Spring has sprung. With the warmer temperatures and melting snow, we have experienced localized flooding in many Sheboygan neighborhoods. On Friday, March 15 flooding along the Sheboygan river in the area near the intersection of Taylor Drive and Indiana Avenue damaged Spectrum equipment used to deliver community media stations to local residents. The Interruptions affected the lines used to send the local Public, Education, and Government (PEG) channels from the studio on the UWGB-Sheboygan campus to Spectrum and the subscriber lines that provide Internet access to the studio.

“Our operations were severely curtailed during the outage,” said Scott Mealiff, WSCS Director. “We could still record shows but we weren’t able to broadcast or stream.” Crews were alerted to the problem and worked diligently for several days to find solutions, despite some of the affected equipment being swamped by flood water.

As of Wednesday morning, the school district (993), University (994), and city (990) channels have been restored to cable customers as well as live streaming of WSCS on the web and OTT devices. Thank you to all who worked to get our community media back online.

Legislative Update has been part of Sheboygan’s community media programming for decades.  After more than 20 years as the host of the public affairs series, Jim Baumgart made the decision to turn the hosting duties over to Nanette Bulebosh.

(L-R) Nanette Bulebosh, Jenni Estrada, Chris Rahlf, and Liz Sumner in the WSCS studio to produce “Legislative Update”

Monday, November 18, 2018 Bulebosh recorded her first episode as the solo host.  She did co-host several episodes last season easing the transition for viewers, guests, and hosts.  Bulebosh is excited about the new role and the possibilities that it brings.  While the show will remain focused on public affairs, some changes are in store to bring a fresh look and feel.  She had this to say about Monday’s production,

“Local television can be provocative, inspiring and illuminating when you are lucky enough to have outstanding guests.

Just listen to Chris – a Navy vet who makes her living as a strategic thinker, Jenni – an advocate for farm laborers, and Liz – who owns her own business – as they discuss what they learned on the campaign trail, and what they think about the future of progressive politics in Wisconsin. Listen to them discuss what conservatives get wrong about Democrats, and what it’s like to run for office with young children in tow.

This program is a work in progress, and so, alas, is my hair (Note to Nanette: Do something about that, okay?) but I’m proud of what we did today.

I’m grateful to these three impressive women, first for running, and second for sharing what it taught them.“

Sheboygan is part of a growing movement of Wisconsin municipalities taking transparency in government to a higher level. Sheboygan utilizes the ClearGov platform, which showcases basic profiles of every municipality in the state. Sheboygan added detailed revenue and expenditure breakdowns of its account data as well as debt information. This site features benchmarking comparisons to all Wisconsin municipalities in a concise and informative format. Please note, comparable information may reflect up to a two-year delay based on the availability of statistics from the State of Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
The municipal transparency and benchmarking site helps local governments communicate and operate more effectively and efficiently through a unique fiscal clarity and insights platform. The site serves as a valuable tool to clearly communicate their performance in an effort to build citizen trust and participation through transparency. Our partnership with ClearGov provides valuable municipal benchmarking intelligence to help the City of Sheboygan’s leaders quickly compare their finances against similar communities to make more informed and data-driven policy and budgetary decisions.
The site may be accessed at sheboygan-wi.cleargov.com. This tool provides users an easy-to-understand, visual breakdown of Sheboygan’s finances, as well as insights into the city’s demographics. The site informs visitors as to how each budget item compares to neighboring communities.
Please contact Budget Analyst Carrie Arenz at carrie.arenz@sheboyganwi.gov or 920-451-2367 with any questions or comments.

FCC action threatens the existence of community access channels

Community Access Television is under an unprecedented attack from the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC, chaired by Ajit Pai, is considering ways to whittle away the public interest obligations cable companies have under federal law by charging cities for anything that does not earn the companies revenue.

City expenses will go up, cable company expenses will go down, and cable subscribers will pay the same price for cable but without the Public, Education, and Government (PEG) access channels that air locally-produced programs. Community access channels will disappear because many cities will no longer be able to afford to equip, staff, and pay for them.

Reposed from Wisconsin Community Media, https://wisconsincommunitymedia.com/advocacy/

Eight WSCS Programs Recoginized in 2018 Best of the Midwest Media Fest

Wisconsin Community Media has announced the 2018 Best of the
Midwest Media Fest award winners. Award-winning producers and their shows will be honored at the Best of the Midwest Media Fest Banquet and Show at the Best Western Premier Waterfront Hotel & Convention Center on Thursday evening, May 10 as part of Wisconsin Community Media’s two-day conference.

Go here for the WCM press release with the full list of award-winning programs.

WSCS partnered with the Sheboygan Branch of American Association of University Women and the League of Women Voters-Sheboygan County to broadcast eight candidate forums, held at mead Public Library.  The forums features the candidates for five aldermanic districts in the City of Sheboygan, two county supervisor district races and the candidates for the three open seats on the Sheboygan Area School Board.

Sveral members of the station’s staff worked to record each of the events, quickly get the programs ready, and schedlue the replays to air ahead of the spring election on April 3.  Seven episodes were created and each was televised at least 10 times, nearly 84 hours of programming, during the week leading up to election day.  The forums were also posted online so citizens could watch at their convienence.

March 8, 22018

Impacted Communities Respond to Governor’s Decision to Rescind Nomination of Wisconsin National Marine Sanctuary

Residents, educators, business leaders, tourism executives, environmental groups, and elected officials from the Cities of Port Washington, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Two Rivers have reacted with disbelief and disappointment to Governor Walker’s action rescinding his 2014 nomination of the area of Lake Michigan off their communities to be American’s newest National Marine Sanctuary.

The entire sanctuary designation process began with that nomination, which the Governor himself had submitted in November 2014 on behalf of the citizens of the State of Wisconsin. The nomination was officially selected by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to begin the Sanctuary Designation process and was perceived to be well on its way to Final Designation in late 20018 or early 22019. Once designated, the Wisconsin ‐Lake Michigan National Marine Sanctuary would become only the second Sanctuary in the Great Lakes and the 15th Sanctuary nationwide.

“The Governor’s decision represents a missed opportunity for all of us,” stated Kathy Tank, City of Port Washington Tourism Council Executive Director. With roughly 33% of State visitor spending occurring each year along the I‐433 corridor and our harbor communities preparing for tourism growth from the Designation of our Wisconsin Sanctuary, our business partners were very well‐positioned to capture additional tourism dollars.”

“Our communities have collaborated very effectively on our National Marine Sanctuary Nomination, and that includes proud institutions of maritime heritage learning like our Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc and partner organizations in Sheboygan and Port Washington,” said Rolf Johnson, CEO of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. “Working together over the past several years, we’ve prepared and shared exciting, engaging, new public exhibits that provide inspiring educational opportunities for future generations of scientists, researchers, engineers, explorers, and historians.”

The regional nomination as submitted to NOAA detailed a proposed 875‐squaare‐mile area National Marine Sanctuary, stretching from Port Washington to Two Rivers. It would contain 399 known shipwrecks, including the two oldest shipwrecks in Wisconsin and 15 intact shipwrecks (three with standing masts). Fifteen of thee 39 shipwrecks are on the National Register of Historic Places. NOAA would assist with location, identification, and preservation of another 80 or so expected shipwrecks.

“We believe a Sanctuary Designation is truly fitting,” stated Leslie Kohler, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors for the Sailing Education Association of Sheboygan (SEAS). “Our marine environment is enormously rich in historical, cultural, and archaeological treasures, and a National Marine Sanctuary will afford greater opportunity for discovery, protection, and preservation of those unique treasures.”

“A National Marine Sanctuary in our Mid‐Lake Region will be an economic bonus for our four communities and the region and will serve as a tremendous source of pride and celebration for our entire State of Wisconsin,” said Chad Pelishek, City of Sheboygan Director of Planning & Development.

For more information, please visit www.sanctuaries.noaa.gov/wisconsin

Watch the latest edition of Paws form the Sheboygan County Humane Society.

The latest episode of Third Saturday at the Museum features “Taverns of Southern Sheboygan County”

Viewers of local sports on WSCS have long wished for the game clock to be included in the on-screen score graphics.  Thanks to recently acquired technology, that wish has been granted.

Game clock, score and other information is sent automatically update the graphics.

“Until now, when we would cover a game, we had someone manually changing the score in the graphics software” said Scott Mealiff, WSCS Program Director. “For fast faced sports like basketball we needed a person dedicated to changing the score.”  While this method kept viewers aware of the score during the game, there wasn’t a good way to show how much time was left.  The commentators would have to mention the time on the scoreboard as part of calling the game.

After a sucessful trial, the station decided to purchase a device call a ScoreBot.  “Interfacing a scoreboard with TV graphics is not a new concept. The national networks have been doing it for some time. The ScoreBot allows us to do it more cost effectivly than was previously possiable. One device now works with different scoreboard controllers and different sports at different venues. We’re excited to provide this enhancement to our viewrs.” Mealiff said.