1410 WIZM

Its looking like there will be a recall election for Senator Dan Kapanke. Those who have been gathering signatures to force that recall election say they now have enough signatures. They plan to submit those today in Madison after a rally at La Crosse's city hall. They say they collected more than 20,000 signatures in about a month. Those signatures will need to be verified, then a recall election would be scheduled. It is not known who Kapanke would face in the election. Candidates have 10 days to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot. Some possible names mentioned include Tara Johnson who lost to Kapanke in the last Senate election, and current La Crosse state representative Jennifer Shilling. Neither have confirmed their intentions to run.

La Crosse Spartans general manager Chris Kokalis announced today that head coach Gilbert Brown will be taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team and his coaching duties to tend to personal and family matters.

Kokalis has named assistant coach Kyle Moore-Brown as the team’s interim head coach. Defensive coordinator Mitch Madland will take over duties as assistant head coach.

The Spartans are 2-2 heading into this Sunday's home game against Nebraska.

Quite a bit at stake next Tuesday. City council, school board, 94th assembly and supreme court......all featured on ballots on election day.

So does Lacrosse City Clerk, Teri Lehrke, expect a huge voter turnout? She really does not know. Maybe 30 percent? Lehrke says this is a hard one to predict.

 

Lehrke says she did order extra ballots for the spring election.....equal to what a 43 percent turnout would be. The City of Madison has ordered an extra 30 thousand ballots for Tuesday.

Safe to say that Wisconsin's largest cities are less than thrilled about the state's new collective bargaining law.  Leaders of 39 cities with populations over ten thousand--including La Crosse--are represented by the League of Municipalities, Urban Alliance.  In a letter to the legislature's Joint Committee on Finance, the group is asking the legislature to make changes to the law.  First change requested is to have police and fire unions bound by the same dictates regarding pay and benefit contributions.  The Urban Alliance says its members will find it difficult to balance budgets if police and fire compensation is off the table.  Further, the letter claims rifts among employee groups are already occurring because fire and police have been left out of restrictions in collective bargaining agreements.  The letter from the Urban Alliance also asks the legislature to include transit workers in those exempted from limits on collective bargaining so federal funding sources for transit will not be in danger.  Finally, the alliance wants clarifying language regarding wage adjustments so cities have the freedom to increase wages for non-represented employees beyond the consumer price index.