1410 WIZM

The Monroe County Justice Center referendum is a dead deal for the time being. County Board Chair Rick Irwin says there is just not enough time to draft one before the February 22nd deadline. But he says its not a step back.

Iwrin says he is confident the process will remain on track as long as the board is moving forward.

An unofficial show of hands showed 23 supervisors thought something had to be done with the justice center in Sparta, and 20 would consider a downtown site for a new jail and justice center.

But it might be a little less than necessary when it comes to cleaning up the Great Lakes. $350 million is how much president Obama's new budget has in it for lake clean-up. Actually, a 25 percent cut from funding last year. The group, Clean Wisconsin, is pushing for congress to approve at least $300 million for Great Lakes clean-up. Ezra Meyer, with the environmental group, says those hundreds of millions are really just a portion of the billions that is needed to do clean up of generations of industry, toxicity and invasive species in the lakes.

County library director Chris McCardle Rojo says she's connected to the La Crosse city library which is trunked through city hall before heading to county buildings and then to Holmen and then to the rest of the county library branches. She says planned fiber optic updates would have cleaned up the nest a little and saved money on internet service besides. Which explains why she's disappointed that Wisconsin this week refused a $23 million fed grant that would have paid for those fiber optic updates. McCardle Rojo says it limits the future potential for the internet at library branches but the average user probably won't notice much different in speeds.