Morning State News Briefs: Eight deaths now reported due to heat wave

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It appears that at least eight Wisconsinites died from heat-related problems during last week’s hot spell.

Up to four of them were in Milwaukee County, where the medical examiner’s office identified the victims this morning. 81-year-old Marie Jones was found dead in a brushy area near her Milwaukee garage with a 108 body temperature. 42-year-old Paul Schmidt Junior collapsed in front of a roommate in his Milwaukee apartment, also with an intense 108 fever. 55-year-old Jimmy Thompson was at 105 when he was found dead in the living room of his Milwaukee apartment. And 67-year-old Richard Waliszewski of South Milwaukee was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell in his home. All four deaths were reported on Friday. In La Crosse, authorities said a 68-year-old woman was found in her home last Thursday night in a room that was 109-degrees. An elderly man collapsed after a walk last Wednesday in nearby Onalaska. In Richland County, authorities said 74-year-old James Kast was found dead at his home in Lone Rock with no air conditioning. And in Rock County, officials said 83-year-old Margaret Jurgans of the town of Lima had an underlying heart condition when she died from the heat last week. Only 30 Americans died in this most recent heat spell – much fewer than in a similar heat wave in 1995, with 91 heat-related deaths were reported in Milwaukee County alone. Cooler highs in the 80’s are expected at least through Wednesday. The 90’s could return to southern Wisconsin on Thursday.

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The recent heat wave caused the water temperature in the southern part of Lake Michigan to jump by a whopping 10 degrees. That’s what the National Weather Service said this morning. The agency monitors a buoy in the middle-southern part of the lake. And it reached 80-degrees for only the sixth time in the past 31 years – and never this early in the year. By last Friday, the weather service said most of Lake Michigan had warmed into the 70’s. And the average temperature for the lake as a whole is four degrees warmer than the norm for the past five years. Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s air temperatures were generally in the 70’s-and-80’s late this morning. Antigo was the cool spot at 11 o’clock with 73 degrees. Janesville was the hot spot with 88.

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Governor Scott Walker says he wants to learn how other states are trying to improve their economies, when he attends a four-day meeting of the National Governors Association. The meeting runs from Thursday through Sunday in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Republican Walker said today that he looks forward to telling governors about quote, “Wisconsin’s complete turnaround” after years of job losses, wage cuts, and budget deficits. He also wants to attend committee meetings on workforce education and health-and-human services. Walker is vowing not to move forward with a statewide health insurance exchange, as required by the national health reform law which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last month. Walker says he’s counting on voters to elect Republicans this fall who vow to dismantle the health package.

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Racine Republican Van Wanggaard says he’ll wait until tomorrow to announce whether he’ll go to court to challenge a recount which shows that he lost his state Senate seat. State law gives Wanggaard until tomorrow to declare a lawsuit, after the voting totals showed that he lost by just over 800 votes to Democrat John Lehman on June fifth. The outcome will determine whether Democrats will take control of the Senate at least until the fall elections. This morning, Wanggaard told conservative Milwaukee radio talk show Charlie Sykes that quote, “We’re hearing there could be thousands that potentially should not have been voting, or should not have been given ballots.” On WTMJ Radio, Wanggaard accused Racine County poll workers of improperly letting people register on Election Day by not showing their required proof of residency. Instead, he said they showed things like coupons in the mail, and water bills sent to a general “occupant.” Earlier, Republicans said the state improperly allowed up to 200 votes from people who did not sign in at the polls – and some election clerks illegally initialed absentee ballots before voters filled them in. Democrats have said all the problems are clerical errors, with no evidence of voter fraud – and they’ve told Wanggaard to stop thwarting the will of the voters and concede. Senate Democratic Leader Mark Miller of Monona said last week that the Republicans made it harder for poll workers to do their jobs with the election laws they adopted in the last session. And now, Miller says the GOP is challenging human errors which Republicans themselves had caused.

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Green Bay Police said this morning that a 52-year-old man was killed in a hit-and-run traffic crash. Officials said a pedestrian was struck by a car around 7:25 last night on Main Street on Green Bay’s east side. The victim died at a hospital after suffering a head injury. Police said the hit-and-run vehicle was a silver-or-white Pontiac Grand-Am, 1999-through-2005 with a possible broken driver’s side mirror. Those with information were asked to call Green Bay Police or the local Crime Stoppers program.

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If you’re a Milwaukee Brewers’ fan, you’ve probably seen a TV ad on the statewide game broadcasts about a new group that’s raising money to buy bullet-proof vests for police dogs. But the Milwuakee Journal-Sentinel says another group has provided all of Wisconsin’s 200-plus K-9 officers with vests for the last five years. And because the two groups have not coordinated their efforts, Donna Morgan of the five-year-old Wisconsin Vest-a-Dog group said both groups could suffer from lower funding – and the police dogs could suffer as a result. The new group, the Police Canine Vest Foundation, plans to hold a fund-raiser in Greenfield on Saturday featuring Brewers’ players Cody Ransom and Mat Gamel. Group spokeswoman Debra Lopez said her group’s founder has tried repeatedly to get in touch with the existing Vest-a-Dog group – and it could not make contact, so they started their own group. The existing group gave vests to the state’s final police dogs earlier this year – and it has raised $66,000 dollars to replace older vests and provide automatic door openers for dogs in squad cars to cool off on hot days. Lopez says her group can still provide a service, because a growing number of police dogs will need new vests every 3-to-5 years. And it hopes to raise 20-thousand dollars from Saturday’s Brewers’ event. Morgan says she’d like to see the new group focus on law enforcement’s future needs. Greenfield Police Captain Jay Johnson, a former president of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Canine Handler Association, says there’s room for both efforts – and they should work together to achieve the same goals.

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Wisconsin’s workforce will be the subject of a series of meetings this week. Competitive Wisconsin is hosting the sessions in Platteville, Green Bay, Oshkosh, and Fond du Lac. Spokesman Jim Wood says it’s a continuation of the group’s economic summits from two years ago. Among the group’s recommendations at that time was to replace the state government’s Commerce Department with a public-private agency – something Scott Walker did soon after he became the governor in 2011. State workforce development officials will appear at this week’s meetings. And Competitive Wisconsin will explain its research project for the summer. It’s working with Milwaukee’s Manpower Incorporated to determine what the state’s workforce will look like in the next decade.

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A new Italian restaurant near Appleton will re-open this morning, after a fire late last week. Buca di Beppo was closed after a fire on Thursday night. Authorities said a kitchen wall ignited, and it took about an hour to put out the fire. The restaurant had to be evacuated. The cause remains under investigation. Buca di Beppo recently opened near the Fox River Mall in the town of Grand Chute just west of Appleton.

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Hundreds of parishioners returned to the sanctuary of a suburban Milwaukee church yesterday, for the first time since a fire last Christmas Eve. Members of Saint Alphonsus Catholic Church in Greendale had been celebrating Mass in a community room since the blaze – which might have burned the church to the ground if it wasn’t for a nearby dog named Kirby. He went outside for a bathroom break when he barked loudly due to the sound of the church’s smoke detectors. Somebody then called 911, and firefighters arrived in time to save part of the building. Pastor Alan Jurkus said the church raised 425-thousand dollars to make repairs not covered by insurance – and he was not sure what the final cost would be. Not all the bills have yet to come in. The 1,100-seat sanctuary has a new ceiling and walls, re-sealed pews, new lights, improved areas for the altar and the choir, and lots of fresh paint. The cause of the fire was never determined, but it was ruled an accident. It started in an area where the church’s audio, electrical, and heating systems had merged.

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A state senator who wants more limits on wind energy turbines says he’ll give evidence to the Public Service Commission Wednesday on the medical risks of living near those turbines. At a news conference yesterday, De Pere Republican Frank Lasee said he wants the PSC to pass strict rules banning high-tech windmills within a mile of people’s homes, and to require the consent of nearby residents before they can be built. Right now, the limit is 1,250-feet. Sue and Darryl Ashley of rural Glenmore in Brown County told reporters they had to move last summer, to give their 16-year-old daughter relief from headaches and sleep deprivation caused by turbines from the nearby Shirley Wind Project. Alyssa Ashley said her health problems subsided after the family moved – but it left them paying two mortgages. Doctor Herb Coussons said the noise from wind turbines can cause elevated blood pressure, diabetes, and a higher risk of heart disease for those living close by. But in 2010, the PSC’s Wind Siting Council said there was not enough evidence of negative health effects to justify stricter limits. Soon after taking office last year, Governor Scott Walker pushed for longer setbacks for new wind farms at the request of the state’s Realtors. And a legislative committee voted to strike down PSC rules which sought to encourage new wind farms. But after lawmakers failed to pass subsequent measures, the PSC’s rules were put back in place after the legislative session ended in March of this year.

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Actor Ernest Borgnine, who died yesterday at age 95, had a special bond with Wisconsin in his many appearances at Milwaukee’s Great Circus Parade. His love for the circus kept him coming back as the Grand Clown over a number of parades that spanned for almost four decades. The last one was in 2009. Borgnine was 92 then, and he called the Circus Parade “the most wonderful thing in the world.” Co-chairman Jack McKeithan said Borgnine was absent only once because of his filming schedule. Mayor Tom Barrett said Borgnine loved Milwaukee and was gracious to his fans – and in return, Wisconsinites loved him back. In the mayor’s words, “He will be missed from here to eternity.” Borgnine starred in the film classic “From Here to Eternity” as the villain who beat Frank Sinatra to death. Borgnine won an Oscar in 1956 as a butcher looking for love in the low-budget film “Marty.” He also starred with Spencer Tracy in “Bad Day at Black Rock” – and he was also in “Johnny Guitar,” “The Dirty Dozen,” and “The Wild Bunch” among other films. In the 1960’s, he captained a bunch of misfit sailors in the TV hit “McHale’s Navy,” which also became a movie. More recently, he was the voice of the Mermaid Man in the cartoon “Sponge Bob Square Pants.” And WISN-TV said Borgnine was in Wisconsin not too long ago to be a voice in an animated feature being produced by Tom Hignite. Ernest Borgnine died from renal failure at a hospital in Los Angeles.

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Milwaukee Police are investigating three murders during the weekend. The latest occurred just before midnight in a north side neighborhood. Police said a 30-year-old man was shot-to-death. There was no word on possible suspects or a motive. Also, police did not release many details on two other weekend killings. A 41-year-old man was shot-and-killed on Milwaukee’s north side around 1:40 yesterday morning. And a 57-year-old man was shot-to-death about 1:45 on Saturday afternoon at another north side location.

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A search continues today for a West Allis man who’s missing and presumed drowned in Wind Lake in Racine County. Authorities said the 57-year-old man was at a family outing on Saturday when he dived from a boat to take a swim, and did not re-surface. Wind Lake Fire Chief Rob Robins said rescuers have searched a wide area of the lake, using virtually all of their technology – including a sonar unit and a camera that shoots video underwater. He said the man disappeared in the deepest part of the lake, with depths of up to 40-feet. And the chief said visibility was a problem, since divers could not see for more than 10-feet at a time. The victim’s name was not immediately released.

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A Milwaukee woman was hospitalized in critical condition at last word, after her vehicle collided head-on with a sheriff’s squad car just west of Green Bay. According to the State Patrol, Brown County deputy Rueben Meisner lost control of his squad on Saturday while pursuing a stolen vehicle on the Highway 41 expressway in Howard. Meisner swerved to avoid a tire-busting device when his sheriff’s car crossed into the opposite lanes and hit an oncoming car driven by 27-year-old Michelle Lecker of Milwaukee. She was reported to be in critical condition yesterday at a Green Bay hospital. The deputy and a man in Lecker’s car both had non-life-threatening injuries.

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The body of a 20-year-old woman was pulled yesterday from the Wolf River in Menominee County. Lina Castandea went under while she was rafting at Smokey Falls. Authorities were called late Saturday afternoon. They said dangerous water conditions ended the search on Saturday night. It resumed yesterday morning, and Castandea’s body was found just before 8:15 a.m.

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Sales are down for one of Wisconsin’s best-known products. Beer tax revenues in the Badger State are down three-percent last year, compared to 2010. And Gannett’s Wisconsin newspapers said beer tax payments were at their lowest in at least five years. But the malted brew is still immensely popular. Gannett said taxes were paid on 394,000 barrels in April alone – which translates to over 130-million 12-ounce servings. State records indicate that Miller-Coors and Anheuser-Busch sell four-of-every-five beers in Wisconsin. But foreign brews made up of less than one-percent of sales – products like Corona of Mexico and the Dutch beer Heineken. And a variety of micro-brews throughout Wisconsin are getting more popular including Potosi beer and O’so of Plover. Pete Madland of the Wisconsin Tavern League says more folks are enjoying their favorite beers at home, while tavern patronage has gone down.

Tags: news, wisconsin