Every Friday, Stuff We Missed looks to other Milwaukee publications (and beyond) for, well, stuff we missed throughout the week.
• Remember this Thursday, when Wisconsin Republicans were set to kill the state’s mask mandate? Well, that decision is currently on hold. Why? Allow us to explain in an obnoxiously long run-on sentence that’s best read while listening to “Yakety Sax.” You know, the Benny Hill song. Hit play and start reading:
So on Tuesday the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted 18-13 to kill Gov. Tony Evers’ COVID-19 public health emergency which in turn would kill the state’s mask mandate and because this was a joint resolution all it needed was approval from the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Assembly and Evers would be unable to veto it so the Assembly said it would vote on the matter on Thursday and it would almost certainly pass it but on Wednesday night at 9:42 p.m. roughly 12 hours before the Assembly was set to vote the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story that said killing the mask mandate would “likely cut off nearly $50 million in food assistance a month to low-income people and those thrown out of work during the coronavirus pandemic” and someone in the Senate or Assembly must have read this because the next morning the Senate was like oh shit and after hours of delays they got together and introduced an amendment to a separate COVID-19 relief bill that said well even though our joint resolution would kill the governor’s public health emergency and even though we’ve claimed all along that killing the mask mandate isn’t about masks but about keeping the governor’s power to declare and extend public health emergencies in check this amendment would allow the governor to declare a new public health emergency for the sole purpose of qualifying for that nearly $50 million in federal food assistance a month that our joint resolution would have killed and here’s the kicker since this amendment is attached to a bill that Evers said he would likely veto due to a bunch of pork and changes the Assembly made to it he’d be the one that would be killing the nearly $50 million in federal food assistance a month and not us and then the Assembly got together later in the day and was like yeah um er um er um we think this will work but give us a few days to figure it out we’ll vote on it next week.
Got all that? Good grief. Here’s the whole story in multiple sentences. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
And now for some other random stuff we missed this week…
• Serb Hall is for sale. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• PrideFest has canceled its June dates, but Polish Fest and German Fest are still “continuing with their 2021 dates with cautious optimism.” [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• UWM’s 2021 Festival of Films in French will be virtual. [Shepherd Express]
• Local documentary Growing Up Milwaukee (which screened at last year’s Milwaukee Film Festival) will begin streaming on HBO Max on February 1. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Aaron Rodgers says “I don’t think there’s any reason why I wouldn’t be back” with the Green Bay Packers next season, so R-E-L-A-X. [Packers News]
• Good Karma Brands—which owns WTMJ-AM and other Milwaukee radio stations—plans to move its operations to the ground floor of the former Grand Avenue mall. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• In Bay View-related run-on-sentence news, Honeypie is moving to a new location and Belli’s Bistro & Spirits is moving to the former Honeypie location and Blackwood Brothers Restaurant and Social Club is moving to the former Belli’s Bistro & Spirits location. [Urban Milwaukee]
• Have a great weekend, Milwaukee!