Public Records Spine for the Wausau Wire Footprint

Purpose and publisher of publicnotices.wisconsin.gov.

Wisconsin's open meetings law directs meeting notices to the official newspaper designated under ss. 985.04 to 985.06, or to a news medium likely to give notice if none exists.

Marathon County land records and GIS portal.

Lincoln County land records and GIS portal.

Wisconsin Elections Commission election results and MyVote records.

Wisconsin Circuit Court Access (WCCA), the statewide public index of circuit court cases, is at wcca.wicourts.gov.

Wausau Wire treats WCCA as a reference only: a reporter may look up a case by hand to confirm a fact, and the site is never crawled or bulk-copied.

WCCA was created in 1999 in response to requests from district attorneys, law enforcement and other court partners for access to court records.

The WCCA Oversight Committee, appointed by the director of state courts, last worked from 2016 to 2017 and concluded with its May 2, 2017 meeting.

wcca.wicourts.gov publishes no robots.txt; the path returns 404.

Wisconsin's 72 counties are grouped into nine judicial administrative districts for the circuit courts.

Wisconsin has 261 circuit court judges, and circuit courts have original jurisdiction in all civil and criminal matters, including probate, juvenile and traffic.

Shawano and Menominee counties share circuit court judges, one of three paired-county arrangements in the state.

Clerks of circuit court in Wisconsin are independently elected constitutional officers.

The Wisconsin Court System publishes a statewide directory of circuit court clerk contacts by county.

The Wisconsin DOA Demographic Services Center produces annual population estimates for every county and municipality.

DOA has posted January 1, 2026 preliminary population estimates for counties, minor civil divisions and municipalities.

DOA's January 1, 2025 final estimates are the current official figures and include a minor civil division file and a file for municipalities in multiple counties.

The DOA 2025 final minor civil division estimates are published as Final_Ests_MCD_2025.xlsx; Wausau Wire's sealed population section is built from this file.

The City of Wausau's January 1, 2025 official estimate is 40,571 residents, up from 39,994 at the 2020 census.

The Village of Weston's January 1, 2025 official estimate is 15,944 residents.

Marathon County had a July 1, 2024 Census Bureau population estimate of 139,091, from a 2020 estimates base of 138,062.

Portage County had a July 1, 2024 Census Bureau estimate of 72,040, and Wood County had 73,943.

The eight footprint counties had a combined July 1, 2024 Census Bureau estimate of 429,337 residents.

data.census.gov is the Census Bureau's public site for exploring census data.

The Census Data API issues keys through a signup page, and the user guide documents query limits and key use.

A keyless request to the Census Data API for 2020 decennial redistricting counts was redirected to a 'Missing Key' page on 2026-09-19, so automated pulls should carry a key.

The Census Bureau's API user guide covers query limits, API keys, available data, example queries and the ucgid predicate.

DPI's WISEdash Public Portal is the state's public dashboard for Wisconsin school and district data.

DPI publishes WISEdash data files by topic and by year, including certified data, public and private school enrollment, and open enrollment.

The WISEdash dashboard itself is a JavaScript application, so Wausau Wire pulls school figures from the downloadable data files rather than the dashboard.

The Wisconsin DNR is at dnr.wisconsin.gov.

DNR keeps a central Hearings and Meetings Calendar and lists public comment opportunities on proposed permanent and emergency administrative rules.

DNR's Surface Water Data Viewer is an interactive mapping tool for water and sediment chemistry, physical and biological data, including macroinvertebrate and fish data.

DNR scheduled GIS server patching on the morning of Sunday, September 13, 2026, and warned that its web map viewers could misbehave during the update.

Wisconsin Public Notices (wisconsinpublicnotice.org) offers no-charge, around-the-clock statewide access to legal notices originally published in Wisconsin newspapers.

According to the site, Wisconsin law has required since 2011 that newspaper-published public notices also be uploaded to this one centralized website.

Notices on wisconsinpublicnotice.org include foreclosures, hearings, bid advertisements, financial reports and ordinances.

wisconsinpublicnotice.org has a county filter only inside an interactive search form, with no structured feed, so Wausau Wire uses it by hand to confirm a notice.

The Wisconsin Statewide Parcel Map Initiative's current statewide parcel dataset is V12 (release v12.0.0), with county downloads available as shapefiles.

V12 parcel polygons were collected from counties between January and May 2026, and most tax roll records are for tax year 2025.

The next statewide parcel release, V13, is tentatively scheduled for June 30, 2027.

On September 19, 2026 the SCO page reported statewide downloads as temporarily unavailable.

Wood County's Land Information Office runs a Land Records Viewer with tax parcels, addresses, zoning, FEMA floodplains, DNR wetlands and PLSS layers, plus a LiDAR viewer and an open-data GeoHub.

Wood County's most recent high-resolution LiDAR data was captured in spring 2022.

Wood County's land records page links municipal GIS sites for Wisconsin Rapids, Marshfield and Nekoosa.

Langlade County's Land Records and Regulations department runs a GIS Web Portal and a Real Estate Web Portal.

Langlade County's real estate portal (landnav.co.langlade.wi.us) sits behind a Catalis login page that offers Guest Sign In.

Shawano County publishes property and tax information through Ascent Land Records (ascent.co.shawano.wi.us) and a GIS web map at maps.co.shawano.wi.us.

Shawano County's Ascent Land Records opens to a Real Estate Tax Parcel search.

Taylor County links LandShark, a LandNav property portal, a Land Notify service and the statewide parcel data from its home page.

Taylor County's LandShark (landshark.co.taylor.wi.us) is a JavaScript application that returns only a shell to a plain fetch.

Clark County publishes real estate tax parcel records through Ascent Land Records (ascent.co.clark.wi.us).

Clark County's Planning, Zoning and Land Information page links an interactive map on Schneider Beacon.

Portage County's GIS section maintains the county Land Information Plan, required for the State of Wisconsin Land Information Program, and keeps parcel, zoning, address and voting-boundary data current.

Portage County's Online Mapping page points to its ArcGIS Online portal at portagecowi.maps.arcgis.com.

Wisconsin's total statewide equalized property value was $1.057 trillion as of January 1, 2026, an 8% increase over the prior year.

DOR's table puts the 2026 change in statewide equalized value at $74,960,809,100, while the release text rounds it to $74.6 billion.

Residential property accounted for $776.1 billion of 2026 statewide equalized value, up 7%.

Equalized values apportion school district and county levies among municipalities, and DOR says changes in equalized value do not necessarily translate into a change in property taxes.

Wisconsin campaign finance reports are searchable in the Ethics Commission's Sunshine campaign finance system at campaignfinance.wi.gov.

The Wisconsin Ethics Commission site covers campaign finance and lobbying.

DFI offers an online Business Entity Search and business entity filing.

The Wisconsin DOJ Office of Open Government publishes guidance on the public records and open meetings laws and explains how to submit a public records request to DOJ.