District Dialogue - June 30, 2021

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District Dialogue

Serving the Greater Northwoods

Oneida - Vilas - Florence - Forest

July 30, 2021

Getting Wisconsin Back to Work

Wisconsin continues to face a massive workforce crisis. While Governor Evers has acknowledged this fact, he has not done nearly enough to get our people back to work.

On Tuesday, the Assembly convened in a special session to override the Governor's veto of Assembly Bill 336. AB336 would have ended the state's participation in enhanced federal unemployment bonus payments of $300 per week and institute a work search requirement in order to receive unemployment insurance. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass as not a single Democrat voted in favor of the veto override.

While this is not a one-size-fits-all solution, it is absolutely the necessary step that we must take to incentivize people to get back to work. In a recent survey by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, nearly 9 in 10 Wisconsin businesses are struggling to find employees. On top of that, 85% of Wisconsin businesses support repealing the $300 federal bonus unemployment benefits.

This is not about taking money away from struggling Wisconsinites. This is about creating long-term solutions to help our economy recover and lessen our citizens' dependence on the federal government.

In addition, the Governor called a special session Tuesday on increasing education spending, which was his political tactic to shift the focus away from our workforce shortage. Unlike our economic crisis, we do not have a crisis level funding for schools. In the 2021-2023 biennial budget, Republicans made historic investments into our students and education, reaching the 2/3 funding milestone. The budget also accounts for the massive influx of federal funds that will go towards investing into schools, which is on top of the $100 million more in the federal funds that are at his disposal.

Northwoods Storm Watch

The Eagle River area sustained heavy wind damage, with these trees blowing down along the 17th fairway at the Eagle River Golf Course, which was closed Tuesday. Wisconsin Public Service reported Wednesday morning that crews had restored power to more than 50,000 customers. — Photo Courtesy of Gary Ridderbusch, Vilas County News Review

The past couple days, severe thunderstorms have made their way through the Northwoods.

Over 12,000 households in Vilas County and 8,300 households in Oneida County lost power. In total, more than 40,000 households throughout Northern Wisconsin have been left without power. Furthermore, many properties have endured severe winds, uprooting trees, destroying lawns, and damaging people's houses and cars.

Trees down in the Town on Lincoln, Vilas County - Photo Courtesy of Vilas County News Review

Here is an update from Wisconsin Public service as of July 30, 11:00am:

Crews have made significant progress overnight throughout our service area. We’ve restored power to more than 120,000 customers since the Monday and Wednesday night storms and we have over 325 field personnel working to restore the remaining 2,700 customers still without power.

Here is the county breakdown per county:

Vilas - 321
Lincoln – 1882
Marathon – 506

To check if there are outages in your area, please check out the Wisconsin Public Service outage map.

You can also check out the WPS Facebook and Twitter pages for updates.

To report an outage, please use this link.

Thank you to WPS who were able to restore power in such a timely manner and to everyone who volunteered with the clean-up.

Nicolet College Investiture Ceremony

Pictured here with Rep. Swearingen, Kate Ferrel (current Nicolet College President) and Dr. Richard Nelson (retiring president of Nicolet College)

Yesterday, I attended the Investiture Ceremony of Kate Ferrel, who will be serving as the next President of Nicolet College.

Kate has worked in education for over 20 years and served as the vice president of Academic and Student Affairs prior to accepting her new role.

Nicolet College will be in great hands under her leadership. Congratulations Kate!

In addition, I would like to thank the outgoing president of Nicolet College, Dr. Richard Nelson. The Northwoods community was lucky to have you serve in this role since 2015 and congratulates you on your retirement!

Oneida County Fair

The Oneida County Fair is here!