 and welcome to the Donahue show. We're so glad you could join us for another half hour of interesting discussion on issues that we hope you'll find interesting. Joining me today are familiar faces around the, around the, the ottoman is at work, the coffee table. Cal Potter, former state senator and assistant superintendent for libraries for the Department of Public Instruction. Professor Tom Pineski from the University of Wisconsin-Shabuigan, math teacher. Ken Risto, social studies person. Something from the Shabuigan area school district actually director of assessment and curriculum for social studies. I'm Mary Lynn Donahue. I'm a lawyer with Hop Newman Humkey and happy to be here. Before we start, I just want to note the ironic change. We have Tom Pineski representing the red states and Ken Risto representing the blue states and. It could be north, south. It could be north and south. It could, because I don't think it's blue state, red state, but. It could mean absolutely nothing. But I just thought. Interchange of award, no. We're taping in our south game is going on tomorrow. North, south basketball. Yeah, so alumni. And so when our faithful listeners are able to watch this show, it'll all be history anyway, so. Time marches on, I think there's a, some saying somewhere about that. It's been an interesting time in the city of Shabuigan. The city of Shabuigan falls. Shabuigan County as a whole, lots of things going on. Primary elections that were held on February 21st, I believe, if my memory serves me correct. And at least in the city of Shabuigan with surprising or not surprising results, I don't know how you look at it. I'm thinking particularly of a district four where Dan Berg, the incumbent older person and also a county board supervisor came in a distant, I think we could say distant second to James Boren, political newcomer. Marge Segal beat soundly as the incumbent, not even advancing into the general election. Gene Clayunas, a good old Shabuigan name and Gene having a commanding lead over the second person. James Wolfe, I believe if I'm not mistaken. So Miss Segali won't be on the city council any longer. It looks like there gonna be some new faces on the city council. I'm interested in your reactions to incumbents falling or not doing as well. Oh, let me add in district eight, Silas Vanderweeley came in a close second to challenger Dustin Havens and Jason Shane was knocked out. What do you think? Former older person, the real story. The real story and I was at the sixth district with Marge Segali, sixth was it or fifth? Fifth district. Fifth district was not that she lost, but I was wondering who won? Because, what are you saying, Clayunas? I didn't know this person. I guess it was a name associated with the Shabuigan press before and. Was that right? I didn't know that. Gene's mother used to write for the press some years ago. Okay. And I thought this young woman really campaigned and she won and there's no story about her at all. I'm feeling good because she's older than me and he's older than I am, so. I thought maybe it was a young person, but no, she's in her 40s or early 50s. I don't know how old she is, but I thought. Oh, it's such a dangerous, but actually you're erring on the good side, so. But I thought that was the story and because she must have got out and really campaigned and of course Marge didn't help herself by saying I don't need to go on these public forums to be interviewed, so that left all the two other people, two other candidates have all that free TV time. So she stepped on her own self with Marge for the fifth district. Gene spent considerable time, I guess full disclosure, I know her pretty well. She spent considerable time going door to door and talking with people and refused to get into any kind of discussion about personalities and I think that helped her. And of course, I think you're absolutely right, Tom, is I think a lot of people, even channel surfing and watching channel eight a little bit and then also reading the press and getting a sense of who's showing up for these forums, people that didn't show up for the forums were badly hurt. Berg didn't show up either, I don't believe, to the fifth one. Only two of those five gentlemen, Heidemann and Boren, showed up for that one and I know there's some folks who are really not happy about that because they wanted to have the opportunity to see what these people thought about the various issues. Yeah, and how many were in the fourth? Like five candidates? Five candidates, right. And there were a lot of, Heidemann was third with 111 and then it was fourth and fifth within the... I think Joe was the former mayor of Schmoyer Falls. Again, just a full disclosure, I know him pretty well. And Joe has just moved into Sheboygan in the last maybe six, seven, eight months. So he's a relative newcomer to Sheboygan. He really, except for, spent absolutely no money in the campaign, that happens to be my area of Sheboygan. There were no signs to be found anywhere with his name on him but he did, I know, he went again door to door, talked to people, as did his daughters that he sent out there, like the Kennedy family. And showed up for the forum and got some exposure that way. Wrote a letter to the editor right about that time but really ran kind of a very low-keyed campaign and did pretty well for the first showing, really did. Well, is this part of the last year at this time the campaign slogan that I heard most often was it's time for a change. And it certainly seemed at that point that the voters were willing to bring new people in. Is this just finishing up that process, do you think? Or were there specifics attached here that would lead you to think maybe not? Well, two were open seats so you're gonna get new candidates there. And I don't know, I just think, I think the forums might, people who are gonna vote, there were a lot of people who didn't vote but people who were probably gonna vote tuned into the forums because they played regularly and I mean I tuned in just for a couple of times just to see the faces and hear what they had to say. And those are the people who probably thought okay, I'm gonna vote and I'll get a chance to look. And Berg is not there, Seagal is not there, even Bonnie Cerdo I don't think it was in one of the forums because she I think said she wasn't gonna let in. And so the, and I don't know if Silas was there or not. I didn't see the, was he at the forum? I saw his forum, yes. Okay, but the Havens who beat him, I don't know how good an alderman he might be but he really came across as genuine and really wanting to serve the, because I watched one of the forums came across as genuine and really wanting to serve the city and maybe that for those people who vote that comes across. So I don't know if it's a kick the bad guys out thing, I think maybe it could have been a positive thing, people just looking and these who they were, those people were, they were impressed with them. Yeah. Very little turnout though too, I think that can be when you have an incumbent second but very close race, I think you can't read too much in when it's nine or 10% of a vote. Right, I mean the vote spread between Dustin Havens and Silas Vander wheelie was small. I think it was fewer than 10 votes. But you look at Born and Bird, Born came in at 270 I think and Bird was at about 185. I mean that's, that's a fair amount to make up. Well Born is a known commodity. I mean he's been advertising his business for years with the picture and the whole thing. So I'm familiar with the fellow and I don't wear a hearing aid and you know, so I think a lot of people in the community do know him and he's been involved in service clubs and so on. So I think this is just sort of a name recognition that had been there for a long time. Yeah, well and I, you know, my own sense of it is that the people are, that the campaign itself, people's behavior on the council floor or whatever may be pretty strong but the campaigns themselves have been pretty low key. And really even coming out of the primary were a couple weeks past that, maybe not a couple, close to it. Couple weeks past that and you know, still not a whole lot is going on. So I think it's gonna be, I think it's gonna be interesting. I know just to change pace a little bit in, was it the only Shboygan County board primary, which was in Kohler? Pat Whedon is back on the ballot. Yeah, finished second to me. He finished second behind Ken Conger and Jeff Dickert who is the superintendent of schools in Kohler was a fairly distant third and I think Pat Whedon was somewhat behind Ken Conger if I remember correctly. But I thought that was interesting too. Pat I think now is 87 if I'm not mistaken and say what you will, he's a person of his opinions and he works hard at it and he cares a lot and so it's interesting to see. To repeat to the last election when Conger beat Whedon. Right. And the Plymouth mayor was number two also. Yes, he was. What happened there? You're a little closer to Plymouth geographically than the rest of it. Well again, I think you can't read too much into it. It was a primary voter turnout, but I think the margin of victory by the challenger was somewhat surprising. But how long can a mayor stay in office without making enemies? I guess even in a place like Plymouth which tends to be a pretty even keel community with sufficient growth, not to have a lot of financial problems but I think eventually someone who's been in office for I don't know, it's probably 20s and years, that's a long time to be a mayor and I guess you get, at some time you get open to criticism and eventually it sticks. So it'll be interesting to see that final race. And then Kiley's 87, if I'm not mistaken. So and of course I'm- Younger people coming in, let's go with a new mayor. New young mayor. Well, and I was reading an article in the Journal Sentinel over the weekend about Justice Stevens who's 85 and there's this fabulous picture of Chief Justice Roberts kind of holding him by the arm as he's going down the steps but the import of the article is how both physically and mentally vibrant Stevens remains. And so for us to have really older people involved in the electoral process and not as jokes, I think is good. So there's hope for all of us as we move along. I can run again, Kyle. No thanks. I can run again? No thanks. Now you're living in the town of Sheboygan Falls. There are always lively elections in the town of Sheboygan Falls. So, you know, that would be that lively. I've never talked- Citizen Potter. I've never talked to Jim Baumgart about how much, whether he likes his county board seat and the differences between that and the state senate. Obviously there are many significant ones but that's interesting. Back to the city and interesting news in the city. Not so long ago is it'll be two years this summer that Blue Harbor was a huge political issue. Whether or not to commit substantial city funds outright and TIFT, I believe, it is a TIF, isn't it, as well? Yeah, tax incremental finance district, yeah. Which has some implications for the city. We don't get our tax money. Obviously a big hoo-ha about the attorney fee issue. You remember way back when and all the rest. It's certainly been in the news and oversight committee has been appointed by the mayor interestingly enough, which is not yet met or is just meeting as we're speaking and whose appointments expire in April, I assume they'll be reappointed. Should we be worried? What role should the oversight committee have? Is the city just purchased a huge white elephant? I'm trying to remember the amount of money that went into the conference center alone. I believe around $7 million if I'm not mistaken of city money and while somebody else talks smart, I'll find that exact figure but what are your thoughts? Do we have to worry about this? Is this going to be just an enormous stone around our necks? Well, for two years I don't get many positives. I don't hear many positives. I mean, they're just men on the street kind of comments. You know, restaurants are not doing that well or something's not going so well or construction was a little iffy here. Well, the kids enjoyed the water feature, the motel, not the motels, the condos, limited purchase. So I hear a lot of rumor but I don't hear a lot of positive stuff. Like, hey, this is a place. There was a nice convention down here. We went there, had a good time. You ought to go down, I don't hear that. It's just sort of this underneath current it's a little, it's not doing well. So I'm concerned. I think that I would be concerned. I think the business data that's coming out boss last year by the corporation, which is the sum of all their water parks and motel conference centers, I believe it's 30 more, $4 million. And occupancy average I think was like 55%. Now where does the Sheboygan facility fit in that average? Is it bringing down the average or is it holding up the average? And if this corporation is going to turn around with a new corporate head, which is another signal that somebody wanted some change, what do they sell? Do they keep Sheboygan because they have the tie to the public funds? Or do they try to say we need to divest of Sheboygan and keep the rest? Those are types of things I think this committee really has to look at to find out exactly where Sheboygan fits in the mix of making this thing profitable. You can lose just so much money so long and then pretty soon the books hit the fan and then you have to file something in order to pay the bills. And I think that's really what needs to be studied right about now is where does Sheboygan fit in the profitability? Does that appear to be on the radar screen of the advisory committee, at least again, judging only from what's in the Sheboygan press and that's always a tricky business, I understand. They're more concerned about, it sounds as if they're more concerned about whether the convention center's making the referrals to the other community housing, business, beds and breakfasts and whether we're getting referrals or not. I mean, that's where the focus of the comments were in the newspaper. And I found that kind of odd, given that we're looking at, again, I hear anecdotal things too, is that for the most part, the place is extremely busy on the weekends as you get folks up there. But in the weekdays, of course, it's really very, very quiet and can you run a business along those lines? I know some people have raved about the upscale restaurant and the facility and other people were very disappointed being there. Now that restaurant is managed differently from the restaurant that's the mainstream in the lobby type of restaurant. And I know Jason Richardson, they just put him over there and I know he'll do a good job in that restaurant. In the fancy restaurant? No, in the other one. The other one is run by a family out of Milwaukee. So it's kind of an odd arrangement that you've got two restaurants run by two separate entities in the same structure. It is interesting. The composition of the advisory committee there do not appear to be a lot of business or financial or accounting folks. There are two hotel industry folks. There are a couple of Alder people. And what would be interesting to me is a sketch of the scenarios of what would happen if the business does go south. What would be the financial implications for the city? What would we have to do in terms of finding another buyer for the property, the conference center? I've actually been... Do we own it? We own the conference center. We own the conference center, but we own all the hotel. No, thank goodness. So how can we sell? I'm sorry, and let me rephrase that. That it's not unusual for outfits like this to be sold one or two or three times. But what is the implication, I think, just for the city? Because do we sell the conference center? It doesn't seem to... We don't get large conferences here as of yet. I mean, there have been one or two. I think those conference rooms are used. Organizations that I do some work with have used rooms and so forth. And it's been very pleasant, and it's certainly a gorgeous location, but the financial implications for the city, I think, are significant. And we've struggled along. Has the marina ever been profitable? I don't think so, and we've managed to subsidize that, but it's a fairly small subsidy overall. Well, the biggest issue with the marina right now, I mean, we've limited the number of slips along the way. We didn't have storage. Storage is where marinas make their bucks over the winter, and we never had storage. It was hit or miss around the city and around the river for storage, and now they even store at the marina. If we had a big storage place, I mean, I could even see that little lot where the Blue Harbor is located, have it part of been storage for boats and another part, but that's over the dam. And now that's water over the dam, but that's where the marina makes money. I know. We turn the triple play fund center into a marina storage over the winter. That's the triple play, it's just up and going now. And when I was talking with some folks about the Blue Harbor was that the certain element of kids, say from two, three years old up to about 12 or 13, just love the water park, and it could stay there forever. But at a certain point, older adolescents, that doesn't really type, really appeal to them after a certain amount of time. And they're really hoping that the triple play will fill, the triple play facility will play into that, that people will be more likely to come to the facility because that's just across the way. So they're hoping they'll fill that in as well. There's been so much criticism of just the site and the structure, and I mean, it was a beautiful peninsula, probably when the city was first founded. Certainly the colliards diminish the aesthetic value of the peninsula, and now it's built up. And I know there are differing opinions about, is it good to have this triple play fund center, and should we be trying to just have little buildings and that sort of thing. And then you have this huge hotel. I mean, it's enormous, at least as you're looking at it, and so how that whole peninsula gets used. I thought the press article just on the history of it and such of this past weekend was interesting. Well, how is the city's PR doing to help push the Blue Harbor? And I think that's key. I think that's absolutely key. I mean, the fact that we split, I'm still disappointed with that, that we gave up our contract with the chamber, but how are they doing? I mean, that's key. That's our major event. Yeah, I think that clearly has to be a real focus for the city is to bring in conventions that fill up not only Blue Harbor, but also the bed and breakfast and other motels in the area. I do think that's key. And hopefully that will be a primary push of the new tourist person and that whole outfit. We should give them a year, don't you think, Tom, to kind of try to put something together. No, I want it now. But it also seems when you talk about the makeup of the advisory panel, it almost seems at the time there was the assumption that this thing was going to fly, was going to be great, and the place would be teeming with people, and the only issues are to make sure that we get our piece of the pie locally, that we get the referrals to the bed and breakfast and so on. Just the types of people that you see on the advisory panel, now it'd be interesting to see if you really want to make those same reappointments. I suppose I've never met and you've got to give an opportunity to meet. But I would think you have to start looking at some of the real financial issues that are going to play out if this thing doesn't play out. And what is the accountability that's built into that development agreement? As I understand, Blue Harbor's been very good at paying its room tax. Those room tax dollars go specifically to retire the debt that was extended for building the hotel and those payments are not in default, so I think that's certainly good news. But it would be interesting just for all of us to have a good sense of it. If it does go south, where will the city be? It's my understanding the condominiums have all been sold. They're all been sold. I think they're mostly quite corporations for various purposes, sundry purposes. But I do understand that those occupancy rates are not real good. So, because you buy a $300,000 or $400,000 condo that you can't live in, more than it's a pretty restricted period of time. And obviously you're hoping for rentals because that's how you make the mortgage payment. I'm not quite sure what the mortgage payment would be on $400,000, but I would expect it would be a lot. Well, it'll be interesting to see how that develops over time. I think the other thing, really, get back to the development just for one second. I know there's a lot of folks who are really unhappy with triple play coming up with this big yellow box and then your perspective from the west side of the river. But the whole plan is based on the perspective of sitting at the harbor and what it looks like looking west rather than looking east. And I know that the facade isn't finished out there yet either. It's not gonna be yellow, I'm told. No, I'm told it's gonna look really, fairly nice, but people need to understand is when they put those there, it was to make it look nice for the people who were at the resort. Not necessarily from those of us sitting over having a cup of coffee over at the weather side. I haven't been in the triple play, have you been in? I think it was just opened up this last week and I've not been there. My nephew ended up playing baseball over there. He's a freshman and he was there at all about midnight last Friday night. I'm gonna have to make one more to go to another. They had a great, great time hitting hardballs around. Well, and I'm just gonna move us along because time is running out. And although the county board certainly cannot compete with the city council in terms of headlines and degree of interest and so forth. Some interesting things are going on and one of them, one of the most interesting discussions to me is the size of the county board and trying to cut it at least down somewhat. Tom, you had some interesting information that I thought was just fascinating. Well, from the Milwaukee Sentinel, they, this was over 3,000 counties in the country. Seven counties, well, the top three counties in the country have county boards of 51, 40, and 39 members. The next seven are all from state of Wisconsin at 38, 38, 38, 37, 37, 36, 36. And of course, Sheboygan is 34. And then the state of Iowa, it says in the article, mandates that county board size be limited to no less than three and no more than five. And I was amazing. I went to the Des Moines County, Des Moines, Iowa County. I figured Des Moines, Iowa City of Des Moines, that's probably a decent size county. There were three supervisors listed. That's it. Well, I think those are the extremes. So Wisconsin is by far the biggest in the country on county board size. Including Sheboygan. Let me ask Calvis. The press article indicated that if we went from 34 to 17, the number of constituents per district would rise from 3,000 to 6,000. As a person who is campaigned in a fairly large area, is that increased just in the size of the district that you represent? I mean, it's more work, obviously. It's more people. Yeah, it does, but I don't think it's unmanageable. When you look at a county of 110,000 as we have today, that is not that unusual to have a base. I mean, if you take, I think if you look at how you would probably draw those districts, you'd take a city, Sheboygan Falls, mostly is one. That's what falls is about 6,000, Plymouth's about 7,000. You know, you could then take Sheboygan at low 50s. You know, you could have a manageable number from each community, I think, and bunch a few towns together with the villages that are in those towns and still have a manageable size. You know, one of the things with the county board is most people don't, I said to say, don't know who the county board supervisor is. I doubt very much if they get a lot of phone calls. And so I think the workload that some of those folks have, particularly many of them are retired, wouldn't be that unmanageable. I think a county board in the teens, well, it's 14 or 17 or whatever choice that we come up with, would be a manageable size. I know that had been previously, I think the last time we went through this it was a suggestion to go to 24, but at 34 is a large number. And I think anything in the 20s or in the high teens would be manageable. And Jim Bumgrens is talking about having it, to 17. To 17. And there's some discussion about between 34 and 17, but then you have some real issues about drawing lines. Well, another thing is the committee, they say, well, the committee jurisdictions will be so large, they'll be spending a lot of time. Well, that's a concern, but that's how you finesse your committees. You look at the workload, you look at the jurisdiction, you combine committees and you try to do the best you can. And if you have to pay them a little more, maybe you have to give them a 10% raise or something, where you're still saving money, you're netting out, because if you're cutting your board in half, you'll still be able to give them somewhat decent compensation for the extra workload. The Wisconsin State Senate is about that size. And we need to wrap up. It's been a pleasure. And remember to vote for that school logo. Thanks and we'll see you again.