Representative Lisa Subeck's E-Newsletter


 September 08, 2017

 

Contact Me

 

418 North, State Capitol

P.O. Box 8953

Madison, WI 53708

 

PH: (608) 266-7521

TF: (888) 534-0078

FAX: (608) 282-3690

 

rep.subeck@legis.wi.gov

Website

 

Things happening in the district & around Madison


West Side Farmers Market
Saturdays, Through Nov. 4
7:00 am – 1:00 pm

New location: 750 University Row
Behind the UW Health Digestive Health Center
 


Elver Park Farmers Market
Saturdays, Through Sept. 16
8:00 am – 12:00 pm
Elver Park, 1250 McKenna Blvd.
 


Computer Coach
Saturday, September 9
1:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Alicia Ashman Library
733 N High Point Rd

Sign up for a one-hour session (starting at 1pm or 2:30pm) on the first and second Saturday of the month Sept - November with a Computer Coach providing individualized instruction on using word processing (Word), spreadsheets (Excel) and other computer basics. Bring your own laptop or use one of our PC's. Call 608-824-1780 to register.
 


Ecological Restoration Work Party
Saturday, September 9
9 am – 12 pm

UW Arboretum
1207 Seminole Highway

Volunteer for restoration activities and learn about prairies and savannas. Tools and training provided. Groups welcome with advance notice. Meet at the Visitor Center. For more information: (608) 265-5214 or marian.farrior@wisc.edu.
 


Edible Landscaping
Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour

Saturday, September 9
1 pm – 3 pm

UW Arboretum
1207 Seminole Highway

Join Judy Kingsbury and Marian Farrior, permaculture designers and Arboretum outreach specialists, as they explore the collection’s edible plants and highlight some of their favorite trees and shrubs. Free, no registration required. Meet at the Visitor Center.
 


Curtis Prairie Walk
Sunday, September 10
1 pm – 2:30 pm

UW Arboretum
1207 Seminole Highway

The tallgrass prairie is at peak height and color. Big bluestem can grow more than 7 feet tall and will be a beautiful red color. We will watch for animals preparing for winter. Free, no registration required. Meet at the Visitor Center.
 


Family Walk
Sunday, September 10
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm

UW Arboretum
1207 Seminole Highway

Families will join a naturalist to investigate mushrooms growing in the natural areas and the gardens. Free, no registration required. Meet at the Visitor Center.

 


Alicia Ashman Mystery Book Group--A GREAT RECKONING by Louise Penny
Monday, September 11
10:00 am - 11:30 am

Alicia Ashman Library
733 N High Point Rd

Join the Alicia Ashman Mystery Book Group for discussions of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense titles. Be ready to share with the group recent reads in these genres. Our next title will be available for pick-up following today's discussion, with extra copies available while supplies last.
 


West Madison Senior Coalition Free Lunches
Tuesday, September 12
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Meadowridge Library
5726 Raymond Rd.

Nutritious meals are offered to those 60 and older. The meal is served at noon and participants must arrive on time. The suggested minimum donation is $4.00 but participants are encouraged to pay what they can afford. Transportation to the meal is available with an additional $1.00 donation. Meal and bus reservations or cancellations should be made by noon the preceding day by calling 238-0196.

 


Library LEGO Club
Tuesday, September 12
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Meadowridge Library
5726 Raymond Rd.

Join other LEGO fans and build your own unique creation.

 


Chess Club
Wednesday, September 13
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Meadowridge Library
5726 Raymond Rd.

Learn how to play chess and play against others with varied levels of experience. Children under 7 must be accompanied by an adult.

 


Crochet for beginners
Wednesday, September 13
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Alicia Ashman Library
733 N High Point Rd

Join instructor Kathleen Chapman for a 4-week series for beginning crocheters. Adults and teens 13 and older are welcome. Supplies are provided. Please plan to attend all four sessions.

 


Alicia Ashman and Meadowridge Libraries Closed for All Staff Day
Thursday, September 14
 


Game Night
Friday, September 15
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Alicia Ashman Library
733 N High Point Rd

Join us for a night of board games and puzzles. We'll supply some, but you can also bring your favorites to share with new friends

 


Visiting the Capitol
Whether you are planning a visit to the state Capitol as part of a large group, small gathering, or just by yourself, our office can assist you in scheduling a free guided tour of the Capitol building during normal business hours.

Free tours are offered daily, year round. Tours depart from the ground floor Information Desk Monday through Saturday at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 am and 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 pm; and Sundays at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 pm. A 4:00 pm tour is offered Memorial Day through Labor Day. The sixth floor museum and observation deck are also open during the summer months.

 

 

 

 
 

 

Dear Friends and Neighbors,
 

This week, the Joint Finance Committee hastily finished its work on the budget and considered a bill that would hand over $3 billion in corporate welfare and roll back environmental protections to pave the way for Foxconn. Earlier in the week, I stood with Verona Road business owners as they called for a sustainable solution to our transportation financing woes and shared stories of businesses that have closed, moved, or suffered in the face of ongoing construction delays as a result of Republicans’ refusal to address our infrastructure needs.

In this newsletter, you will find more about final changes made to the budget by the Joint Finance Committee, the latest move to hand over even more power to Foxconn, and what is happening with workers’ compensation.

If you have any questions or need assistance with any matter, please feel free to contact my office.

Sincerely,

Lisa Subeck
State Representative
78th Assembly District

 


Hunger Action Month
To kick off Hunger Action Month, I attended a legislative day at Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. The event included conversation with their staff about fighting hunger in our community and a tour of Second Harvest. After the tour, Rep. Mark Spreitzer from Beloit and I stuck around to help package 4000 pounds of bulk elbow macaroni in family size portions for distribution to those facing hunger in southwestern Wisconsin.

Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin and NBC15 are inviting everyone to take action this September during Hunger Action Month.

On Thursday, September 14, join thousands of people across the country and Go Orange to fight hunger!

Here's how to GO ORANGE:

  • Individually, and as a group, wear orange (the symbolic color for hunger) on September 14.

  • Take individual and group pictures - have fun with it.

  • Post both your individual AND group pictures on Facebook.com/NBC15Madison and on Instagram using #Orange4SHFB.

Lands' End, Habush Habush & Rottier S.C., TASC, Door Creek Dental and Starion Bank will donate meals to Second Harvest Foodbank for every photo posted.

For more ways to take action against hunger all September, click here to visit the Hunger Action Month webpage.

 


Budget Moves out of Joint Finance Committee
After more than two months of delay due to Republican infighting, the Joint Finance Committee has passed its amended version of the governor’s budget. It is expected that the full Assembly will vote on the bill next Wednesday with the Senate voting shortly thereafter.

Transportation
While residents, businesses and local government leaders were hoping to see a sustainable long-term transportation funding plan, the amended budget still lacks a plan to fix our failing roads into the future. Instead, the bill targets owners of electric and hybrid vehicles by raising their registration fees by $100 and $75 respectively. The increased revenue from this fee does not come close to filling the hole in the transportation fund and is counter-intuitive at a time when we should be encouraging the use of vehicles that cause less harm to our climate. Again, Republicans have kicked the can down the pothole-laden road with no sustainable solution to our transportation funding woes.

Although it had been removed from the budget as a policy item earlier in the budget process, a provision to repeal the prevailing wage law on state road projects was reinserted into the bill by Republicans on the Finance Committee. According to the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, repealing prevailing wage could cut the salaries of these workers by as much as 44 percent. Driving down wages in this way will cost Wisconsin far more in the long run than it would to simply pay the industry’s prevailing wage to the workers who build and care for our state’s buildings, roads, and other public facilities. The same Taxpayer Alliance study tells us that this move could actually cost taxpayers more than $336 million.


The Joint Finance budget also moves the state closer to collecting highway tolls. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation will seek federal approval to begin tolling federal highways in the state. If federal permission is granted, the proposal requires DOT to seek approval from state lawmakers to proceed with tolling.

Attack on Family Planning Providers
As with the last state budget bill, Republicans on the Finance Committee once again introduced a poorly thought-out “wrap-up motion” which reads like a laundry list of proposals and pork projects designed to garner the votes of political holdouts. This time the motion included requiring arbitrary audits of family planning health care providers.

The measure approved by Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee to single out family planning health care providers for audits wastes taxpayer dollars and harasses women’s health centers. Previous audit findings by the Inspector General were so flawed that he had to retreat from his attack on these providers, and safeguards for all Medicaid providers are already in place through the Medicaid Program Integrity Division.

To be clear, these senseless and arbitrary audits of women’s health centers are nothing more than an attempt by Republican leadership to shore up the votes of their most extreme members for a bad budget.

Click here to see what else was in the so-called wrap-up motion.

 


Foxconn
This week, Republicans in the Joint Committee on Finance advanced the Governor’s proposed Foxconn subsidy which will provide an unprecedented $3 billion in corporate welfare and roll back laws protecting our water and our environment to woo an international corporation into building a factory on the Illinois border.
Republicans were again eager to pass this legislation despite the fact that even in the best case scenario, it would take 25 years for the state to break even. Even then, there are no guarantees, and taxpayers will be left flitting the bill at a cost of hundreds of millions per year. Meanwhile, in this budget and future budgets we will be left without the resources we need to fund our schools, fix our roads and bridges, and grow our economy into the future.


In case the bill passed last month by the State Assembly wasn’t bad enough, a Senate amendment passed by Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee would allow Foxconn unprecedented power in our legal system. This provision will allow parties involved in court cases related to the EITM zone created in the Foxconn bill to file appeals directly with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, rather than going through the normal court appeals process. Worse yet, any decision of a lower court to issue a temporary halt (or “stay”) during appeals will automatically be reversed when an appeal is filed. This sets up a dangerous overreach into the judicial system by the legislative branch and an unbelievable power grab by a foreign corporation.


The Senate will vote on the bill next week Tuesday, and the Assembly will vote on the Senate’s changes to the bill on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the likely result is that a bad deal will have been made even worse.

 


Health Care Town Hall
Yesterday, my Democratic colleagues and I hosted a Health Care Town Hall meeting. It was great to see a number of you there and to hear from so many Dane County residents. We heard about what life was like for some before the Affordable Care Act, and what it would mean for them if it was repealed. We also heard from many in attendance about their concerns regarding the constant Republican attacks on women’s access to reproductive healthcare.

Though we can celebrate the victory of the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the U.S. Senate, there are still looming threats of changes. It is critical that we remain vigilant in the fight to expand – not limit – access to affordable, quality health care.

Click here for coverage of the Town Hall from the Badger Herald.

Click here for video from yesterday’s town hall meeting.

 


Verona Road - Get it done
In a bit of good news, the version of the budget adopted by the Joint Finance Committee does not contain a further delay to Verona Road construction. However, as the budget goes through the Senate and Assembly, that could change.

Unfortunately, for nine businesses along the Verona Road corridor, the delay in construction in the last budget and uncertainty over a completion timeline, caused those businesses to close or relocate. When the project began, the businesses along the corridor worked together, advertised, and did everything they could to bring customers to their doors and keep their employees at work. Once the shovel hit the ground, the responsibility of the state was to see the project through to completion in a timely, competent manner. Governor Walker and the Republicans failed to meet their obligation.

Small businesses along the corridor have taken hit after hit. More than 33% of business along the corridor have reported more than an 11% reduction in sales since the project began, while 13% of the businesses along the corridor have experienced loss of sales greater than 25%. The result is less money to reinvest in the businesses, hire more employees, or increase the pay of valued employees.

All of this could have been avoided by keeping the project on schedule, but that requires a sustainable solution to Wisconsin’s transportation funding crisis. Republicans have refused to get serious about fixing our roads and infrastructure, leaving Wisconsin families and small businesses to pay the price.

 


Workers Compensation
Wisconsin was a pioneer in Worker’s Compensation. Over 100 years ago, the first Worker’s Compensation policy was written in Wausau, Wisconsin, after a handful of powerful business leaders known as the Wausau Group formed Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Co. of Wisconsin. The business leaders, who had gained their wealth through logging, recognized the need to diversify the economy of the area and lay the groundwork for future economic success. They knew the importance of workers having income to pay the bills in the event of injury.

In order to maintain a sound worker’s compensation system, a Workers Compensation Advisory Council (WCAC) was created. Comprised of representatives of labor and management the WCAC reviews the law, considers and debates potential changes. When consensus is reached, proposals are drafted into a finalized, agree upon bill that is submitted to the Legislature for a vote. Out of respect for the process, the bills have not been subject to amendment in the past.

While we expect an agreed upon bill to be submitted soon, there is concern that business interests may attempt to undermine both the WCAC process and the ability of workers to receive the coverage their families need when injuries occur. Our system has served employers and employees equally well for decades, yet there have been repeated attempts to dismantle it since 2011.

You can learn more about the WCAC and the process by reviewing the following websites.

WC Council overview
WC Council membership roster

Agreed-Upon Bill process description & past bill summaries

 


September is Preparedness Month in Wisconsin
September is Preparedness Month in Wisconsin. It’s also back to school month for students across the state. Many of those students will be learning about emergency preparedness this school year thanks to STEP — Student Tools for Emergency Planning.


The statewide program teaches 5th graders how to be prepared for various emergencies and disasters, including blizzards, tornadoes, flooding, and fires. The program also shows students how to put together an emergency kit and develop an emergency plan with their families.


Since 2010, more than 50,000 students from various public, private, charter and home schools have participated in this youth preparedness program across Wisconsin. Teachers are provided with all STEP materials at no cost to the schools, including instructor guides, videos, and student handouts. All students participating in the program also receive a starter emergency kit to take home. The basic lesson is only one hour of instruction, but teachers can expand the lessons to cover eight hours of materials.


Each week this September, ReadyWisconsin will highlight easy and inexpensive ways for you and your family to prepare for emergency situations. You can visit http://readywisconsin.wi.gov for more information. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

 


College Students: Outsmart Social Media Scammers
Social media applications are everywhere: on our computers, our phones, our televisions and even in our cars. Nowhere is this more evident than on a college campus, where students use these apps as a means of making personal and professional connections to help them prepare for the future. But all of that goodwill can be undone by scammers and identity thieves who set up traps on these apps with a goal of capturing users' money and personal information.


The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection asks college students to help protect their identities and their wallets by tightening the security around their social media accounts and by thinking before they click on links in social posts.


Users of all services should set up complex passwords or passphrases for their social media accounts, turn on two-factor authentication if it is offered, and use the security features available in the apps to block public access to their posts. To avoid scams, users should be very suspicious of links in posts that direct them to unfamiliar websites or that advertise unrealistic offers for popular products.


Scammers often use fake account support emails to gather login details from social media users. These "phishing" emails falsely warn recipients that they need to provide their usernames and passwords in order to update a social media account or avoid an account suspension. Delete similar emails and log directly into the service if you need to check your account status.


Each social media application has its own risks for identity theft and scams. Watch for these app-specific risks:


Twitter:

  • Watch out for links in direct messages from users you don't know. These links may be included with a message intended to draw you in, like "Can you believe this is true?"

  • Watch for warnings from Twitter about unsafe links. According to Twitter, these links match a database of potentially harmful URLs which could lead to phishing, malware or spam sites.

  • Buying followers and engagements and using "free followers" apps could compromise your account and may also violate Twitter's rules.

Facebook:

  • Watch for "profile viewer tracking" service pitches – Facebook does NOT offer this feature.

  • Hacked accounts can send malicious posts to everyone in your friends list, and the messages will post to their feeds (potentially attracting other victims). The links in these posts could drive users to websites where malware is transmitted to their devices.

  • Fake surveys and quizzes can be ploys to harvest personal information.

LinkedIn:

  • Watch for "get rich quick" and work-from-home scams. Do your research on a company before you apply for a job posting, particularly if it seems too good to be true.

  • Third-party websites claim to provide LinkedIn phone support for a fee, but these groups are not affiliated with LinkedIn. LinkedIn does not charge users for support and will not request login information from customers.

  • Other common scams according to LinkedIn: mystery shopper offers, phony inheritance scams (advance fee scams), romance scams.

For additional information or to file a complaint, visit the Consumer Protection Bureau at datcp.wisconsin.gov, call the Consumer Protection Hotline at 800-422-7128 or send an e-mail to datcphotline@wisconsin.gov.

 


Fun Wisconsin Fact
Wisconsin’s name comes from the Wisconsin River, which was called Meskousing by the Algonquian-speaking tribes. The name was recorded in 1673 by French explorer Jacques Marquette. Over time, the word was Anglicized into Ouisconsin, Wiskonsan and finally into its current spelling and pronunciation. Linguists think the original name must have been borrowed from the Miami word “meskonsing” which translates to “it lies red” or “this stream meanders through something red”, likely referring to the sandstone formations in the Wisconsin River.

 

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