We found no authoritative estimate that the number of Ku Klux Klan members in Wisconsin in the 1920s was 40,000.
That’s the current population of Wausau in central Wisconsin.
“No one knows for sure how many Americans joined during the 1920s but the best estimates are around 2 million members, some 15,000 of whom were in Wisconsin,” according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
That’s the size of the Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay.
The KKK is a white supremacist hate group originally formed in the South after the Civil War.
Two Wisconsin KKK researchers said the 15,000 estimate is reasonable: Stephen Kantrowitz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of a report on KKK activity on the campus; and Michael Jacobs of UW-Platteville.
As of 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center counted 13 KKK groups in the U.S., mostly in the South and none in Wisconsin.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
As three alleged planners of Wisconsin’s fake elector scheme prepare to be arraigned this week in Dane County court, the criminal charges against them are moving forward in a national legal and political landscape that looks dramatically different from the one in which they were filed.
When Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed the charges in June 2024, Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump was battling a criminal case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and state prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada were bringing criminal cases tied to the fake elector scheme.
That scheme arose in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Trump allies tried to keep him in power despite his loss. Those allies, who became known as fake or false electors, attempted to cast electoral votes for Trump in multiple states he lost and submit those certificates to Congress.
Now, as the three defendants in the Wisconsin case await arraignment on 11 felony forgery charges on June 16, Trump has regained the presidency, and he and his allies are undertaking extensive efforts to rewrite what happened in the 2020 election.
The federal criminal case against Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election has been dismissed. And, until recently, his administration had plans to allocate $1.8 billion to compensate people it claimed had been unfairly prosecuted by the federal government, raising questions about whether participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and those involved in the fake elector schemes could receive taxpayer funds.
Kaul faced criticism for filing his charges so late — it was the last criminal case to be filed regarding the fake electors. But two years later, that timing has left Wisconsin’s as one of the last cases standing in the broader, mostly failed effort to prosecute Trump and his allies for their attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
“The direction of activity has completely flipped, from prosecuting the people who were disrupting the election or inhibiting the normal flow of events to now going after Trump’s adversaries,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor who founded the Elections Research Center.
The Trump administration’s new investigation into the 2020 election in Wisconsin and elsewhere, Burden said, “seems to be a targeted effort at people who were mostly upholding the law and trying to administer an election in a very difficult environment.”
Amid the federal government’s current activity, and nearly six years removed from the 2020 election, Burden said any guilty finding in the Wisconsin fake elector case would likely have a muted effect.
“If we wanted the public to believe that there were ramifications for that kind of unlawful behavior, it would have to happen quickly and publicly, and feel like it was an immediate response to what people had done after the 2020 election,” he said. “But that’s not where we are six years later.”
‘Shocking’ if there are no ramifications in Wisconsin
The Wisconsin criminal case is still in its preliminary stages. Although it was filed two years ago, a number of motions and an appeal have set the case back significantly.
The defendants — former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s Wisconsin campaign attorney in 2020; attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who advised Trump on legal matters; and former Trump aide Mike Roman — are scheduled to be arraigned on June 16.
Each faces 11 felony charges for his part in allegedly guiding Wisconsin’s 10 fake electors to send documents to the U.S. Capitol falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin in the 2020 election.
The 10 false electors from 2020 aren’t defendants in the current case, but they separately settled a civil lawsuit in Wisconsin by acknowledging that Biden won the 2020 election and pledging not to violate election laws in the future.
Chesebro and Troupis separately reached a settlement in that case, turning over a trove of documents outlining their role in 2020 and agreeing not to participate in similar schemes in future elections.
Text messages and emails show that Chesebro was a primary architect behind the 2020 plan to have Wisconsin’s GOP electors attest that Trump won the state while Trump’s court challenges seeking to overturn the election were still ongoing. Troupis discussed that plan with the Trump campaign, and Roman helped craft the language of the documents Republicans planned to send to the Capitol from states that Biden won.
Troupis has since asked the federal government to reimburse him $3.2 million from the proposed $1.8 billion fund, saying his life has been a “nightmare” since he stepped up to represent Trump.
“My experience is a poster-child for what weaponization can do,” he wrote in a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, adding that “the entire legal system is at risk if compensation is not paid.”
Attorneys for Chesebro and Roman didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Troupis’ attorney declined to comment.
Burden said it is striking that the case is still ongoing nearly six years after the election, but he said the conduct at issue remains extraordinary.
“These were among the most serious challenges to elections we’ve seen in modern times,” Burden said.
“To think that there might be no ramifications of that really would be shocking,” he said, “and, I think, at odds with how the American criminal justice system has typically operated.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
As Wisconsin Democrats rallied in Madison over the weekend, there was a divide among party die-hards on the best type of candidate to be the party’s gubernatorial nominee.
Many, including Doris Schoneman, a retired nursing professor from Waukesha County at her 10th Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention with her husband David, prefer Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez. Schoneman said Rodriguez, who won the most votes in a WisPolitics straw poll, could appeal to both rural and urban communities.
But an almost equally large contingent, including Vernon County delegate Alexander McDonough, is backing Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, who came in second in the straw poll. McDonough, who was attending his first convention, said he was inspired by the Democratic socialist.
It’s an all-too-familiar question Democrats will be debating until the Aug. 11 primary with seven candidates on the ballot: Should they choose a candidate who appeals to the average Wisconsin voter in the general election or a candidate who excites the party’s base?
Wisconsin Democrats have an opportunity to control state government for the first time in 16 years should they win the governor’s office and gain majorities in the Senate and the Assembly. After Republicans won the governor’s office and both chambers of the Legislature in 2010, they drew gerrymandered legislative maps, passed a strict voter ID law and enacted Act 10, which dismantled Democratic-supporting public sector unions.
“The people in this room led us out of the wilderness,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair Devin Remiker told the crowd on Saturday. “The people in this room took back the Supreme Court and made it the people’s court again. The people in this room shattered the gerrymander. The people in this room kept pushing our lines forward year after year, and now we stand at the gates of a castle with walls so high Republicans thought that we would never climb over them, and we are about to.”
The WisPolitics straw poll found 27.5% of convention-goers backed Rodriguez as the Democratic nominee for governor with Hong a close second at 23.1%.
Some attendees told Wisconsin Watch they were still undecided on who they would vote for in the coming weeks.
“I’m looking for someone who’s ready to fight and do the work,” said William Garcia, the 3rd Congressional District chair. “I think that we’re gonna win all three. I think we’re gonna win the Assembly, the Senate and the governorship. And that means, in my mind, that I need someone who’s prepared to spend the six months after they’re sworn in doing every policy that we’ve been talking about for 12 years.”
Wisconsin Democrats have not seen a gubernatorial primary of this size since the 2018 race when 10 candidates, including eventual winner Gov. Tony Evers, ran for the chance to go up against then-incumbent Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Democrats won every statewide office on the ballot that year, disrupting nearly a decade of Republican control of the Capitol in Madison. But because Republicans gerrymandered legislative maps in 2011 to insulate themselves from a Democratic wave, Democrats have not held either the Assembly or Senate and were unable to enact any sweeping legislative agenda for all eight years Evers was in office.
The candidate who wins the nomination on Aug. 11 is expected to face U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump and received the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s endorsement last month. Tiffany has one primary opponent — Andy Manske, a 27-year-old medical service technician.
Evers on Saturday told the crowd that Democrats need to show up, as a Tiffany victory could put Wisconsin in an “even worse position” than when he took office in 2019.
“I want everyone to think about all our hard work and all of the progress we’ve made,” Evers told the crowd Saturday evening. “That’s what’s at stake this fall.”
Gubernatorial candidates make their case
The seven Democrats running for governor walked the convention hallways Saturday afternoon, dipping in and out of meetings of the Black Democrats or the veterans’ caucus with staffers in campaign T-shirts close behind. They held hospitality suites to schmooze convention-goers with themes including disco for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a classroom for teachers-union-endorsed Sen. Kelda Roys, “The Forward Tap” tavern for Rodriguez and dive bar decor for former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.
And in speeches Sunday afternoon, Hong drew the largest cheers as she walked out to “Golden,” the Oscar-winning song from the Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters.”
She spoke of historical Wisconsin political figures like former Secretary of State Vel Phillips, former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson and former Gov. and U.S. Sen. “Fighting” Bob La Follette to suggest that her campaign aligns with the state’s progressive history.
“These folks were called unreasonable, impractical and unelectable and told their ideas should be tempered by convenience. Yet today they’re considered visionaries because possibility is bound only by our ambition,” Hong said. “We must ask ourselves whether conviction is once again strong enough to meet the demands of dangerous and desperate times.”
Missy Hughes, the last candidate to speak and the last place finisher in the straw poll with 1.6% support, found a tepid crowd with some people who got up to leave as she began her remarks. The crowd still gave her a laugh after she compared inheriting challenges from Foxconn as Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO to cleaning up after her children.
Barnes, who placed second-to-last in the straw poll with 6.9% support, told the crowd about a phone call he received from former President Barack Obama after he lost the 2022 U.S. Senate race to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, when Obama reminded Barnes that he lost a congressional race before becoming a U.S. senator and ultimately president. Barnes said his experience from the 2022 race puts him in the best position to fight against Republicans in November.
“I know that when they swing at you, you get right back up and you fight back twice as hard,” Barnes said. “I can tell you, I came through the fire stronger, and I have more experience than anybody else in this race.”
Joel Brennan, who placed fifth in the straw poll with 8.7%, contrasted Tiffany’s career in the Legislature and in Congress with his work leading the Department of Administration under Evers.
“We proved that competent, honest government can solve major problems when the people running it believe in it,” Brennan said. “Tom Tiffany is ready to trot out that old playbook, but he’s added some ingredients: Donald Trump’s division, chaos, and neglect. Tom has spent his time in Madison and Washington making things materially worse for Wisconsin families at every turn, but you know what? We are not going back.”
Crowley, who placed fourth in the straw poll with 13.1%, said his role running Milwaukee County makes him the only candidate with executive experience equivalent to the governor.
“I’ve brought together labor leaders, business leaders, local governments, advocates, and working families to get things done,” Crowley told the crowd. “And at a moment when Wisconsin needs bold leadership focused on delivering results, I’m ready to bring that same approach to the governor’s office.”
Roys, who placed third in the straw poll with 19%, leaned on her years in the Legislature to highlight that she has bills and plans to enact as governor, instead of “social posts” or “bullet points.”
“I’m the only candidate in this race with over two decades of passing progressive legislation,” Roys said. “And this moment demands moral clarity, political courage, and the willingness to use political power to make our lives better.”
Rodriguez, who ran onstage from the back of the convention hall, compared her approach to the campaign with her career as a nurse.
“Since I’ve been your lieutenant governor, I’ve done what any nurse would do: show up, listen, care, be there where it counts, and stay until the job is done,” Rodriguez said. “At union halls in Kenosha, at dairy farms in Clark County at small businesses in small towns, 72 counties, every single one, every single year, because the job I’m asking you for starts with showing up and then standing up.”
Who is electable?
Convention delegates and guests were split on who is the right candidate for the party at this moment.
Some Democrats see this year as the time for progressives to shine. Hong’s supporters say that, as the youngest Democratic candidate in the governor’s race, she is pulling in young voters with a progressive message, such as a moratorium on artificial intelligence data centers and calls to abolish prisons.
“Francesca Hong has a very serious pull with the younger crowd. A lot of younger voters are looking for someone who is very progressive,” said Sevannah Polsin, member of the Fox Valley Young Democrats. “I think a lot of younger voters are disappointed in the impact that Democrats have had in the past.”
Hong supporters at the convention also compared her to recently elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who like Hong is a Democratic socialist.
“Seeing Mamdani, for example, in New York, I think those policies would be like ‘now’s the time,’ right?” said convention attendee Nelson Ojeda. “I think (Hong’s) policies will push Wisconsin in the right direction.”
But a top concern among delegates was whether the party’s nominee can beat Tiffany in November. Some convention-goers told Wisconsin Watch the party needs a candidate to grab the attention of rural swing voters needed for a Democratic win.
Lisa Simonds, a delegate from Baraboo and second vice chair of Sauk County Democrats, said her vote will likely go to Brennan for his experience in the Evers administration and effort to campaign in rural areas. She said while other candidates are focused on the larger cities and ignore rural areas, Brennan had visited her county party in rural Sauk County.
“Joel just seems to have the combination of the intelligence, the experience … the understanding of how life works,” Simonds said. “He cares about the issues that matter to me.”
While Simonds applauded Hong’s drive, she said she is too young to be the party nominee.
Ojeda said Tiffany has a much larger social reach with his endorsements from the state GOP and Trump, as well as launching multiple statewide ad buys. Brennan is currently the only Democrat with a statewide advertisement, which launched last week.
“(Tiffany) has a huge advertising presence, that’s one thing that I felt like is maybe a little bit of a gap,” said Ojeda, who is leaning toward Hong. “I think Democrats have the opportunity to improve there. … I think that’ll change as we get down because of the number of candidates that are running.”
Ojeda said he hopes the primary ballot will narrow before Aug. 11.
Other Democrats were concerned about the lack of a clear front-runner at this point in the race. Convention attendee Ahmed Hollowell said the state party not endorsing a candidate is “creating a detriment.”
Hollowell said he is not making a decision until he learns more about the candidates.
“I think the only thing that would probably make this accelerate is probably if Gov. Evers were to endorse someone,” Hollowell said.
Evers did not endorse any candidate over the weekend, but said in his speech that the “Democratic candidate is going to need each and every one of us, and I know that, because that’s how I won.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Silos — tower-like structures on farms that hold fermented feed for livestock — have dotted the Midwestern landscape for 150 years. But they’re threatened by development and old age. One “silo hunter” in northern Illinois has been tracking down silos her grandfather built before they disappear.
Marianne May drove around the backroads of McHenry County on a recent afternoon, scanning for those tall, round structures with a shallow point at the top that’s characteristic of her grandfather’s silos. Some of them have a little diamond shape on the very top — his signature.
She’s a self-proclaimed silo hunter, and she comes back to her hometown throughout the year to find ever more silos that her grandfather, Frank May, built on some of the oldest farms in the Midwest.
“I grew up in Richmond, and I always knew where a lot of my grandpa’s silos were,” she said. “I just sort of had them in my head. I never really thought that I would do anything about it. They just were always there, part of the landscape.”
Marianne May poses at one of Frank May’s silos in Johnsburg, Ill., on April 25, 2026. This one is particularly special to Marianne; her grandfather constructed it as an adult on the homestead he grew up on. Across the street, a matching silo stands next to Marianne May’s grandmother’s childhood home. Her grandparents were neighbors as kids. (Jess Savage / Northern Public Radio)
Silos probably fade into the background for most people who live in the Corn Belt. Though they often serve as landmarks, people’s connection to them has tended to be utilitarian. Occasionally, silos have been saved by being converted into housing or public space, but many others have been destroyed.
But their legacy is rooted in Illinois. Historians believe the first one in the Midwest was built in Spring Grove, a village in McHenry County. Bill Kemp, historian with the McLean County Museum of History, said silos transformed agriculture in the Midwest.
“Silos and all of these magnificent, very utilitarian buildings,” Kemp said, “really speak to this rich, dynamic, very diverse agriculture that was practiced up until World War II — or the decade after World War II — when industrialization and commercialization and singular, two-crop farming came into play.”
Farmers used to have to rely on dried hay to feed their animals over the winter, but it was bulky and it didn’t last long. But silos are airtight containers that farmers could pack tightly with corn, allow it to ferment and then store it for years. They used to be made of wood, but when people like Frank May started using concrete in the early 1900s, farmers could grow their livestock herds even larger.
Kemp said initially, farmers were skeptical of this new invention.
“Once you would have a farmer in a particular township or in a rural neighborhood construct a silo and find how useful it was,” he said, “that would be quickly adapted by his or her neighbors.”
It’s an essential structure.
“We tend to forget about the built environment of the Corn Belt,” he said. “And all these wonderful stories — the buildings and the structures in the countryside that people drive past all the time but never really think about — what do they say about the past?”
A Frank May silo next to Deno Buralli Jr.’s barn on April 25, 2026. When Buralli bought the farm, he said there was silage – fermented feed for livestock – in the silo, which was enough to feed his cattle through that first winter. (Jess Savage / Northern Public Radio)
Marianne May said silo hunting can be a thankless task. She’s been doing this for six years and has identified almost 200 of her grandfather’s silos. She said there may be at least that many more.
“Almost every place I go, there’s something,” she said. “There’s some connection, whether it’s somebody in my family or extended family, or maybe they worked with Frank. There’s something fun to be discovered.”
So much of the work is investigation and guesswork. But she can speculate what it was like for her grandparents to grow up as neighbors, just like she wonders why the silos are clustered in groups, or why he used one shape over another.
She found a silo at Frank May’s childhood home, as well as a matching silo at the farmhouse across the street. That’s where Marianne’s grandmother grew up.
“I think it’s important that these silos are identified,” she said. “The locations where they are and where they were, because each time I come home, there are some gone that get pushed over for development or just fall over.”
It’s a reminder that May’s project is never-ending and that it’s a gift to learn more about the family history of the area’s farming community — and the mark farming made on the Midwestern landscape.
A Frank May silo tucked away behind trees in southern Wisconsin on April 25, 2026. When Tom Schurman bought the farm a few years ago, he said the silo was practically invisible through the overgrown trees. It took a lot of work to clear the area, and now his kids play basketball on the foundation of what used to be a barn. (Jess Savage / Northern Public Radio)
We Energies this week asked Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission to revisit its recent ruling on electrical rates for the utility’s data center customers, arguing new credit rating requirements create an undue burden for data center operators.
The PSC approved We Energies’ “very large customer” rate structure in April, requiring the utility to exclusively bill data center customers for new energy generation infrastructure needed to serve them, among other protections for existing ratepayers. The agreement also requires data center developers with credit ratings below A- to post financial guarantees, either in cash or lines of credit, to reduce the risk of shifting costs to other customers if a developer runs into financial trouble.
That requirement poses a problem for Oracle, which is partnering with OpenAI and Vantage to develop a vast data center campus in Port Washington.
The cloud computing giant currently holds a BBB credit rating — a tier below the A- bar set by the PSC, but still considered investment-grade by ratings agencies — largely due to aggressive borrowing to finance new artificial intelligence infrastructure. Under the current rate structure, the Oracle subsidiary involved in the Port Washington project would need to provide cash deposits or letters of credit exceeding $100 million per year to receive We Energies service.
“If the Commission does not reopen its decision on this issue, the implications for Wisconsin would be significant and limit the ability of numerous investment-grade companies to invest in Wisconsin,” the utility’s attorneys wrote in a June 10 filing.
Several other major technology companies — including Intel, Tesla and Micron — hold BBB credit ratings, the attorneys noted.
Ratepayer advocates backed credit limits for data center developers during the PSC’s deliberations on the case. In written testimony to the PSC in January, Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board chief economist Steve Kihm pointed to energy trading giant Enron, which held a BBB credit rating just a year before its 2001 bankruptcy, as a reason to be cautious with financial commitments from high-dollar investors.
In its request to reopen the case, We Energies argued that the risks of Oracle or other tech giants defaulting on obligations are extremely low.
“Tens of billions of dollars in Oracle’s value would need to be destroyed before creditors and counterparties, such as Wisconsin Electric and its other customers, could experience losses,” the utility’s attorneys wrote. Even in a bankruptcy, they added, generators built to serve data centers “will still have value and will be able to provide electricity to other customers” — as opposed to a scenario in which the generators sit idle while solvent ratepayers cover the debts We Energies incurred to build them.
We Energies and Oracle asked the PSC to consider a stepped approach to security requirements that eases the burden on companies with “investment-grade” credit ratings, including BBB ratings, and to waive the Oracle subsidiary’s financial backing obligations. The utility argued that its proposed waiver would still offer greater protections than those required from Meta in its recent agreement with Wisconsin Power and Light, a subsidiary of Alliant Energy.
But Union of Concerned Scientists energy analyst Maria Chavez pointed out that We Energies’ arrangements with new hyperscale data center customers differ from Meta’s one-off service agreement with Alliant. Meta isn’t “specifically asking for extra generation capacity assets to be added,” she said, whereas the Port Washington data center campus — and Microsoft’s data center in Mount Pleasant — will require new, dedicated energy sources.
“The greater risk to ratepayers,” she added, “the more reason to have a high standard for financial security requirements.”
We Energies and Oracle urged the commission to “move quickly” on the issue to “provide certainty for generational investments that are currently moving forward in this state.”
About 100 community members joined developers and city officials inside the former Walmart at 5825 W. Hope Ave in Milwaukee. Alderman Mark Chambers of District 2 called the meeting to give residents a closer look at the development. The heavy humidity inside added to the tension as residents shared their opposition to the project. The development will include a data processing and computer research facility in the building’s rear and self-service storage, taking up most of the building. Many residents opposed both. The city of Milwaukee says those commercial uses are contingent on first developing housing and greenspaces nearby. #wisconsinwatch#milwaukeenns#datacenter#milwaukee
About 100 community members joined developers and city officials Wednesday inside the long-vacant former Midtown Walmart at 5825 W. Hope Ave. in Milwaukee. Ald. Mark Chambers called the meeting to give residents a closer look at redevelopment plans for the site. Heavy humidity inside the building added to the tension as residents voiced opposition to parts of the proposal.
Supporters say the project offers a realistic path to redeveloping a property that has sat empty for a decade. Opponents argue the site should prioritize housing and community uses over storage and technology infrastructure. City officials say the commercial components cannot move forward unless affordable housing and green space are developed first.
As Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service previously reported, most of the 160,000-square-foot former Walmart is proposed to be a climate-controlled, self-service storage facility, with additional spaces in the front for a new location for the Capitol branch of the Milwaukee Public Library and other community space that could be used by the city of Milwaukee.
Meanwhile, up to 19,000 square feet would be used for a data processing/computer services/computer research facility, according to project documents. The City Plan Commission approved an affordable housing project in the parking lot north of the building in April.
“The property has been vacant for 10 years,” said Chambers Wednesday over shouts from the crowd. “This is finally an opportunity … to finally turn a once-blighted property into something that is valuable to the community.”
Trent Overhue, the property owner and developer, said he’s been trying to develop the site for four years. “I can’t get anybody to come in here.”
City officials and developers emphasized that this wasn’t a data center like the massive one in Port Washington or other hyperscale AI data centers.
Calling it “a little bitty facility,” Overhue said the proposed IT center would require 7 megawatts of power.
For comparison, Meta’s planned data center campus in Beaver Dam is expected to use 220 megawatts at peak demand — less than half the projected power use of the large campuses planned in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. One megawatt of energy can power anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand homes a day, depending on where, when and how electricity is used.
Resident Kellie Momon said she’s “elated” by plans for a library, makerspace and affordable housing in the area.
“But why do we have to have storage taking up so much of that space that could be used for more affordable housing — more community things?” she said. “Why is that even part of the plan? Why do we have to have a data center?”
Meredith Melland contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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Wisconsin has fewer remaining lead water pipelines than previous estimates, suggesting officials may be able to eliminate them faster and at lower cost than expected.
New inventory requirements have given regulators and utilities their clearest picture yet of where lead pipes remain and where more investigation is needed.
Federal regulators now require water systems to replace all lead service lines by the end of 2037 because no level of lead exposure is considered safe, especially for children.
More than 181,000 Wisconsin service lines (12% statewide) are still classified as unknown because many communities lack complete records and must verify pipe materials through inspections and outreach.
Federal infrastructure funding has provided major support for lead line replacement projects across Wisconsin, but officials expect available funding to decrease in the coming years.
Wisconsin may be closer than previously thought to eliminating lead water pipes. About 164,000 municipal and community lead water service lines still need replacement with safer materials, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis of water system data reported in April. That’s roughly one of every 10 municipal and community water lines statewide.
The estimate includes confirmed lead lines — roughly 146,000 across 137 municipal and community water systems — and an estimated share of service lines with unknown materials that are statistically likely to contain lead, based on EPA methodology.
Some data gaps remain, including some water systems that did not file a report on time.
Still, the total is far below previous government estimates as more complete inventories more clearly show where lead pipes remain, part of a nationwide effort to reduce exposure to the toxic metal linked to serious health risks.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 2025 — before many water systems completed or updated their inventories — that nearly 180,000 water lines in Wisconsin were made of lead, a sharp drop from its 2023 estimate of over 256,000.
“We may be able to remove all (lead service lines) faster, fully, and forever – sooner and at a lower price tag than expected,” Erica Galante-Johnson, senior lead service line replacement policy analyst at Environmental Policy Innovation Center, wrote in a report comparing the lead service line estimate before and after new inventory data became available.
Why replace lead service lines?
Once a popular material for water service lines, lead was banned by regulators for such purposes in Wisconsin and nationwide beginning in the 1980s due to concerns about potential lead exposure.
“There is no safe level of exposure to lead,” the EPA’s website says.
Children are especially vulnerable to lead, since even low levels of exposure can lead to behavioral and learning problems. High levels of lead in blood can cause seizures, coma or death. Adults exposed to lead are more susceptible to cardiovascular and kidney problems.
Water systems limit risk by treating pipes with chemicals that reduce corrosion, but failures such as Flint, Michigan’s crisis a decade ago show how those safeguards can break down, exposing residents to lead.
That’s why federal regulators now require aggressive replacement timelines.
Municipal and community water systems must replace all lead or galvanized pipes before the end of 2037. Some Wisconsin cities, like Madison and Stoughton, have already replaced all lead pipes. Many others, including Eau Claire, Milwaukee and Wausau, have projects underway to replace them at no or low cost to homeowners.
At least 29 municipalities in Wisconsin have received more than $159 million through 2025 to replace lead service lines through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed by then-President Joe Biden.
The EPA in May announced an additional $94.3 million Wisconsin allocation under the 2021 law.
Biden’s EPA revised its Lead and Copper Rule, tightening monitoring requirements and establishing timelines for replacing lead pipes.
The first step: requiring water systems to document what’s underground.
More complete information helps identify where lead lines are concentrated, said Ann Hirekatur, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ lead and copper section manager.
The inventories are more than a bureaucratic exercise. Federal rules now tie them directly to replacement requirements.
Wisconsin water systems previously needed only to report estimates of their lead service lines to the state Public Service Commission.
Biden’s EPA changed that. Water systems were required to submit an initial inventory by October 2024, listing the best available information about each water line. That gave DNR officials line-by-line records for the first time, Hirekatur said.
By Nov. 1, 2027, water systems must improve those records by trying to identify service lines of currently unknown material and documenting connector materials. After that deadline, any service lines with an unknown material will be treated as lead, and water systems must start replacing at least 10% of lead lines under their control each year.
The new regulations require digging through historical documents — or even digging up pipelines one by one — to confirm the material and location.
The more rigorous process revealed more lead service lines in some communities than previously thought. That includes Whitefish Bay, which documented more than 56% of service lines as lead during the first draft of its inventory.
Locating pipelines can be challenging
Despite the new inventories, regulators still have yet to identify the materials in more than 181,000 Wisconsin service lines, or 12% of all statewide.
As of April, 312 of 610 Wisconsin municipal water systems identified materials in every service line. About 60% of systems recorded 5% or fewer pipelines as unknown material.
Meanwhile, 102 municipal water systems reported more than half of their lines as unknown, with 12 yet to submit inventories.
“Some systems kept good records, and some systems don’t have any records at all,” Hirekatur said.
Smaller water systems are less likely to know what their service lines are made of
The share of service lines with identified materials is much higher and more consistent among large water systems. Smaller systems are more likely to have incomplete records.
Large
(Over 100,000 customers)
Medium
(3,301 – 100,000 customers)
Small
(Less than 3,300 customers)
50%
0%
100%
Each shape represents water systems in that size group. Wider areas show where more systems fall. Most large systems have identified nearly all service line materials, while smaller systems range from nearly complete inventories to knowing very little about their service lines.
Source: WI-DNR
Hongyu Liu / Wisconsin Watch
Smaller water systems are less likely to know what their service lines are made of
The share of service lines with identified materials is much higher and more consistent among large water systems. Smaller systems are more likely to have incomplete records.
Large: > 100,000 customers
Medium: 3,301 – 100,000 customers
Small: <= 3,300 customers
100%
50%
0%
Small
Large
Medium
Each shape represents water systems in that size group. Wider areas show where more systems fall. Most large systems have identified nearly all service line materials, while smaller systems range from nearly complete inventories to knowing very little about their service lines.
Source: WI-DNR
Hongyu Liu / Wisconsin Watch
Water system managers must show their work in documenting the makeup of service lines.
The best evidence is a “tap card” that describes the pipe’s primary features and installation history.
But many communities never preserved those records because they were not required to do so.
The city of Lancaster illustrates that challenge. Water system officials started looking for lead pipes in the 1990s, and they initially found only two and about 50 others whose material was unknown. But the DNR initially marked more than 1,700 out of the city’s 1,845 lines as unknown because the verification documentation fell short of standards.
The utility didn’t save old paper inspection records, said John Hauth and Jamie McCartney, the retiring and incoming directors of public works, respectively.
Calling DNR representatives “very helpful,” Hauth said his inventory is now getting into “pretty good shape.”
“We send it to them, they will highlight areas and send it back and say, ‘OK, well, you know you need to explain this better, or you need to match this up,’” Hauth said.
Gathering evidence
At the DNR’s suggestion, Hauth and McCartney used construction records to rule out neighborhoods built after lead was banned from new pipeline construction and found water meter replacement records to fill in some blanks.
The managers submitted a revised draft, still under DNR review, that labeled fewer than 400 service lines as unknown. The city plans to verify the remaining resident-owned lines through door-to-door visits and use hydro-excavation equipment to check city-owned lines.
“We’ve only got the few that we know of,” Hauth said. “I think it’s gonna be manageable.”
Josh Hyndman, Mount Horeb’s former water system manager, also has experience with thin documentation. The village started replacing lead pipes in 2011 and compiled its inventory as early as 2021 to apply for a DNR lead line replacement grant.
“We went down into our basement and started pulling out all the old records,” Hyndman said. “ I found a construction date that was from January of ’78, and it spelled out that everything would be three-quarter-inch copper for all businesses.”
That helped Hyndman determine that all service lines installed after 1978 were copper, reducing the number his team had to inspect or excavate.
In 2024, Hyndman left Mount Horeb for a job in Whitewater. Mount Horeb now has just one lead service line remaining, beneath a vacant lot. He said the inventory process was much easier in Whitewater because the city maintains comprehensive records for each line. As of April, Whitewater had 16 lead service lines and plans to replace all but one serving an abandoned water tower by the end of 2027.
A worker flares copper tubing as a crew swaps out a lead water service line for copper pipes in Milwaukee on June 29, 2021. (Isaac Wasserman / Wisconsin Watch)
Most unknown service lines are located on the private side of the water system, Cathy Wunderlich said. She is project manager and principal technologist with the engineering firm Jacobs, which the DNR contracted through 2028 to help local water systems finish their inventories. The service is free, with the costs covered by a federal grant.
Lead and copper are rarely used for water lines over two inches in diameter, so they’re more commonly used in private-side pipes instead of the public side, Wunderlich explained.
Although municipal water systems do not own the private side of service lines, they must document them. That requires permission and access from property owners.
A more cost-effective approach encourages residents to submit evidence, said Shawn Kerachsky, CEO of Community Infrastructure Partners, which used federal grants to contract with Wausau and Racine to inventory and replace the lead lines.
“This is not an engineering and construction problem,” Kerachsky said. “It’s a public health issue that happens to be solved through very simple engineering and construction, but world-class communication outreach and logistical planning.”
His company promoted the “Equiflow” campaign when helping Wausau complete its inventory — partnering with local organizations to encourage residents to identify their water lines by uploading photos or allowing technicians to inspect them. The approach helped Wausau reduce its share of unknown service lines to about 30%.
The DNR also offers grants to help water systems educate residents about inventory and replacement projects.
What’s next?
Water systems will ultimately use the data to apply for federal grants and loans to fund lead service line replacements.
“We encourage water systems to replace them as soon as possible, because it’s in the best interest of public health,” Hirekatur said. “Right now, there’s more money available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, and once that gets used up, there’ll be a lot less funding available.”
The DNR will announce which projects it will select for federal pipeline replacement funds by year’s end. The program offers loans with a 0.25% interest rate, far below market rates, and principal forgiveness. The department expects to have some funding available in 2028, but much less than previous years.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” included an estimated $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid spending over the next decade.
Passed in 2025, the bill included tax cuts and increased spending on immigration enforcement and the military, offset by nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Provisions included mandating able-bodied adults to work 80 hours per month to qualify for Medicaid benefits, known as BadgerCare in Wisconsin. That’s estimated to reduce spending by $326 billion through reduced enrollment.
It also freezes provider taxes in states like Wisconsin that have not expanded Medicaid, and it gradually lowers the provider tax rates in expansion states from 6% to 3.5%, saving the federal government $226 billion. States have used taxes on providers such as hospitals to draw federal matching funds.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Scott Rosenberg and Heather Toman did not expect to own a vegetable farm in Wisconsin. Toman was born in New Mexico, and Rosenberg spent the first two decades of his career in the insurance industry.
Now, as the owners of Full Circle Community Farm in Seymour, they’re considered some of the best organic farmers in the Midwest, and they’re helping expand a community dedicated to sustainable farming.
Rosenberg quit his high-paying job to get an associate’s degree in sustainable farming at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. There he met Valerie Dantoin, who encouraged him to rent a quarter acre of her land to grow vegetables.
“A midlife crisis is really what it kind of came down to, but instead of buying a sports car, I took a gigantic pay decrease,” Rosenberg joked.
After getting her master’s degree in biology at Northern Michigan University, Toman met Rosenberg and established Full Circle Community Farm in 2017, along with Andrew Adamski.
“It’s a continuous learning curve,” Toman said. “It never is really going to end – us learning and improving. We figure out new things every year.
Scott Rosenberg, center, gives a tour of Full Circle Community Farm on June 7, 2026, in Seymour, Wis., as part of a series inviting residents to explore farms in northeast Wisconsin. (Astrid Code / Wisconsin Watch)
Collaboration in action
The vegetable farm started on the family land of Rick Adamski and Dantoin, who own an organic pork and beef farm that Full Circle Community Farm partners with. Marbleseed named the group of five its Organic Farmers of the Year for 2024 for their sustainable practices.
Rosenberg and Toman now farm between 12 and 15 acres at peak season. Their Community Supported Agriculture program serves 250 people during the summer, delivering boxes of fresh produce to customers in Green Bay, De Pere and Appleton.
Full Circle Community Farm employs interns from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College as well as community members who work shifts on the farm in exchange for fresh produce. (Astrid Code / Wisconsin Watch)
“Another way to look at it is in 2017-2018, for our cold storage, we were utilizing a donated refrigerator, and now we have a 20-foot by 30-foot walk-in cooler,” Rosenberg said. “So things have slowly changed over the years.”
They help run the SLO Farmers Co-op, a group of seven independent family farms in northeast Wisconsin that cooperate to provide food to local schools and restaurants. All of the farms are committed to organic and sustainable practices.
“Corn, soy farmers, you know, at the end of the day, they’re farmers like I am, so I have respect for them and what they do, and they can farm how they want,” Rosenberg said. “It’s important to me that I’m recognizing the migratory birds that are coming through the area, and the deer that sometimes eat my vegetables, just having buffer zones by the creek of trees, and planting additional trees in there that are native to the area.”
Rosenberg gave a public tour of the farm on Sunday, June 7, as part of the Summer Farm Crawl hosted by the Lake to Bay chapter of the Wisconsin Farmers Union. Rosenberg showed their greenhouses and some of his equipment, like an Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor that he modified to be an electric vehicle using a golf cart motor.
“Even though I’m not an engine guy, I figured if I just started taking bolts off the engine, it would eventually fall off, and it did … I can get about six hours of operation off that battery, which is more than I need in a single day,” Rosenberg said.
Scott Rosenberg shows the Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor that he modified to use an electric motor. (Astrid Code / Wisconsin Watch)
Building community
Full Circle Community Farm also provides a “worker share” option for its CSA, in which members work a shift each week in exchange for a large box of produce. These workers have grown into some of their most valued employees.
“People just find us, and they have been a huge, huge blessing,” Rosenberg said. “We’ve had some worker shares that have been with us for four or five years now, and they just love their little four-hour slice of coming out here once a week and getting their hands dirty and doing something different.”
The farm also takes on interns through NWTC, training people of many experience levels.
“We’ll bring people on with zero skills and patiently work with them,” Rosenberg said. “I just get a kick out of working with people and teaching them things, and just seeing the wonder on their faces that sometimes I don’t always feel, so I feel like that’s pretty unique.”
Amber Borealis started as a worker share about eight years ago. She moved onto the property during the COVID-19 pandemic and is now working full time as the farm’s pack shed manager. She’s impressed by how much they’ve been able to expand the farm over the years, including building the pack shed and three high tunnel greenhouses.
“When I started, they had one field,” Borealis said. “So just getting to see how much they can grow and how much community support they’ve had and how much they’ve supported the community in return has been really awesome.”
Rosenberg and Toman start by individually seeding each plant in the greenhouse before transferring them into the ground at Full Circle Farm in Seymour, Wis. (Astrid Code / Wisconsin Watch)
Transitioning to farm life wasn’t always easy – Borealis was born in Virginia and trained as a glassblower in college — but Rosenberg and Toman were always game for her to try new things.
“This past year I learned how to drive a tractor, which is not something I ever thought I’d do in my life … It’s terrifying the first time,” Borealis said. “It is a very large piece of equipment. It’s very loud. You feel very exposed, even if you’re in a cab, because it’s all glass. But it’s really fun, and this is the first year that the plants we’re harvesting are things I planted driving the tractor.”
Borealis said she’s found an important sense of community living on the farm, especially since her family lives far away on the East and West coasts.
“It’s nice having the little shelter and little group of friends who feel like family here,” Borealis said. “If I’m having a bad day, I can absolutely lean on Scott or Heather. And then if I’m having a really good day, they will absolutely support me and be like, ‘Yes, you did it!’”
This story is part of Meet a Neighbor, an ongoing feature series focused on the people who make a difference in northeastern Wisconsin. Know someone we should spotlight? Nominate them here.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Salah Sarsour, the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, has lost 30 pounds in the two months that he’s been in immigration detention, his attorneys say.
Sarsour’s federal case, in which advocates say the legal permanent resident is being targeted because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy, proceeded with a status hearing in district court Monday.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has accused Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, of lying on his immigration forms when he arrived from Ramallah three decades ago. He was arrested on March 30 and is being held in the Clay County Jail in Indiana.
Sarsour’s team has filed both a claim that Sarsour should be permanently freed, arguing that Sarsour’s overall detention is illegal, as well as a motion that he should be released sooner because of his deteriorating health. His lawyers also allege that his religious rights as a devout Muslim have been violated while in detention. In a letter filed to the court on May 29, Sarsour’s team said that Sarsour, who is diabetic, is not receiving regular blood sugar tests or medication. They also said that Sarsour’s ability to pray five times a day, in accordance with his faith, has been disturbed by guards.
“The continued detention of Mr. Sarsour—and his separation from his community and family—appears purely punitive; it continues to chill the speech of Mr. Sarsour and others seeking to speak out about Palestinian human rights,” the letter reads.
In a response, lawyers from the Department of Justice called those claims “unfounded.”
“(Sarsour’s) detention pending removal proceedings is entirely lawful and his belated conditions-based allegations do not support his request for release,” they wrote.
Attorneys reiterated these arguments on Monday before U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, a nominee of President Donald Trump in the Southern District of Indiana.
Sarsour’s advocates said that he has not been provided with halal meals and that one diabetes-friendly snack he’d been offered was barbecue pork rinds, which many observant Muslims do not eat. Under those conditions, they said he had lost 30 pounds.
“Those are simply not adequate accommodations,” said one of his attorneys, Luna Droubi, on Monday.
Lawyers for the government refuted those claims. They said that Sarsour’s glucose had been checked daily for a week, until a doctor determined he only needed monthly checks. The attorney said that Sarsour’s glucose didn’t change in that time, that he is receiving daily diabetes medicine and a diabetes-responsive diet.
They also said that Sarsour was provided with an Arabic-language Quran by outside supporters and that his daily prayers are accommodated, but within “regular security measures within the jail.”
Judge Hanlon on Monday said he was “doing his best” to review those petitions quickly.
Salah Sarsour’s federal and immigration cases
Sarsour was arrested shortly after leaving his home in Franklin on March 30. In a statement, DHS called Sarsour a “terrorist” who had thrown Molotov cocktails at Israeli military members and lied about it on his green card application.
Sarsour’s supporters have said he was convicted of that as a teenager growing up in the West Bank, but dispute the details of the charges, which they argue were fabricated by the Israeli government.
Shortly after he was arrested, lawyers filed a writ of habeas corpus, which argues that Sarsour, a Palestinian native and activist for Palestinian rights, had been targeted on the basis of First Amendment-protected free speech while in the United States.
Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. (Courtesy of Islamic Society of Milwaukee)
“It is definitely part of a pattern by this government of pursuing immigration cases against people whose advocacy, whose beliefs, whose activism this government doesn’t like,” said Samuel Cole, chief immigration litigation counsel with the ACLU of Illinois, which is supporting Sarsour’s case.
But in the meantime, Cole argued, Sarsour’s treatment in county jail justifies immediate release.
“There are some pretty extraordinary things going on here that would justify his release before the district judge even makes a decision on the habeas petition,” Cole said. “There’s no way to remedy the fact that he’s now been in jail since March 30, so it’s over two months.”
Sarsour’s lawyers first filed a motion for Sarsour to be released on bail in late April, citing the “extraordinary” nature of his detention, as well as his medical conditions.
“Respondents can point to no act—even a pretextual one—committed in the last 30 years which would warrant his sudden arrest and detention today,” they wrote. “Instead, Mr. Sarsour was whisked away from his wife, kids, grandkids, and mother on a Monday morning while on his way to work.”
In response, the government argued that Sarsour is “deportable for several reasons completely unrelated to his speech.”
Separately, Sarsour’s immigration case continues to unfold. The next hearing in those proceedings will be on June 24.
Brown County is part of the Balance of State CoC, the Continuum of Care that makes up the majority of the state outside of Milwaukee, Dane and Racine counties, which have their own CoCs. A Continuum of Care is a regional nonprofit or government entity that helps coordinate and distribute funding to homeless and housing providers.
Homelessness fell 3.1% nationwide based on the January 2025 Point in Time count, according to the 2025 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (Part 1). This trend is seen locally: In Brown County there was an 8% decrease in homelessness from 453 in 2025 to 416 in 2026 on the night of the Point in Time count.
More people than ever before are receiving housing services nationally: 642,451, an increase of 4%, according to the annual report. However, over the course of 2024, 912,807 people entered homelessness for the first time.
Service providers are tasked to meet the needs of an increasingly vulnerable population, including the chronically homeless. Chronic homelessness is defined as an individual with a disability who has been continuously homeless for one year or more or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the last three years where the combined length of time spent homeless on those occasions is at least 12 months. In particular, chronic homelessness continues to be a challenge for CoCs with funding for Permanent Supportive Housing. Organizations nationwide have Permanent Supportive Housing beds available for, at most, 32% of the chronically homeless population, according to the AHAR report. In Brown County nearly 19% of our homeless population meets the chronically homeless designation and 69% have a disability.
HUD has designated $4.04 billion in funding for CoCs to apply for in fiscal year 2026, more than previous HUD notices. However, this notice redirects CoC programming away from Permanent Supportive Housing and toward Transitional Housing programming, with addiction and mental health treatment as an objective for housing services.
In the notice, HUD tells us that “Housing First” programming has failed, pointing to the 27% increase in homelessness since 2013 when “Housing First” was introduced. In that time, funding for “permanent beds” has increased 150.9% and CoC funding has increased 111%.
From 2013 to 2026 rental costs in Wisconsin have increased nearly 78%, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Zillow, with spikes in post-COVID rental markets in midsize Wisconsin cities such as Green Bay and Appleton being hit the hardest.
The minimum wage has not changed in the state of Wisconsin since 2009, and according to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition this leaves rental options out of reach for many in the state of Wisconsin. In Brown County, an estimated 35% of the population, or 39,000 people, are renters, coalition data shows. This means a minimum wage worker in Brown County needs to work 104 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom rental.
With direction from the HUD notice, CoCs will need to meet a new set of requirements that are beyond the scope of nonprofit service providers in our community. This includes increasing the wages of program participants and required mental health and addiction treatment. This is not something that can be done at a CoC level alone. Brown County service providers are working diligently to meet the needs of those in our community who are experiencing homelessness by offering opportunities for permanent housing, transitional housing and emergency shelter. They are not built to respond to a stagnant minimum wage, a housing market devoid of options and a mental health epidemic.
The current CoC project is not perfect, but it does not exist in a perfect environment. For Permanent Supportive Housing programs with full funding to succeed, we need to create that. The HUD notice puts the responsibility of making the perfect environment and running the perfect program on the regional housing coalitions, and if you are unable to meet that, too bad.
Housing is the responsibility of our community and the people who live here. This “pay-to-play” model is harmful to our CoCs, community nonprofits and especially harmful to the neighbors they serve.
We don’t fix our current homelessness crisis by punishing the helpers.
We fix the problem by addressing the root causes:
State and local governments can work to support increased development by repealing restrictive zoning rules.
Grants and low interest loans should be used to support development to ensure there are units available for those at 30-80% Area Median Income. In Brown County we are already doing this; many zoning changes across the community are starting to happen.
We need collaboration across municipalities to keep up with the demand and meet the changing needs of households in our community.
We need grants to help landlords and property managers make necessary repairs to our aging housing stock to keep it up to code and available for program participants.
We need to protect our “mom and pop” landlords from consumer act lawsuits, while increasing tenants’ rights: right to council during evictions, right to organize and the right to purchase.
And this is just the start. We need to increase access points for mental health and addiction treatment by expanding public health care; treating these not as the cause of homelessness but as a health crisis.
It’s not an easy pill to swallow, and addressing the root causes will require hard work and time. But we live in a community that cares and has the resources to make an impact by working together and helping our neighbors.
Josh Benti is the homeless initiative project director for the Greater Green Bay Blueprint to Prevent and End Homelessness, an initiative of the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation that creates pathways to prevent and end homelessness in the region.
Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.
As school lets out for students across Wisconsin, more time will be spent at home, and many families will look to prepare quick and affordable meals.
“During the summer, many families experience disruptions to their normal routines, which can make healthy eating more difficult,” said Carmen Baldwin, community nutrition manager for the Hunger Task Force.
Disruptions in healthy food habits during the summer include increased grocery costs and less structured meal times, which lead to unhealthy snacking, limited access to healthy foods and more.
Here are some tips and recipes to try with your family over the summer.
Simple at-home recipes
According to Children’s Wisconsin, children should eat three meals and approximately one to three snacks a day.
In case you’re looking for healthy meal ideas, Baldwin and community nutrition educator Leah Kostos manage a collection of recipes with the Hunger Task Force, which includes foods like vegetable lo mein, parmesan chicken burgers, chili pasta and more.
When making healthy food choices, Baldwin suggests paying attention to serving size, added sugars, sodium and fiber on the nutrition labels as a guide.
“A simple tip is to compare similar products and choose the option that has more fiber and less added sugar and sodium,” she said.
Baldwin also encourages families to ensure children stay hydrated since weather will be warmer and activity is increased.
“Water, milk and fruits with high water content help prevent dehydration,” Baldwin said.
Foods with calcium, electrolytes, vitamin D and iron serve as an additional support for growth and staying full and active during the day.
For more balanced meals with fruits, vegetables, grains and protein, click here to view the Hunger Task Force’s full collection of recipes.
Making mindful food choices
Bridgett Wilder, founder of Perseverance Health & Wellness Coaching and nutritionist contracted with the Milwaukee County for nutrition and behavioral health programs, wants adults and children to understand why they eat the way they do.
“A lot of the time when we have a cultural preference, that’s sometimes associated with highly salted foods, soul food and other recipes,” Wilder said. “I’m more about sustaining a healthy lifestyle.”
To help create positive experiences around food, Wilder takes existing recipes and transforms them into something healthier.
“If we’re making greens, we can stop putting pork in it and add smoked turkey instead,” she said. “It’s like tweaking it to keep people engaged in healthy eating and also having people still enjoy food that’s culturally relevant.”
Click here to watch Wilder make healthy recipes like sweet heat potatoes, watermelon cucumber salad and banana pudding parfait.
For nutrition education, collaborative menu planning, emotional eating support and other nutrition and behavioral services, Wilder can be emailed at perseverancewellness@gmail.com.
Wisconsin Republican Gov. Lee Dreyfus signed a law that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the first of its kind in the country.
David Clarenbach, an LGBTQ activist and Democrat in the state Assembly, spearheaded the bill. Despite conservatives’ last-minute efforts pushing Dreyfus to veto the bill, he approved it in February 1982.
Dreyfus, described as a fiscal conservative and social moderate in a 2008 obituary, cited a right to privacy and support from “a wide-ranging group of religious leaders” when signing the bill.
The law made it illegal for the state or private businesses to discriminate based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations.
No other states adopted a similar law until nine years later, according to a Milwaukee Public Library post.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
The FBI agents arrived at David Bolter’s Milwaukee home on a cool, cloudy Wednesday morning in late May. They were armed with a list of questions for the 2020 poll worker, who had raised concerns about the way local officials handled the 2020 election, Bolter told Votebeat.
President Donald Trump relied on Bolter’s claims in an unsuccessful 2020 lawsuit that sought to throw out more than 220,000 votes. That would have been more than enough to move Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes from Democrat Joe Biden, who won the state, to Trump. Though courts, several election reviews and many audits rejected Trump’s claims, the Republican never stopped believing that he was cheated out of the presidency in 2020.
That appears to be why, last month, the FBI sent agents back to Milwaukee to question Bolter as part of an expanding national effort by the second Trump administration to investigate long-debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
The investigation into the 2020 election appears to be relying on already disproven allegations from people like Bolter. Bolter declined to divulge more about his conversation with the FBI, which has not been previously reported, but allegations from Bolter’s 2020 affidavit were central to some conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. For example, he alleged that somebody in Milwaukee’s absentee ballot counting facility announced around midnight on Election Day that a “huge truckload of ballots” was going to be delivered — an accusation for which there has so far appeared to be no additional evidence.
Around the same time Bolter says he talked to the FBI, two plainclothes agents with FBI badges showed up at the apartment of a former Milwaukee resident and 2020 poll worker about an affidavit she submitted, according to the former poll worker, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Christine, to give her the freedom to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Christine had also submitted an affidavit about the 2020 election, saying election workers had been told that all votes were counted, but she then saw workers continuing to count ballots around midnight. That affidavit was the focus of the agents’ questions, Christine told Votebeat.
“I suspected wrongdoing, but I’m not saying that it actually happened,” she said. “I’m just one lowly person that was working there.”
During the interview, she added, an agent showed her a photograph of Claire Woodall, the former Milwaukee election chief, asking her if she recognized the former election official who has been central to false allegations about the 2020 election. She identified her by name. Woodall didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Caroline Clancy, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Milwaukee office, declined to comment.
Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, works at the presidential recount at the Wisconsin Center convention center in Milwaukee on Nov. 25, 2020. (Sara Stathas for Wisconsin Watch)
While investigators seem mainly focused on the 2020 vote, some elections experts believe the Trump administration’s wide-ranging probe is actually designed to create more doubts among Americans about future elections, as Republicans face strong political headwinds that could cost them control of Congress later this year.
“This isn’t about the 2020 election, this is about the 2026 and 2028 elections,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “This is about intimidating election officials. This is about creating a stream of disinformation designed to delegitimize an election the president may believe he’s going to lose. This is designed by the president’s underlings to satisfy the unrealistic expectations of a president that still cannot comprehend that he lost an election that he definitely lost, and it’s incredibly destabilizing.”
Wisconsin is the latest known target of the Trump administration’s 2020 investigation. The FBI is looking to interview elections officials and Milwaukee police officers in what some worry could be a precursor to an effort to seize ballots from the 2020 presidential race, as it already has in Georgia.
The Trump administration is revisiting allegations of election fraud that have been repeatedly scrutinized
In January, federal investigators seized 600 boxes of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia. The heavily Democratic county, home to Atlanta, was key to Biden’s narrow 2020 victory in the state.
As in Wisconsin, the FBI in Georgia has built its investigation on allegations that have already been repeatedly scrutinized by audits, investigations, and courts without unearthing any evidence of fraud or tampering that could have overturned the results.
The Georgia search represented an unprecedented intervention by the federal government into local administration. Even more unusually, Tulsi Gabbard, who will step down at end of this month as director of national intelligence, personally oversaw the seizure and arranged for Trump to speak directly to the FBI agents via cell phone after they carried out the operation.
The Trump administration investigations stretch from Arizona, where federal officials subpoenaed computerized records of a partisan review state lawmakers conducted of Maricopa County’s 2020 election, to Puerto Rico, where the Office of the Director of National Intelligence procured voting machines to examine for potential security risks.
The administration’s investigations aren’t entirely limited to 2020. The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter in April to Wayne County, Michigan — home to Detroit — demanding all ballots cast in the 2024 election, which Trump won. But even in that case, to support the request, the Justice Department cited accusations of fraud made after the 2020 election, including a lawsuit that was quickly dismissed after a judge wrote that “plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.” Wayne County never handed over the ballots, because it doesn’t have possession of them.
What do the 2020 elections mean for 2026?
The FBI faces challenges in pursuing cases tied to the 2020 election since the five-year statute of limitations that applies to most of the likely charges expired last year. Law enforcement veterans said it is possible that the Justice Department could pursue broader conspiracy charges in the case, but the prospect remains unclear.
John Keller, a former acting head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section who resigned in 2025 after refusing the Trump administration’s demands to drop corruption charges against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams, said the administration appeared to be trying to normalize federal investigations of state elections to pave the way for future intervention.
“They are using enforcement directed at the 2020 election as a test run for what they can get away with on Election Day this year, or after, to try and delay certification or invalidate an election” if the results don’t go their way, he said.
Injecting federal law enforcement officials into an ongoing election is a more extreme and serious action than investigating a past one, and it could face stiffer opposition. But it’s clear, at least, that the administration is scrutinizing current elections closely.
Any effort to seize ballots in an ongoing election would create unprecedented new issues, such as a breach in the chain of custody over cast ballots, that could prevent election officials from declaring a winner and throw results into uncertainty.
Catherine Engelbrecht, co-founder of the Texas-based conservative group True the Vote, which has promoted debunked theories about the 2020 election, said she understands Trump’s intentions but believes the 2020 election questions should have been resolved “in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election.”
“This is not necessarily the way I would have recommended that it would be handled,” she said. “The fact that it wasn’t addressed has left this lingering void.”
In most cases, however, Trump’s claims of voter fraud were addressed in the wake of the 2020 election. Time and again, courts, state investigations, and even the Justice Department concluded that there was no evidence of problems or fraud that would have changed the results.
Engelbrecht said she views the Trump administration’s ongoing investigations as an effort to dig into long-standing concerns about the voting process it wants to address for future elections.
“The past is prologue,” she said. “If we don’t understand what happened, we are doomed to repeat it.”
Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
An idea about profiling voters across Wisconsin turned into a multiyear project for Wisconsin Watch photojournalist Joe Timmerman – one focused on connection.
The Public Square series launched in November 2024 and so far includes 10 stories about regular Wisconsin residents working to build community in the towns and cities they call home.
“Instead of just focusing on politics, we really wanted to focus on community and where people were coming together,” Timmerman said.
Wisconsin Watch photojournalist Joe Timmerman shows the audience his Yashica medium format camera, which he used to make images for the Public Square series. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
To showcase the images and celebrate the project, Wisconsin Watch partnered with the city of Green Bay, the Astor Neighborhood Association, Catchlight Local and Report for America to host an outdoor photo exhibition on Saturday, June 6, at St. James Park in Green Bay. The display will be available for a short time at the park for community members to visit.
Roughly 45 people attended the event on Saturday, walking among the posters of images, reading summaries of the stories and listening to a panel discussion about the series. Timmerman moderated the event, asking questions of four northeastern Wisconsin residents who participated in Public Square.
Below, we recap the panel discussion, highlighting a few of the panelists’ answers for each question. Be sure to check out all 10 stories in the Public Square series, which included people who live across the state.
Anna Mykhailova, left, Sasha Druzhyna and their daughter, Varya, pose for a portrait next to their image at an event showcasing Wisconsin Watch’s Public Square series on June 6, 2026. The family traveled to St. James Park in Green Bay from their home in Madison to see the display. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
How do you think your story fits into Public Square?
The students and staff who keep the Pulaski News in print embody the mission of the series, said Madelyn Rybak, a recent Pulaski High School graduate who wrote for the Pulaski News.
“We really are the only major source of news in the village of Pulaski, so I think that through writing for the Pulaski News, we really do our part in ensuring that the community really knows their neighbor,” she said.
Ivy McGee, third from left, answers a question during the panel discussion. Pictured from left are moderator Joe Timmerman and panelists Madelyn Rybak, McGee, Paula Jolly and Laurie Doxtator. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
So too, does Third Space Green Bay, said co-founder Ivy McGee. The nonprofit organization aims to create an environment where people can make connections, particularly people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community who move to Green Bay.
“I was kind of naive to the fact that people that are coming into this community really don’t feel that connection, and it’s a hard community to kind of come into,” she said.
What was it like being interviewed and photographed for the series?
Paula Jolly, executive director and co-founder of Amanda’s House, said she usually isn’t comfortable doing interviews and being photographed by journalists. But with Timmerman, the experience was different.
“He took his time, and he cared, and it just really made it a lot easier,” Jolly said.
Part of it, she said, had to do with the equipment Timmerman chose to make the photographs. He used a twin-lens reflex camera circa 1950 and medium format film; it meant he had to take his time.
An attendee looks at the Public Square exhibition at St. James Park in Green Bay, Wis., on June 6, 2026. Roughly 45 community members attended the event. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
Timmerman visited each subject for Public Square multiple times and spent hours with them – talking to them, observing how they went about their days and seeing them inhabit their spaces.
The process allowed McGee and her co-creators to “slow down and take a breath.”
What was it like seeing your stories published?
A friend reached out to Laurie Doxtator after her photo appeared on the front page of a local newspaper (Wisconsin Watch allows media outlets to republish its stories free of charge). Timmerman met Doxtator when she was living at Amanda’s House. She allowed him to document her journey moving out of the sober living home.
“This was my story that I told,” Doxtator said.
Laurie Doxtator, left, poses for a photo with photojournalist Joe Timmerman next to the image of Doxtator that Timmerman made for the Public Square series. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
Similarly, Jolly said she sits for interviews to help community members better understand addiction, including how it affects people and their families.
However, she was surprised to hear from people outside northeast Wisconsin who saw the story.
“I didn’t realize it was going to the rest of the state,” she said. “Somebody from, I think, Milwaukee said, ‘Oh, I saw your article.’ I was like, ‘What? Really?’ It was kind of fun, but it also gets the word out in a wider area, so that’s important.”
Rybak spoke about the important role journalism plays in making people be seen and heard.
“It felt so nice to just have a spotlight shown and to know what I did mattered to people,” she said.
Joe Timmerman, left, stands with Ivy McGee by the portrait Timmerman made of McGee and her Third Space Green Bay co-creators for the Public Square series. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
Once the feature on Third Space Green Bay was published, McGee said she continued to follow the series.
“I was more connected to the community through the storytelling,” she said.
How have each of you, your organizations or your communities grown, changed or developed since the time these images were taken?
Since Doxtator moved out of Amanda’s House, she continued her sobriety and cut her hair.
“I’m still here and still growing,” she said. “Every day is a different day.”
A zine Joe Timmerman made as part of the exhibit sits on the grass at St. James Park in Green Bay, Wis., during an event on June 6, 2026. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
The Public Square feature on Amanda’s House “opened up a lot more opportunities for us, just getting the word out there and helping people,” Jolly said.
Third Space Green Bay now has a physical space, which the organization leases through The Art Garage. The co-creators are still looking for a permanent space to call their own.
“There’s so many reasons why Third Space Green Bay is important, and why it exists, and why we want to continue to be a space to offer folks to come and connect, or just be,” McGee said.
The organization also started “Third Thursdays with Third Space” – monthly, themed events designed to “build connection, promote collective well-being and celebrate the creativity and resilience of BIPOC and queer communities in Green Bay.”
Madelyn Rybak stands next to the image Joe Timmerman made of her for the Public Square series. (Coburn Dukehart / CatchLight)
As for the Pulaski News, the publication was featured in myriad news stories and received a $5,000 grant from the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation. Rybak said more students are interested in writing for the newspaper, as well.
“For a very small student-run publication like us, it (the donation) is huge,” Rybak said. “That was such a great feeling to know that my work was a tiny part of that, and I feel so grateful for the opportunity we had with Wisconsin Watch, just to get our word out there.”
The photo captions in this story were updated with the correct spelling of Madelyn Rybak’s name. Wisconsin Watch regrets the error.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The state’s most devoted Democrats are scheduled to gather in Madison this weekend for the party’s annual convention where the seven-way race for the Democratic nomination for governor is likely to take center stage.
Democratic caucus and county party leaders told Wisconsin Watch they are hopeful the convention could be a clarifying moment in the primary campaign on who has enough support to make it to the August primary. None of the main contenders dropped out ahead of last week’s filing deadline, so seven names will appear on the Aug. 11 Democratic primary ballot.
When Democrats convene at the Monona Terrace Convention Center on Saturday, there will be less than 45 days until early voting starts in late July.
“If their message does not ring true to the delegates at the convention, they better listen to the applause because people will be honest with them,” said Susan Chandler, the 1st Congressional District chair and vice chair of the Walworth County Democrats. “Everybody who goes to the convention is a highly engaged Democrat, and for every one of those highly engaged, we all know 10 people who are not. We’re bringing a lot of background to that convention and critically listening to these candidates.”
After Democratic Gov. Tony Evers decided not to run for a third term, seven Democratic candidates submitted the signatures to make the ballot. They include former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Secretary Missy Hughes, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and Madison Sen. Kelda Roys.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans have coalesced around U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who received the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s endorsement at their annual convention in May and was endorsed by President Donald Trump in January. Tiffany has just one primary opponent, Andy Manske, a 27-year-old medical service technician.
“We want to know who is best situated to make bold sweeping change here in Wisconsin to provide a better life for Wisconsinites, and who is best situated to beat Tom Tiffany in a head-to-head,” said Brett Timmerman, the chair of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party. “I think that people are going to the convention looking for somebody to stand out in a meaningful way to deliver that message of why they think they are the best person to carry the torch forward.”
The closest comparison to this year’s field is the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary when 10 candidates ran for the opportunity to unseat then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Two dropped out in June before the primary that year.
Evers, who had statewide election experience as the superintendent of public instruction, won the Democratic primary that year with 42% of the vote and later defeated Walker in the general election. Evers didn’t win a majority of primary voters, but his closest opponent only mustered 16.4% of the vote.
A large primary, like the one in 2018, forces candidates to explain why voters should support their campaign, said Martha Laning, who served as the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin during the 2018 election cycle.
At the 2018 state Democratic convention, the candidates all had the opportunity to make a three-minute pitch to party die-hards on what they would do for Wisconsin, Laning said. A spokesperson for the state party said all seven of the Democrats who made the ballot will also have a chance to speak this weekend.
“I think it’s great to put all of the candidates up there and to just let people know what their options are,” Laning said. “Again, any of them will be better than Tom Tiffany, so the more people talking about how they would do things and how they would improve people’s lives in Wisconsin is a good thing for us.”
Negativity and consolidation
It’s been a quiet primary among the slew of Democratic candidates over the last six months, with few events that set the campaigns apart. Hong led the field with 14% in the most recent Marquette University Law School Poll in March. The poll also found that 65% of voters were undecided on who to vote for in the primary.
It’s worth watching if the convention is a place where candidates take negative swipes at each other with the August primary on the horizon, said Anthony Chergosky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
“This has been a remarkably chill campaign, and I’m wondering if we’re going to see things heat up a little bit,” Chergosky said.
Hints of discord are emerging in the primary. Hughes last month was the only candidate to publicly support the failed $1.8 billion bipartisan surplus deal negotiated between Evers and Republican legislative leaders. After the deal failed in the Senate, Hughes posted unnamed criticism of “certain self-serving Democratic candidates for governor who would rather boost their own personal political ambitions than serve our kids and taxpayers.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week reported that Hong was sued in May by Capital One for nearly $30,000 in credit card debt, which her campaign said had already been paid. Hong in a video posted on social media said the story showed her “opponents are scrambling.”
“They are scared of what we’ve built, our platform that’s resonating with working class people all across the state who feel left behind, our organizing infrastructure that’s being built stronger every day,” Hong said. “They want to pull me off track and how dare they.”
The convention could also serve as a milestone for consolidation in the race in the coming weeks, Chergosky said. A fractured field means one of the candidates could win with just 30% of the vote, but the math changes if someone drops out, he noted.
For Gloria Hochstein, the chair of the party’s Rural Caucus, the circumstances of a large field of candidates make her wish ranked-choice voting was an option for this primary.
“The problem is that there are some really good people running, and the thoughtful voter is really going to have to decide where his or her vote should be,” Hochstein said.
But the convention could “turn the tide” for some candidates who might drop out if they see they don’t have the statewide reach among the party’s most faithful, she said.
“I think that’s the realization, some of the candidates, I hope they come to sooner rather than later,” Hochstein said.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Riders of all-terrain vehicles in Wisconsin have some new requirements after new rules took effect at the start of this month.
Changed rules include include prohibitions against towing objects with people onboard, restrictions on window tinting — and a seat belt requirement.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said under the new law “ALL occupants of a UTV including the driver and passengers have to wear a seat belt.”
These regulations were approved by a unanimous vote of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, which updated the administrative codes.
Wisconsin has seen a surge in ATV and UTV activity in the past few years and an accompanying increase in fatal crashes.
As of January, the DNR reported more than 528,000 registrations for the trail-ready vehicles. The Wisconsin ATV/UTV Association says it has more than 40,000 members and about 130 local chapters across the state.
Randy Harden, the group’s president, said the association was included in talks with lawmakers about the regulation updates. The old ATV/UTV regulations were inconsistent, and behavior seen on trails was also part of the reason for the updated regulations.
A previous version of the law required seat belts, and Harden says its intention was always for it to apply to everyone in a vehicle. But when a rider in southwest Wisconsin challenged a ticket in court, it revealed an inconsistency in the way the policy was worded.
“The judge looked at the wording that was drafted, and it said all passengers must wear a seat belt, (but) didn’t say the driver,” Harden said. “This (new rule) corrects that and says all passengers and the driver must wear a seat belt.”
Last year, there were at least 300 ATV or UTV crashes reported to the DNR, resulting in 277 reported injuries.
“The majority of our serious injury and fatal crashes occur because of occupants choosing to not wear a seat belt or helmet,” said Lt. Jacob Holsclaw, DNR off-highway vehicle administrator.
In 2025 alone, the DNR reported a total of 41 deaths. In 32 of those fatal crashes, the people involved were not wearing seat belts. Only four of those deaths were in vehicles other than a UTV, DNR data shows.
It was the second-deadliest year for Wisconsin UTVs and ATVs on record.
With changes on June 1, 2026, UTV/ATV riders have new requirements on eye protection, towing and window tints. (Courtesy of DNR)
While the new seat belt requirement is clear, advocates are realistic about its use.
“Will everybody do it? Absolutely not,” Harden said. “Does everybody wear their seat belts in the car? No, but that doesn’t mean you stop trying, and that’s really what this effort is.”
The DNR says enforcement will be handled through normal patrols by conservation wardens, sheriff’s offices and police in some areas.
“Officers will often use education and even citations if operators are found in violation of the new laws,” the DNR said in an email with WPR.
DNR data for 2024 shows 115 citations for operators not wearing seat belts.
Towing, tinting rules among other requirements
Under the new restrictions, it is now illegal for a UTV/ATV to tow people on a roadway or trail. The restriction has exceptions for private lands and on ice while going under 10 miles per hour, the DNR says.
“It excludes if your machine breaks down,” Harden said. “That’s a common sense exclusion,” he said.
Other changes include making it mandatory for riders younger than 18 to have a DOT-approved helmet and requiring eye protection if the machine does not have a windshield. The new law also limits window tinting.
The DNR says there are now fines for causing intentional damage to an ATV/UTV, which could be up to three times as much as the cost to repair it.
Inside a classroom at Milwaukee Marshall High School, the sound of Lego bricks clicking together filled the room as children leaned over tables covered with colorful pieces and half-finished builds.
As they pieced together their creations, Nealita Nelson, the instructor behind the popular Milwaukee Recreation Lego classes, moved from desk to desk encouraging students to keep building.
Nelson, a Milwaukee native known online as “Builds by Nene,” began teaching Lego-building classes through MKE Rec after appearing on Season 4 of Fox’s “LEGO Masters” in 2023 alongside her brother, Paul Wellington.
A Lego minifigure head sits on a table with several containers of bricks before Nealita Nelson’s MKE Rec class.
Jeff McAvoy, whose 7-year-old son has been attending Nelson’s classes since they began two years ago, expressed his admiration for her teaching style.
“It comes down to a simple shared interest in Lego and building, but she approaches it with such care and interest in what each of the kids are doing,” McAvoy said.
Nealita Nelson sets down containers full of Lego bricks while setting up for her MKE Rec class.
A container full of Lego bricks sits on a table.
Several Lego bags and a box of blocks sit on a counter.
Nelson’s classes are typically divided by age groups, welcoming everyone from young children to adult builders:
LEGO Open Build (Designed for ages 3+): Focuses on beginner basics, open building zones and simple challenges.
LEGO Adventures: Encourages participants to step outside their comfort zones with complex, guided builds.
Learning LEGO (Designed for ages 13 to adults): Covers the history of Lego, advanced building techniques and creative design.
Nealita Nelson picks through a container full of Lego bricks.
Nealita Nelson builds a Lego set.
For Nelson, Lego-building classes are about much more than play or building toys.
“I see the need for help, and I see the need to get these kids out from in front of screens,” Nelson said. “I feel like it was my duty to give back to my community that helped me when I was younger.”
Nealita Nelson poses for a portrait with some of her Lego collection before her class at MKE Rec.
Raised on Milwaukee’s North Side, Nelson and Wellington spent a lot of their childhood building together, before their almost 10-year age gap inevitably drew them apart.
Paul Wellington and Nealita Nelson on the set of “LEGO Masters” Season 4. (Courtesy of Nealita Nelson)
Their close relationship became an advantage on “LEGO Masters,” where the siblings advanced in the competition, becoming third-place finalists.
“We’re both very different people. It helps bring out our best qualities and we’re able to work together well,” said Wellington, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee alum. “I’m very timid. She pushed me to believe in myself and that led us to succeed.”
The siblings competed again, this time internationally, on “LEGO Masters: Grand Masters of the Galaxy” in Australia in 2025. They also were the first all-Black team in the U.S. version of “LEGO Masters” to win a challenge.
Nelson said they intentionally incorporated a few references to the city and state into their builds throughout the competitions.
“When we were doing the TV shows, we tried to incorporate something from Milwaukee or something that symbolizes Wisconsin as a whole,” Nelson said. “In the first episode, we did the dairy boat.”
Nealita Nelson puts away Lego bricks during her class.
A container full of Lego pieces sits on a table.
While Nelson currently works in health care, she continues to build her public identity through her social media presence and Lego-building classes with MKE Rec.
“I felt like this was my calling, this is my passion. I love Lego,” Nelson said.
Registration for Nelson’s summer Lego-building sessions are open now until the first week of classes on June 22. You can register here.
Arlo Martin, left, 6, and his sister Nell, 3, play with Nealita Nelson during her class at MKE Rec.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
The former Madison deputy clerk who claimed responsibility for the 23 late-arriving ballots in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election has been reassigned within the clerk’s office to non-election tasks.
Jim Verbick — the election office’s former second-in-command who was previously scrutinized and sued for the clerk’s office losing 200 ballots in the 2024 election — admitted to losing track of the absentee ballots that didn’t end up arriving at several polling places until after 8 p.m. on Election Day in April, according to public records obtained by Votebeat.
He told Votebeat that he’s only partially to blame, that understaffing and a lack of communication led to the mistake and that it’s unfair that he got reassigned away from elections. Verbick is now the city clerk’s office’s lead worker for licensing.
“I do admit that I had forgotten about the ballots I secured when I left the post office,” he said, adding that he said the error was exacerbated by unexpected absences and mistakes made by others.
The issue went to court after the Wisconsin Elections Commission ordered Madison not to count the ballots because they arrived after the 8 p.m. deadline in Wisconsin law. A court reversed the commission’s decision, and the ballots were counted in the final canvass.
Verbick’s reassignment was part of a set of personnel changes designed to improve how the clerk’s office manages “the many logistical tasks of administering elections,” Madison Clerk Lydia McComas said in a statement. The city is also hiring two new deputy clerks and a lead employee for absentee voting. But this move doesn’t amount to a net gain of three election positions because one election staff member recently left the office and Verbick was reassigned.
Madison officials said after the election that the clerk’s office — not voters — was responsible for the ballots’ late arrival. Election officials had received and sorted the ballots in time to be delivered: They arrived on the Monday before Election Day and were sorted that same evening, then put on a shelf to be delivered in the afternoon of the following day, records show.
Emails, spreadsheets and Microsoft Teams messages obtained by Votebeat show that Verbick was in charge of absentee ballots and accepted some blame for their late arrival.
Around 4 p.m., Verbick sent a message on Microsoft Teams that he realized he sent out officials to deliver ballots that afternoon without the batch of absentee ballots including the 23 votes that would end up arriving late, former clerk’s office staff member Bonnie Chang said in an email to McComas.
Per that same email, Chang said that about an hour later, she scanned a spreadsheet that showed polling sites were still missing absentee ballots. She then contacted Verbick to find out how many ballots were in the late-discovered bin and whether he needed help delivering them. She wrote that he wouldn’t say how many ballots were found or whether more staff were needed to deliver ballots.
At around 6 p.m., Chang said, the clerk’s office sent additional staff to help deliver the ballots as early as possible. She said most got reassigned to other tasks.
By the time that additional help arrived, Verbick told Votebeat, the ballots had already been sent out for delivery. He said he didn’t think the couriers who were already dispatched to deliver the ballots would have trouble delivering them on-time.
In hindsight, Verbick said, he would have used those additional staff to lighten their load. But he also said he could have planned for the additional staff better had anybody told them that they were en route to help him out.
That night, Verbick sent an email to McComas taking blame for not putting the batch containing the 23 ballots on the planned afternoon drop-offs to polling places.
“Missing the bin of envelopes with the initial afternoon route is my fault,” he emailed McComas at about 10:45 p.m. on Election Day. “I had all of them reviewed this morning and ready to be run with the mail delivery.”
Verbick told Votebeat he forgot about the ballots because election workers in the clerk’s office hadn’t told him about a planned USPS delivery around noon that Tuesday. Believing the delivery had not happened, he went to the post office to investigate.
Before leaving, he said, he moved the batch of ballots that later arrived late into a secure area because there were no other full-time clerk’s office staffers available to watch them while he was gone. It was there that he forgot the ballots.
The error, Verbick told Votebeat, reflected chronic understaffing in the clerk’s office — a problem exacerbated by the increase in absentee voting since the 2020 election.
In an email to McComas, Verbick said he didn’t get additional staff that he thought would help process ballots and that he didn’t intentionally ignore messages from office staff.
Relying on hourly and temporary workers to fill those gaps is not enough, he told Votebeat.
In an email to Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway sent the night of the incident, McComas said that she would “firmly address the lack of communication” and would have more staff in August and November, including the new deputy to oversee absentee ballots.
Wisconsin Elections Commission chair Ann Jacobs called the latest error “absurd” at a commission meeting in late April. The commission voted to investigate Madison over the error, meaning the agency’s first two authorized investigations in its history both center on Madison: one for the 2024 ballot snafu and one for the latest one.
Ultimately, the votes affected by this year’s error were counted. Officials said these 23 ballots were correctly, legally cast, counted and checked into the pollbooks just like any other valid absentee ballots — the only problem was that they were delivered and counted after polls formally closed. The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted that the city and county erred in counting the ballots since state law held that ballots must be delivered to polling places “no later than 8 p.m. on election day.”
A Dane County judge, however, reversed that order, ruling that the ballots should be counted because they were properly cast, and precedent held that voters shouldn’t be disenfranchised because of clerk errors.
Verbick scrutinized for 2024 election snafu
This was the second time in about two years that Verbick has faced scrutiny over allegations that he failed to act decisively when absentee ballots were at risk of being left uncounted.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission previously scrutinized Verbick for his inaction after the 2024 presidential election, when nearly 200 voters were disenfranchised.
Verbick, on the other hand, “testified that he is generally in charge when Clerk Witzel-Behl is not in the office, but that he is ‘not always the point person on everything in the office’” and wasn’t sure who the point person would have been, according to the commission investigation.
The commission stated that Verbick’s involvement was “minimal” by his own account and that nobody took responsibility for those ballots: “It was always someone else’s job.”
After learning about the ballots, the commission stated, Verbick “did not instruct anyone to determine how to get the ballots counted.”
Verbick was sued in his personal capacity for his role in the error and declined to comment about the 2024 snafu. The case is ongoing, and the plaintiffs are demanding financial damages for being disenfranchised.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
One Milwaukee organization is working to remove barriers that keep Black children and adults, especially beginners, from experiencing golf.
We Black We Golf was created after one of its founders was stared down by a white guy and responded with, “Yes, we Black and we golf!”
“Golf is not just a game of exclusivity,” said Richard Badger, director and golf mentor of We Black We Golf, a social organization that introduces Black individuals to golfing through clinics, community outings and mentorship without competition.
“We are open to everyone, but we’re intentional about serving our primary demographic.”
Experiencing a typical session
During its clinics, We Black We Golf invites individuals to a golf course and provides them with equipment to learn the basics, like how to hold and swing a golf club before introducing the ball.
After people determine if it’s a sport they would enjoy and like to continue with, We Black We Golf helps them find their first set of affordable golf clubs.
“Most clubs aren’t made the same, and most beginners buy the wrong ones from the wrong places,” Badger said.
Changing the perception of golf
According to Badger, the organization consists mainly of individuals who are 45 and up, but for the past two years, the organization has tried to attract younger people to the game.
“We need to tap into the 20 to 35 age range, and Black women are the fastest-growing demographic coming into the game of recreational golf,” he said.
Badger said fewer young people golf because of common misconceptions like it being a slow sport or too expensive and made for wealthy white men.
He said he notices more celebrities participating in golf and is concerned about that misleading young people by making the sport look more expensive and inaccessible than it really is.
“Many of the celebrities are being endorsed by companies,” he said. “DJ Khaled has a golf bag over $30k, which is not realistic for somebody in your demographic and does a disservice to the game.”
However, Badger is glad to see that younger people in Milwaukee are being drawn to local places like Luxe Golf Bays and Topgolf Swing Suite.
Another thing that hinders new golfers and keeps them from travel opportunities, he said, is that they feel they’re not competent enough for the game.
Badger wants individuals to know that golf is all about celebrating your victories.
“In other sports, like basketball, you talk about the errors and shots you missed, but in golf you talk about your makes,” he said.
Creating exposure for younger generations
Among the participants of We Black We Golf is Ti-mara Minefee-Tribble, a 53208 resident who got involved by attending a clinic with her husband in 2021.
“I’m not very athletically inclined and I didn’t want something where I had to run or join a league,” she said. “When golfing, we got to sit, play music, enjoy drinks and have a dope experience.”
Chandler Tribble stays focused after putting a golf ball into the hole. (Courtesy of Ti-mara Minefee-Tribble)
Eventually, Minefee-Tribble got her son Chandler Tribble, 21, involved with the organization.
“He took to the game like a fish to water,” Badger said.
Minefee-Tribble said her son enjoyed golf so much he bought his own clubs with allowance money.
“He was so interested in the sport that he joined the golf team at his school, too,” she said.
Chandler Tribble did additional things like take golf trips with his friends, assist Badger with mentoring and was a caddy driver.
“My son has done the traditional things like football, basketball and playing the cello in orchestra, but to see him encounter something new and be comfortable with it touches my heart,” Minefee-Tribble said.
She said parents should take more time and opportunities to expose their children to other things, including golf.
Badger said he would love to see more Black children play golf, particularly Black girls because of opportunities for scholarships.
“About $50 million in scholarships are returned in the golf space because they don’t have enough minority girls to reward those scholarships to,” he said.
Badger believes many Black children don’t play golf because they’re not exposed to it enough.
“Many of their parents and grandparents don’t watch or play golf, so the child isn’t introduced to it,” he said.
Others might try but not continue if they struggle at first. He wants them to keep trying.
More than just a sport
Badger emphasizes that golfing is a good networking space to build relationships and gain opportunities that would be harder to achieve in traditional settings like offices.
“Golfing is not just a leisure activity, it can be a professional skill and become your extended office,” he said. “People get country club memberships to host staff meetings there, too.”
A year ago, We Black We Golf partnered with Kwabena Antoine Nixon, an author and community activist, to host a business networking event called “The Build Up.”
Kwabena Antoine Nixon practices a few swings at a business networking event called “The Build Up” he hosted with We Black We Golf last year. (Courtesy of Kwabena Antoine Nixon)
Residents gathered for the event at Garfield’s 502, a restaurant and tavern in the Halyard Park neighborhood, to enjoy golf games, live music, food and more.
Nixon said although he isn’t an avid golfer, the conversations held around him during the event stood out the most.
“In a golf setting you can make deals with people and talk about things that elevate you as a person within that group,” he said.
Nixon said he appreciated how We Black We Golf created a safe space for the Black community in the sport while preserving Black culture.
“I love when Black folks get into something and we turn it into something,” he said. “That event became a gathering congregation spot where people were golfing but building, too.”
With over 20 years of golf experience, Badger has always kept his confidence and hopes that other generations will do the same.
“I own every room I walk in when it comes to golf,” Badger said.
For more information
We Black We Golf hosts various clinics throughout the year.
The children’s golf clinic is free and consists of learning basic techniques.
It’s generally held at Noyes Park Golf Course, 8235 Good Hope Road, in late July, and equipment is provided.
Sunday Fundays are free monthly golf clinics held at 9 a.m. at Lincoln Park Golf Course, 1000 W. Hampton Ave., for all skill levels.
The next clinic is scheduled for June 14. Click here to view dates for other upcoming clinics.
During winter, We Black We Golf hosts an eight-week clinic that includes 16 hours of instruction and three virtual classes.
The cost for this clinic is $450 but can be paid in installments.
If you are interested in becoming a part of We Black We Golf, click here to fill out an application.
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