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We could finally get a price tag for Eau Claire’s school referendum. The city’s school board is expected to set that number at its meeting on Monday. School leaders are planning to ask voters for money to repair or expand Putnam Heights Elementary, North High School, Memorial High School and South Middle School. The district’s Director of Business Services says Eau Claire Schools can’t wait any longer to raise taxes and make the improvements.

The new steps at the Devil’s Punchbowl in Menomonie are the latest sign that things are back to normal. The park reopened this week. The new steps are designed to help people get in and out of the area without having to trample the local plants, or risk the rocky terrain. Park managers say they expect a lot of visitors for the rest of the summer, and are asking people to skip the park if the parking lot is full.

The latest legal fight over Wisconsin’s election laws is coming in Racine over the city’s traveling voting van. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a lawsuit yesterday claiming election managers in Racine are ignoring state law about alternative absentee voting sites. The law allows for other voting locations, but says they must be fixed and cannot offer one political party an advantage. The lawsuit claims Racine’s traveling voting van breaks both requirements. Racine’s clerk says the van is simply an extension

Public health managers with the state are asking doctors to give smaller, more potent doses of the monkeypox vaccine. The new guidance comes from the CDC and through the state’s Department of Public Health. DHS says studies have shown that smaller, more potent doses do just as good a job of protecting someone from the pox. Wisconsin has 32 confirmed monkeypox cases in the state.

Milwaukee’s fire chief sounds like he may not send firefighters to fight any more fires at the old Northridge Mall. Chief Aaron Lipski yesterday said he is ‘over it’ after the late fire, the fourth at the abandoned mall in the past month. No one was hurt in yesterday’s fire, though the chief says one of his firefighters could easily have been. The chief says the old mall isn’t properly secured, and someone needs to do something to make the

Leaders in Milwaukee are going to have to decide if they want a new prison on the city’s northwest side. The common council is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the land sale that will eventually lead to new juvenile prisons along West Clinton Avenue. The new prisons will close the troubled Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake facilities, but there has been some opposition to building a new prison in Milwaukee. That area of the city currently doesn’t have an alderman.

 One of two Wisconsin women sent to a state mental hospital for the so-called Slender Man attack on another girl eight years ago has withdrawn her request for release.  All three girls were 12 years old at the time.  In June, Morgan Geyser, who’s now 20, asked a judge for her release.  Her request followed the release of the co-defendant in the same case, Anissa Weier, who had spent four years at a mental health facility in Oshkosh.  Geyser withdrew her request

Provisional voters who cast ballots this week in Wisconsin have until Friday afternoon at four o’clock to turn in identification to their local clerk’s office.   Wisconsin voters who do not provide poll workers with identification documents are given provisional ballots.  If they fail to turn in proper identification by the deadline, their ballots are not counted.  In Madison, election officials say 25 provisional ballots were submitted at polling places.

Officials with Milwaukee Tool celebrated the opening of the company’s new manufacturing plant today.  Officials with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and the Milwaukee Seven were also on hand for the grand opening.  The company has invested 55-million dollars in the 95-thousand square foot facility, which will employ 150 workers.  It’s the first facility to open in West Bend’s new industrial park,  the West Bend Manufacturing Center.      

Above photo submitted: Willy Porter Come September 17th, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire graduate, Willy Porter from Mequon, WI will be heading back to the Chippewa Valley to perform at Stepping Stones’ 2 nd annual The bEAT Concert. Porter, joined by his quartet Dave Adler, Eric Madunic & Dave Schoepke, will bring a sound that is “a blend of grit, soul & space that moves seamlessly from folk and bluesy Americana to alt and progressive rock.” Willy Porter caught the attention