La Crosse Talk PM WIZM

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, breaking down the mayor debate, while also discussing what you wish you knew before moving to the area and creating fake social media profiles. Less than 12 hours after WIZM hosted the four candidates for La Crosse mayor , Chergosky, along with WIZM’s Brad Williams, spent a good...

On Feb. 6, the four candidates running for La Crosse mayor took part in a forum hosted by WIZM at the UW-La Crosse Student Union. Shaundel Washington-Spivey, Vicki Markussen, Ellie McLoone and Chris Kahlow are looking to push through the primary and on to the spring election. Voting in the primary ends Feb. 18, when the field will be cut to two. Here's the rundown of questions: 3:24 - Opening stat...

UW-L political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio for La Crosse Talk discussing the worthwhile and worthless bill lawmakers propose, like banning cellphones in school in Wisconsin and putting Donald Trump on Mt. Rushmore. We went down a rabbit hole on that latter idea, while I came up with a better proposal — putting Trump on the $1 million bill. That, in a way, act...

La Crosse County and 3rd US House District Democratic Party chair William Garcia in studio trying to make sense of all the chaos that surrounds President Donald Trump's first days, the Dems' involvement in local races and Goonies turns 40 this year. Started and ended the show with Trump's first 10 days in office. We began with his administration's strategy of overwhelming with chaos. The impossibi...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in studio as we kickoff the show breaking news that a La Crosse mayor primary debate is coming, plus the news of a media group laying off or firing local meteorologists.  Began the show talking about WIZM hosting an upcoming La Crosse mayor debate between Ellie McLoone (who will be on La Crosse Talk at 7 a.m. Wednesday), Chris K...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, despite it being Quitters Day. We discuss what that is, along with a slew of other things: How businesses use amenities to guilt us into shopping The controversies around Facebook/X/TikTok hoarding our data and looming TikTok ban Is this newest Kwik Trip in La Crosse the Taj Mahal of K...

Katie Kotlowski , the two-time National Champion with the No. 1-ranked University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team, joined La Crosse Talk PM on Thursday. The senior defensive player, who calls La Crosse her hometown, talks about playing on the ice on Wrigley Field last weekend, how she got started in hockey at the Green Island Ice Arena and what she does off the ice through volunteering. Plu...

He’s the man behind the eats on  Abe’s Raves , Abram Dyke, stopped in the WIZM studio to talk everything food in La Crosse. What the area’s doing well, what it needs to work on and why he started the page. How he got started is a pretty heart-warming story of helping struggling businesses. We also hit on what La Crosse does well for dining out, and what it’s missing.&n...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, predicting the Top 2025 stories for both La Crosse and Wisconsin. This conversation went back and forth, as we did a bit of a dive on each topic, including the La Crosse mayor's race and adding ranked-choice voting, plus school referendums and when to put those on the ballot, and lastl...

Instead of having Pam Starcher stop in at WIZM, we took La Crosse Talk PM to her, and discussed how to make yoga a New Year's resolution, right from her studio at The Yoga Place at Fifth and Main streets, downtown.  Stacher has been the owner for a decade but The Yoga Place has been there nearly 40 years and was La Crosse's first-ever yoga studio. For those who want to try and make yoga their...

WIZM's Brad Williams in studio to recap La Crosse's biggest topics of 2024 from the porn scandal at UW-La Crosse to Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns in town and capped off by development in the area. A week ago, we broke down the Top 25 most viewed stories on the WIZM News website , but this conversation is about Williams Top 3 story categories , which was led off with the UW-La Crosse sag...

The owner of Pearl Street Books, Beth Hartung , and La Crescent’s public library director, Jess Witkins , stopped in the WIZM studio to discuss, what else, books, including the best of 2024, book bans, reading as a New Year’s resolution, and what’s changed in popularity over the year and years. This is part of a series of La Crosse Talk PMs about New Year’s resolutions, as...

Claire and Phillip Mitchell kickoff a La Crosse Talk PM series on health, as the new year approaches and we all start thinking about resolutions. The two own  Mitchell Holistic Health in Onalaska, a clinic that tackles health issues in various ways, from physical therapy to functional medicine to life coaching. The Mitchells are headed into their fifth year at the clinic, and we talked about...

Two conversations about homelessness on Monday's La Crosse Talk PM with city council members Chris Woodard and Mac Kiel.  La Crosse’s two big committees meet next week Thursday, Woodard discusses a resolution he’s authored that — simply put — requests the state and federal government’s help in addressing homelessness. After that, Kiel joins to talk about the warm...

UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, in the WIZM studio Friday for La Crosse Talk PM, discussing whether Santa is a Democrat or a Republican, how old is too old to believe, is Elon Musk or Donald Trump the president, and will the next two years of the Wisconsin state Legislature be less productive than the last. Began the show with a caller complaining about alternate-s...

Central High School teacher John Havlicek in studio discussing, in his over 30 years, how kids have changed because of cellphones. We also hit on the $4.5 billion state surplus, as Gov. Tony Evers was in La Crosse on the budget, and how school funding leads to better student outcomes. We started, though, with Havlicek teaching Spanish and how or whether that’s changed of his three decades.&n...

A giant mix of politics and holidays on Friday’s La Crosse Talk PM with UW-L political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky, that included why the mayor isn’t running for reelection, ending the tradition of buying Christmas presents and politicians, off the last nine months, telling workers to return to the office. Began the show, though, on Donald Trump winning the Time Person of...

Chi Chi’s making a comeback, local news is not and the time is now to announce a run for La Crosse mayor — all things we broke down on Friday’s La Crosse Talk PM with UW-La Crosse political science professor, Dr. Anthony Chergosky. We began the show picking WIZM News reporter Brad Williams’ brain about that mayoral election — up to three candidates now — and when the Chi Chi’s closed in La Crosse....

A lot covered with Adam Hoffer, including how much taxpayers would be on the hook if the Badgers fired their football coach, how much Wisconsin loses by not legalizing vices like sports betting and weed, plus Chi Chi’s is coming back and Kmart is almost gone. Hoffer is the director of excise tax policy at the Tax Foundation in La Crosse. The first thing we tackled is how much of the $40 million ow...

La Crosse Assistant Police Chief Jason Melby joined to talk about guns, mostly in reference to the city’s first-ever mass shooting, plus a bit about the parking situation downtown. We also, of course, had to work in some Thanksgiving themes, too.  Spent most of the show talking about guns, using the Deandrew Grant case as an example. Grant is responsible for La Crosse’s only mass shooting. Last ye...

La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke joins to breakdown the city’s first-ever mass shooting — a drive-by, downtown —  tracking the origin of the gun in those incidents, plus 1,000 felonies in 2024 and the politicization of positions like the one he holds. We began the show discussing an initiative Gruenke is going to bring back called the Citizen Prosecutors Academy, where people can lea...

Dr. Bri Spicer, Lifestyle Program Director at the La Crosse Area YMCAs, in the WIZM studio Wednesday for La Crosse Talk PM to discuss a diabetes prevention program she’s overseeing and shame news talk hosts into getting checked out. #Sarcasm. #Kindof The La Crosse YMCA’s  National Diabetes Prevention program  is for those who have pre-diabetes. Spicer talks about who that is, how you would find th...

UW-La Crosse political scientist, Dr. Anthony Chergosky in studio discussing the billions Wisconsin taxpayers agreed to pay for schools, Donald Trump's "outrageous" cabinet, going viral on Wheel of Fortune, The Onion buys Infowars and words that were born the year you were. Began the show with news of President-elect's cabinet, like Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, for example, and why this makes...

La Crosse County Board chair Tina Tryggestad in studio fresh off a five-hour 2025 budget meeting the night before, so of course that was a focus of the conversation that also included homelessness and renaming facilities. We also got a bit of a civics lesson from Tryggestad in how the board gets to a final budget meeting, plus some budget details, including how American Rescue Plan Act funding is...

Wisconsin state Assembly Rep. Jill Billings in studio fresh off an election win, where she holds onto her District 95 seat. On the  show we look at some of the numbers and how she did in a voting district that had new boundaries, plus what to expect from the state Legislature over the next two years. Billings points out there's a state Supreme Court race on the ballot just months from now, which c...