City offers sticks, carrots for S. Barstow Builders

Summer will be a season of construction in downtown Eau Claire, but the city is pushing for the work to end sooner rather than later. The Leader-Telegram reports that contractors who rebuild a five-block stretch of South Barstow Street will face a penalty if they don’t finish the construction before the September International Fall Festival. However, finishing ahead of schedule will mean a bonus of up to $50,000. According to the Leader-Telegram, details of the South Barstow Street project are still being drafted but some elements have been been revealed. The city plans on increasing parking on Barstow by 20 percent, more trees will be planted, and the streetlights will be replaced by shorter poles with energy-efficient LED bulbs. The project will benefit the community while making the street more attractive and eliminating light pollution. The project will cost an estimated $2 million, with property owners on the street paying $625,300 of that through special assessments, the newspaper reported. Construction firms will bid on the work in April. – Aleksandra Velenchenko

Regents OK UW-Stout's First Doctoral Degree Program

UW-Stout’s degree-conferring ability was just upgraded in a big way. The UW System Board of Regents voted Feb. 8 to allow UW-Stout to establish a doctor of education degree in career and technical education. It’s the first doctoral program in the university’s history. UW-Stout – which touts itself as Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University – has long educated leaders for the state’s tech schools, so the doctoral program is described as a natural step. “This degree is compatible with our history, and it also is compatible with our mission,” Jackie Weissenburger, interim provost and vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, told the Regents. The new 60-credit program will take about three years to complete, the university said. Officials from the Wisconsin Technical College System say there definitely is a need for the program in the state, and the Regents agree: “From the technical college perspective, this is needed and will be very appreciated,” said Regent Mark Tyler, who represents the tech college system on the Board of Regents. – Tom Giffey

Sustainable Fest Seeking Earth-Loving' Ideas

Put on your eco-friendly thinking caps: The second annual Chippewa Valley Sustainable Future Festival is now accepting proposals for presentations and workshops. The festival, which will take place Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Eau Claire County Expo Center, serves as a tool to educate the community about the positive outcomes of a more sustainable lifestyle in both an environmental and economical sense. Event coordinators are currently looking for presentations and workshops pertaining to food, climate change, transportation, energy, water, building community, healthy living, and living lightly. The workshop proposal form and information pertaining to it can be found online at http://tiny.cc/jombrw. Lists of last year’s presenters and exhibitors, as well as information about the concept of sustainability itself, can be found at the festival’s website: www.sustainablefuturefest.com. – Sam Clark

Demographics, biz growth leave state with fewer jobs

First the bad news: Wisconsin usually lags the nation in job growth. Next, the other bad news: This is largely the result of long-term demographic trends that have left the state with a population that is graying faster than it is growing. Those are a few of the conclusions reached recently by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a highly respected, nonpartisan group that crunches the state’s most critical numbers. These facts, coupled with the state’s weak rate of new-business creation, highlight the need for political leaders to focus on long-term economic solutions, not short-term spats over a single month’s job numbers, the alliance says. “State politicians of both parties seem to be missing the forest for the trees,” said Todd Berry, the group’s president – the forest, in this case, being slowing job growth numbers both in Wisconsin and nationwide in the past few decades. For example, since 1996, Badger State job growth has surpassed the nation’s rate only 27 percent of the time. (By contrast, between 1986 and 1993 Wisconsin job growth topped the nation’s rate for 87 straight months.) And entrepreneurship – which is strongly linked to job growth – also lags in Wisconsin, according to the group’s calculations. In fact, it’s abysmal: In 2011, the state’s 2.2 percent rate of new firm creation puts it 49th out of 50 states. One bright spot: As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted recently, “Once businesses in Wisconsin are created, more of them survive. Of the businesses started in the state in 1997, 45 percent are still in business, compared with only 34 percent of those nationwide that started that year.” The simple math: Create more businesses, create more jobs. Entrepreneurs, start your engines! – Tom Giffey