Stories you might have missed from around Wisconsin.
Brighton: One Thousand more homes and businesses to get High-speed internet.
Slow internet could be one of the most frustrating things we have to deal with. Thanks in part to some federal grant money, more than 1,000 homes and small businesses in Kenosha County now have high-speed internet service available from a Spectrum expansion with help from $209,000 in federal grants. Journal Sentinel reporting said most of the new coverage is in the towns of Brighton and Paris. The project’s total cost was more than $872,000, according to Spectrum. The grants were through the American Rescue Plan Act and Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission. The federal government has poured billions into the expansion of high-speed internet, but millions of Americans – including an estimated 250,000 families in Wisconsin — remain disconnected or lack the money or skills to access the service. New federal funding which was announced in November includes around $13 million to help implement a Wisconsin Digital Equity plan, to extend broadband to every residence, business and institution in the state by 2030. Full Story
Madison: Big changes coming to West Mifflin Street.
If you’re not a UW-Madison alum or spend a lot of time in Madison, you might only know West Mifflin Street from it’s annual appearance in the news after the annual Mifflin Street Block party. The street has changed many times over the years. Always a popular student enclave between the UW-Madison campus and Capitol Square, West Mifflin Street was a cradle for protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and ’70s. The Block Party grew out of VietNam protests. Now the look of the neighborhood, referred to as “Miffland” is changing. Using a neighborhood plan that was adopted in 2019, the city is working with developers to increase the supply of housing in Miffland while preserving the area’s identity. The City learned that most residents of the area cared less about the buildings themselves than about the sense of community that the architecture created. According to reporting in the State Journal, “The Mifflandia Plan”, limits how close new buildings can be to the street and encourages the inclusion of porches and balconies. In the five years since the plan went into effect, there has been a wave of redevelopment projects with more on the horizon. Full Story
Waukesha: JJ Watt visits food truck twice.
No matter how famous a person is, they get hungry. If that famous person is a former NFL player, they get really hungry. A Waukesha food truck took to social media to report that Pewaukee native and former NFL Pro-Bowl Defensive End JJ Watt paid the truck a visit with a group of friends. he enjoyed the food so much, that the next day he placed an order and had it delivered to his private jet before leaving town. Phoenix Mobile Grill, which has two locations in Waukesha, served Watt and his group last Wednesday night. According to TMJ 4, the truck’s co-owners, Celena and Alejandro Aguilar didn’t realize who Watt was until the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year posted the food truck on Instagram. Watt posted a selfie in front of the truck with his group. “It wasn’t too cold for these former NFL stars and their friends to come for their ‘Phoenix Phix’ tonight!” the business wrote on Instagram. So what does JJ Watt like to eat? It appears…everything. Phoenix Mobile Grill shared that Watts ordered a gyro, American breakfast burrito and tacos in his first visit. The second time, he ordered the truck’s Korean tacos and burritos, steak tacos and breakfast quesadilla — along with seconds of the American breakfast burrito. Full Story
