Previously on This Just In…

The update:

2020. August. September. October. A familiar scene in Franklin high school athletics unfolded. The Saber football team was on a roll expecting an end of season playoff ticket. And then, a crushing defeat that brought devastating heartache.

On November 12, 2020, Mark Stewart wrote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The high school football playoffs start Friday and Franklin was supposed to be a main attraction. The Sabers finished the regular season 5-0, and with just 11 miles separating them from Muskego, the two-time defending state champion, the hope was that the teams would be placed in a bracket together in the condensed, two-week postseason format.

The WIAA delivered, putting the Sabers in a foursome with the 7-0 Warriors, 7-0 Menomonee Falls and resurgent Arrowhead, which is 5-2. The four were seeded by computer and at about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, the first-round matchup between No. 3 seed Falls and No. 2 seed Franklin was revealed.

It was the sure-fire game of the week. Then families began checking their emails later that morning. The news wasn’t good:

“At this point, the number of positive staff and student COVID-19 cases at Franklin High School has reached the 3% level of high concern, and we are moving forward with virtual learning for the next two weeks.”

The letter to Franklin High School families was from district administrator Judy Mueller. The move to virtual learning was bad news for the Sabers football team.

The next line in the letter spelled out the situation specifically.

“Effective Monday, November 9th, Franklin High School, including athletics and in-person activities, are temporarily suspended for the next 14 calendar days.”

Just like that, Franklin’s playoff run was over.

That was 2020. But in 2021, the Sabers would not be denied.

Before the season began the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote:

Going into the 2021 high school football season, no team in southeast Wisconsin looks better on paper than the Franklin Sabers.

The defending Southeast Conference champion returns nine starters on offense and depending on how you count them, six to eight on defense.

When you add in the Sabers’ track record of success – they’ve averaged 9.6 wins per season over the past decade – there is legitimate reason to believe the sky is the limit this season.

Opening game of the season. Sabers go on the road to face a tough Appleton North squad. Trailing by 17 in the 4th quarter Franklin mounts a furious comeback.

From the Journal Sentinel:

All that Myles Burkett saw was, out of his periphery, wide receiver Jacques Brooks getting a sliver of separation between him and his defender. The Franklin senior quarterback could sense a pass rusher from Appleton North bearing down on him.

Quickly. 

There was no time to step into the throw. From North’s 42-yard line, flat-footed, Burkett floated a pass that reached the goal line. He was thumped onto his back by the Lightning defender and listened for the crowd’s reaction from the ground. For multiple seconds, all he heard was silence. 

That’s because, on the other end, nearly 50 yards from where Burkett sat on the turf with a defender on top of him, Brooks had tipped the pass in the air and run back underneath it. But, sandwiched between two Lightning defenders, nobody could tell who had come up with the ball – except Brooks, who emerged with the pigskin clutched securely and triumphantly between his two arms.

“Honestly, it’s just crazy,” Brooks said. “Every single kid in America wants that if you play football. That’s your dream.”

The Hail Mary with four seconds remaining in the fourth quarter gave Franklin, the area’s top-ranked team, a 35-31 win over Appleton North.  

The following week perennial power Fond du Lac fell to Franklin 39-13.

And wins, most of them by very big margins, kept coming. Was Franklin a team of destiny?

In the playoffs Franklin matched up against a familiar opponent and it was deja vu. Appleton North took a double-digit lead in the final quarter in a state semifinal.

Franklin 26, Appleton North 19. Franklin was going to Madison to play for the state championship. Their opponent? Sun Prairie.

Franklin 38, Sun Prairie 17.

No unelected health department bureaucrat, no unelected school district superintendent, no school board could derail the Sabers. Not this time.

Franklin finished 14-0 with its first state championship since 2006.

In winning the state title Franklin unified an entire community.

Journal Sentinel photo gallery.

RELATED: Franklin girls basketball also went to state, but lost to eventual state champion Hudson.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021

1) FRANKLIN BRINGS HOME THE GOLD BALL
2) FRANKLIN REFUSES TO UNMASK OUR CHILDREN
3) FRANKLIN AND THE WAUKESHA MASSACRE
4) OVER AT FPS, POOR JUDY MUELLER
5) BALLPARK COMMONS ADDS TO QUALITY OF LIFE
6) WHERE IS SANDRA ECKERT?
7) WHERE ARE THE VACCINATIONS?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS

AP photo taken in NY.

“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
Mark Twain

Surely Twain had a school board like Franklin’s in mind.

During 2021 Franklin joined a growing and at time intense nationwide movement to unmask our school children.

In April I did what I’ve never done since moving to Franklin nearly 30 years ago. I spoke out at a Franklin school board meeting.

May 12. Heroes and villains at the school board meeting.

Big deal. So what. Franklin announces kids don’t have to wear masks outside.

On May 26:

In an embarrassingly low point for this Franklin School Board members tonight at their meeting refused to even consider taking action on changing the current mandatory mask policy in Franklin schools.

The INACTION by the school board came despite the fact that at least three Franklin residents who testified requested a member make a motion to bring the issue to a vote and another to second that motion.

On every occasion the entire board sat stone faced and silent. Some in the audience jeered at the board, accurately heckling that not a single member had any courage to stand up for the hostage-held mask children of Franklin. Gutless and cowardly.

It is clear the entire board along with the over-compensated district administrator are full of maskaholics and cares nothing about the kids or their parents.
—May 26, 2021

My wife also testified in late May about risk. Here is more, contained in the audio of the May 26th meeting.

Throughout spring and summer dedicated parents calling for an end to masks consistently attended every meeting, vastly outnumbering mask mandate proponents.

Then in late August, just before the new school year was about to begin: Chaotic Franklin School Board meeting ends in mandatory masks for some kids, but not all.

At the August meeting, during a rather lengthy and somewhat nauseating lecture-like presentation by Franklin’s medical advisory board, school board member Angela Bier inexplicably asked a question but specifically mentioned a Franklin resident by name, the resident’s child, and the child’s medical condition.

Bier should have known better than to get that personal. The resident was very upset and during the citizen comment period called Bier out who apologized.

Another incident occurred during the comment period. A Franklin resident, an arrogant COVID hypochondriac who frequently posts his mask and vaccine obsessions on a hateful Leftist forum, was walking back to his seat following his remarks to the board. That’s when he flipped two middle fingers to mask optional supporters in the audience.

Despicable. Zero class.

Forced, coercive masking of the youngest students in the Franklin Pubic Schools system is unnecessary and abusive. Folks with far more smarts than me have come up with those assessments.

At that late-August meeting of the school board three members made incredibly reasonable arguments against mandatory masking,  the most critical being that parents, not the elected or bureaucrats, are best equipped to make health care decisions about their very own children.

Unfortunately four members stubbornly scoffed at the blatantly obvious common sense, refusing to
give the concept the slightest amount of consideration.

My school district now forces kids in grades K4-6, the least risky of all students, to mask up or else. We have turned supposedly caring staff, teachers and administrators into rigid taskmasters, imposing security guards waiting pounce and punish. Yes, punish.

Isolate.

i·so·late

Cause (a person or place) to be or remain alone or apart from others.

Suppose a defiant parent chooses to resist and sends a child, heaven forbid, to class sans mask. Cue the heavy-handed educrats.

The confused maskless child will be nabbed and ushered to what is being called an “isolation room” according to a letter (threatening I submit) all affected parents have received.

“Please note, that if you decide to instruct your child not to wear a mask at school, the District will be required to isolate in a supervised location while they wait to be picked up from you or another authorized adult. Thereafter, the District will be required to explore other options, including but not limited to prohibiting your child from in-person instruction, marking them absent, and providing them with schoolwork to complete at home.”

I wonder how many taxpayer-financed greedy attorneys were commissioned to come up with that intimidating lingo.

Speaking of that noble profession, Ilya Feoktistov is a Boston-based civil rights attorney. Though not openly recommending legal action he does make compelling arguments in support of frustrated parents in a column. Here are some highlights:As mask mandates and habits return across the United States, clear and convincing scientific data from before and after 2020 suggest masking has negative health consequences that outweigh its utility.

Earlier this year, a group of German doctors and biomedical scientists looked at the available data on the negative health effects of face masks, published both before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, as catalogued in the U.S. federal government’s biomedical database, PubMed. They found significant evidence of “relevant, undesired medical, organ and organ system-related phenomena accompanied by wearing masks,” with “clear, scientifically recorded adverse effects for the mask wearer.”

Covering the airways with masks makes breathing harder, due to the air resistance they generate and the moisture they collect inside. According to one 2020 study: “Ventilation, cardiopulmonary exercise capacity and comfort are reduced by surgical masks and highly impaired by FFP2/N95 face masks in healthy individuals.”

Masks also create “dead space” air between the mask surface and the face, which remains trapped at the end of every breath out, and gets rebreathed right back in. Dead-space air is stale, potentially containing 20 times the CO2 concentration of normal room air, along with hundreds of other substances excreted by the human body through the lungs, including toxins.

Mixed with those are traces of the chemicals, such as formaldehyde, used to make or preserve the masks. Plastic microfibers slough off the fabric, have recently been found lodged in the sinuses of patients diagnosed with irritant rhinitis, and may make it all the way into the lungs.

Because of the increased resistance to breathing and trapped dead-space air, masks make it harder for the lungs to remove CO2 from the blood, and to supply the blood with oxygen. Multiple experimental studies with N95, surgical, and other masks, some published in prestigious journals like Nature, provide evidence that all common kinds of face masks can result in statistically higher blood CO2 levels or lower blood oxygen levels in healthy individuals, or both.

The body reacts to this imbalance by increasing its resting pulse and breathing rates, which can be dangerous to those in poor health.

All of this would fall on the tone-deaf ears of Franklin’s superintendent and a slight majority of school board members. For a few months parents passionately and emotionally informed Franklin officials about the physical and psychological damage caused by masks. The cold, callous response has been total indifference. How can they possibly feel good about themselves? Their defense of trying to save all of Franklin simply doesn’t hold up.

Remember years ago all those public service announcements that proclaimed “Every child deserves a quality education”?

Try this statement from July 2020:

“Even during a crisis, every child deserves access to a quality education.”
— Christian Barnard, an education policy analyst at Reason Foundation

Those are but hollow words in my school district where a pledge to provide the best has unfortunately been replaced by punitive priorities.

Despite all of this, a question:

Did any good result from Franklin’s fight to make masks optional in school?

In November I wrote to the school board: The Case Against Masks for Children.

Another question: What is the one biggest problem with the current Franklin School Board?

Finally, December 31, 12:06 pm:

Dear Franklin Public Schools Families & Staff,

As you will see reflected on our COVID-19 Dashboard for today (here), the surge in cases in the area is impacting our students and staff within our schools.  

Since they have exceeded the 1.5% 14-day positivity rate and we are aware of new cases, Forest Park Middle School & Franklin High School will return to required masking for all students beginning Monday.  This will be in effect through the following Friday, January 14th at which point we will review our positive case rates and decide if masking can switch back to recommended. 

Due to school not being in session and students and staff not being in contact with each other, at this time, we will not be pivoting Country Dale Elementary or Pleasant View Elementary to virtual learning even though both displayed red as of late Thursday.  Based upon case rates over the last 14-days, both schools are anticipated to be yellow as of Monday.  Therefore, our current plan is to not pivot any schools to virtual learning for Monday and to evaluate our metrics as the week goes on. Families will be provided at least one day of advance notice if there is a shift to virtual learning.

In addition, the timeline for isolation and quarantine has been and continues to be set for our staff and students based on public health guidelines, and under the direction of the health department, our nursing services team and district leadership will plan to meet with our medical advisors and the Franklin Health Department early next week in order to evaluate all of our safety policies related to COVID-19. We will be in communication regarding any updated practices for staff and students in the near future.

We are asking all families to please continue to monitor your children for any symptoms of COVID-19 and act accordingly.  Thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to navigate the circumstances around COVID-19 as we work to keep our students and staff in school safely.  

FPS Communications

Who knows what the school board will pull in 2022. They simply can’t be trusted.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021

1) ?
2) FRANKLIN REFUSES TO UNMASK OUR CHILDREN
3) FRANKLIN AND THE WAUKESHA MASSACRE
4) OVER AT FPS, POOR JUDY MUELLER
5) BALLPARK COMMONS ADDS TO QUALITY OF LIFE
6) WHERE IS SANDRA ECKERT?
7) WHERE ARE THE VACCINATIONS?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS

Hope you’re enjoying my TOP TEN FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021 (Two left to go).

Lots went on in our small city, but these items didn’t make the cut.

In no particular order:

Want to speak at a Franklin School Board meeting? Bring a photo ID

Bigger than masks or CRT…or, why the Franklin Public Schools can’t be trusted, Part Three

I got a survey from Franklin Public Schools, but it wasn’t about masks

Franklin pushing SEL, which is code for CRT

After Patti Logsdon’s latest bash against the Rock, Steve Taylor responds, and how

How I love when my mayor puts my alderwoman in her place

Misconstrusion?

No one would object to this sign, would they?

“It should be in Franklin”

Franklin’s latest, greatest marketing achievement

Big changes coming at Franklin’s middle school

Busybodies are alive and well here in Franklin

Franklin: High taxes? Not a problem. Saving a chair for 7/4 parade? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

“Who rides in a parade?”

Six people, including 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, died and dozens were injured on Sunday, November 21, 2021, after Darrell Brooks drove his red SUV through the crowd of performers and bystanders at the Waukesha Christmas parade. Graphic videos of the event show the vehicle driven by Brook running over marchers, dancers, and parade attendees. The criminal complaint alleges that “this was an intentional act to strike and hurt as many people as possible.”

Brooks has a lengthy rap sheet and had just posted bond just a few days before the parade.

Following the mass murder Franklin Mayor Steve Olson posted the following on the Franklin Community Forum Facebook page:

I have sent Mayor Shawn Reilly (Mayor, City of Waukesha) a message and offer of additional assistance with this senseless act of violence. There were several Franklin Police Officers and Firefighter/Paramedics who were off-duty and attending the parade with family who were able to immediately offer aid to victims. Franklin sent additional police officers and equipment to the scene to assist Waukesha PD. I ask that you keep the victims in your prayers and remember that there are a whole lot of kids who have seen terrible and tragic things tonight that they will remember for the rest of their lives. I hope they can get the help they’ll need.

Olson added:

It’s now up to the families and community to make sure that the kids recover both physically and perhaps more importantly, emotionally to this event. I’m told that Waukesha’s mental health system is good. I pray that they’re better. Kids shouldn’t have to have this trauma in their lives. I’m proud of my friend Mayor Riley and the message he said at the presser this evening. I’m praying for him and Waukesha tonight.

For the first time in the city’s history Franklin had scheduled its own Christmas parade and quickly announced it would not cancel. The Dancing Grannies contacted Franklin and expressed their desire to participate.

The Dancing Grannies are heroes of 2021.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021
1) ?
2) ?
3) FRANKLIN AND THE WAUKESHA MASSACRE
4) OVER AT FPS, POOR JUDY MUELLER
5) BALLPARK COMMONS ADDS TO QUALITY OF LIFE
6) WHERE IS SANDRA ECKERT?
7) WHERE ARE THE VACCINATIONS?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS

Judy Mueller, the District Administrator for Franklin Public Schools didn’t win many friends in 2021.

Emboldened by the election of three new liberal school board members in April Mueller understood she could command and control them, especially when the Franklin public started paying greater attention to how the schools were being run.

On many issues Mueller was evasive, condescending, rude, uninterested in concerns raised by taxpaying parents. Quite possibly her behavior was because she surely could afford it.

In May I made a formal open records request to see what was inside Mueller’s contract taxpayers were financing.

To say the findings were eye-opening was an understatement.

A few weeks later I posted an update.

Lucrative contracts didn’t stop with Mueller.

Of course, FPS did what they do best: Go silent and cover up.

Your tax dollars at work.

The next time Franklin schools cry the blues about how they don’t have enough cash, remember.

Franklin needs to elect a bunch of school board members, all with backbones that will fire Mueller and others.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021
1) ?
2) ?
3) ?
4) OVER AT FPS, POOR JUDY MUELLER
5) BALLPARK COMMONS ADDS TO QUALITY OF LIFE
6) WHERE IS SANDRA ECKERT?
7) WHERE ARE THE VACCINATIONS?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS

The Franklin-based Milwaukee Milkmen opened the 2021 season as defending American Association of Professional Baseball champions.

In February the Association announced the league would begin the 2021 season on May 18 and would play a 100-game balanced schedule with 12 teams. There would be a North Division and South Division. The top two clubs in each division at the end of the regular season would qualify for the playoffs.

Big news came on July 2, 2021.

After sitting in 1st place in the division for some time the Milkmen ran into tough times and finished in 3rd place, still making the playoffs under an expanded format.

But in early September the team lost to the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks 5-0 in a single-game wild-card playoff, ending their run to win back-to-back championships.

Once again, Adam Walker was outstanding.

I nominated the above for a special award.

But it didn’t make the final list, and the 140 Ton Navy Crane from Broadwind Heavy Fabrications in Manitowoc was crowned the winner.

But how about…

Bo-Vine was voted by fans the Best Mascot in the American Association.

Finally, the biggest news from Franklin’s biggest and best tourist destination.

Some would submit it’s just as exciting or even more so than the Milwaukee Milkmen at Franklin Field.

Lots of people have been waiting and waiting for this new addition to Franklin. If they had their way it would have opened months and months and months ago.

From the Milwaukee Business Journal on November 10, 2021:

Ballpark Commons’ Luxe Golf driving range and beer garden to open in May
By Sean Ryan –  Reporter, Milwaukee Business Journal

The Luxe Golf Bays building that will bring a high-tech driving range, beer garden and two restaurants to Ballpark Commons is on course to open on May 27, 2022.

The building will have 57 golf bays on three stories overlooking a 250-yard-long turf range. Doppler technology will track golfers’ drives down to the spin on the ball and allow games such as bull’s-eye where points are awarded for consistent accuracy. It is the latest addition to the Ballpark Commons development  development in Franklin by developer ROC Ventures, led by CEO Mike Zimmerman.

“It gives you things like spin rate or a bunch of other metrics that are neat for not only working on your own game, but for instruction,” Zimmerman said.

ROC Ventures has signed up restaurants that will be announced soon to fill two spaces in the building, and plans to operate a heated, covered beer garden there called Hinterhof. A second-floor indoor event space will have room for up to 200 people.

The project has been in the works for years, but like others in the hospitality and entertainment world, it faced delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The original lender to the project backed out after the onset of the pandemic.

“As you can imagine, people were not real bullish on business models that were centered around social interactions,” Zimmerman said.

Over time, the picture changed as Ballpark Commons was able to host professional baseball games at its stadium and other events including an outdoor movie theater. Zimmerman said about 450,000 people have visited Ballpark Commons so far this year.

Lenders also gained confidence as Topgolf planned and opened new locations, Zimmerman said.

“That demonstrated back to the debt markets that, interestingly, these things do survive in the pandemic,” Zimmerman said.

Luxe Golf broke ground in late July after ROC Ventures secured lending from Geneva Capital Group of Chicago.

This is a first golf range business for ROC Ventures, which developed Ballpark Commons, owns the Milkmen baseball team that plays in its stadium, and also the Milwaukee Wave indoor soccer team. The Franklin company has agreements with several technology providers for the Luxe golf range. That includes TrackMan Golf, which provides the doppler technology, and Flite Golf.

People can sign up for membership starting this week to get priority rentals at Luxe. The heated golf suites will have large TVs and food and drink service.

The next big project at Ballpark Commons will be a hotel under Choice Hotels MainStay Suites and Sleep Inn brands. Zimmerman said that could start construction by spring at the latest.

The MOSH Performance Center indoor sports facility opened at Ballpark Commons early this year. The YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee opened a branch in the building this month. The project also brought new senior and market-rate apartments and an office and retail building.

How about a hot dog?

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021
1) ?
2) ?
3) ?
4) ?
5) BALLPARK COMMONS ADDS TO QUALITY OF LIFE
6) WHERE IS SANDRA ECKERT?
7) WHERE ARE THE VACCINATIONS?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS

The sad news broke in late March.

So did the call for help.

Three weeks later…

There’s now a $50,000 reward being offered by the family.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021
1) ?
2) ?
3) ?
4) ?
5) ?
6) WHERE IS SANDRA ECKERT?
7) WHERE ARE THE VACCINATIONS?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS

It was late 2020…

OK. Fauci got his.

But for Franklin residents who also wanted to get jabbed it was hurry up and wait.

Let’s begin on January 10, 2021.

Then I exclusively blogged on February 11, 2021.

UPDATE, 12/24/21: Mayor Steve Olson informs his recollection is that Franklin finally did receive vaccinations sometime in May, but the city was never contacted by the WI Dept. of Health Services (DHS) about their requests. DHS is part of Gov. Evers’ administration.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021
1) ?
2) ?
3) ?
4) ?
5) ?
6) ?
7) WHERE ARE THE VACCINATIONS?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS

CNN’s blatant liberal bias is one of the worst kept secrets in journalism and they’ve been called out for it.

“Coverage became more political, more partisan (when Donald Trump became president) and that the mainstream makes fewer efforts, I think, to conceal where it’s coming from. If you look at CNN right now, like that is a left-wing television network. And I don’t think you would have said the same thing in 2006… but it is an unabashedly left-wing network. It makes no effort to include, like, intelligent counterarguments really on the air.”
Former CNN political analyst Eliana Johnson, October 27, 2021

Some parents complained to me that CNN was being used as a teaching tool in Franklin schools.

Caught red-handed, FPS, lacking transparency, had no intention of wanting to talk about it.

My blog of June 8, 2021.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2021
1) ?
2) ?
3) ?
4) ?
5) ?
6) ?
7) ?
8) FPS & CNN
9) HOUSING BOOM
10) FRANKLIN POLITICS