 with a little bit of a distributor background also answers to some of the general questions that you pose. For this discussion today, we're going to use questions that reflect some of the major topics that we selected. Before each question, I'm going to draw the name of a full respond, and then we'll proceed with responses from the other candidates in the order which we're seeing. Each candidate will have a maximum of two minutes to answer questions. And one or five will be stopped for some audience questions. The candidates also have graciously agreed to remain at the forum today to look at any question that you may have in an individual. So with that, we'll start again. Mayor Mike Anderson, question one. Shwoigen's roads are in terrible shape. This is a college for existing and potential new businesses. What is your planning to get them back in shape? And what sources of funding are most vital to this? Thank you very much, Mark. First of all, it's been an honor to serve as your mayor for the last four years, missing for a few years. We have a great team at City Hall, and I think we're all working collaboratively to solve problems like this. And when we talk about our streets, you've hopefully read the Shwoigen press and saw the article on my Shwoigen about the work that David Bebel and his staff is doing at Public Works. We have been spending less in the last 10 years, and we should be, to keeping our streets up. So we're adhering to a problem that's existed for a while. And right now, we have a great program that's in place. We've developed new revenues with the wheel feed, the money that the county's giving us from the sales tax, and our councils voted to bond for $5 million this year, up from $3 million to the past 19 years, to put more money into our streets budget. And as you can see in the graph that was in the paper, the city's gonna be able to go from what was an average of 2.3 miles per year on an average for the last 10 years, up to 5.5 miles of streets will be improved either via resurfacing or reconstruction this next year. We hope to continue this trend because that's the only way we're gonna solve this problem. You can't pay these roads with good intentions, and you have to put money into the pot to take care of the roads that need attention. Bill, please. First of all, I'd like to thank everybody for having me here today to speak my views and join you guys today. I feel I have done more than anybody that's up here to help fix our streets. I brought forward the wheel tax that we have in the city of Sheboygan. We collected the money this past year. We can put that money now to use, which as the mayor stated that Director Bebel has, I do believe it's 10 projects that he stated in the Sheboygan press that we have planned plus additional funds where he can go out there and let's fix some of these potholes and let's make a change. We also did vote on extra funds from our strategic planning to put forward towards the streets. I know there was a heavy discussion in our council at that time. Some wanted to spend extra money, some didn't want to spend money. I gave up a proposal that was somewhere in the middle, you know, a middle ground where we could still get a lot of projects done on streets, but still not break the budget and still put some money towards the streets. Some of the people up here I know didn't vote for, you know, streets are an important thing and they say they're an important thing, but yet they didn't vote to put any funds or come forward with any other ideas to get our streets fixed. Thank you, Mark, for, you know, hosting this event in the Chamber of Commerce. It's a pleasure to be here and be able to speak in front of everybody. Regarding the streets or the roads, in 2016, the following legislation was passed specifically to target the roads, a $20 for vehicle wheel tax, and that equates to $880,000 a year. The garbage fee was extended at equals $1.1 million a year in revenue and that was targeted specifically for roads. The county half-send sales tax that everybody is familiar with, that's $412,000. So that equates to $2.3 million worth of new revenue that is going to be targeted specifically for roads. And we'll continue to borrow and hopefully we'll borrow at a more responsible level than we did this year for the roads and we'll continue to have special assessments when possible. And so those are all the funding mechanisms for the road. In Monday evening at the council meeting, we're going to be probably approving a new paving machine for the roads as well. And what that's gonna do, it's gonna allow Director Beable to pave more roads with his own staff and do it at a more economical price point than what we've currently been able to do with the outdated or the smaller size paver that we have. And the above mentioned revenue streams that I talked about are over and above the property tax level, which is already burdensome. So we pay more than enough in taxes and fees and assessments. We do not need to double our debt in order to address this issue. We need to prioritize and fund our priorities at the expense of those items that do not meet the threshold of being a priority. So what I would do is I would prioritize the higher volume collector streets or main streets, East and West, North and South, the heavily traveled streets. And I would insist that these streets that would require attention would be moved up on the priority list. I also want to thank the chamber for hosting this today. And for streets, I think that they are getting worse. And I think one reason that they're getting worse is that we don't totally agree with the will to be, but I understand that we do need it. But I would like to see another way or two of getting more money for streets. A few years ago, I had asked the city attorney if there was a way that we could impose at that time a half percent gas tax in the city of Sheboygan. And he said no, it would need approval from the state legislature. But I thought if we do it from a gas tax, the people that live outside the city but use our streets would also be paying something for improving our streets. We would also get some money from tourists who come here and don't pay anything for repairing our streets, but use them. And I also felt that the people that use the streets more would be paying a little more than a flat wheel fee where everybody pays the same, whether they travel 30 miles a day in the city or half a mile once a month. And I'm just about out of time. Thank you. Our next question. What is your plan to draw young business people, skilled workers, and entrepreneurs to the area? How can we keep our talent here and stop the city's brain drain? Questions. The first question is, how do we draw new people to our community? And I really think that our collaboration with the Sheboygan Economic Development Corporation and Chamber of Commerce and the Some Place Better Campaign is really one of the great ways to do that. Because we sell Sheboygan and the great things that we have in our community that are really attractive for people as a place to work. And then we have had over 3,000 jobs available for the entire year, which are listed on that site. So people can really focus on the job that they want to come. And then we've tried to make Sheboygan better for these new people coming in. We have $37 million worth of construction and residential projects that are allowing people to find great market rate apartments soon in our downtown and other areas of our community. We also have been trying to accent the cultural aspects of Sheboygan. And one of the big things that we collaborated on with the John Michael Culler Art Center and the Sheboygan Square Business District is to have the Thursday night, 11 a.m. concert series. That really is something that brings our community together and really shows what a great place this is. The other part of this is our Red Raider manufacturing and our Lakeland College technical schools. But we're trying to teach the students that are growing up here that they can have another pathway by going into some of these technical skills and being able to work in a local factory. The last part of it is trying to get the kids that have left Sheboygan going to college and maybe have had a job for a few years in another community, get them to come back home. Because if we can get them to come back home, they're gonna probably stay here for the rest of their life. And I think we need to work with some of the reunion groups and maybe have job fairs over the holidays when these kids are home visiting family. Thank you. Thank you very much. We need to do a great job of selling Sheboygan as a whole. We do, we have the chamber, we have all these other entities that do do a great job. But we gotta give them a reason to wanna live here. I've had the opportunity to coach kids up at North High School a few years back. And now that they've graduated, I ask them, why aren't you coming back to the community? Why don't you come back here? And they say you gotta give us reasons to come back here. We have a great arts, we have all this. I think we need more retail shopping opportunities. We need more restaurants. They're looking for all these extra things. That's why they're tending to go towards the bigger cities. I just think we need to look for those opportunities, make those phone calls, try to get those retail businesses in here. I think we need a revenue for more concerts. The Stephanie Wild Center is beautiful. I go there very often. But I'm talking about if we wanna bring in some national entertainment. We don't have that one size bigger than the Stephanie Wild Center to bring in that type of entertainment. And I really think we need to find a way to build that type of entertainment in our city. I think all these things together, and just by selling shabuagan, we can definitely get these people to come back to shabuagan. Because we got the jobs here, we got great businesses. They wanna work for them, but they wanna have a good time when they're away from work too. They like to work hard, and then they like to play hard. So we gotta give them both. I certainly agree with the premise that there's a brain, a brain that's leaving the city. I've got young adults, I had three kids, and one came back here in work. He went to Marquette, and Kohler offered a co-op. He worked at Kohler. So I know that employees, or employers like Kohler, that are offering internships and co-ops. Acuity is currently recruiting a lot of young talent. So there are jobs that Les previously mentioned that are here. There are companies that are doing whatever they can to attract young people. Kohler even recently put an office in Milwaukee because they wanna be able to attract young people that wanna live in an urban setting. So what we need to do as a city is address the need for housing, which has already been mentioned, and we have with Oak Brook, we've got another apartment on South A Street that'll be breaking ground, Portscape Apartments. So that continues to be a need that needs to be addressed. And once we have that, then I think organically, some of the other needs for a vibrant downtown life will be met. So we also need to have a mayor that is going to be engaging the local businesses. American Orthodontics, HSA Bank, Aurora, et cetera. What are their current needs? What do they anticipate as future needs? And we also have to have an open dialogue with employers that are outside the city, Kohler, Sargento, Masters Gallery, Beam, and Sartori. We need to have a positive relationship with these leaders and able to react in a precise manner to address their needs should they have one, such as Masters Gallery, which we lost to the city of Woosburg. But we need to have somebody that is going to have develop relationships with the business leaders, anticipate and know their needs, and be able to react in work with developers to make it happen. I think one reason that we have a lot of the college students not returning, and according to what they have told me, a Sheboygan has such high taxes. I know a lot of kids that have moved back to the area after graduating from UW-Milwaukee or Madison, and they are picking the town of Wilson to live in, or city of Sheboygan Falls, or town of Sheboygan, and they all give the same reason. We like this area, but the taxes in Sheboygan are too high. They tell me if I go out to this town of Sheboygan, I don't have to pay the garbage fee, I don't have to pay the wheel tax. So in order to get the people to come here, we have to find a way to reduce the cost of the people that live here. And I'm not seeing that. The taxes keep on going up, and when the taxes can't go up, we start throwing wheel taxes, or garbage fees, or something else. So the people notice that, and it turns them off. And it's for the apartments downtown. I know one woman that just got a job at Acuity, and she's making a lot of money now, and I asked her, are you gonna move to Sheboygan now? She goes, no, because Sheboygan has high-priced rents. She goes, I'm still paying off student loans, so I can't afford $800 a month for rent in one of the new apartments. And we have to look at the college students that just graduated and realize they can't always afford $800 a month for an apartment here, because they have student loans to pay off. They probably have car loans to pay off if they have a family that's expensive. And I have to cut this short because I'm out of time. Question three, what is your stand, excuse me, what is your stand in drawing the city and the services to support a healthy economy and to entice more businesses? Alderman. Drawing the city and its services to support a healthy economy and entice more businesses. Well, I'm in favor of drawing the economy of the city, but I am also concerned that we have to get along with our neighbors. We can't always take property from the town of Sheboygan or town of Wilson or other townships, because then we start to get into a battle with whose land is this, and that could very well turn off some businesses that wanna come here that don't wanna get into an argument of do you wanna be in the town of Wilson or city of Sheboygan. They might decide to just skip coming here and going somewhere else. And I think if we do expand, we also have to look at the cost that's gonna be to the city. As an example, if the city is now expanding to some property that they just bought in the town of Wilson, and in order to be annexed into the city, we have to add water and sewer, and that all costs money, and that's coming right now from the current city taxpayers. I strongly support and encourage economic development. What I do not support is growing our government or services. In fact, I'm in favor of outsourcing where it makes sense, and turning over function to the private sector if that is in fact available. Economic development is essential and vital to moving the quality of life in Sheboygan as well as increasing the tax base. We need to have a mayor that has a passion and is engaged with developers and business leaders. We need to be receptive and encouraging and creative when opportunities are presented to us, and we also need to have the correct personnel in place to negotiate and deliver a positive message to the developers and business leaders. We had that with Don Hammond when he was president of the council. He had the professional financial background that was necessary. He was well connected with developers and business leaders in the community. He had the political acumen from years on the council, and most of all, he had the passion for economic development and a true love for the city. He left the council a year ago, and there's been a bit of a vacuum as it relates to that. So we need somebody similar with similar talent to keep the momentum moving forward. Quite frankly, the pace of economic development has slowed in the past year compared to what it had been in the previous years before. I see it picking up somewhat again, but it has somewhat slowed. So we need to have a laser focus on economic development. We need to reach out and be proactive rather than sit back and hope opportunities knock on our city halls front door, and we need a leader with a vision. I think we all in agreement that we all feel economic development in the city of Sheboygan is very important. We need to look at every opportunity that comes towards us, and we also need to have someone who's gonna go out there and make that phone call to get that person to want to come to Sheboygan and sell Sheboygan. I've been in retail now for quite a few years. I feel I know what the retail department or retail areas are looking for to come to the area to develop in the city of Sheboygan, and I want to make those calls, and sell Sheboygan on how great Sheboygan is. We have great services. And covers the codes and ordinances that must be adhered to. It's a great program, it's a great starting point. It's educational. Anybody that's gonna be a new landlord or for existing landlords as well. So there's that program that's in place to address that. Then as mentioned previously, code enforcement. We're adding another code enforcement officer dividing the city in half, so we should be able to address twice as many issues as we have in the past. And that's been quite successful. And I would like to credit Alderman Susie Holschu for bringing that forward and ensuring that that got funded. So that was a great addition as well. One of the other things that we have is we have quite a few neighborhood associations that have become more prominent and active. We have several neighborhoods that are working towards becoming officially recognized members. And Penny Weber is working with these neighborhood associations closely to guide them through the process. So the neighborhood associations are made up of concerned neighborhoods in a given geography. And those people, what they want are safe neighborhoods and they want the properties in their neighborhood to be well kept up. So it's these people that are in the neighborhood that are driving this and they're looking out for the welfare of the neighborhood. Along with that, we have a police department that has community policing. And part of that is neighborhood officers who specifically target given neighborhoods and work with the community or with the neighborhood associations as well. So they're able to identify the trouble spots and work with the neighborhoods. As far as the drug problem goes, I believe that the chief has a very good handle on it. I'm very impressed with his work. Part of the problem is mental health issues. And Aurora has a great mental health facility. And I know that the police chief is in favor of keeping that and supporting that as well. For the drug problem, I feel that the police department is doing an excellent job. But the police department also needs the support of every citizen in Sheboygan. If the people see something suspicious, they got to report it to the police. And they also have to realize that the police have to get the evidence so that the district attorney has a good case. They can't expect to report something to the police and see a rest the next day. The people have to be patient and they have to work with the police department. I also think that we have to somehow get the county judges to stop with the slap on the wrists. I see too many people getting convicted of selling drugs, maintaining a drug house and then their sentence is probation and they're back on the street selling drugs again. So I think we have to start putting some of these people in jail for a while to get them off the streets to stop selling drugs. As for the slum lords, there's a group on Facebook called Slum Lords at Sheboygan. And I had joined at a couple of months ago and I was shocked by some of the pictures that the people posted on that page and what they told me. And in every case they told me, if I come point to the city, I will get evicted. So we have to find a way to protect the people. And Boston has a program where before our landlord can rent a house, it's gotta be inspected by the city and they get a certificate of rentability. And I asked the city attorney if we could do that here and he said no. So I've been at least looking into what we can do. What will you do to work cooperatively and collaboratively with other units of city and county government on the gospel? I would try to meet with all of the other local leadership privately, one on one and hopefully also in groups because the more we can communicate, the better we'll all get along and all of the problems facing Sheboygan are not just Sheboygan's problems, there are everybody's problems around here. If Sheboygan's got a drug problem, that's also going to affect Sheboygan Falls, Kohler, Usberg. We can't pretend that it just stops at those city limits of Sheboygan. It affects everybody and all of us in every government body have to work together to solve the problems. If we want more people to come to Sheboygan to work, we have to work with the other communities also so that they have places for these people to live if there's not enough places to live in Sheboygan. And we have to make it so that people can get from these areas to Sheboygan on good roads. Within the city, we need to have strong leadership in the mayor and the chief administrator. Department heads need to have well-defined goals and objectives that can be measured. They need to be held accountable. This must be done in a professional, transparent manner and this can be done cooperatively and collaboratively. There's not an issue with that. The county, on the other hand, that's a whole different animal. The county's taken advantage of the city and the taxpayers in recent years. The combined dispatch is a great example. We could have achieved the combined dispatch years ago for $430,000 at the still then relatively new police station. All we needed to do was add an additional work station and run some additional fiber optic. Instead, it was just recently completed at the county for $12 million. The city's portion of this fiasco across the taxpayers, $2.5 million. The mayor originally wanted the city to pay $5 million as part of this program. Again, remember, this could have been done for $430,000. In the next sterling example of cooperative government with the county is the half-send sales tax increase for transportation. This was created by the county in a vacuum with no input from the city, yet the city comprises 43% of the county's population. Once alerted of this scheme, the mayor lobbied county board supervisors telling them that the city supported this great idea. Once I became aware of that, I put a resolution forward to oppose the county sales tax and it passed unanimously twice, once at the committee of the whole and once in front of the whole council. It was not a good deal for the taxpayers of the city or the city in the mayor lobby for it and supported. I will only work with the county in a collaborative fashion if the interests of the city of Sheboygan are respected and addressed in a positive manner. I will always put the interests of the city of Sheboygan first and I'm tired of the county using our geography and our taxpayers to waste and redistribute tax dollars without equitable benefit. I would also like to meet with all the areas in the city of Sheboygan, starting with our department heads, getting to know that the city of Sheboygan is about working with teamwork. It's not all about one person or one area. We all need to work together. One thing I learned as by many years is from coaching football, it teaches you a lot more things than just sports. Little bit was the dollars of it. I really wish we could make something like that happen. And that was that first proposal. Then we came back with another second proposal with a little less and stuff, not so much in favor of that one. If we're gonna do City Hall, I think we should just go all the way and make it look like something special for the city of Sheboygan. As far as looking at other sites or new sites, I'm always up to listening to those ideas. Obviously, it all comes down to dollars and what makes sense for the taxpayers of Sheboygan. If it would come forward that a new site would make sense, I would definitely entertain that. But I'm all in favor of making City Hall something important for the city of Sheboygan to make that the structure that people recognize when they come to our city. Thank you. Well, when we started this discussion, I also was in favor of staying in City Hall. But when we got the architects dollars and we were looking at 11 to 12 million dollars, I just knew that there was no way that we could really fit that into our budget. The $8 million program was still a hard thing to swallow. But then we started talking about the building next door and trying to rearrange that whole block. And when you look at the opportunity to create new tax base in what are now surface parking lots, that added a different dynamic to that particular question and gave us, I think, some ways to not only win with a new building, but win with new tax base that we'd be building an opportunity for new businesses to move into our downtown. Now there is an issue with the way the floors are lining up and we estimated we'd have to put another floor in that facility to accommodate City Hall. And I'm not sure if we can rearrange that in a different way so it still works. And then we have another opportunity to look at a different building downtown that's still under study. So I think the jury's out on that, but I'm all for trying to create more tax base. And when you look at City Hall, it would cost us that $8 million minimum to really fix it up so we could use it. But yet there's two or three developers that are knocking on our door who would love to get a hold of that building, claim historic tax credits, and put 21 market rate apartments in there. Now they can do that and draw down those other funds where we can't do that. That's what all come out of the taxpayers pocket. And so that may be a better route to go. One thing I wanna keep strong in all of this is I don't ever wanna see City Hall torn down. We wanna have something in that building that's gonna continue to have that building in our community. It's something that we need to preserve. It is just about one o'clock and starting with the audience questions, we have one writing question and it's a bit long so bear with me please. A few years ago, a small business owner reportedly invested $2 million to renovate their building before reopening, a direct competitor wanted to enter the market only three blocks away. The City of Sheboygan provided significant financial assistance to the newcomer because it wanted the additional tax base. The owner of the established business then decided not to reopen. A small business will now wonder if investing in their business in Sheboygan is a good idea. When it's possible that after faithfully paying property taxes for years, the City will take action that directly hurts their prospects. Are you aware of the damage this action did to the entrepreneurial environment in Sheboygan? Alder than Thiel. The current example that they're given there but it hurts me to know that somebody wasn't able to reopen based off of something like that. I think we really need to take a look at every situation and look at all the avenues that it will affect. I feel bad for that business I lost because I don't like to lose any business, especially one that's been established already. We always wanna encourage new people to come in but I think we gotta actually take the time to look at the broad picture on how what it's all gonna affect and so they're just going, oh hey, we got new business here, let's just quick it a minute. We gotta really take the time to look at the whole deal. Many of these business development loans are made through our Sheboygan Redevelopment Authority and when somebody proposes a project and asks for some funding to, it's basically set for job creation, we evaluate that proposal, we go through the finances of it and we present that to the redevelopment authority and they make the decision. Now many times some of our local merchants may not come and ask for that money. Many times we see people coming from the outside are more apt to do that because they're bringing a business to the area and they're looking for some assistance but we have no really preferences whether it comes from a local business or whether it comes from a business that's coming from the outside and it's just a matter of their particular situation. We try to fill a gap with most of the funding so many times there's an opportunity for a business to come in but the bank is only willing to borrow them so much money and so the redevelopment authority will take a second position behind the bank, fill that gap so that they can put their project together and then things can go forward. Right now in the hall today we have Brian Werner who is opening up a new restaurant downtown Sheboygan. He approached the redevelopment authority and also was able to secure a business development loan and we're very happy to fund local interest. Brian's been in the community for quite a while and we're happy to see that he's opening up the Harvest Cafe soon. Really with the specific instance it's being referred to in that question either. I do sit on the plan commission where new businesses come before and their plans are brought forward and they're debated and they're given granted approval and I don't recall anything like this. I don't recall there ever being an issue. I've been on that commission for over two years and we invite neighbors, anybody can come into that if this person had a concern with this business being opened up, could have come before the plan commission and voice his concern before things moved forward. So I guess I would just like to throw that out there for the person with that question in the future that should some similar situation arise that he could certainly address it at the plan commission. So and again, I show the same sentiments that Alderman Thiel has that nobody wants to discourage or eliminate any business opportunity from becoming a successful and growing, thriving business. We're all looking for development and that's what we want. And without any further specifics regarding this I guess I can't comment anymore on it. I've also heard from a few friends of mine who are small business owners in Sheboygan then they have complained to me on numerous occasions that when they go to this. So it makes sense for them to take advantage of this opportunity and build up their athletic opportunities by improving the fields. And we hope we can get this done sometime this later this year. I can support something that hasn't even been proposed yet. So I'm gonna side with Alderman Thiel and there hasn't been anything that's been presented yet. So I can't say whether I support anything or not because I don't know what it is. So in the past, the past proposal, I supported. I've got a very unique relationship with this whole project in that my wife works for St. Nicholas. She's in charge of surgical services for both of their surgery center and the hospital. I've got a family member who originally was an original investor for the surgery center there. I get the economics. I know exactly what Aurora wants to do and why they wanna do it. I understand that. Is the community, is Sheboygan better off with Aurora in the city limits? Absolutely. I mentioned before that the mental health services that they provide is an outstanding asset to the community. So I'm in favor of them being in the city. I cannot say that I support a proposal that hasn't been made public yet. I have no idea what it's going to be. I also happen to represent the far northeast side of Sheboygan. I live two blocks away from the existing hospital. So I'm very, very concerned what's gonna happen with that property, how it's gonna be addressed, what future use, is it gonna be torn down, how quickly it can be torn down, what effect it's gonna have on the neighborhood in the values that's gonna transpire in years to come. So again, without having something formally, I can't support it. I will again look at it with Alderman Bill Thiel and when it comes before us and I will make my decision at that point in time. I am all in favor of Aurora building a new hospital in Sheboygan, but not on the field of dreams. And I have maintained that position since the Save the Field of Dreams group started. I have been speaking up for saving the field of dreams for two years. Aurora has a great chunk of land on Whedon Creek Road that they bought years ago to build a new hospital. Now they tell me that there's all sorts of problems. And at the open house at Aurora that I had a couple weeks ago, I asked why they bought that land if it wasn't good for a hospital. The answer I got from the five people that I asked was, I wasn't working for Aurora about two years ago so I can't answer that. And when they said they would get somebody that could answer, they never came back to talk to me and answer my questions. And Aurora says that it's for the best future of Sheboygan. Yet if you look at the future of Sheboygan, the southern part of Sheboygan is the fastest growing part of Sheboygan along with the area of Gooseburg and Cedar Grove. So a new hospital on the south side of Sheboygan would better serve the needs of the future of the medical services in Sheboygan. Also, if you look at or listen to the people that say the field of dreams is not in good shape right now for the fields, that's because there has not been any maintenance done on the fields. If you build new fields and don't do any maintenance, you're gonna have the same problem as at the current field of dreams that there's no maintenance on it. So maintenance has to be done. And who's gonna be doing the maintenance on the new fields, not the school district. And the mayor said that the field of dreams is not a park. If you go in the mayor's office right now, you can pick up a map of the city of Sheboygan which shows the field of dreams and it's listed as a park. Now, help them better, rather than see another hospital and other people maybe with the job. Place at the Aurora Hospital. Well, if Aurora builds in Sheboygan, no matter where they build, they're gonna create new jobs. Right now, their sole purpose of wanting to be next to St. Nicholas, which they don't want to admit, is to take patients away from St. Nicholas and in the long term put St. Nicholas out of business. That has been their goals in other cities where they have built right next to an existing hospital is to put that hospital out of business. And what happens is in reality, it raises patient costs for patients in both hospitals. And I'm all in favor of Aurora building a new hospital in the city of Sheboygan but not on the field of dreams. The new jobs will come wherever they build it in Sheboygan. The jobs are not gonna come to this area if Aurora builds, doesn't build on the field of dreams. And people that would look at this with a reasonable mind would realize that but a lot of the Aurora people are brainwashed and even at some of the common council meetings, a lot of Aurora people were there speaking in favor of a new hospital. And one night after the meeting, I was in the lobby of City Hall and I said to one of the Aurora people about how many, that they had to stay so late. She was, I don't care, I'm getting paid to speak up for Aurora. So Aurora was paying people to speak up. And in the meantime, the common council was ignoring the people from the field of dreams who lived in the area. How many people here would like to live next door to a new Aurora hospital when it's like for like helicopter lands? Like to eat it up. They're gonna not only shop at those places but they're gonna shop at our smaller businesses also. Competition is good. I work for obviously one of the biggest retailers and we don't have a problem with Meyer coming to Sheboygan. We know the competition is gonna be good. It's just gonna make us better and it should make us better. And I feel just by bringing those retail places into the city of Sheboygan and giving them all type of atmosphere again, I think like an outlet mall at Sheboygan if we could find a place to build that and in the city would be excellent. And I definitely want to push to try to bring that. The old mall is pretty much gone. Pretty soon we're gonna tear it down or Meyer Foods is gonna tear it down and they'll be in hopefully 2018 building their new store here. So, what do we do about the leakage that Bill mentioned? The people that are going out of town to buy many of these goods and services and clothing. Well, again, we partnered with our Sheboygan Economic Development Corporation and they hired the retail coach. They did a study of all the leakage so that they can detail what it is and share that information with some of the businesses and developers that are out there. And Sheboygan unfortunately doesn't have a lot of land where these stores want to operate. They want to be right next to the I-43. They don't want to be in downtown Sheboygan. We have a different plan there for the more boutique type businesses we're trying to draw to downtown Sheboygan. Like there's a lost sheep yarn shop that just opened up the other day. But the type of businesses that you're talking about are probably gonna end up in the town of Sheboygan north of town. They've identified some land on the, behind the Culver's area there and they're looking to try to put a plan together with a developer to develop another shopping area out there and that's probably gonna be where those will end up in the future. Just to reiterate what has already been said, that Meyer is doing what they're gonna do with the property that they acquired and it's unfortunate with Hobby Lobby and some of the other retailers that we've lost. Hopefully through Chad's efforts and Daryl's efforts, we may be able to find some other location that would be suitable for a place like Hobby Lobby or other retailers as well. The dynamics of large shopping malls in the city of our size, I think they're not sustainable anymore with all the online and things are going on. And remember that we're landlocked to the east. We've got a big lake there. So our population density doesn't support a gap or a Nordstroms or anything like that. And as much as I would like to see that right here in our own backyard and again what the mayor stated, the interstate corridor, the land that the city owns and it's very limited and these retailers want to have very specific, they want to be right off the interstate. I mean, if you look at the corridor down in Grafton where Daryl came from, how that all developed and that's the perfect scenario for someone that's got land that's available that's right next to the interstate. So unfortunately we've got land issues and we've got issues with technology as well with online that are working against us. I am also sorry to see them all go and I know we're going to lose a few more stores that are left out there because none of them are going to renew their lease knowing that them all is going to get torn down. And I would like to see more stores around here also but I know that the stores want a certain size population that they can draw from in the immediate area. And as John said, we cannot draw any customers from Lake Michigan and to the south we're actually too close to Port Washington, to the north we're actually too close to Manitowoc and to the west we're actually too close to Fond du Lac. So when they draw a circle from those cities they see that part of that area would also cover Sheboygan's area. So why should they really build a new store in Sheboygan for a very limited number of customers? It's just sad but it's the way the truth is about where Sheboygan is located.