 and welcome to the Donahue Group. Glad you could join us for another scintillating half hour of discussion and turmoil about the issues of the day, both locally and at the state level. Joining me in this episode, Ken Risto, who is the coordinator and the director of the Department of Social Studies for the Sheboygan Area School District or something vaguely like that. Tom Pineski, much easier, Professor of Mathematics, UW Sheboygan, former State Senator Cal Potter and former Assistant State Librarian for the Department of Public Instruction. I didn't get that quite right either. No, but that's okay. But it's close. It's close. Yeah, it's about. Me? I'm just a humble lawyer. Country, country, law. Right, we've got a lot to get through here. I've seen an expensive page as a Sheboygan press. Yes. But we ask for no free publicity, so. But that brings us to, we had an interesting episode with Scott Meelef, the project, I got his title wrong too, whatever Scott does here. He's not a social studies coordinator, right? He is not, that much we know. And he's probably going to turn this off now. He could very well be by the end of this episode. Let's see how this goes. And we have a lot to talk about, but we just want to say that we had a very good discussion with Scott about public access TV and the perceived, and I think actual threat to the continuation of programming like this at the state level. And if in fact that bill has not been voted on by the time you're viewing this program, what we forgot to say in the last program was legislators do listen to their constituents. And if you have concerns about significant restrictions on access to programming like this, you should definitely be in touch with your representatives in the city of Sheboygan, Terry Van Akron, state Senator Joe Liebham. And I don't think Steve Costell would be. Not in the city, but he would be in the area. Not in the city, right. And Dan Lemahew, so food for thought. Now let's move on to other election news. We're taping this quite a bit of time after the city election of the Common Council elections I think were most interesting. I think we all did relatively well on our prognostications if I'm not mistaken. Jim Gishawon, I think we, that was a close race. I think we all agreed it would be close and it was. Cory Bauch won a commanding victory really over Lyle Vanderweist. I was wrong about that one. Yeah. Well, I think Lyle was pretty much a class act. I think he ran a gracious and I think they both did. They both were class acts. Yes they really had. Whoever won is gonna represent that district well. I know. So I think we were well served and I'm in that district. So, and both of them are my neighbors. So they're both pretty nice guys. Dan Verhastselt commandingly won over Dimple Adams. Joe, not Joe. Yes, Joe Heidenreiter. Heidemann. Heidemann. I beg your pardon. Heidemann. Joseph. Joseph won again a pretty commanding victory over Jim Groff. I think we both, or all of us rather predicted that. Bill Wongamann, Schvetz, Jeff Radke. I think we all predicted that. And the Meyer Tyshinski dust up was a little closer. It wasn't close, but it was certainly closer than the other two races that were highly contested. But Vicki Meyer, it was about 51, 52% of the vote. The committee assignments have been made. Voted on 15 to one or 14 to one at the last council meeting. So what do you think, Tom? You were on the council, a good group this time? I don't know. I think the, I mean, I actually went to the council proceedings for the opening night ceremony. You did. And I start counting how many years of experience this person's zero, this person zero, this person zero, this person one year, this person one year. I got to, somebody had, I think Marilyn Montemire had six years and- Gene Kittleson has been around maybe a little bit, but- Two years, three years, or two years. Richard Manny's been on quite a long time. And- Silas. Silas, Silas, about six years. So that's a young council. So I have, and Mark Hanna is only in his second year. Right. Who's now had a finance. Vicki Meyer starting her- Second term. Third year. Just second term. Yeah, second year. So it's a young group. So I don't know how it'll shake out, but they've got a lot of energy, so we'll see. Yeah, it'll be, I think it'll be an interesting group. So the, and I will say I was down at the administration building as votes were coming in, and it was nice to see the Usberg referendum pass by a fair margin. So I thought that was good news. Sheboygan Falls is both, both of their referendum pass. Right. But not Plymouth. But not Plymouth. Plymouth has got a rough road to hoe because schools under these revenue caps, I mean you just can't really keep up unless you figure out other things to do, none of which are particularly pleasant. Just in the talking about Sheboygan, I think it's fair to say that the Sheboygan Press editorial I think before the election had identified, had called the slate of candidates, at least to some extent, candidates that were either retired police officers or sympathetic to the police. They did not do well, other than Bill Wangeman. None of those candidates won. Any significance in that? No? I mean they were running against other good candidates, so I mean, yeah. I think the message I thought as I watched was that the electorate wanted to put people on the board, or the council rather, that would be really coming I think with an open mind and be willing to work productively with other people. And we talked before the election that several of the candidates who were running were affiliated with the recall effort and they were defeated. I think people wanted to move on from that. I think they were looking to put people on that are going to accomplish something and be more civil toward one another. And I talked to some folks around the community and some of those who watched the, some of the candidate forums on channel eight, you, it's a small town and you can identify who the speakers are and who the folks are. And there was, I think, a sort of a, kind of a quiet resentment about the fact that some of the police were there at some of the forums asking pretty pointed questions and there's some people who really is having some questions about the appropriateness of that. I think everybody supports the police. They know it's a difficult job. It's not getting any easier. Sheboygan's becoming more diverse. We certainly got gang issues and drug issues in the community and I think people support their police but they're not quite willing to let them write a blank check yet or let them do what they want to do. And I think people just have a general notion that the public servants have more than ample opportunities in their departments and they have ample communication lines that they don't need to come to forums. I think the same thing would be true of a bunch of teachers showed up at a school board meeting and yabbered on and yabbered on and talked and talked and talked to and said, you know, the citizenry, the general citizenry, the general taxpayers should have those opportunities. So I think there was sort of a sense that while we're willing to support the police and give them the resources they need to do the job, we're not necessarily really buying into this idea that they're really being shortchanged right now. So I think the finance department has should, it came under a little bit of scrutiny prior to the election and you've got Jim Gisha, Corey Bauch, Jim Boren, Mark Hanna. So if there's a trend it's toward getting people with some business acumen on the council and that's gonna then change how, and it maybe you need somebody with a little more just instead of working in a bank or a business, some kind of finance industry, you need a person of another ilk to kind of balance, but right now it's moving toward the business kind of, which is maybe it's due, maybe it's time. And to a certain degree, you're seeing that on the school board as well. Is that there are more male faces, first of all, and maybe that's because of this business orientation, but there's overall just to have been a general drift toward a more and more business orientation perspective and then maybe another point of view. That being said, I think businessmen who get involved in government workings find that they're two really significantly different spheres. And the reason for that is, quite frankly, it's taxpayers' money, it's not the money that you brought into the coffers from last month's sale. And then you can't do what you wanna do. I mean, if you own a business, you do what you wanna do. Here you've got state laws, you've got local regulations, you've got interest groups, all kinds of federal laws included. There are a lot of parameters that all of a sudden you have to meet and they cost money in those cases. And I think businessmen coming into government, particularly if it's their first swing at it, it's a new world. I remember, oh, I think it was back in the early 90s, a couple of business people got on the school board because they were gonna change the way the school board did business. And they didn't last real long. I think their level of frustration about being able to affect significant change as you can in a private business just isn't there. That being said, it does not, I think having an entrepreneurial spirit and business experience and acumen is incredibly important and really just shines a different light. And always having smart people, I think willing to serve their local governmental units or state, whatever, is pretty key to the democracy. They ask a lot of times, they come right, what's it gonna cost? What's the effect on the cost or what's the effect on this instead of, well, it's a consumer-oriented kind of project or what's it gonna cost? They're bottom line oriented. Right, right. And always willing to, my pet peeve in government services, people come up with terrific solutions and yet when you ask what the problem is that the solution is addressing. Yes. People are hard pressed to tell you what the problem is. They're entranced with the solution, but what problem, well, in any event. That's a good point. I do digress. Along the lines of whether or not there's enough money, the greater Shavuigan committee, I think it is, delivered what they called a white paper to City Hall regarding that police spending and budget figures and so forth. And I thought Chief Kirk made a good point that it's very difficult to tell if the budget in one city, which may be more or less than in another city is really apples to apples or whatever. And so I- Some have paramedics and some don't and all they have different roles and with the structure of your department. I have not seen the white paper. Any of you, no. No, I'm not chancey. No, so I don't know, I can't really speak to the document. But I think it's an excellent discussion to have and because the police budget has gone up pretty steeply in the last 10 years, fire somewhat, public works has gone down and other budget lines have remained pretty much right along the bottom. So it is a question of determining, in a Shavuigan that's not like it was when we were growing up in the 50s, or some of us maybe later than that. It is a different world. We'll- What about the school board lecture? What did you think of that? I have to say, Fong Lee was at the administration building the entire time the votes were coming in and I like Fong. I had met him at just a meet and greet kind of gathering and he's very bright and I thought he ran a wonderful campaign. He worked very hard. He had signs all around. He had supporters sending out these great big orange postcards. And it was kind of heartbreaking as the night went on just because he started out with a lead and then it just gradually diminished and then flipped. I'm disappointed. I think the city and the school district is well served by having diverse people on its board because we have a very diverse school district. They're also a very large among population that should be reflected very much so in the decision making. Exactly, exactly. I wish I hope he runs again. I think he will. I think he will too. You need a name recognition and now he's starting to get to know who he is. You running again? Yeah. Yeah, well, I have, you know, while the tape is running, you know, the last, what, four episodes I said that Fong Lee was not gonna have any problem winning, so. So we'll not listen to you again. Yeah, no kidding. I was pretty good about the Aldermanic races, Alder Woman races, but boy, it was eye-off. I mean, and I still find it absolutely mind-boggling that a person who can get, what, 60 votes in an Aldermanic primary can all of a sudden turn around and get elected only several months late, not even, what, two months later? Less than that, to a school board seat. Oh, that's interesting. I don't know, I was watching, you know, I saw the returns too and Fong did very, very well in the city, reasonably well in the city, but in the outlying areas. It was devastating. The town of Wilson, the town of Sheboygan. There all of a sudden, Scott Lewandowski had support for whatever reason. He certainly, I don't think he, I know he doesn't live there. I don't know if he's got lots of relatives out in these areas that are running for him. And quite honestly, the pink elephant in the table is I talked to, I bet you I talked about 50, 60 people trying to figure out how could I get this so wrong, you know. Because he finds it so hard to believe that he did anything wrong. Well, I get things wrong, but I usually can figure out why I got it wrong. And I couldn't figure out why I got this wrong. People, you know, of all sorts of walks in life, just felt flat-out said, people aren't ready to vote for a mom candidate. And I think, you know, nobody wants to hear that and I'm sure that's not gonna be well received by some people, but I felt really disappointed in the results because I just didn't see as I watched the candidate forums, I didn't see Scott and the voters have spoken and we're gonna work with Scott and Scott hopefully will make a contribution to the board. And I just didn't see him articulating a vision or that was that compelling compared to what's... Justin, I don't wanna take up more time, but was there a TV, did TV8 do a forum, or did anybody do a forum for the school board candidates? And then have it televised so people could watch? I don't think so. No, no. And that's really too bad because Scott... Because that's how I got to see Corey Bauch. You know, I didn't know who the guy was and I watched him on the forum and I thought, oh, this guy's pretty nice. And same with the other guy, they're both good, but that was based on the watching. Because you'll remember we had a contested election for the townies too. Jeff Squire, Mark Mansel and Al Yonte were running for two spots. Jeff Squire and Mark Mansel who are current incumbents, you know, one well. I mean, the comfortable margins and Al Yonte did not do particularly well. And that's something to think about for the future because I think... So they can see who the person is. Because there are a lot of issues and in fact, I personally was delighted. When I was on the school board, we were on the front page, it seemed, every other day. And I haven't seen the school board on the front page for a long time. So dear school board members, I was delighted to see, right? On the slightly above the fold, school board considers new procedures to communicate. And so there's gonna be a new policy within six weeks. I think there was a flap about a portable gymnastics floor. And but maybe this is the beginning of the school board just kind of coming back into the public eye. Well, that was when you read the article, and I don't have much discussion, even though I'm at South part of the day, what that was all about. But what was, what was pertaining to Sheboygan Press made it look like the Keystone cops. I mean, you had a superintendent who didn't know that a floor was being, a $15,000 floor was being purchased. You've got a business director who was spending money with the idea that he was gonna get compensated by some private funds that were going to be raised, but that money's hadn't been given to him yet. You've got a Fayed department who's supposed to use that facility. And they didn't even, according to them anyway, they were never told that this was even in the works. Everybody's scurrying around and trying to avoid responsibility here for whatever it is that's going on. I don't know what it means to have a change in communication policies, you know. One of the things that- And performance would have been better. Well, I don't know what that means. I really don't know what that means because, you know, the Fayed department at South High School, in fact, did send a letter to the superintendent's office. They kind of went through the chain of command, as it were, letting the superintendent at least have the courtesy of knowing they were going to make the board aware of something that they were concerned about. And as it just turned out, he was out of town on vacation and you just, the rule is or the policy or practices, you don't put stuff into the board packets for them to be aware of unless the superintendent signs off. And so it got delayed. Which is okay. I- You came out of his toes. Yeah, yeah. What's the problem with that? But it really raises the question, are you going to change the policy and procedures or what change would that involve? I mean, all of us at any given time as citizens pick up the telephone and talk to all school board members if we have issues and concerns formally or informally. Some people may not want that. They may want their teachers to keep information channeled into pipelines and but that's just not going to happen. And we should just take a little poll informally among ourselves that when I introduce Ken during our next episode, whether it'll be the former coordinator of social studies. Well, the reality is we don't call it this way, but I'm tenured. And if they want to send me back to South High full-time and not have me at Central Lee, that's, I've always been. I've always said I serve as a pleasure of the superintendent of public schools and I'm the assistant, so. In any event, this has been a bracing conversation. Well, it's just one of those things where nobody look good. Nobody look good in the process. The first rule of holes is that when you're in one, you should stop digging. I don't consider myself in a hole, so I don't consider myself digging. It's just, yeah. I'm moving right along if we have just a little bit of time to cover state news. And I think there's some interesting stuff just gratifying to me, because I was horrified at the Georgia-Thompson verdict. It seemed to be the thinnest of evidence. This is the travel gate, as it were, of the state of Wisconsin, Georgia. Thompson responsible for awarding state of Wisconsin travel contract, which was lucrative. It's $75 million. Can it be that much? I don't know, but it was some millions. It was five million. I don't know if it was that high. Some millions of dollars to the Edelman Travel Agency and it was, to me, clearly a political prosecution. And for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in oral argument to say that the evidence was beyond thin and from a legal perspective for the Court of Appeals to release her. And it was a conservative court, too. Well, and Judge Easterbrook, who's the Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit, who is incredibly bright and incredibly conservative, wrote the opinion, which was not as dramatic as the oral argument testimony about the evidence being beyond thin. That's not in the written opinion. The written opinion is fascinating, though, just in terms of how you interpret what political action is within the context of awarding contracts and so forth and what we mean by political influence and so forth. So if you have a chance to read the opinion, because you may not agree with him all the time, but I mean, he's a pretty bright guy. I would like to be about as 10th, as bright as he is. So I was just gratified because I thought this woman really, really, really was treated poorly and did spend four months in jail. You know, Scott Jensen. Well, I lost her job. I lost her reputation. Oh, and. All because of some political shenanigans. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Which was a court trial, right? It was a trial to the jury. To a jury and the judge who adjudicates the process or who apparently allowed the testimony to go forward. So I thought it was not thin or at least if sufficient enough to go forward. And the jury said, yes. And that's why, and we were just all scratching our heads. It was like, how, how on the evidence that was presented could you possibly allow a jury to reach that verdict? I asked my husband. I said, can't a judge overturn a verdict? And he said, well, a judge could. But it's very, very, very rare. So at least the process in the seventh circuit went relatively quickly. But I just point out, Scott Jensen is still free on bail because Judge Faust allowed him, while this kind of protracted appeal is going on, he's still free. And yet this woman was, I mean, I was upset. And so I feel vindicated, which happened so seldom these days that I must say I'm enjoying it. I like what Cal just said, though. Just five minutes, three minutes early. It was a conservative court, see? Yes. Conservative courts, you could trust them. Well, they looked at the world stage here. And the world stage is that Baskubic, the prosecutor, was on the list that Gonzalez had to get rid of because he wasn't Republican enough and not getting prosecuting certain cases. And he redeemed himself very admirably by kicking this woman in the butt and getting her fired literally from her job. Now, Baskubic, at the time, according to him, though, he wasn't even where he was on a list. But he was. Yeah, he was. I mean, he was a attorney, so political animals. And that's OK. And the judges looked at the scene. Now here you've got Gonzalez lying through his teeth to Congress. Now you're finding out, what is it, papers today saying that Carl Roeb is up to his eyeballs in this whole thing as well, giving orders to people. No. And, you know, so we'll let Tom Wayne hear. You know, we've got a court who's saying, you know, this thing looks like a set up, folks. Evidence is thin, but look what's all being all these monions and dark shadows out here. There's got to be something better for this woman than being the poster child for the victory. Well, I think the important point here is that normally court of appeals remand things back to retrial because of procedural issues or where the process wasn't properly taken care of. This was rare where they actually overturn a jury verdict based upon the facts presented. And order immediate release. Yeah, that's stunning. I think she was out of jail the next day. That's stunning. That just doesn't happen that often. Particularly with Judge Easterbrook. I mean, so I thought that was pretty interesting. And understandably, judges are loath to overturn jury verdicts. That's why we have juries. That's why we impanel them and entrust them to determine facts. But it shows juries make mistakes. Oh, sure. Sometimes in a choosing of juries, you get people who have a mindset that, well, obviously if they're in court and we have a case, they must be guilty. There are people who have that mindset. And so I'm sure that's was part of why the jury felt compelled to make a decision in accusing her or convicting her of this heinous crime. Was it a Dane County jury? No. I'm just wondering because you don't. Judge Randa is in the Eastern District, isn't he? I'm just wondering when the jury was in panel, what community trial took place. But Biskupik is in the Western District, isn't he? Yeah. OK. In any event, having done a number of jury trials myself over the years, you just realized that it is difficult to predict what's going to happen. And that's the beauty and the frustration of the system. But at least in this case, I think justice was done. This has been worked, sure. And she may have spent four months in prison. But she's back at her desk. So she's getting paid for her unpleasant experience. One of the neat things that I think that our Wisconsin lawmakers, Fine Golden Coal, are working on is the extension of senior care through 2009. And I believe they have gotten, the program is set to end June 30th. And I think there is, my mom was on senior care. And it's a wonderful program. It's simple. The application was only a page long. The two of us could do it together without tearing our hair out. It seemed to be very well accepted by the pharmacy. And she was taking a lot of medication in her last couple of years. I have not talked to seniors who have been dealing with Medicare D. But it seems to me it's a terrific program. And why wouldn't the federal government want to allow Wisconsin to keep an efficient, cost-effective program in place? I'm hoping that senior care is extended because I do think that it's good stuff. It doesn't look like it's going to happen, though. It looks like at best, Wisconsin may get an extension till the end of the year. I know there's some discussion about that rather than the June 30th deadline you mentioned. And then everybody is going to have to go to Medicare Part D in Wisconsin if they're currently under badger care. I have several friends of mine whose parents are on badger care. And again, they speak nothing but good things about the program. It is simple. It's really, really relatively straightforward. Senior care. Yes, senior care. And you really, if you're in Medicare, the prescription Part D program, you really need for a lot of senior citizens, you better have somebody who really knows what they're doing. My parents were fortunate that they plug Burkart Heistar, I guess. But they went and they really got excellent advice. They looked at what the medications are being taken and looked at all the various plans and were able to give my parents some really sound advice that I'm sure they would have been very difficult to do if they had to do it by themselves. Got just a minute left. Do you see any change in the Wisconsin legislature, how it's doing business? And now that we have a Senate that is Democratic and where things are a little bit more balanced? Well, they passed one of the bills dealing with the emerging of the ethics and the board and the elections board. The campaign finance thing is anybody's guess. I mean, the further we go down the road of collecting these $1,000 checks from AT&T and so on, those apps, somebody's going to say, I'm a guilty person. I need to repent and I want a new campaign finance system. That's the problem with the passage of time. Trying to do that with Ziggler, we'll see what happens. And we have to say goodbye.