You can't slam Marshfield, but some telephone company may have tried. Long distance service at Marshfield  City Hall was switched from one provider to another earlier this month, and city officials want to know how it happened, the Wausau Daily Herald reported. See the story here.

The demands of homeland security are straining police and fire budgets in the Fox Valley, the Appleton Post-Crescent reports. Its story was prompted by a National League of  Cities survey in which one of four cities responding nationally predicted they would have to forego some of their normal public safety activities to meet the demands of anti-terrorism preparedness. See the Post-Crescent story here.

Menasha, Neenah, Oshkosh and Winnebago County officials are debating whether a health department merger would save taxpayers’ money. Some are optimistic, others are skeptical, the Oshkosh Northwestern reports. See the story here.

Rep. Michael Huebsch (R-West Salem) says he doesn't like Wisconsin's annexation or incorporation processes, so he is having a bill drafted to allow the town of Campbell outside of La Crosse to incorporate without going through the statutory process. Mayor John Medinger of La Crosse says chances are slim, but the bill could pass. See the La Crosse Tribune story here.

The state Department of Administration has ruled that folding the Marathon County town of Kronenwetter into the new village of the same name is "against the public interest." The state told local officials that using annexation law to swallow the town whole circumvents the municipal consolidation law, s. 66.0229, Stats.

The Nebraska Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional a state law — similar to one the phone companies have tried to get enacted in Wisconsin — that forbade municipal utilities from offering telecommunications services. The city of Lincoln wants to lease some of its excess capacity to promote economic development, including providing Internet services to residential and business customers. The court ruled that the 1996 Telecommunications Law prohibits barring "any entity" from the telecommunications business, and that applies to Nebraska cities. See the Omaha World-Herald story here.

Delegates to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards convention overhwelming defeated a plan to seek an exemption from Wisconsin's Open Records Law for e-mails to school board members. The Oshkosh Northwestern discovered that local school board members were violating the law by deleting e-mails involving a boundary dispute. After the story appeared, the City of Oshkosh posted a simple red-letter reminder on its web site: All e-mail sent to the City of Oshkosh is subject to the Wisconsin open records law.