Today brings updates on several stories we’ve been following over the last several months. Today’s Key Reads run the gamut from a celebration of liberty to the cost of failure to…vegan porn?
Indeed.
Here are today’s Key Reads
Not content to be paid by the state to stay home and make erotic vegan videos with his wife, Wisconsin’s former Porno Chancellor (TM pending) is hard at work trying to remain Wisconsin’s Porno Professor. Cue the heavy base riff as you read this excerpt…
Joe Gow to defend his faculty position during disciplinary hearing Wednesday |WKBT
Wednesday, ousted UWL Chancellor Joe Gow will fight to keep his tenured faculty role in a disciplinary hearing.
Last December Gow lost his chancellorship for appearing in online pornography, but he’s held onto his tenured position.
Since the news broke about his pornographic videos, he’s been on paid administrative leave and not allowed on campus.
…Although not a legal trial, UW System attorneys will be representing UWL, making the case for why Gow should be stripped of his tenure. Gow will be representing himself.
Would you call it horrible when your police chief is trying to get a job leading a police force 1,200 miles away? It’s definitely not good.
MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman applies for police chief position in Austin, Texas | CBS58
Word broke Tuesday afternoon that Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman is looking for another job. Norman’s vying to become the next police chief of Austin, Texas.
Journalists with the Austin American-Statesman newspaper filled out a public information request to find out who applied for the job. They got back 32 names, Jeffrey Norman among them.
A spokesman for the Austin Police Department tells us the search for their new chief’s gaining momentum, with candidate screenings, evaluations and soon-to-be interviews.
…We reached out to numerous Milwaukee alderpersons, to the Fire and Police Commission, both current and past members, and to Milwaukee police seeking an interview with Chief Norman himself. No one wanted to speak on this right now.
Word is getting out that the bloated MPS referendum that passed while DPI Superintendent Jill Underly and Milwaukee school officials kept the public in the dark will negatively impact school districts across the state.
Lawmakers say MPS troubles costing their schools | The Center Square
Lawmakers at the Wisconsin Capitol say Milwaukee Public School’s financial crisis will cost their schools as well.
Republican Rep. Jerry O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, said MPS’ recently approved property tax increase will shift the way that state school aid dollars are spent.
“Under Wisconsin’s equalization aid formula, state tax dollars are distributed to school districts inversely based on property value per student, aiming to ‘equalize’ aid. This formula is expenditure-based, meaning that as Milwaukee increases its expenditures, it receives a larger share of state aid regardless of property tax ‘wealth,’” O’Connor said.
O’Connor said schools in Fond du Lac will lose $777,511 because of that shift. North Fond du Lac School District will lose $83,186, and the Oakfield School District will see a reduction of $45,982.
“Denying voters full access to information about a referendum undermines the democratic process and can lead to uninformed decisions that negatively impact our community and faith in government institutions. It’s essential that all voters have complete and transparent information to make educated choices. Had voters had access to the details of MPS’s financial mismanagement, the outcome of this close referendum may have been different,” O’Connor said. “In my many years in banking, such a withholding of information would be at best, negotiating in bad faith, and, at worst, grievous fraud against the State Legislature and taxpayers of Wisconsin.”
O’Connor is not the only Republican who says their schools will suffer because of MPS’ problems.
Rep. Barbara Dittrich, R-Oconomowoc, said her area schools stand to lose nearly $1 million because of MPS’ impact on the statewide funding formula.
“If ever there were a case for fixing Wisconsin’s convoluted funding formula, this is it. All students in the state must not be dragged down by the irresponsibility of adults who failed to file statutorily required reports and hide relevant information from voting taxpayers. If the educational bureaucracy wants to know why school choice is so popular in this state, they need only look in the mirror,” Dittrich added.
Dittrich said Arrowhead Schools will lose $175,282 because of MPS’ shift. She said Hartland-Lakeside Schools will lose $197,495, Herman-Neosho-Rubicon Schools will lose $56,721 and Oconomowoc Area Schools will lose $503,617.
“I stand with the area public schools I serve as well as the taxpayers and will not support any sort of a bailout for MPS. Neither will I support handing the district to local government that has not been able to prove itself any more fiscally prudent,” Dittrich said
And we end today’s update with a bit of history. Happy Juneteeth. It matters, and is worth celebrating.
Juneteeth and Wisconsin | Dairyland Sentinel
Juneteenth is a significant holiday that commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the American South.
The celebration recognizes June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston Texas, with news that Civil War had ended and all enslaved individuals were now free.
While this date marked the official announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas, it followed the founding of the Republican Party in Wisconsin in 1854 (which aggressively opposed the proliferation of slavery as the US expanded west), the election of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln in 1860 (which led to the secession of several states, which sparked the Civil War), and the Emancipation Proclamation issued by Lincoln (which freed the slaves in the southern states in 1863).
Despite the Proclamation being signed two years earlier, many enslaved individuals in Texas continued to be held in bondage until the arrival of the Union troops.
…Juneteenth has become an occasion for African Americans to honor their ancestors’ struggle and resilience while commemorating their eventual freedom. However, Juneteenth is also a day for all Americans to celebrate the growth and maturation of the United States as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
…Its celebration in Wisconsin and across the country demonstrates the continued relevance and importance of honoring the past, recognizing the grave sin that was slavery, and celebrating the promise of the US Constitution,
The Republic endures as does the promise of liberty and justice for all.
Our Founders did not proclaim they had reached perfection. However, their brilliance allowed us to continue to strive for a more perfect Union. We remain guided and inspired by the notion that in the United States, government gets its freedom to act from the people, not the other way around. It’s a lesson of which some politicians need to be reminded, often.
Enjoy your hump day, even if you aren’t being paid by taxpayers to sit at home in La Crosse.
We’ll be back again tomorrow with more Key Reads.
