118 results for author: Nancy Tabaka-Stencil

FAIR TIME TO MEET A FARMER

This week I attended the Wisconsin Valley Fair; this fair and the many others that will be happening around our area this month is a celebration of our family farms, community values and our rural way of life. But all the things we celebrate at these fairs are slipping away. Family farms are closing, communities are growing smaller and smaller as young people leave. Our rural way of life is disappearing. It’s clear that what we have been doing is not working and we need new leadership in our state to bring back rural Wisconsin. Farmers, the backbone of the rural economy, are struggling. The President’s tariffs are killing our agricultural ...

WE MARCHED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Stepping off the bus and heading to State Street will be a memory forever embedded in me. We were at least 75,000 strong. It’s not just about the rights of Women. It is about everyone out there that is marginalized in some way or form. It is about color, it is how we identify sexually. It is about HUMAN RIGHTS. After hearing about the March in Washington D.C., the idea spread quickly to other major cities. When I heard Madison would be having a march, I knew I would be there. When I spoke of it, people wanted to carpool. There are only so many seats in my car! Two weeks before Christmas, amidst all the holiday flurry, I was calling for bus ...

WOMEN’S MARCH ON MADISON

  Set your calendars! It's a new year with many opportunities! January 21 we will have a bus going to Madison for the March on Women (everyone is included). This march is in solidarity with those in Washington D.C. on that day. We will leave the Universalist Unitarian Church parking lot, 504 Grant Street, Wausau at 9 AM sharp! Be ready to board at 8:40 AM. We will march from Library Hall, 728 State Street, Madison to the Capitol. The end time is approximately 3 PM. Speakers will include Senator Lena Taylor. There will be performances by the Raging Grannies and others. You can learn more about this event on the ...

SACRED LAND, SACRED WATER

Even the casual follower on Facebook can’t miss the photos of the valiant walkers of “33 Days of The Evil Twin #66.” Many a Wisconsinite comes to walk for a day, learning and teaching others along the way about the evil of the twin #66 Enbridge pipeline. Lucrative to producers but costly and perilous to our environment. Wisconsin is bisected by several pipelines operated by Enbridge, whose base is Calgary, Alberta (foreign oil). The current Enbridge 61 crosses 15 counties, from Superior to Delevan. That’s 321 miles! It removes almost 2000 acres from public domain, including wetlands. No money is paid to Wisconsin for the land it crosses ...

WHY THE STRUGGLING COMMUNITIES?

Oh, how our communities are struggling! I ask myself: how has our society failed so badly? What can you and I do in these tough economic times to make our communities safe again? What will it take to break this cycle? I look at the recent mother and daughter drug arrest of April Pirillo and Ashley Baumgartner. This one hits home, personally, for me. It was April Pirillo’s now ex-husband, Larry, who sold methadone to my nephew, which led to his death by overdose. I recall my brother’s voice over the phone that dreadful day he told me this horrifying news. I see this not only as a horrible situation that effects a mother and daughter of two ...

GROW AND APPRECIATE DIFFERENCES

Why must we treat all immigrants as though they are criminals? Is there joy to be had making someone else’s life difficult? Recently we saw this in AB 450 and AB 533. Certainly I would never minimize someone’s death, such as Kathryn Steinle’s. Steinle was the victim of a tragic hand gun death at the hands of a homeless man who was, supposedly, deported several times. Tragic as it is, this is an isolated incident that happened in San Francisco. That example is being used here in Wisconsin to foster fear mongering. Why can’t we appreciate the differences that lie within? Must we always put up barriers? Furthermore, in a time where identific...

UPDATE ON PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY IN WISCONSIN

By Nancy Stencil 86th Assembly Candidate /  www.stencilforassembly.com   Wisconsin Welcomes You” is the visitor friendly message on the highway signs along our borders. Five years ago an additional notice was suspended underneath: “Open for Business.” Our state (unlike before, presumably) had now instantly transformed into a place for limitless corporate opportunity-and profit! A plethora of jobs awaited just beyond the horizon, and an era of stagnation, never quite documented but loudly proclaimed, was finally over. One business that Wisconsin has always had “open for business” was the pulp and paper industry – a staple ...

PREVAILING WAGE

PREVAILING WAGE By Nancy Stencil Oh my, such the times we Wisconsinites are living in! Wages are stagnant and income equality is at an all-time high in America. I can't believe the attacks that Wisconsin Republicans snuck into the budget at the last minute…provisions that will lower wages for all of us and weaken our middle class. The prevailing wage bill failed to pass using the normal democratic process. Weakening the prevailing wage was slipped into the budget, just days before it was signed, in order to avoid public debate and scrutiny. Prevailing wage is a law that protects our construction workers from poverty wages and also attracts ...