Walker, Burke visit La Crosse

Governor and cadidate make visits as elections draw near

LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) — Governor Walker was in town Wednesday morning talking with students and staff at UW-La Crosse.

He was asked about voter ID, campus sexual assaults, and the John Doe investigation surrounding people working on his recall campaign years ago. Walker spent most of the time talking about the two year tuition freeze and funding for UW system schools.

The governor has said he’d like to continue that tuition freeze if re-elected and he’d also like to provide universities more flexibility in spending their state dollars.

“We have individual campuses that have different programming, there is some consistencies, but there are many campuses that specialize or do better in one area versus another. But many of our students at individual campuses, outside of Madison, tend to be drawn to jobs within that region, so again we want to give that flexibility to meet those individual needs within that region, campus by campus,” said Governor Walker.

The top challenger in this year’s race for governor was also in La Crosse Wednesday. Democratic nominee and former Trek Bicycle Executive Mary Burke visited Grand Bluff Running Company. The running store opened up downtown last March.

She talked with the owner Tyler Heinze about her plan “Invest for Success.” The goal is to put Wisconsin in top ten economies in the nation.

“Governor Walker’s economic development agency, they gave $4.6 million dollars in tax credits to a company that actually reduced it’s workforce by 300 people, well that’s not a wise use of tax payers money $4.6 million dollars and you lose 300 jobs?” said Burke.

Walker and Burke are in a dead heat according to the latest Marquette Law School poll.

The governor did not respond to our request for a long form interview while he was in town Wednesday.