Author: knutson4

UW-Madison Limnology scientist assistant, Zach Feiner, explained that organisms in the lake time their life cycles based on when the lake freezes and thaws.

“You have things like fish that hatch and they don’t have enough food to survive, or they have zooplankton that emerge and they’re mistimed with their algae food resources,” said Feiner. “So it can really mess up lake food webs by having these seasons mistimed and altered by climate change.”

But “from a legal perspective, I’m not sure that there’s anything stopping the city in this instance,” said Derek Clinger, a senior staff attorney for the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

On Nov. 21 residents submitted a second petition, which the city acknowledged but says conflicts with the Oct. 7 ordinance it passed authorizing the sale.

In Wisconsin, Clinger said, a direct legislation attempt, in this case the residents’ petition, can’t be used to pass a city ordinance that clearly conflicts with an existing city ordinance. But the city’s actions could certainly have political consequences in future local elections, he noted.

University of Wisconsin-Madison education law professor Suzanne Eckes said that, ultimately, schools are responsible for maintaining a safe environment for their students.

When she’s teaching the basics of education law and liability, she often uses scenarios from physical education classes.

Just because there’s a student injury doesn’t mean that a school district is negligent, Eckes said. First, an injury has to occur in a situation where a teacher has a duty to supervise. Then, the teacher or instructor would have to breach that duty by, for example, “leaving a pool unattended while students were swimming, playing on their phone during class, talking with teacher friends instead of supervising the playground during recess,” she said.