 Proposed health ordinance, Sheboygan ranks 10th among U.S. cities for manufacturers, Highway 23 expansion continues. These and other local stories are coming up on this edition of Community News Review. This is Community News Review. Service WSDS-TV News content provided by WHBL. I'm Maddie Fister and this is Community News Review for Tuesday, August 18th, 2020. The Sheboygan County Division of Health Services issued its latest report on COVID-19 in Sheboygan County on Monday afternoon. And with 14 positive test returns logged on Saturday, 12 on Sunday and another 13 on Monday, the total confirmed case count here is 887. 33 persons recovered since Friday, leaving 105 cases active. And hospitalizations increased by four over the weekend. Seven persons now require hospital treatment for their illness. The positive test return rate here is 5.27%. The 20 to 29-year-old age group has now experienced 207 of the county's 887 cases. 129 have occurred in both 30 to 39 and 50 to 59 groups. 122 were between 40 and 49 years old. 120 were 10 to 19 years old. 38 cases have occurred in those in their 70s, and 31 were 80 and older. 5,962 test returns have been recorded in Wisconsin during the past 24 hours, and 7.6% of those were positive. The 7-day average of that statistic is 7.4%. In plain numbers, 455 tests were positive, and 5,507 were negative. No deaths were reported since Sunday in Wisconsin. The state saw another 23 persons entering hospitals for treatment of COVID-19, and the 5,327 persons hospitalized since the pandemic began amount to an overall hospitalization rate of 8%. Of the 329 persons now hospitalized, 94 are in the ICU, and 337 are on ventilators. Recoveries in this state account for 85.5% of the 66,196 cases of COVID-19 that have been confirmed since the pandemic began. 12.9% of those cases or 8,537 are still active. Sheboygan County Board members have been receiving dozens of calls regarding a proposed ordinance that is scheduled to be referred to a committee after Tuesday night's board meeting. County Administrator Adam Payne offering some clarification on Monday morning saying the ordinance being brought before the board for review essentially softens the state statutes put in place for communicable diseases. Payne tells WHBL News they are simply working to be proactive in having a plan in place should local hospitals become overrun with COVID-19 patients. Payne says the way the state statute is written, the power lies with the public health officer. Payne says this ordinance takes the power and distributes it among the County Board, allowing for more local decision making authority to stop the spread of COVID-19. In an email sent out to County Board members last Thursday, Payne writes, The purpose of this ordinance is to be better prepared if the situation gets dire and if greater countywide action needs to be taken and it includes your legislative oversight. The ordinance also includes an enforcement component that is easier to administer and less punitive, again if needed. We are optimistic this approach will be received and provides an opportunity for stronger collaboration. And this proposed ordinance was drafted by our corporation council with the input of public health professionals. Chair Kosh and others, the ordinance is being introduced at this time so it can go through the routine two months County Board and liaison committee reviews process. Tonight's Sheboygan County Board meeting can be seen live on WSCS at 6 o'clock p.m. The long awaited expansion to four lanes of Highway 23 between Plymouth and Fond du Lac County is towards its anticipated completion about a year from now, but to date has not affected motorists using the busy roadway within Sheboygan County. The seven plus miles of two extra lanes between Highway P and the county line is costing $25.8 million and will take till July 30, 2021 to complete. This week, crews will be grading and installing culverts along the bike path that runs parallel to the roadway, landscaping and laying gravel, and also working on wetland mitigation with the existing lanes still in use. Traffic interruptions this week are limited to County Highway S and Sugar Bush, Sunrise and Chickadee roads at their intersection with the westbound lane construction. Other intersections will be involved with closures later this month. The electronic publication of GlobalTradeMAG.com has ranked Sheboygan 10th among the top 20 U.S. cities for manufacturers. The article made in America, 20 top U.S. cities for manufacturers by Anthony Pignaroto, stayed called Sheboygan a preeminent industrial center specializing in car parts, furniture and metal products. The ranking was achieved in no small part by the dominance of the Kohler Company, the area's largest employer, which boosts Sheboygan County to six times the national average, worth of metal manufacturing and produced 11 times the national average of fabricated metal products. Columbus, Indiana topped the list of 20 advanced manufacturing cities and Sheboygan ranked higher than such names as Savannah, Georgia and Ogden, Utah, which became in at 14th and 20th, respectively. According to the business research company, advisor Smith Sheboygan workers produced $3.1 billion worth of manufacturing exports in 2018. This past Thursday, Governor Evers announced the launch of Wisconsin's COVID-19 response and recovery reinvestment dashboard. The analytic tool was developed in part due to questions about where money intended to soften the blow of the ongoing pandemic was being spent. Sheboygan County has so far received $6,183,618 from that program. Nearly $1 million was allocated for contact tracing. $30,000 went to pandemic plan allocation. Almost $3.8 million was steered to Roots to Recovery Allocation. $170,300 was spent on testing coordination allocation. The RAP benefit allocation amounted to $113,535. $609,000 spent to farm support payments. We're all in small-funding business. Funding program received $482,500. To date, $1.72 billion worth of initiatives funded by CARES funds have been distributed in Wisconsin. And finally, recent drownings and near-drownings along Lake Michigan have prompted the Sheboygan Police Department to take to social media in spreading their words of caution. In a release on their Facebook page Thursday, the department recognized that the beach is a wonderful recreation source, but it can also be treacherous. They noted the near-drowning on July 16th of a 10-year-old boy at Sheboygan's King Park followed less than a month later by the drowning death of a kayaker offshore on Deeland Park on August 4th. The Lakefront Group Safety Task Group was formed within the Sheboygan Board of Marina Parks and Forestry in August of 2016. After five persons were washed off Sheboygan Pier in two separate incidents on the same day. That group assembled guidelines of water safety tips that were published with the Sheboygan Police Department's Facebook page on Thursday. The good news for the next few days is the National Weather Service forecast of low swim risk on Sheboygan County beaches, but conditions can change quickly, so always check before you swim. And that is our report for today. Join me again on Thursday for more local news and information on Community News Review. This is Community News Review.