(MADISON) Democrats in the Wisconsin Assembly will come to the Capitol next week for a legislative session to address Wisconsin’s 527 million dollar budget shortfall, but they may not have much company.

Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Jim Kreuser sent a note to his members telling them to be in Madison next Tuesday to deal with the budget. Kreuser’s note came a day after he told the press he’d been cut out of negotiations. He also said his members would not support two ideas that have been discussed to fill the budget shortfall: a delay of a 125 million dollar state school aid payment and the refinancing of tobacco settlement money to get 250 million dollars in cash up front.

But Kreuser and his members can only control so much. Their votes will likely be needed to pass a budget, but majority Republicans call the shots in the Assembly and they’ve not scheduled anything yet. Kreuser said in his note that if they don’t act on the budget Tuesday, the reality is that Republicans have no intention to deal with the fiscal crisis and road needs facing the state.

The situation is not that simple, though. Republican Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch has been negotiating the budget with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker. Decker spokeswoman Carrie Lynch says they hope to reach a deal by Tuesday, but that the Senate has not scheduled a session day, either. Lynch adds that Senate Democrats don’t agree with Assembly Democrats plan to raid the transportation fund or increase cuts to vital programs to fix the budget.

(UNDATED) The need for more doctors has prompted medical schools in the U.S. to enroll more students. Wisconsin is part of that trend.

The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts enrollment will rise 21 percent over the next four years. The UW-Madison School of Medicine has a goal of expanding its capacity from 150 students to 175. Those additional students will be trained to work in underserved rural and urban areas through specially designed teaching programs.

Dr. Susan Skochelak is senior associate dean for academic affairs at the school of medicine. She says lots of people come in with the intention to perhaps practice in a rural community. She says a mentoring experience can demonstrate that excellent medical care is available in rural communities that the lifestyle can be attractive.

In the past, it’s been a hard sell: about two percent of medical students choose to work in rural areas. The UW’s Academy of Rural Medicine currently has five students. A special program to train inner-city doctors is being developed; it will take place on the Milwaukee campus.

(UNDATED) An online ticket-broker from Minnesota has agreed to shut down his website and to stop selling Packers tickets unless he actually has possession of them. The action comes after an investigation by state’s consumer protection officials found the seller had violated fair trade practices.

Esther Miller and sixteen of her friends and family members thought it would be fun to attend what would they thought would be Brett Favre’s last game at Lambeau Field. She bought $2,600 worth of tickets at a website called Lambeau Tickets dot com. She waited until early December, then became suspicious when the tickets never showed up, worrying she might have been scammed.

She was right. The operator of the website, Ben Huettl, recently settled a complaint with the state Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection. The agency found he sold and accepted payment for tickets, then as the Packers won more games through the season, he reneged on deals made a few months earlier. Esther Miller got an e-mail from him on Christmas night saying that her credit card was a fraudulent risk and canceling her order. Miller’s story had a happy ending when another broker found 16 tickets to replace the ones she was scammed out of. However, she had to threaten a lawsuit against Lambeau Tickets dot com before her money was refunded.

DATCP got 20 complaints about Huettl’s site, each of them for several tickets. It’s something the Packers are familiar with. Mark Wagner is the Director of Ticket Sales for the team. He says they probably got 15-20 calls this year from people who got legitimately ripped off, which he considers a lot.

No criminal charges were filed against Ben Huettl, but Consumer Protection officials say they may be if he is ever caught fraudulently selling sports tickets again.

(UNDATED) Health and policy experts say Wisconsin could reduce over-consumption of alcohol by raising the liquor tax and making it less available.

Data on Wisconsin’s drinking habits show beer is the most popular choice and that availability of alcohol in general is high. Paul Moberg with the UW-Madison’s Population Health Institute says on average, there is a liquor license for every 336 people in Wisconsin. Iron County has the most bars and liquor stores per capita and Waukesha County, the fewest.

The tax on alcohol hasn’t changed in 39 years. It’s still about six cents a gallon. Moberg thinks it should be higher. He says this would be one policy avenue to generate revenue and impact at least adolescent drinking.

State legislative efforts to increase the liquor tax have always fizzled. Instead, lawmakers have chosen to beef up penalties for repeat drunk drivers. However, Moberg says data shows 92 percent of drunk drivers in fatal accidents have never been arrested for OWI. A recent federal study showed more than a quarter of Wisconsin motorists admit to drinking and driving in the past year, and the state has been among the leaders in binge drinking. Richard Brown directs the Wisconsin Initiative to Promote Healthy Lifestyles. He says questionnaires to gauge consumption habits are accurate. He says while some ask why somebody would respond that way, they find that many people in the state are proud to say, for example, that they had a six pack while watching the game.

Brown says primary care doctors can help spot problem drinkers or those at risk. However, alcohol assessment has generally taken a back seat to screening for conditions like high blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity.

(MARINETTE) Another Wisconsin company has joined the state’s “Green Tier” program. Thirty-five Wisconsin businesses are involved with the initiative that’s run by the Department of Natural Resources. Supporters say there are signs Green Tier is meeting its goal of reducing pollution.

According to its most recent annual report, Green Tier helped cut overall hazardous air pollution by 12 percent. It’s also helped cut natural gas usage. A wide range of companies is on board, including Rockwell Automation, one of the state’s biggest manufacturers. Now it’s being joined by Winsert of Marinette. The company has 150 employees and makes machine parts that stand up to heat and pressure.

Paul Lemery is a Vice President of Winsert. He says the company used to generate more than 10,000 pounds of hazardous waste each year, which the company was paying a lot to get rid of. He says that number is now gone. He notes that a company gets nothing in return for the money spent on shipping hazardous. He says it’s “lost money” that could be used to pay employee wages or become more efficient.

Winsert reduced the amount of scrap metal it uses, replaced factory lighting, and by the end of July expects to eliminate all hazardous waste water through recycling. Lemery says it took years of trial and error to achieve the Green Tier status. He says when it’s first looked at, it seems impossible and that stops a lot of people from doing anything. He says it’s like “eating an elephant, you can’t do it in one bite but you keep nibbling.”

Green Tier companies get some leeway with the state’s regulatory process, and less frequent environmental inspections. If something did go wrong, the firms’ civil liabilities are limited.

(MADISON) Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk says she’s sent letters of apology to the family and fiancee of a UW-Madison student murdered last month, following an investigation into how the county’s 911 center handled a call from the victim’s cell phone.

Falk says a 40-page report shows that on April 2nd, a dispatcher got a call from Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone. The call ended after three unsuccessful attempts by the dispatcher to get a response. Falk says the dispatcher should have called the number back. She says a review of the 911 call from Zimmermann’s cell phone also had sounds of “significance” that the dispatcher did not notice. However, Falk says she does not believe that had not these errors in the 911 center occurred, that her murder could have been prevented.

Falk says the dispatcher is a woman with 20 years experience. She’s been transferred to a different department in Dane County and disciplinary action against her is “pending.”

Falk says she’s recommended that 911 center staff review current training and personnel qualifications. She also says that when there’s a question about the sequence of several closely-bunched calls, those calls’ records be reviewed as quickly as possible. And Falk wants the 911 center to consider automatically alerting police when it can’t be confirmed if a cell phone call is an emergency. That’s currently the practice for landline calls. Falk says people should still have confidence in the 911 center.

Falk says at the request of the Madison Police Department, the report and other details about Zimmerman’s murder cannot be released at this time.

(APPLETON) A Lawrence University student might help affect the outcome of the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Twenty-two-year old Leila Sahar is the only college student out of 25 people appointed to the Democratic Party’s Credentials Committee. The New Berlin native interned the last two summers for the Democratic National Committee, where she worked with Howard Dean, the party’s national chairman and former presidential candidate. She says the fact that he continues to remember her has been flattering and surprising at times.

Sahar will work with 185 other members of the Credentials Committee, which may decide whether contested delegates from Florida and Michigan are seated at the national Democratic Convention in August. Both states held their primaries ahead of schedule, in defiance of the party. Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton wants those delegates recognized, while her rival, Barack Obama, does not. The committee’s decision could influence which candidate receives the official nomination. Sahar says a lot can happen before it reaches that point. She says the party is still waiting for a couple hundred super delegates to commit themselves to one side or the other. Also, she says she thinks that state parties and national parties are still trying to reach some sort of compromise. She says everyone hopes that they will work it out and the party will have a united front at the Convention. However, she says in the case that it doesn’t, “then it will be a pretty big decision.”

Sahar says right now, she has no firm feeling on what to do with the Florida and Michigan delegates. She says she’ll wait until her training is done in July and she’s received more information.

(UNDATED) Two new national studies place Wisconsin near the top of the list of states that arrest and imprison a disproportionate number of black drug offenders.

The studies released this week by the Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch found that that between 1980 and 2003, nationwide drug arrests for blacks grew by 200 percent, but by only 70 percent for whites. Ryan King of the Sentencing Project says that’s not an accurate reflection of the number of black drug users. He says the war on drugs is probably been the single biggest contributor to exacerbating racial disparities. He says about 12 percent of the general population is African-American and about 12 percent of regular drug users are African American, yet they’re arrested at about three times that rate and incarcerated at four times that rate. According to the new studies, as of 2003 African Americans in Milwaukee were eight times more likely to face drug charges than whites.

University of Wisconsin sociologist Pamela Oliver served on Governor Doyle’s commission on reducing radial disparity in the justice system. She says the report’s findings are no surprise. She says one way to level the playing field would be for police to target drug dealers in white suburbs. She says there are some people who argue that the only way of getting fewer people locked up and a more even-handed policy is to increase the pressure on white communities of what she calls “these draconian drug policies.” She says the truth is that there are “tons” of white kids who are drug dealers.

It’s not clear there’s the political will to expand drug enforcement outside the inner city, but Oliver agrees with the recommendations made in this week’s studies calling for more non-prison penalties for drug users and increased drug treatment programs. The Wisconsin Department of Corrections is already taking initiatives in that direction and Governor Doyle is expected to endorse more such efforts later this year.

(UNDATED) Road builders say without a deal to fix the state budget, several highway projects and construction jobs may be cut in about a week.

The budget fix Governor Jim Doyle proposed in March would have used nearly 300 million dollars from Wisconsin’s roads fund to plug a hole in the general fund, which is essentially the state’s checkbook. In other words, it would have used money the state brings in from the gas tax and use it to make up for a sales tax that’s lagging.

Legislative leaders from both parties objected, but they’ve yet to offer up an alternative that a majority of lawmakers can support. The result is that without any agreement, Doyle has warned that the state’s May payments for road projects could be affected.

Craig Thompson with the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association says the road fund should never have been on the chopping block in the first place. He says the only reason the transportation fund is at risk is because there are leaders in Madison who have made a political decision to either use that for leverage or to use it as a “piggy bank” to try to solve the problem of the general fund. However, he says this really has nothing to do with the general fund problem that the state is facing. Thompson says cutting road spending and the construction jobs that go with it is the last thing the state should be doing when the economy is struggling.

Others see it differently. Steve Hiniker is with the environmental group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin. He says this is a good opportunity to look seriously at the amount of waste in the transportation budget. He says what’s needed is to look at what is the most important thing for state government to be doing. He asks whether it is to be spending dollars on new highway projects as other priorities such as health care and schools.

But if the Governor has his way, those road projects will continue; they’ll just be paid for by future generations. That’s because Doyle wants to borrow money to backfill what he takes out of the transportation fund.

(MANITOWOC) Some factory workers who once saw their jobs head overseas now have a chance to get them back. A company from Brazil is using the former Mirro plant in Manitowoc to make cookware once again. Now it plans to expand operations in Wisconsin and shift production here from a plant in China.

It’s a familiar tale of global trade, but this time American workers stand to benefit. Since 2005 Tramontina has been using part of the sprawling old Mirro factory in Manitowoc to make components for pots and pans. Now Tramontina is adding a third shift, bringing production there to 24 hours a day, five days a week.

Antonio Galafassi is President and CEO of the Brazilian-based Tramontina. He says when he first decided to open another U.S.-based factory, he was drawn to Manitowoc because of the existing cookware factory and by an experienced workforce. He says they delivered everything they promised.

Galafassi says shifting economics has his company ready to move work from China to Wisconsin. That’s partly because it can take months to get an order from a factory in China to clients in the U.S. Galafassi says it also allows Tramontina to market its products as “Made in the USA.” He says they were lucky or strategically right when they decided to make products in the U.S. He says a large quantity of product that was made in China is now made in Manitowoc.

Galafassi hopes to hire the 80 workers he needs for the third shift by the end of this month.

(UNDATED) The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is getting some last-minute advice on whether to widen Interstate 94 between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line.

State and federal highway officials are taking comments on the planned reconstruction of the I-94 corridor south of Milwaukee, which is one of the most heavily- traveled stretches of road in Wisconsin.

Just before the end of the government comment period, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and some Common Council members are urging the state Transportation Department to reject the idea of spending an additional 200 million dollars to widen the freeway from six lanes to eight lanes. Barrett says the DOT projects that a wider, more-expensive freeway wouldn’t save much in travel times thirty years from now. He says at a time when the major complaints he hears are about potholes on local roads and mass transit, it’s “highly questionable” to spend 200 million dollars on a project that does not have “a measurable positive impact in reducing travel times.”

Barrett says he’s not opposed to fixing that stretch of I-94, but says repairing local roads and improving mass transit south of Milwaukee would add jobs too. Barrett backs a proposed commuter rail line between Milwaukee and Kenosha.

But state Representative Cory Mason is in the wider-highway camp. The Racine Democrat says four lanes each way would save travel time. He says he regularly travels the route and says congestion does exist. He says every study that the DOT puts out only anticipates an increase in traffic. Mason contends the federal government isn’t promising to divert money from the I-94 project to fix local potholes.

Decisions on the highway project could come later this year.

(UNDATED) Wisconsin’s largest farm group hopes to get more farmers to sign up for a program to reduce carbon emissions into the air. The group is sponsoring ten informational meetings that begin today.

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau has joined an Iowa-based effort that gives farmers a credit that can be sold for each metric ton of carbon dioxide they prevent from being released from the soil or barnyard or is removed from the atmosphere. Typically, the techniques include certain tilling practices, planting new grasses, preserving or adding trees or capturing methane from animal waste.

Deb Raemisch coordinates the Farm Bureau carbon credit program. She says the value of the credits is going up. She says the price per credit as of the close last Friday was $6.40, whereas in January when they had their first round of meetings, the price was $2.30.

Raemisch says 14 Wisconsin farmers have joined the credit program enrolling a total of three thousand acres. The credits can be sold on the Chicago Climate Exchange, a voluntary market made up of several hundred people or companies, including industrial buyers of credits. Ford Motor Company has just joined the exchange in hopes of buying credits to offset their CO2 emissions. Raemisch says a typical example of a seller is a farmer promising the right tilling practices on 250 acres and netting eight to 12 dollars per acre over five years.

Backers of carbon credit programs also acknowledge it’s a voluntary effort and some say what the U.S. really needs is a mandatory cap on CO2 emissions.

Farm Bureau meetings on the credit trading begin today in Shawano and run through the end of May.

(WAUWATOSA) A few days after 30,000 people marched in Wisconsin in favor of more immigration, some opponents of illegal immigration are making their views known to a sympathetic Congressman.

Over the weekend, suburban Milwaukee House member James Sensenbrenner held more of his frequent town hall meetings. On Saturday in Wauwatosa, several questions for the conservative Republican Congressman came from middle-aged and older white people who say they don’t like the idea of amnesty or citizenship for undocumented workers.

All three of the remaining major party presidential candidates have spoken more favorably of immigration, but Representative Sensenbrenner appears ready to continue as a critic. He says he disagrees with all of the major candidates on immigration and thinks the position of no amnesty for illegal immigrants is supported by about 85 percent of the voters.

The number is smaller in most polls, but still in the majority, appearing to make an amnesty program a tough sell for the next president.

(UNDATED) When Wisconsin voters had their say in the Democratic presidential nominating contest, they overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. But some of the key demographics that Obama captured here have eluded him elsewhere.

When Obama won Wisconsin he did it with the help of several traditional Democratic strongholds: blue collar voters and voters from lower income families. These were groups who had until then been widely viewed as Clinton supporters. Since Wisconsin’s primary, they’ve helped Clinton defeat Obama in states like Pennsylvania.

Mordecai Lee is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He says what essentially is being talked about are similar states: manufacturing economies, “rust-belt” economies and ethnic white voters, what used to be called “Reagan Democrats.” Lee says the two candidates are fighting over this one demographic cluster and Clinton is doing better than Obama is except in Wisconsin, which he says is “a fascinating exception.”

Lee says it’s tough to pin down one reason. He says Obama’s momentum was cresting around the time of Wisconsin’s primary, and the state’s open primary may have helped, too.

UW-Madison political science professor and polling expert Charles Franklin thinks a variety of factors made Pennsylvania more Clinton-friendly. He says the population is older, relatively low in education and with a strong Catholic presence. However, he says Wisconsin’s culture and history also shape the views of its voters. He says they’ve emphasized the demographics because that’s one of the clear markers of voting, but he says it’s also a matter of attitudes and how we think of ourselves. He says he thinks that’s probably where Wisconsin is more different than other states, and he says other states are unique in their own way.

Voters in Indiana and North Carolina will be the next to weigh in on the Democratic nominating contest, as those states hold their primaries tomorrow.

(UNDATED) Last August’s flooding hit many organic farmers hard in parts of Wisconsin. Farmers are rebuilding their operations and planting seeds for this year’s crops.

One storm dropped more than 12 inches of rain on southwestern Wisconsin in less than 24 hours, hitting farms in the region especially hard. Josh Engel of Driftless Organics near Soldier’s Grove, says he, his brother, and business partner lost $250,000 worth of produce and equipment in the floods.

Engel says organic groups like the Madison-based Family Farm Defenders awarded tens of thousands of dollars to Driftless Organics to help with recovery costs, but given the severity of the flooding, Driftless’ owners are considering moving to higher ground near Richland Center.

Dani Lind is the produce manager for the Viroqua Food Co-op. Lind says two of the area’s largest organic operations remain in Vernon County anda third moved closer to Madison, but Lind says almost all of the organic operations she has done business with are planting again this year.

(DULUTH, MINNESOTA) Environmental researchers, architects and cities are pushing for green development along the shores of Lake Superior. Over 100 people gathered for the 2008 State of the Coast Conference at the U.S. Environmental Protection lab in Duluth.

Landscape planner Randall Arendt says communities along Lake Superior need to revise local zoning laws. He says that will set the stage for developments that preserve natural habitats. He says what’s needed is to set both a minimum and a maximum lot size so that the development does not consume the entire parcel of land with nothing more than a house, lots and streets. He says if all that was wanted was lawns and cul de sacs everywhere, there wouldn’t be comprehensive plans that talk about preserving farmland or woodland habitat or the forest resource for sustainable yield. He says conservation design needs to be made “easy to do and quick,” and conventional development difficult to do and very time-consuming.

Kris Larson is the Conservation Programs Director for Minnesota Land Trust. He’s hoping cooperation between cities, architects and developers will prevent over-development along Lake Superior’s shoreline. He says the shoreline around Lake Superior really is not just a local resource, but rather a state, national and international resource in many ways. He says understanding how people are getting out to experience and enjoy that is important, whether it’s the trails, the drive or other resources and then, figuring out how development can be accommodated given all of those sometimes-competing interests.

Larson and Arendt both say developments that preserve natural area cost less because developers are doing less paving and more preserving.

(MADISON) While President Bush is encouraging Americans to spend their tax rebate checks on consumer goods, a Madison business-owner wants people to think beyond purchasing brand-name appliances and spend locally.

Carol Bracewell agrees the U.S. economy needs a boost. However, she wants people to consider how their spending affects their community. She says her idea is to think about how it can be spent in the local economy so that the money stays in the area and creates jobs.

Bracewell says consumers need to think outside flat-screen TVs, and consider using their money to help needy students who could benefit Wisconsin some day. She says if she could get ten of her friends to commit to donating some portion of their rebate, one could end up with $10,000 dollars pretty fast that could be used for a scholarship.

Bracewell has put her money where her mouth is. She says part of her stimulus check is earmarked for a local farm co-op, and another portion will go towards a scholarship fund at Madison Area Technical College.