Notes from the West Wing
By
State Representative Garey Bies
Legislative Day
On
April 30th, Madison and the Capitol played host to the first Door
County Legislative Day. I must say,
I thought the event was a great success! I
received many compliments on the Door County delegation and on the outstanding
planning and coordination of the day’s activities.
And all of these accolades for a first-time event!
Very impressive! I would
like to thank and congratulate the Door County delegation for a first-rate
event! Future events will have
quite the reputation to live up to now! But
I am confident the folks of Door County are more than up to the task!
Well done!
But for those of you not familiar with what occurred during the Door
County Legislative Day, it was not just a bunch of folks who care about the
livelihood of their communities hosting a tasty fish boil.
There are many misconceptions about Door County.
Many of my colleagues view Door County as most of our visitors do.
They see a beautiful part of the state where tourism is a major industry
and property is incredibly expensive. And
because of this, many of my colleagues believe that all Door County residents
must be living the high life. While
in truth, the average income in Door County is below the state average.
And there is more to Door County than tourism!
This is why the legislative day was so important.
It was an opportunity for the residents of Door County to meet with
legislative members and other government officials to introduce themselves and
their county.
For a state budget update, the Joint Finance Committee is continuing
their work on the proposal. The
Committee has been considering cost savings everywhere possible and to date, has
already saved an additional $104 million. I
do not envy the Committee members’ task!
They have a tough job and face many difficult decisions.
I am looking forward to reviewing the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s
analysis once the Finance Committee finishes their work.
On Wednesday, May 14th, as a member of the Assembly Natural
Resources Committee, I was present at the public hearing on the proposed rule to
ban deer baiting by the Department of Natural Resources. It was very interesting with many, many people present to
testify. In my personal opinion,
the Department of Natural Resources failed to convince me the necessity of a
total ban on deer baiting/feeding. The
Department had no proof that baiting causes the spread of CWD or even proof that
it is in fact through saliva that the disease is transmitted.
Also regarding Chronic Wasting Disease, I was quite shocked to learn that
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1988 inoculated live animals with CWD.
One type of animal that was inoculated was mule deer.
And I find it more than a little suspicious that a mule deer, shot by a
hunter in the Mt. Horeb area during that time, was immediately confiscated by
the Department of Natural Resources. Why
were the Department and the University not forthcoming with this bit of
information? Could these mule deer,
infected with CWD by the University be the source of the disease in our native
whitetail population? I requested
the Committee to inquire with the University as to the nature of the CWD
experiments and what happened to all of the animals infected.
As always, if you have questions or comments on this column or any other topic you might see or read in the news, I can be reached by e-mail at Rep.Bies@legis.state.wi.us or by telephone, toll-free at 1-888-482-0001.