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METRO BRiEFS
Charges filed
The man accused of shooting another man while sitting in his parked car now faces homicide charges after the victim died
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Police now say the victim of a shooting on the city’s west side has died, and new charges are being filed against the alleged shooter.
Police say Michael Turner, 45 of Wausau, shot a 45-year-old man while he sat in his car in the 1000 block of Fifth Avenue May 15. The man, who police have still not named, was hospitalized and in critical condition.
Police now say that the man died on June 2. Turner now faces first-degree intentional homicide charges.
According to police reports, Turner drove up to the man ▲ Michael Turner while he was parked in a green Pontiac on 5th Avenue. A pair of witnesses told police they saw Turner fire several times into the vehicle, turn to look at them, then fire some more. He then fled the scene.
Police found the victim in the parking lot of Tobacco Outlet on Thomas Street and immediately treated him with wound patches while he lay in the driver’s seat with his feet outside the car.
Turner was arrested in Marquette county a little more than an hour after the shooting.
The victim’s death came only a day after Turner was bounded over for trial following a preliminary hearing in Marathon County Court. He is currently being held on a $1 million cash bond in Marathon County Jail.
A calendar call is scheduled for June 16.
Funds provided to municipalities by the federal American Rescue Plan could help fund broadband in the county, county officials say. The plan made available $100 million in grant funding for broadband projects in the state of Wisconsin, says Human Resources, Finance and Property Committee Chair John Robinson. The state as a whole is expected to receive $2.5 billion in ARP funding. There are certain uses allowed under the plan, and counties and municipalities each receive a certain amount. Broadband expansion in rural areas is one of those uses.
Marathon County will receive $26.3 million under the plan. The county is planning listening sessions in Wausau, Hatley and Edgar to gather input on what should be done with the money.
Marathon County has struggled with broadband, and even adequate 911 service as infrastructure crumbles and incentives to replace it are scarce. The county formed a task force to find ways to address the lack of good broadband in the county.
Robinson cited Kewaunee County as a good example of how to approach it. Kewaunee sought out proposals from Internet Service Providers detailing how they would use the money, Robinson says. Marathon County has been working on an incremental approach but Robinson says Kewaunee’s approach might be quicker.
The task force will discuss the matter at its next meeting.
City appoints new fire chief
The city has appointed its next fire chief, to replace the retiring Tracey Kujawa.
City officials announced they appointed Robert Barteck as the city’s next fire chief. Barteck has served as interim fire chief after Kujawa, the city’s first female fire chief, retired in April. Barteck first joined the department in 2019 as the department’s deputy chief.
Barteck is from Owen originally and his father served as a volunteer firefighter, which inspired him to join the service.
▲ Robert Barteck
Residents angry over overfilled park dumpsters; illegal dumping to blame
Some residents sounded off over an overflowing dumpster in Memorial Park over the weekend. City officials say illegal dumping is to blame.
Residents in the southeast side neighborhood mentioned in a Facebook group that the dumpster in Memorial Park was unsightly, also noting that it coincided with the city’s opening of its pools, one of which is in Memorial Park.
According to Parks Director Jamie Polley, a business illegally dumped its garbage in the dumpster at Memorial Park, leading to the overflow. The dumpster had just been empty on Wednesday and was already overflowing by Friday.
Dumping trash in park dumpsters is illegal, and the company that deposited its trash into the park container was fined, Polley says. She did not reveal the company.
NCHC Board continues discussing Loy situation
NCHC Board members are still mum on why North Central Health Care CEO Michael Loy was placed on administrative leave, as the situation has shaken up those within the organization.
The NCHC Board met in closed session Thursday for nearly two hours, only to emerge and say they would keep discussing the situation with an NCHC employee. No further details were given in the session nor at the questioning of a City Pages reporter.
Loy was named CEO in 2017 and had overseen a massive campus overhaul, including the county’s nursing home, Mount View Care Center. He has been employed with NCHC since 2014, according to a release from NCHC.
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▲ A new city class, officails hope, will help train more lifeguards to help address the shortage at city pools this summer.
New program aims to build lifeguard numbers
A new city parks program is hoping to fill needed lifeguard positions to keep the city’s pools open full time.
All three of the city’s pools opened Friday, but each has days in which they aren’t open due to lack of lifeguards. The city started a lifeguarding class in order to try to increase the number of lifeguards at city pools, says Parks Director Jamie Polley.
Potential lifeguards need to pass a swimming test on the first day, which includes retrieving a brick from the bottom of the pool, in order to continue in the class, Polley says. A total of 24 signed up for the first class. “We’re very hopeful that the majority will make it through and sign on with us as lifeguards,” Polley says.
The lifeguard shortage is something going on nationwide as cities such as Austin, Las Vegas and St. Louis struggle to staff their pools.
Right now, two of the city’s pools, Memorial and Schulenburg, are closed two days per week, and Kaiser is closed one day per week because of the shortage. The goal is to get all the pools open every day, but even increasing staffing levels enough to have each only closed one day per week would be an improvement, Polley says.
County to discuss speaker policy after board chair apologizes for last speaker’s comments
The county’s Executive Committee plans to discuss a new policy aimed at who to allow as speakers before the Marathon County Board’s education meeting.
Typically speakers in the past have been aimed at educating the board around departments or programs the county supports, but speakers lately have gotten political.
The Executive Committee last month approved Kevin McGary, leader of Every Black Life Matters, to speak before the board. Members of the committee at the time tepidly approved the speaker but asked that the committee look into a policy for future speakers.
That need was exasperated when McGary in his presentation slandered Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg, saying she was in favor of exterminating black people. County Board Chair Kurt Gibbs later apologized to Rosenberg, saying that although the policy is generally not to interrupt speakers it is prudent to do so when a speaker resorts to personal attacks.
No information was included in the meeting packet about the potential policy.
DNR to 3M: Do better on cleanup efforts
Company 3M must do a better job of cleaning up a lower west side site contaminated with arsenic, according to letter from the Department of Natural Resources.
The letter, sent June 2 from the DNR to 3M, says the department reviewed 3M’s work plan for the old railroad site near south First Avenue and Sherman Avenue and asked 3M to resubmit the plan.
According to the letter, the DNR found the company’s assumption that the arsenic was due to background contamination “not reasonable,” asked 3M to perform additional soil borings, and is requiring an emerging contaminant scoping statement be provided as part of 3M’s cleanup plan.
The site is near 1300 Cleveland Avenue, a site the city owns and is also contaminated. The city for years has been fielding complaints from residents and a citizen action group about contamination around the Thomas Street corridor, which has been a site of heavy industrial use in the past and is now a primarily residential area, though some industrial uses still persist.
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