OAK CREEK, Wis. (AP) - Two Wisconsin police officers have been awarded the highest national honor for public safety officers for stopping a shooting rampage at a Sikh temple in 2012.
U.S. Attorney James Santelle announced Wednesday that now-retired Oak Creek Police Lt. Brian Murphy and Officer Sam Lenda have earned the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, the highest national award for valor presented to a police officer.
Murphy was the first officer to arrive at the temple in Oak Creek on Aug. 5, 2012. Gunman Wade Michael Page, a white supremacist, shot Murphy about a dozen times. Lenda later shot and wounded Page, who then killed himself.
Page killed six worshippers and wounded five other people that day.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Two Republican legislators are looking to restrict state land purchases beyond the limits that Gov. Scott Walker has proposed, circulating a bill that would allow local government officials to veto stewardship acquisition deals.
Reps. Joe Sanfelippo and David Craig’s bill would bar the Department of Natural Resources from making payments to local leaders to compensate them for property taxes lost on land that enters stewardship after June 30. The locals would be allowed to veto any stewardship purchase. Without the compensation payments, land buys would look much less attractive to local officials.
Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin, said he believes the government has taken too much land out of private hands and the acquisitions are too costly. The bill gives the locals more control, he said.
“My personal opinion is I think we own enough land,” he said. “(The bill) just brings more local control into the process. They’re no longer forced to have land in this program.”
The proposal comes with conservationists already reeling from a plan in Walker’s budget to block stewardship purchases through 2028.
“(The bill) would put the final nail in what is clearly an attempt to hamper, if not outright stop, stewardship,” said Todd Holschbach, a lobbyist for The Nature Conservancy, which works to preserve land and water and has used stewardship funding to help buy land.
Wisconsin Counties Association lobbyist Kyle Christianson said the organization hadn’t developed a position on the bill yet.
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SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) - A Sheboygan alderman has resigned following accusations he gave gifts to a 15-year-old boy so he would agree to sexual activity.
Sheboygan Press Media (https://shebpr.es/1IYbHA6https://shebpr.es/1IYbHA6 ) reports the city clerk’s office confirmed it received a resignation letter Wednesday afternoon from Kevin MatiChek. The now ex-alderman didn’t admit any wrongdoing, but said he was resigning because he didn’t want the charge against him to detract from city business.
MatiChek is charged with repeated sexual assault of a child. He allegedly gave movies and a cellphone to the teen he met last summer.
According to a criminal complaint, MatiChek acknowledged having a “friendship” with the boy and kissing him but denied any sexual contact. His defense attorney has said he is presumed innocent.
MatiChek is scheduled back in court Feb. 18.
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Information from: Sheboygan Press Media, https://www.sheboygan-press.comhttps://www.sheboygan-press.com
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Gov. Scott Walker is open to giving the University of Wisconsin System more freedom sooner than he originally proposed to help it deal with a $300 million budget cut, his spokeswoman said Wednesday, opening another potential avenue for negotiations over the plan that’s drawn bipartisan opposition.
Under Walker’s proposal, the university would become a public authority detached from state oversight and laws starting in July 2016. In the meantime, tuition would be frozen over the next two years and the university system would have to absorb a $300 million cut.
That amounts to 13 percent of its state aid, but just 2.5 percent of its total budget - money that Walker argues can be made up in the short-term with efficiencies, more fund raising, tapping reserves and other means. Those cuts are in exchange for the greater freedom and flexibility Walker is offering, and that university leaders have lobbied for years to get.
The most forceful pushback to Walker’s plan in the week since it was officially released has come over the size of the cut. Republicans who control the Legislature have questioned whether it’s too large, while university leaders and Democrats have said it could cause layoffs and academic program cuts.
University leaders have also said they wouldn’t be able to realize savings from being made into a public authority soon enough to make up the cuts. If it would help them deal with the reduction, the public authority could begin sooner than mid-2016, Walker’s spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster said Wednesday.
That won’t help, said Rebecca Blank, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was busy lobbying state lawmakers at the Capitol.
Even if the organizational changes were put in place in July, there would not be enough time to absorb the cuts, which could be around $90 million for the flagship Madison campus, she said. And it will take time to put the new public authority structure in place, Blank said.
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