's COVID19 dashboard; the total reported COVID death toll is 3,115 and the positive case total is 363,973


Here's another daily COVID19 data snapshot:


On May 13, the reported total state COVID death toll was 421 - far less than today's 3,115. The reported increase over the previous day's death count was 12 - not 104 - all charted, here -  and the state's reported positive COVID case total stood at 10,902 - or about 3% of today's nearly 364,000, the data show


Why look at May 13 COVID19 numbers?


Because that's the day on which a rightwing Wisconsin Supreme Court majority voted 4-3 to overturn Gov. Evers's 'Safer-at-Home' extension and restricted the administration's ability to control the pandemic, in a case brought by GOP legislative leaders Fitzgerald and Vos.


And by May 13, the GOP-run Legislature had been on fully-paid vacation  for four weeks, had not offered the COVID19 control plan of their own they were purportedly working on - and still haven't - and may finally reconvene next month. 


The Court, which continues to have a right-leaning majority, has yet to rule on whether Evers' can legally issue statewide masking orders. 


Should the ruling go against him, and that would surprise no one, then neither should fresh continuing spikes in COVID19 disease and death spread further and faster statewide with boost of permission by the Supreme Court rightwing majority which had already sold off its reputation and ripped up its moral authority. 

Ruling expected soon

Monday, November 23, 2020

Waukesha Co. climbs to #4 in COVID cases per capita

Waukesha County's COVID19 case rate per 100,000 people puts it in 4th place among all Wisconsin counties, according to the current Monday listing published daily by The New York Times: 


Last week I remember seeing Waukesha County in 8th place.

Most of the other counties on the list are smaller, so presumably with fewer public health resources, which makes Waukesha County's position on the list pretty troubling.

It would appear at this late date in the pandemic that the county - 

Waukesha County officials say people need to take the growing coronavirus threat more 'seriously' to control it

...the county's messaging on mitigation efforts has been mixed. In a July statement, Farrow, who himself fought off the effects of the disease recently, criticized Evers' mask mandate, stating that "mask-wearing goes too far."

Also in July, Sheriff Eric Severson said his office would not investigate or respond to reports of mask mandate violations. No new enforcement measures were announced this week. 

- needs something better.

At some point it may be learned if Trump's October 22nd rally is a contributor to the virus's spread:

Separate reporting on October 29th suggested those kinds of linkages:

Many counties that hosted Trump rallies had a significant increase in Covid-19 cases

A CNN investigation of 17 Trump campaign rallies finds that 14 of the host counties -- 82% of them -- had an increased rate of new Covid-19 cases one month after the rally.

Friday, November 20, 2020

WI COVID deaths pass 9/11's; still no urgency from WI GOP leaders

Don't worry, Bucky - some pandemic help is coming might be coming your way.

But first can you pass the mashed potatoes and gravy over here? Daddy needs seconds.

Wisconsin's spiking COVID calamity with its unfathomable 3,021 deaths - and a current average of 56 over the last week - has now killed 25 more people than died (2,996) in the 9/11 attacks.

Yet after only their first meeting Friday on these matters since May with Gov. Evers, Assembly Speaker and leading WI GOP COVID-action obstructionist Robin Vos said the legislature might convene to take action on Evers' latest COVID proposals - and presumably some proposals which Republicans claimed without evidence to have been working on for months - in December.

Vos said the Legislature may come back in December to vote on bills.

Take a look at the number of action-free process-buzz words in just a single sentence Vos strung together which translate to 'we're going as slowly as those bureaucrats we always complain about.'

"...I see today’s conversation as a positive step forward to finding common ground in developing a more unified state response to the coronavirus pandemic,” he said.

Is this just another delay of at least ten more days to accommodate Thanksgiving events and extend the Legislature's 7+month vacation? 

COVID feasts on such willing inertia, and at current rates, we'll have more than 500 more dead Wisconsinites who didn't make it to Thanksgiving and more who won't make it to Christmas dinner.

For some COVID-free context, imagine if you finally heard that your oncologists had met about your treatment plan after months of debilitating delay and the message they left you was 'today’s conversation [w]as a positive step forward to finding common ground in developing a more unified...response.'

Along with, 'we might have something more concrete for you in a couple of weeks.'


Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Zoom in later today on SE WI '21-'24 transportation spending

There is an opportunity later today for transit users, biking enthusiasts and environmental activists to weigh in on $822 million in proposed public spending in SE Wisconsin through 2024.

Zoom registration information and subsequent comment options are in the text, below: 

COMMENT ON THE DRAFT TIP
NOW THROUGH DECEMBER 3
SOUTHEASTERN WISCONSIN
REGIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION
DRAFT 2021-2024 TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
The Commission has prepared a draft regional transportation improvement program (TIP) listing all arterial highway, public transit, and other transportation improvement projects proposed to be carried out by State and local governments over the next four years (2021-2024) in the seven-county Southeastern Wisconsin Region. The TIP indicates the transportation system improvement priorities of State and local governments in Southeastern Wisconsin by their programming of projects to be undertaken in each of the next four years. The draft 2021-2024 TIP contains 378 projects representing a total potential investment in transportation improvements and services of $2.64 billion over the next four years.
Total Funding in the First Year of the 2021-2024 TIP
HEAR MORE AND TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
The draft 2021-2024 TIP is available for review and comment through December 3, 2020. Comments can be provided during the virtual public informational meeting or by submitting written comments, as detailed below. 

  • Virtual Public Informational Meeting – A virtual public meeting on the draft 2021-2024 TIP will be held Wednesday, November 18, 2020, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. This meeting will begin with a brief presentation by Commission staff on the draft TIP, followed by an opportunity for participants to ask questions and provide comments in real time. Presentation slides and a recording will be made available after the meeting if participants are unable to attend.

Those interested in participating in the meeting will need to register in advance. Individuals without internet access can register by calling the Commission’s office Monday-Friday between 8:00 am and 4:30 pm at 262-953-3252.
  • Written Comments – Comments may be provided through Thursday, December 3, 2020, via U.S. mail, fax, e-mail, or using the comment form through the TIP webpage. Please contact:

Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission
P.O. Box 1607
W239 N1812 Rockwood Drive
Waukesha, Wisconsin 53187-1607
Phone: 262-262-953-3252  Fax: 262-547-1103
E-mail: TIP@sewrpc.org
To review the draft 2021-2024 TIP and provide comments, please visit sewrpc.org/tip or click on the link below:
Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission | P.O. Box 1607Waukesha, WI 53187-9961

GOP ideology blocks gov't. success v. COVID; mass casualties ensue.

If a pedestrian were killed by a speeding car at an unmarked intersection, the neighborhood would demand an action plan from elected officials to make sure the tragedy was never repeated.

So if child on a bicycle were killed by another reckless motorist at the same intersection a few weeks later, the municipality would quickly act and install four-way stop signs.

And should a mom and her baby be run over and killed at the same spot a few days or weeks later, local leaders would overnight get traffic signals up and running there and have them controlled by traffic cops for the morning rush hour to stop the carnage - and avoid being run out of office.

Yet somehow, the GOP-run Wisconsin Legislature has managed to escape those kinds of base-level, do-something expectations and accountability during an historically-horrible calamity.

And GOP leaders on Tuesday after months of intentional inaction were still displaying a callously detached and breezy nonchalance -  

"We do not have specific drafted proposals because our intention was to sit down with the governor and actually talk about our ideas,” [WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin] Vos said.

- in the face of unprecedented suffering statewide from which countless citizens, families, businesses - and the public's confidence in government - may never recover. 

And the more I think about that last casualty - the public's loss of confidence in government - the more I think that is precisely what the GOP Legislative leadership set out to accomplish.

Because if you have been preaching for decades that government is the problem - and even the enemy -  then you can 'prove' your case by making sure that government - especially when you can make sure a first-term Democrat in the Governor's office does not get the chance to do what only the government can bring to the battle the requisite energy and resources and coordination to get the job done.

Imagine if Gov. Evers' 'Safer-at-Home' order and the rest of his pandemic-controlling agenda had been allowed to continue tamping down the virus, and, along with it, Republican propaganda and monkey-wrenching that has relentlessly disrespected Evers, demonized public employees and degraded the value of government. 

You can track the impact of the Wisconsin Legislature's more than seven-month-long failure to convene and act - other than its litigating and general undermining during the pandemic's still-escalating rampage -  using these dates, data points and official COVID19 reports:

* Last day the Wisconsin State Assembly met: April 14. 

Cumulative number of COVID19 cases reported by that date in Wisconsin, 3,555; number of cumulative COVID19 deaths, 170. The data are from the State health department COVID19 website

* Last day the Wisconsin State Senate met: April 15. 

Cumulative number of COVID19 cases reported by that date, 3,721; cumulative number of COVID19 deaths, 182. Data from the State health department COVID19 website.

Latest State health department number of cumulative cases reported on its COVID19 website by November 17th, 323,846; deaths 2,741 - a record one-day death toll of 92 (about one death every 15 minutes)and 7,090 new cases.

So COVID19 deaths during the GOP-run Legislature's do-nothing-but-litigate-and-obstruct recess have increased 15-to-16 times and the positive case total has increased about 90 times.

Yet by Tuesday, Vos only hoped to talk about ideas with Gov. Evers. 

And how many hours or days will it take to set that chat up while people in Wisconsin are now testing positive at the rate of 295 an hour (7,090 divided by 24)?

More, here, via Twitter:

WIDeptHealthServices
@DHSWI
·
Your #COVIDWI_19 update shows a record number reported since yesterday of hospitalizations at 318 and deaths at 92. The 7-day average of new deaths reported has increased 880% in two months. Dig into the #data and please, help #StopTheSpread: dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/death

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