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A former Eau Claire firefighter is avoiding jail time in an embezzlement case.  William Drath was accused of stealing more than 18-thousand dollars from the firefighter’s labor union while he was treasurer from 2006 to 2016.  Drath pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and was sentenced Thursday to three years probation.  He’ll avoid jail time if he completes 480 hours of community service.

An Eau Claire woman is accused of stealing nearly 20-thousand dollars from Eau Claire County.  Susan O’Connor is believed to have written a 15-thousand dollar check to herself and a five-thousand dollar check to her landlord while working as a temporary county employee.  Investigators say O’Connor used the money to pay bills and take a trip.  She pleaded guilty on Thursday and faces over 13 years in prison.

Two people from Wood County are accused of neglecting several animals.  Nekoosa police say they found two abandoned dogs at a home on 2nd Street earlier this month.  Police say they later found multiple dead animals and poor living conditions inside the house.  Dallas McKinney and Jessica Ramos were arrested in connection with the case.  They’re facing over 30 charges.

A man convicted of killing a wolf in Burnett County is being fined.  Spooner resident Alfred Paulson was ordered Thursday to pay nearly 42-hundred dollars in fines and get his hunting and fishing privileges revoked for a year.  Game wardens say he shot a wolf he caught in a fox trap in 2017.

Eau Claire police are cracking down on the alternate side parking rules this winter season.  Alternate side rules started on November 1st.  Police say they’ve issued around two-thousand warnings since then, though no tickets have been given.  Citations will be given at the discretion of police.  Alternate side rules will be in effect until May 1st.

Police suspect an animal rights group is behind a recent string of deer stand vandalism cases as local Dunn County hunters are fed up.  Law enforcement calls the Animal Liberation Front a “terroristic organization” that operates in 40 different countries, and says that they are behind at least three vandalism cases in the county this year.  Investigators are offering a seventeen-hundred dollar reward for information leading to an arrest in these cases.

Eau Claire residents are urged to attend Friday night’s first citywide summit organized by local council members.  It starts at five o’clock at the Grace Lutheran Church on West Grand Avenue where council members and other city officials will be on-hand to answer questions from residents.  No registration is necessary, but officials are encouraging residents to arrive early.

This year’s Chippewa Falls Oktoberfest is giving back to the local community in a big way.  More than seventeen-thousand dollars was donated to local community groups courtesy of the Oktoberfest Festmeister and Festmeisterin Thursday, all raised through donations at the three-day event in September.  The money will be split among thirty-five groups who helped in the planning and execution of the German heritage event.

The new “boot and tow” program is paying dividends for the La Crosse Police Department in its first year.  The department says it has collected about seventy-seven-thousand dollars in fines since last year.  Nearly two-hundred and thirty vehicles have been booted due to lack of payment on previous tickets.  After a boot is placed on a vehicle, the owner has 24 hours to contact authorities before being towed.

The Epilepsy Foundation of Western Wisconsin is celebrating another successful Harvest Gala after Thursday night’s event at the Florian Gardens in Eau Claire.  The night was highlighted by guest speaker Sally Schaeffer, Senior Director of the Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy Institute, who lost her seven-year-old daughter to epilepsy on Mother’s Day back in 2014.  Since that day, Schaeffer says she’s dedicated her life to sudden death awareness, teaming up with other parents who have lost their children to the disease.