February 4

Road trip offers plenty of close encounters
One of our favorite Saturday activities is taking a little road trip from Medford to a small town somewhere around the state.
On a recent chilly Saturday, Chris and I and Alaska Husky Avu took a road trip searching for UFOs. Our destination was Elmwood, population 800, about two hours away, down past Eau Claire.
Elmwood is known as “The UFO capital of Wisconsin.” This relates to dozens of resident sightings of UFOs in the 1970s, including some that were pretty dramatic.
People still remember a night in April, 1976 when police officer George Wheeler noticed a very large flaming ball about 250 feet across on top of Quarry Hill. Then a blue light from the UFO which struck his body and burned out his squad car’s electrical system.
In an earlier sighting, a lady resident and her three children were driving home one night in March 1975 when a “bright star” dipped down and stayed with their car until she found refuge at a nearby farmhouse. The farmer also observed the object.
We spoke with Ric Sailer of “Sailers Meat Processing” and his wife Mary, who invited us over to their home. They gave us more background on the UFOs, along with fresh apple crisp and a dried beef snack.
Then local librarian Jane Geraets stopped by with a huge scrapbook full of news reports and clippings on the local UFO sightings. She said it is a popular item with residents and visitors.
And while dramatic sightings have apparently faded since the 1970s, the town still remembers every year with a “UFO Days” celebration the last week of July. This includes a large parade, games, a UFO medallion hunt and in true rural Wisconsin fashion, lots of food.
There’s more to be learned about Elmwood and UFOs, so we are planning to get to the summer celebration for more in-depth research, and the chance to taste lots of local goodies.
— Earl Finkler, Medford

New wage reporting rules are cumbersome
With private construction spending down, policymakers are hopeful that government spending on public projects will spur economic growth. But new regulations accompanying the spending are counterproductive.
Builders who regularly work on public works projects know to expect a certain level of inefficient government regulations. Newcomers, attracted by the increased spending, will be stunned by the red tape.
In either case, the new payroll reporting requirements effective this year will befuddle experienced public works contractors and newcomers alike.
The provision, adopted last May as part of the budget bill, requires non-union contractors working on government jobs to provide payroll data to the state while largely exempting union contractors from complying with the same requirement. The payroll data will then be posted on a state web site. For the most part union contractors are only required to submit a copy of their collective bargaining agreement which provides absolutely no indication if the contractor has complied with the law.
Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin has filed an injunction in Dane County Circuit Court to block the implementation of the new law because we feel the Department of Workforce Development is exceeding its statutory authority.
The new law specifically requires contractors to provide four pieces of information; employee name, trade, hours worked and wages paid for employees working on public projects. On February 1 contractors finally were able to see the reporting mechanism. Rather than four pieces of information, the department is requiring nearly 50 different pieces of information for each employee on each project each month. Contractors have until February 7 to comply.
This new requirement is on top of existing requirements. Contractors are already required to maintain payroll records, sign an affidavit assuring that workers were paid correctly and allow the state to review those records upon request. Federal projects and certain municipalities require a “slimmed down” version of payroll reporting and this new law would require contractors to submit another payroll report on a different form to another level of government. In some cases this could result in three different payroll reports to three different levels of government for work done on a single project. This is just another example of an overzealous state agency putting more regulation on a struggling industry. It doesn’t create a single job or put a single tradesperson back to work.
— Steve Stone, president, ABC of Wisconsin, Madison