Substance abuse help extended to rural areas

Firefighters who respond to fires at lithium-ion battery storage units and other energy facilities are likely to be very limited in what they can do to extinguish the flames, according to Phillip Rentmeester, Marathon County’s emergency management director. “The current guidance for firefighting on this is to let it burn,” he said at a Public Safety Committee meeting last Tuesday. “Isol...

In order to avoid a 15 percent spike in premiums next school year, the school boards in Marathon and Athens have approved new co-pays for employees who get their insurance through the districts. Under a plan adopted by the Marathon School Board at its May 11 meeting, employees will pay 10 percent coinsurance after their deductibles are met. The Athens School Board opted for a 20 percent coninsu...