Saturday State News Briefs: Dispute over firing heats up between Milwaukee County board and county executive

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MILWAUKEE - Members of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors are demanding County Executive Chris Abele give his reasons for a high-profile firing of Sue Black.

After 10 years on the job, highly-regarded Parks Director Sue Black was fired last week. Four supervisors said Abele’s explanation for the move is inadequate. Adele’s office says he will name a replacement as interim parks director next Monday. One of the supervisors, Mark Borowski, says he will join others on the board to call for an audit of the Black firing if a better explanation isn’t offered.

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Figures released Friday show Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan paid an effective tax rate of 15.9 percent in 2010 and 20 percent last year. Ryan’s tax returns were released by the Romney campaign last night. Janesville Congressman Ryan and his wife reported an adjusted gross income of about $323,000 last year, paying nearly $65,000 in federal taxes. Mitt Romney tax returns have become an issue in the current campaign, with Democrats demanding he release more than two years of his returns. Romney’s campaign has estimated he will pay about $3.2 million dollars in federal taxes for 2011, an effective rate of 15.4 percent – a little lower than Ryan’s rate.

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Governor Scott Walker says a $66 million cut to the UW System budget won’t become permanent. The university is one of several state agencies the governor wrote to last week, declaring them exempt from permanent cuts which are a part of the next two-year budget cycle. Walker has ordered state agencies not to include any spending increases in the two-year budget plans to be submitted next month. Some of those agencies have been told cuts imposed earlier this year will be made permanent. State agencies are working on their two-year spending plans for the period starting in July of next year.

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Things got rowdy at a “Wisconsin Women for Mitt” event in Grand Chute Friday. Protestors were standing outside as the event was held. When one was able to sneak inside, she interrupted a presentation by state Senator Alberta Darling. When a woman standing next to the protestors told her to wait until Darling was done, the intruder was caught on video spitting in the woman’s face. Published reports indicate the protestor was an 83 year old woman from Appleton. She says she was scratched when she shouted at Senator Darling to ask about Republican opposition to Planned Parenthood. Grand Chute police say they are reviewing the incident.

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The Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance reports state property values have dropped for a fourth straight year. The report released this week shows property values dropped 3-point-2 percent this year, following a decline of 1.8 percent last year. Residential property values dropped four percent, two and a half times the rate of decline seen the year before. The largest declines in property values were in southeastern Wisconsin. Kenosha County values were down by 7.7 percent. Only seven out of the state’s 72 counties showed an increase.

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A Wisconsin fire captain faces charges in Racine County of second degree sexual assault. Thirty-seven year old Jodin Froeber is accused of assaulting a teenage seizure victim while he was riding with her in the back of an ambulance. Froeber had responded to a call at the Trefoil Oak program center in Somers in July 2011 in his personal car. He rode to a Racine hospital with the 17 year old victim in the back of a rescue squad. The victim says Froeber put his hand under her shirt and bra during the trip, raising them up. She says she believes she heard him take a picture, though she wasn’t able to open her eyes due to the seizure and the medication she was given. Foreber is on administrative leave from the Somers Fire Department.

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A Madison man is accused of pouring gasoline on his wife during an argument and threatening to light her on fire. The suspect was arrested yesterday morning by Juneau County authorities. Investigators say the incident started Thursday night at a storage locker on Packers Avenue in Madison. The woman says her husband hit her with a board, then poured the gas on her. The couple returned home on Cherokee Circle where they began to struggle again. The woman yelled for help and several neighbors responded. She was taken to a hospital with injuries not thought to be life-threatening.

Tags: news, wisconsin