Latest news with #R-Howard
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Brown County and C. Reiss agree to lease Pulliam property, but not for coal
The Brown County Board voted to approve a deal June 5 with Green Bay and C. Reiss Co. to relocate the coal piles to the Fox River Terminal and use the former Pulliam site to store C. Reiss' bulk commodities. Many eyes were on Green Bay and Brown County this week as officials inched closer to a deal that had $15 million at stake. The deal marks a historic milestone to a decades-long effort to relocate the coal piles from its 125-year home at 115 W. Mason St. Under the agreement, C. Reiss will lease the former Pulliam power plant to store salt and other bulk commodities instead of coal. The terms still fulfill decades of community leaders' goal to free up prime riverfront property for industrial, commercial and residential use at the mouth of the Fox River. The Brown County Board unanimously voted to approve the terms of the agreement. Board member Dixon Wolfe was not at the meeting. Former Green Bay mayors Jim Schmitt and Paul Jadin awaited the County Board's momentous vote, along with state Sens. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, and Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay; and state Reps. David Steffen, R-Howard; Ben Franklin, R-De Pere; Ryan Spaude, D-Ashwaubenon; and Amaad Rivera-Wagner, D-Green Bay. C. Reiss will lease 16 acres of the Pulliam site to store bulk commodities. The coal piles will be housed at the Fox River Terminal. Lease payments with a rate of $350,000 per year with increases every five years during the first 25 years based on the Consumer Price Index. The length of the lease is 60 years and can be extended. The lease needs to be executed by Sept. 25, according to the agreement. The new plan is a notable shift from previous proposals that had intended to make the Pulliam site the new home of the coal piles. Key parties were sorting out the agreement just a few minutes before starting the County Board meeting June 5, Buckley said ahead of the vote. The board voted on the deal June 5, just hours before the deadline to retain the $15 million state grant. The Wisconsin Department of Administration gave the County Board until June 6 to approve terms of a deal after extending the deadline from the end of May. Brown County agrees to buy the 43.75-acre Pulliam site for $2.7 million in January 2021. Brown County approves the Pulliam site purchase and agrees to sell almost 10 acres of the site to GLC Minerals for an expansion in February 2021. Gov. Tony Evers awards the city and county a $15 million Neighborhood Investment Fund Program grant funded through American Rescue Plan Act dollars in March 2022. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg presents the county with a federal $10.1 million Port Infrastructure Development grant to support the project in May 2023. Offers, counteroffers and rejections began in mid-December 2024 when the county officials and C. Reiss tentatively agreed to a $26 million plan that would lease 14.5 acres of the Pulliam property to C. Reiss for up to 75 years at a rate of $110,000 per year with an annual 2.5% increase. The County Board on Dec. 18, 2024, approved modified terms that reduced the lease to 40 years, changed the portion of the Pulliam property C. Reiss would use and added air quality compliance measures. C. Reiss considered the changes a rejection of the negotiated deal. The county's Port of Green Bay published a request for companies' general interest in using the new port site envisioned for the Pulliam property in January 2025. C. Reiss was one of eight to respond with a $28.5 million proposal to improve and use the Pulliam site for coal storage. C. Reiss in mid-March formally rejected the County Board's terms and proposed the county and company spend several months negotiating a deal. The County Board on March 19 rejected the company's offer. The county instead sought to shift negotiations to two alternate sites for coal storage, saying the Pulliam property's future use would be determined by the request for interest process. State officials in March gave the county, company and city a May 30 deadline to reach a deal to relocate the coal piles to the Pulliam site or lose the $15 million grant. Two new proposals emerged in late May as the county, company and city jointly met to discuss options and ideas. State Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, on May 23 asked the state to extend the May 30 deadline and the Department of Administration did so on May 30, giving the parties until June 3. Brown County and C. Reiss reached a tentative agreement June 3 and announced the parties would put together the terms in writing June 4 and 5. More: Who still uses coal? Answers to questions about Green Bay coal piles and the possible move More: Brown County, C. Reiss strike deal to move coal piles after extensive negotiations Press-Gazette reporter Jeff Bollier contributed to this report. Contact Benita Mathew at bmathew@ This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Brown County votes on C. Reiss deal for coal piles
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
More than 500 protest against Trump in ‘Hands Off!' rally at State College park
The State College area's opposition to President Donald Trump and his administration is growing louder. More than 500 people armed with political signs and umbrellas braved a dreary, rainy Saturday to converge on Sidney Friedman Park for a 'Hands Off!' rally opposing Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. The event was part of a nationwide effort that saw more than 1,200 similar rallies held across all 50 states. Signs and speakers touched on a variety of topics, from the economy to human rights. Nationally, it was the biggest day of demonstrations yet since Trump took office. Locally, the same also held true. (About 350 attended last weekend's town hall opposing Trump, and 250 gathered two weeks ago in protest of Trump supporter and U.S. Rep Glenn Thompson, R-Howard.) 'I got involved because I believe in this country, and I am firmly against everything that is going on right now,' said local rally speaker Ray Bilger, a combat veteran and former employee of the Department of State's foreign service and intelligence community. 'Only by us standing together and doing things like this today and making our voices heard can we make a change.' The most-asked question at last week's town hall revolved around what people could do to help, to stop the administration's cuts and tariffs, to prevent turning longtime allies into foes. And the response was to stand up and speak out. That message, reiterated by Bilger on Saturday, appeared to be received. Local organizers said about 500 people RSVP'd to the event, so attendance was conservatively estimated in the 500-600 range. But some thought attendance might've topped 1,000. The park appeared more crowded Saturday, even when the rain picked up and volunteers handed out ponchos, than it is during a weekend at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. Nationally, organizations such as MoveOn and Indivisible took the lead on the rallies. But more than 150 partners — from the local to national levels — also contributed. Among the local organizations taking part were Central PA United, Left of Centre, Seven Mountains AFL-CIO and the Centre County Democratic Committee. Four speakers took turns sharing their stories to the crowd during the hourlong event. They included Suzanne Weinstein, a member of Keystone Indivisible; Connor Lewis, chapter president of Seven Mountains AFL-CIO; Christy Delafield, humanitarian aid worker; and Bilger. 'The line in my lifetime has never been clearer than it is right now,' Lewis said. 'You can choose to be on Elon Musk's side. You can choose to be on the side of billionaires. Or you can choose to be on the side of American workers, of American-working people, a people who believe in this country and that we deserve more.' Estimates of national attendance were not immediately known. But organizers reported before the event that more than 600,000 had signed up to attend. The Centre Daily Times stopped five attendees at the State College rally to ask one question: Why was it important for you to be at this event? Here's what they said: Chris Smith, State College resident 'I am really worried for our future, for our children, the environment — and just the health of the whole nation and the security of our nation. There's so many reasons; it just keeps adding up. I fear for our safety. I feel fear for people getting taken away and deported with no due process. I am scared for research being cut. 'I had cancer. My mom had cancer. It's insane that they would cut funding to cancer research, for asthma research, for ALS. It's just insane. And the amount of time it'll take to get that re-established? It's already too late for so many things.' Maezy Leitzinger, Penn State student 'It's important to stand up for what we believe in, and we should be fighting against all this. This isn't right. And that's pretty much why I showed up, because it matters to me. 'I'm happy that it's such a huge turnout, but I was a little shocked at the lack of kids more my age — in Gen Z — that didn't show up. But it's really powerful seeing the older generations showing up and also caring for what we care about.' Brant Rosenberger, State College resident 'I'm trying to figure out how to get involved, basically. I've lived here for about 20 years, and this is an unprecedented time to live in. So I want to get out there and meet people, see what I can learn and hopefully help them. ... 'I send faxes and I call people. But when you literally have your government not listening to you, you actually have to get up and do something. ... I'm not really super political, but I'm progressive. And at some point you have to get up. At some point, you go, 'These are the most rights I ever have. I will have less rights after this time.' It's not good for anybody.' Joseph Haloua, State College resident 'Originally, I'm from France. I became a U.S. citizen. And my mom is from Prague, Czechoslovakia, and she's seen the Russians coming over in 1968 to take over her country. And I have nothing against individual Russians. But the issue is that the United States is just basically handing everything over to a foreign enemy. And that just is alarming at the highest level for me. Where I come from, we've been allies forever and, suddenly, we're treated as enemies. 'On one hand, we have Elon Musk that's talking about Western civilization, and on the other hand, they're actually trying to destroy or dismantle that. And honestly, I, as a business owner, do not understand whatsoever the economic purpose behind that. There is no explanation. It's just chaos without an explanation.' Sydney Nicholson, Penn State student 'Trump is taking away women's rights, and that's one big thing I'm concerned about. And he's bowing down to Elon Musk, who wasn't even elected. Elon Musk is supporting an alt-right nationalist group in Germany ... so the country's going that way, and it's just awful. It's really awful. 'For the queer community as well, you just don't feel safe. Especially if you're a person of color, it's not safe out there for anybody. If you see a person with a MAGA hat, you're like, 'F---, stay away from me.' It's a spread of hate and violence.' Here's a closer look at some of the political signs and other scenes from Saturday's State College rally:
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republican legislators introduce bill to move lawsuits out of Dane County
A courtroom and a judge's gavel. (Getty Images creative) A pair of Republican legislators have introduced a proposal that would allow the parties in lawsuits against state officials filed in Wisconsin's largest, and most Democratic, counties to have the venue changed to another county court. Critics of the proposal say it amounts to an attempt to gerrymander the court system. The legislation from Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) and Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) is currently circulating for co-sponsorship. Under the 'Court Fairness Bill,' if a lawsuit against certain government officials is filed in a county with a first or second class city — the designation given to cities with more than 39,500 residents — any party to the lawsuit can request a venue change to a different circuit court. The second court would be chosen randomly and no further venue changes would be allowed. Steffen told the Wisconsin Examiner that the bill was designed to allow Republicans to move lawsuits out of Dane County court because they believe they don't 'get a fair shake' when arguing in front of judges elected by the state's most Democratic voting county. Current law doesn't require lawsuits against the state government to be filed in Madison, but because most state government offices are in the capital city, many of those lawsuits are heard in the Dane County Circuit Court. 'If you are a liberal entity or individual, you increase your chance of success substantially by filing that case in the Dane County Circuit,' Steffen said. 'That type of judge shopping should not only be discouraged but prevented when possible, and so I don't believe that that is the way our Founding Fathers, both at the national or state level, envisioned courts to work where individuals or organizations are making decisions where they file based on the chance of it being a more favorable outcome.' Steffen added that he thinks the number of lawsuits filed against state government would decrease if people thought they might be heard by judges outside of Dane County. 'So by providing an option for either party to request a random selection to another circuit, we increase the public's perception and support of the decision that is made, and we decrease the number of frivolous and politically motivated lawsuits and decisions,' he said. Current law already allows parties to a lawsuit to change the venue at the appellate level. Wisconsin is divided into four appeals court districts. If a case is heard at the circuit court level in Dane County, its appeal would generally be heard in the District IV Court of Appeals, which covers 24 counties across most of southwestern and central Wisconsin. In 2011, Republicans enacted a law that allows a party in a lawsuit to request that an appeal be heard in a different district. Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the voting rights focused firm Law Forward, told the Examiner the proposal is an attempt to disenfranchise voters in cities that Republicans don't like because of the people they elect to be judges. 'It's a further attempt to gerrymander the courts,' he said. 'The gerrymandered Legislature has already gerrymandered the appellate courts and now it's trying to gerrymander the circuit courts. It is anti-democratic. It is anti-rule of law, it is inappropriate, it is inefficient, and there's no good reason for it, and here, fascinatingly, they only want it to apply to lawsuits that are filed in counties that have cities of the first or second class. So they're really just targeting counties that have larger populations or that they don't like. It's a very weird thing.' While the proposal would allow venue changes in Milwaukee County and more than a dozen counties with second class cities, Steffen said it's targeted at Dane County because he believes Republicans lose 90-95% of their cases there. 'There is no place other than downtown Madison that has a 91% concentration of a party,' he said. Mandell said Steffen is exaggerating how poorly conservative causes do in Dane County court and there's no requirement right now that lawsuits against the state be filed there. Wisconsin's judges are elected for a reason, Mandell said, and this bill would nullify the choices of hundreds of thousands of Dane County voters. 'We have elected judges in Wisconsin, and one of the theories is that we do that because our judges are responsive to and come from the community,' he said. 'So if I have an issue with the way that a local election official, or any other local official is doing something in my local area, part of the reason to bring the suit where I live is because the judge knows and understands the conditions of my local area. To then send it someplace completely different is truly bizarre.' He added that if someone were trying to sue their member of Congress, the proposal would allow that suit to get moved to another side of the state where there is less knowledge about that representative and the community that elected them. 'You are looking to the court to give you relief, but you are probably also looking for other people who are constituents of your member of Congress to know about this and be able to follow the case,' he said. 'But now the venue is going to be randomly reassigned, and it could be assigned well outside of the congressional district. The judge is no longer a constituent or doesn't know as much about the member of Congress and the local media no longer has the same kind of access. The whole thing is just really, really bizarre.' Experts also say there are a number of logistical concerns with the proposal. Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of UW-Madison's State Democracy Research Initiative, said because of Wisconsin's political geography, the proposal wouldn't make things even. Moving a case out of Dane County doesn't give a 50-50 shot at landing that case in a conservative or liberal county because a higher number of Wisconsin's 72 counties lean conservative. 'If the concern is to try to level the playing field and have a more diverse kind of set of circuit court judges deciding these important cases that are brought against state or federal officials, or whatever it might be, then actually, it's going to swing in the opposite direction,' she said. 'It's not going to be more level. It's going to be likely more conservative judges deciding these cases.' She added that a similar bill authored by Republicans in Kentucky was struck down by that state's Supreme Court. Steffen said he's not concerned about that happening here if the bill were passed — though it's unlikely it would be signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Plus, Grossi Wilde said, because Dane County has been the venue for many of these cases for so long, there's a level of expertise and institutional knowledge in cases involving complex areas of state law such as elections. 'Sometimes it's more about expertise … these are judges that are familiar with these claims and are able to sort of manage them more efficiently,' she said, adding that 'Dane County Circuit Court has built up that bench, has built up this sort of expertise, because they're used to managing these type of cases.' Sending cases out around the state to judges who deal with many issues and are not particularly familiar with certain areas of the law — 'whether it be … civil, criminal, family, juvenile, probate … [or] complicated or constitutional claims' could burden courts and cause them not to work as well, she said. Steffen said he hadn't nailed down the details of how the new venue would be randomly selected, but suggested drawing cards or names out of a hat. But Mandell questioned what would happen if a case was filed in Milwaukee County and the name drawn out of the hat was far-away Bayfield County. 'It's highly inefficient,' he said. 'I mean … every time the court wants to hold a hearing, everybody might have to, you know, schlep all the way to Bayfield. For what purpose?' The deadline for lawmakers to sign on to the bill as co-sponsors is Feb. 18.
