 partners all across the county, whether it's the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation, whether it's the Chamber of Commerce, whether it's our local department staff or folks in the county. But we also need to be strategic in terms of how we're educating the future. I'm probably gonna go down a rabbit hole here, but in terms of we need to identify gaps in jobs that we're experiencing in the city. And I think working with the Sheboygan Area School District, with our technical colleges in the area, that we can fill those gaps. And once we fill those gaps, we'll have those job opportunities so businesses can be successful for future generations. Mayor Van der Siting? Thank you very much. Our economic development was really going well before COVID. You know, we had multimillion dollars invested in our community for our businesses expanding. And when COVID hit, a lot of that dried up. The city really felt that we needed to continue to allow more money to be spent to develop our new business park, the South Point Enterprise campus. And now when COVID is ending, hopefully we're gonna see some more interest in that. The city is reaching out to businesses, mainly up in the Green Bay Fox River Valley area, as well as we have a real estate agent that's working the Milwaukee market for us. And we really hope that we can bring some new businesses in, as well as support the businesses that are in Sheboygan that want to expand. But one of the real issues that stymied us in some of our additional economic development is our workforce. The workforce is a huge issue because before COVID, we had 2,000 to 3,000 jobs that were available all the time listed, and businesses couldn't find enough workers. And that's still the case today. And we have to work harder to have more housing available in our community. And we also have to have, find ways to bring more people in. The Economic Development Corporation has tried to have job fairs and organize those for our businesses. And to a certain extent, they've been successful. But we have to find ways to get more places where people can live. We're doing a housing study right now. And this will kind of give us a guideline as to how many more housing units are needed in the city of Sheboygan in order to serve that workforce. And the other thing you have to remember is that if these people are driving in from Manitowoc or Fond du Lac, the city isn't gaining the full value of their employment and the spending power that they have. So this is a very important item that needs to be worked on. And we really have to concentrate on that workforce development. Thank you. It's almost like you anticipated my next question because I was going to ask next about residential development and housing. And if there's a shortage of housing, we've seen a lot of luxury condo type developments or luxury apartment type developments recently. Do you believe we need more of those? Do you believe we need more affordable housing or even rent controlled housing? Do we need more houses for single family residences? What type of developments do we need going forward? Thank you for that question. That's very important. The city of Sheboygan right now is redoing a housing study. The last time we did it about three and a half years ago, it showed that we had a less than 1% vacancy rate in the city. And we haven't seen any studies for our developers that shown that we've really eroded that and gotten above 1%. So a good community should have about a 6 to 7% vacancy rate. You know, when you have somebody looking for a house, they want to see several options. And really, for many types of housing, people don't have any options. There's just this one option. And sometimes that's not what you want. And then you go and you look elsewhere, other than the city of Sheboygan, perhaps, or that home. The real crux of things that we need to concentrate on are low income housing. Now, in the last term, we've added over 609 units when the Oscar project is finished. So we've really put a lot of effort in that area. But it's my feeling that that it's not going to satisfy that demand. And I'm looking to this study to really tell us how much more we need to build in order to serve the demand that's there for low income housing. All these units and these other projects like the Badger State Lofts and the Oscar project and Washington School. You know, these are our apartments that are priced roughly, I think a one bedroom was about $640. And a two bedroom was $730. So they're really hitting I think a sweet spot for many of the people in Sheboygan with their incomes. And the the other projects that we've had have been market rate apartments. But you know, we need those two because they've tracked it over 60% of the people that are coming to those are empty nesters. And that's opening up other homes in the community for families to enjoy and enjoys their family in as well. So housing is definitely a huge issue that we need to take a new fresh approach on. The mayor mentioned that that there's a housing study, another housing study that we're waiting for. But you need to understand the methodology of how this study is being conducted. Folks that are spending more on housing that are impacted by affordable housing have not been included in the study. More than 40% of our community is spending more than 30% of their income on their housing needs by HUD's definition that is not affordable housing. So we do have a housing challenge in this community. Fundamentally, I think we need to diversify our housing stock in general. We need to ensure that senior citizens can afford to stay in their homes. We need to ensure that younger folks like myself can afford to plant their roots and grow here. We also need more single family homes and not fancy luxury apartments that cost $1,800 a month for one bedroom apartment. I think that there's a lot of different challenges as well that business leaders face. I mean, four years ago, when I was elected to the city council, we always talked about, oh, we have 4,000, 3,000 jobs available. It seems like we can never make a dent in that. Well, maybe we're taking the wrong approach in terms of how we're how we're solving this issue. I think housing is a huge component that we're that we're really missing the ball on. I served as the chairman of the Shoeing County Housing Coalition working with nonprofits across our community, whether it's Salvation Army, whether it's Safe Harbor, whether it's the library. We're seeing an increase in homelessness and social services as well. The libraries is a social service center for folks. Salvation Army, their homeless residents, they're increasing. There's a waiting list for them as well. So housing, we need we need to look holistically on that end as well. But we also need to look why it's more expensive to build here in Sheboygan County. We're missing the gap on a lot of trades. We need to work with LTC. We need we need more plumbers. We need more electricians. We need more carpenters as well so that we can so that the the cost of housing goes down as well. So thank you. So as you're both expressing a concern about housing and a need to improve in that area, what practical steps can the city take and particularly what steps could you take as mayor to effectuate real change of that area beyond doing studies and finding out more detail about the need. But what can you really do to fix the problem? Mr. Sorson? Yeah, I think there's a lot that that can be done. Fundamentally, we need we need to work with there. There are groups out there right now that are trying to tackle this and they're clamoring for for voice their voice to be heard from the city government. There's a lot of nonprofits out there that identified gaps that see firsthand who the clients that they serve what they're experiencing. I think having conversations bring those folks to the table listening to them. I think fundamentally, we'll find out a lot of our issues in our community and we're missing the gap. A lot of folks experience housing and securities and a wide variety of different ways. Homelessness in our community looks different than it does, say in Milwaukee or Chicago or another big city. A lot of what we're seeing here is a lot of families doubling up. We see a lot of couchsurfing. We see a lot of folks possibly sleeping in their cars and parking lots. I think these are huge issues that that we're not thinking about or plugging in in terms of how we're doing these housing studies. But fundamentally, like I said before my last statement, it's more expensive to build in the Shavuigan area than it is in most other parts of the state. And a huge part of that is that is that there's such a lack of folks in the trades, plumbers, carpenters, electricians. We need to prioritize those job skills trainings. We need to work with and have partnerships with the Shavuigan area school district to show that students that these are job options, that these are in need in our community, making sure that we can strengthen those parts of our economy so that we can build more homes, more single family homes, more affordable housing for everybody. Because that is a huge component in how we can be successful as a city. Very interesting. Thank you very much. One of the ways that that we're going to I think solve this problem is to work with developers that can bring more projects to our city. You know, the the city can't can or whether they can support some of those with some of the funds that we have, we've been giving most of our developers maybe a 10 or 15 percent developers incentive for some of the projects that we're bringing to the city. And we want to continue to prioritize the low income housing that that we've seen here and and see that grow. The the the people that are that are homeless right now, you know, we do a homeless count a couple of times a year, and we've always come up with maybe 15 to 25. But when I talk to the members of the school district, they say that that number is is closer to 250 or 300 when you consider the people that you don't find out in a community at night when you do that count. So it's a very important issue and it's something that we need to continue to look for solutions to the there are some helps with some of the agencies in town. But for the most part, they're putting people up in motels for short stays. We really need to find something that's a little bit more permanent housing for these people that are are in between and having a lot of problems. Thank you. Very quick question that came from the audience today. Can each of you indicate whether you own real estate here in Sheboygan, the city, such that you're a local taxpayer? Mayor Van der Seen. Yes, I've I'm on the third home that I've owned for a period of time. My second home we we kept as a rental property. So I have experience as a landlord. I gave that up and now I'm just owning my one single family home and that's it. Thank you. I'm different than Mike unlike 40% of other city residents. I'm a renter. So I'm a younger guy and planning my roots and making sure that one day I can buy a home in this community. Thank you. Well, I'm sure you knew this topic would come up, but I have a question about roads. Roads have been very a pressing issue of concern for people in the city for a very long time. And I know that progress has been made in recent years and since I believe it was 2015. But many people are still dissatisfied with the progress. So I just appreciate it if each of you can speak to the progress that's being made, what we could possibly do to do better if you think that would be appropriate and how we could afford to do better if if you do think we should do more. Mayor Van der Seen. Well, first of all, our streets are really been a priority for me during my first two terms. And during that time, we've been able to increase the average streets resurfaced by tripling from 1.4 average miles prior to when I came into office up to 4.2 miles now in the last seven years. The city has made a couple of moves to try to solve this problem. One is to buy our own paving machine so that our own staff can go out there and apply asphalt to the surface of the streets that we have. This has been a good strategy and about 45% of the streets resurface every year are done by our own crews. But we have an impediment because we need somebody in many cases or most cases to mill that old asphalt off. And the only service that does that right now is Northeast asphalt. We always get pushed around in their schedule. And many times we don't get our crews out there till late in the season and they don't have as much time to do the work as they'd like. So I think one of the things we want to look at is maybe partnering with the county or doing it on our own but by our own milling machine so that we have the equipment that we need so that we can do our roads when we want to get them done. And that way we'll be able to have that crew and our machine that applies the asphalt that is a paver do much more than we are currently right now. But when you do streets it's not just the street that you're dealing with. It's all the stuff that's underneath it. So there's many things that have to go into street resurfacing because you don't want to have to dig it up to change some of the utilities that are underneath it. Right now we have a 14 year program that we're in. We're the fifth year into that program. It's a big job. We have over 200 miles of streets and we need to continue to keep that program on track. I'm surprised that the roads question came up. No roads are the number one issue that I've always have been hearing concerns from citizens all across Sheboygan. I think right now the biggest challenge that we have is that we kind of have a throw everything against the wall sort of strategy whether it's with the wheel tax whether it's when we formally did assessments as well. The problem is that we're not consistent in terms of how we're tackling this approach. I don't know if folks remember a few years back when we did the hot in place asphalt situation when we hired an out of town contractor that came in and put asphalt down the road and that project didn't work too well. So we wasted time and wasted a whole construction season and we wasted taxpayers dollar when we're hiring out of state when we're hiring contractors to help us out with these programs. We need to ensure that we're respecting taxpayers dollars that we're setting a high standard for these projects to get done. I know our DPW staff does an amazing job with the work that they do but they deserve a long term strategic plan that encourages funding strategies and planning strategies as well. And fundamentally we also need to hear from our citizens about what roads they feel like need more attention. Well whether it's the main arteries whether it's some of the side streets as well that have been far too neglected from citizens all across the city as well. I think also the county I think they do an amazing job with partnering with the city in terms of the tools and supplies that they give us as well as well as they pay a good chunk of the revenue to sales tax. So thanks the folks at the county for that. But we need to diversify our revenue streams as well. I think that there are some creative ways in terms of how we can do funding. We need to look at what other communities are doing. The DOT rated Wisconsin's infrastructure at a D. So we got a lot of room for improvement. We got to think outside the box because what's what we're doing now is not working. And that's what I've been hearing from a lot of different folks. So then my natural follow up is what are those creative outside the box funding solutions that that we should be looking into. Yeah. I think kind of just shooting a spitball in here going on the list. Other communities have gone out for a referendum. Other communities have access grants from the state DOT from the federal DOT. There's also a lot of different creative partnerships that you can do with universities and colleges across Wisconsin that that have research funds and how you can better manage and retain road repairs. So I think that there are there are a lot of those opportunities we need to explore. Other communities have done it. I think we're missing the mark on a few of them. But I think in terms that that's a good foundation of what we need to look at in terms of how much it's going to cost and how much it's going to benefit our community. Any further comments on that air baner see. Well I really think that we we continue to always look for better ideas. But we have a city that was almost almost all concrete streets at one time. And we find ourselves in a position where all those streets have outlived their useful life. And now the strategy is to take the the streets that are carrying the most traffic and try to replace them in concrete and use asphalt for the remaining streets to give them a new surface. And we also stepped up our maintenance of those streets. So we're filling the cracks now on a regular schedule. And we're trying to make that asphalt last for the good 15 years that it should. In the past we weren't doing things like that. And so the maintenance of these streets is very important that in the three, five and eight years down the road they're getting the attention that they need. As far as funding we appreciate the county's contribution of their sales tax. We do have a wheel tax. But the council has not wanted to go and fund that with an additional $10 that would would help out that would bring in probably another half a million dollars. But that's only going to do about a half a mile of streets. The biggest mistake I think the council made a few years ago is when they stopped assessing for streets. That's something that people had done for years. And all of a sudden we pulled the plug and that also lost funds that we could have used to add to our street resurfacing. So I think the strategy that we have right now to employ our staff and use the machinery ourselves and most of our street resurfacing is the best route to go. And we'll continue to work that so that we accomplish our goals. Regarding the idea of using assessments on the streets. Menors should just indicate that you believe that we should re-evaluate using those. Mr. Sorenson, do you believe we should re-implement having assessments for street repairs? At this point no. And when this when this was brought up you know this this for road assessments you know it was you know those folks that are on fixed incomes that when we repair their homes on the corner they would get slapped with a five thousand dollar bill. I think in terms of if we're doing road assessments we need to look at what the actual benefit is of how many roads we're repairing and what the impact is on on the citizens. We can't just nickel and dime and throw extra taxes and fees at citizens to fix the roads. If we're going to fix the roads we need a long-term strategic plan and how we're going to be funding that making sure that that's sustainable. Okay. Do you have any response to that? Well I think that you know now that we've stopped it it's going to be very hard to put it back in place. The the problem is that was we need more funding. The city for several years bonded for some of the streets resurfacing that we did to increase it. We're now finding ourselves at a level where we have to really pull ourselves back from from bonding for these street replacements and we have to fund them out of our operating budget. So unless we you know increase our taxes or other things it's not going to happen. You know Ryan just talked about new revenues to come in and mentioned all those things have a referendum. So maybe the referendum is the way to go because that way they would tell us that they want to spend more money but we need to increase our revenue streams in order to really solve this problem quicker than we are currently. Thank you. Shifting gears fairly dramatically what can we do as a city to better attract and retain Millennials and Generation Z to our city. Mr. Van der Stien if you could start us. Well I think you know it's really important that we make Sheboygan an inviting place for everybody. We want these people that grow up in Sheboygan and stay here and the people that come here to work in and make a life for themselves to be real comfortable and and really you know make Sheboygan their home for the long term. So I think some of the efforts that we've been been taking place with things like the Leavitt Amp concerts the outdoor dining that we did during COVID on A Street. We're starting to change I think the image of Sheboygan and make us more attractive and more of a fun loving place for them to enjoy. You know we have a great art center. We've got a new art preserve that's opening up. We have the Wild Center. There's a lot of entertainment options and things to do in this community and I think we need to continue to work on building on those types of things. And the other thing that we really need to do as well as our diversity and inclusion. This has to be a part of it so that all the people that come here no matter what background they're from or race they're from that they feel comfortable that this is their home and people accept them. I think this is an awesome question and this is this is this issue is a big case study and why I believe we need some new leadership in city government. For the last 10 years this has been a question we've been asking ourselves as a community. How do we recruit? How do we track and maintain young talent? And the best solution that we could come up with was building luxury apartments. Now those apartments have been filling up with folks primarily that are empty nesters and over the age of 50. Well that's great but then at the same time when we're trying to play catch up and replicate what Madison, Milwaukee are doing by the time that we have these built in Sheboygan they miss their mark in the market. I think that we need to have a new fresh approach in terms of what we're doing and making sure that we actually have affordable housing. We're needing to listen to the voices of millennials and what they need in this community. When I first ran for council this was a huge issue and a huge conversation. How do we track millennials? How do we bring in Gen Zers now in the community? And nobody's really actually asked those questions or elevated those voices of folks individuals. When I'm mayor I'll definitely be pointing some younger folks to boards and commissions so that their voices can be heard so that we know what they actually need and want. I think in terms of work hard play hard we need to ensure that we have sound job skill training programs here so that we can keep and retain younger folks but we also need to ensure that we have companies that that that we're recruiting that that support us in 2021 and moving forward whether that's tech jobs whether that's entrepreneurial ship programs as well and different startup opportunities. So there's a lot of key foundational things there as well. We also need to look at in terms of how we can grow and expand the entertainment. We need to look at how we can grow and expand different opportunities for younger folks to plant and grow their roots here in the community. Something that COVID has highlighted for many people is that with young families it can be challenging to find good activities for young children in our community. We have the Children's Museum. We have the public library both of which were closed down for kids to be able to use in these last few months. Is there anything that the city should be doing to better serve young families especially during our long winter season? Mr. Swarmson. Yes and this is this is another issue that I've been hearing from a lot of younger folks as well too. Especially when it's winter and what is it three weeks ago when it was negative you know 20 degrees and if you got three kids running around the house you know you're probably you know getting a little cabin fever for sure. I think foundationally this is another huge example of where we need to listen to our citizens and see what their need what what they need it's we have some great entities like the library like the Children's Museum but those are only certain segments in our in our community. We need to ensure grow and strengthen making sure that we're protecting our parks making sure that we keep them to be pristine as they are. We also need to look at different opportunities as well at the south south pier is a huge example. We used to have triple play funds on there. I was you know I was one of those kids running around and playing in there too. You know so we've had these new experimental ideas but they've never fully stabilized so I think the city needs to identify what we need what we're missing but we also need to make sure that we're supporting those so that they can stay along stay along for the longevity in our community as well and finding those different opportunities and grow and expanding them. One of the biggest issues I was pushing for I don't know folks remember back in the 80s I wasn't there but a lot of our parks used to have ice skating rinks in most of our parks you know and I've been keep pushing this issue well why don't we do something as simple as an ice skating park. Sheboygan Falls done it Manitowoc's done it. Milwaukee's done it. A lot of other communities are on the state. I think we're just missing some of these fundamental foundational ideas that we can bring back that offer more activities for younger families and for everybody. I think that during COVID you know we really closed everything down the library our parks and everything and so that created you know some issues for families because they didn't know where to go although they did use some of our parks that weren't closed and we finally opened up our playgrounds which I think maybe we're too careful with but you know we weren't understanding COVID at that time. So I think that there are a lot of activities in our community for Sheboygan. I certainly would be in favor of seeing these expanded but many of the things that parents are looking for is you know these places where the kids can go and jump on trampolines and things like that and play like the spaceport used to have these are things that need to be done by a private entity and while we can incentivize those people and bring them into some of our programs that create jobs and help to set them up it's still going to take people that want to solve those needs in our community in order to see these things built and come online. So I think we have to continue to promote the activities that are here and try to get more people maybe involved and taking advantage of them but you know Sheboygan is a great place to raise a family and if you look a little bit harder you're going to find many of those opportunities in our community. Mayor van der Steen is there anything further that the city should be doing to facilitate businesses and especially smaller businesses in our community being able to function with the COVID-19 pandemic do you think that it's mostly over or are there further steps that we should be taking? Well I think I've done a lot to help our businesses during COVID I put on a seminar forum to help them get through the winter we we brought them together with some representatives from the American Restaurant Association and then we also had a local discussion of things that we can do the city took advantage of some of the COVID funds that we received from the CARES Act and we made loans available for businesses that were kind of falling through the cracks the businesses with five or fewer employees and we were frustrated in the businesses were because if they had taken advantage of the PPP program they couldn't participate well when they redid some of the restrictions on the CARES Act we finally were able to deal with more of those businesses and we recently reissued the call for them to apply for about $200,000 that we still had available and just this week we sent out another notice to them that we had a consultant that was coming in and we could set them up with a one-on-one discussion with this consultant for the restaurant industry to help them to come up with new ideas whether it's doing a better job with delivery of food and things like that making their operation more compatible with the COVID situation that we're dealing with the other thing that you know they the businesses in our community I think have responded fairly well to that and you know we've put some programs out there and we just hope that they apply and get the help that they need we want to see them survive small business Saturday was a great event the city hall really helped them to promote that and the businesses had a great response from our citizens and maybe we just need to run small business Saturday more often to encourage people to shop local I think I think this is definitely a key issue we're not out of the woods just yet we're still in this pandemic businesses are still struggling and in looking at the city we still have over $200,000 in terms of money that we got at the onset of this pandemic that we need to distribute to local businesses a lot of businesses that I've been talking to and engaging with are frustrated that there is that there has not been a clear coordination in terms of how we're supporting the businesses during this pandemic folks are still struggling these are the conversations I'm hearing whether it's the local bar that you know had to shut down whether it's the local coffee shop that had to cut its staff in half whether it's the manufacturer and plant that had to shut down for two weeks because they had an outbreak folks are still struggling a lot of businesses are still in the red and they're just barely hanging on I think the city needs to make sure that we're allocating this money properly but we also need need to make sure that we're reaching out I think you know we don't we don't need to spend taxpayer dollars on a consultant on what to do we have great partnerships right here in the city like the bid like the Chamber of Commerce that can facilitate these these conversations so we can listen directly from the businesses and what they need and what can make them successful on the on start of the pandemic with help from the Chamber we facilitated a lot of these conversations from restaurants and local taverns in the area asking them what do you need how can the city be effective during this time so as the chairman of the licensing and hearings committee we introduced the bill to reduce and get rid of red tape in the city ordinances that would allow for outdoor cafe seating and I don't know folks remember 8th street during the summer but because of our our changes and cutting that red tape we were able to ensure that restaurants could get creative in terms of how they serve their patrons keeping staffs staff safe and their customers safe as well I think we need to continue that ensuring listening directly from the businesses what they need and then acting on them of what they're hearing what we're hearing from them as well what has been the financial impact on the city government of the COVID situation and what is going to be the impact going forward as a result of that Mr. Sorenson yes and this is this is a tricky question it's been a question I've been asking since the pandemic started the problem is we don't fully know what the full picture is just yet now we just had our budget that we passed back in October until we know what the final impact is from this pandemic once this is over we'll see how long it takes us to recover then we'll have a better foundational understanding but I mean looking at it from the start we know that hotel revenue from room taxes that's been significantly low we know sales taxes have been kind of all over the board from a county perspective in terms of what we're getting from road funding as well that's been kind of all over the board as well so the pandemic in terms of how it's impacted our budget is not just known yet we know it's going to be difficult we know 2022 is going to be more challenging and how it's going to impact our budget but a big priority of mine is ensuring that we can preserve the services that we provide in the city police and fire library services fixing our roads ensuring that those are preserved so that we can move forward and that we can minimize our impact from the the financial impact that COVID has had on all of us Mayor van der Stee thank you through September of last year we calculated that we'd lost about $1.2 million in revenue due to COVID and this was things like the room tax the the other thing that was kind of interesting is things like water NEMAC closed down for two months and they use about 20 percent of the water that's produced in the city of Sheboygan's water department so that was about a half a million dollars in losses of water to industries and then another $250,000 of losses as we if we clean that water in our water treatment plant in addition to that there was loss of revenue in our park departments with rentals of of of park facilities and and so all together it came to about $1.2 million through last September the CARES Act took care of many of the COVID expenses that we've had and it allowed us to buy some IT equipment for people to use laptops when they had to work remotely and things like that our transit department did get a lot of help from the COVID bill and it's allowed them to repair a rough cover some of our expenses as far as our local share for transit and and to buy some new equipment to put online in our system as we go forward in 2022 where I think that's where we're really going to start to to feel the real impact here and and we just don't know how bad it's going to be yet but it's going to be a very very tight budget this coming year so it's something that is going to take a lot of planning you know right now the federal government is looking at the American Recovery Act and we hope that that is going to give some money directly to cities and you know right now they're talking about some dollars that are huge and yeah hard to imagine that we could even you know get that much money but from them but we are going to need some help and to dig ourselves out of the hole we're in thank you there are various local groups that like to encourage people to grow locally or to buy products locally especially in retail to buy locally and I'm wondering if there's anything that the city should be doing to encourage that to happen and if so what practical steps do you think you could take as mayor to encourage those programs or those interests to be successful Mayor Bannerstein well I think that number one our farmers markets are a fantastic way for that to happen they're well attended by both the farmers as well as the public and it's a great market that that that serves that need to a certain extent but we've also worked with some of our our our our not-for-profits that are trying to get more of the fresh produce that into the food bank and getting it out to the families that really need to have more fresh food in their diet so I think you know our food bank system is a really good resource for us in this area as well as the local farmers the other thing that we're working with is our our neighborhoods and allowing them to have some community gardens we have one on Erie Avenue for the Gateway neighborhood and then we have two huge areas on the north side and the south side that the the Mung assistance association manages for the Mung farmers in the area as well that grow things for themselves and things that they bring down to the farmers market I think fundamentally I think the city needs to do whatever it can with our taxpayer dollars is ensuring that our tax pay our tax dollars stay local in terms of when we're doing building projects whether we're doing street repairs whatever it is the business incentives in the TIF district we need to ensure that we're keeping the money here I think that sets a foundation of keeping the money local as well I think the city can look at what other cities are doing as well in terms of a buy local ordinance ensuring that when we go out for bids and projects that local businesses get a priority first and making sure that they're a best fit for community I'm going to make a plug as well too joining the chamber is a huge benefit I've been an active member of the chamber from several years now and I'm a member of the deep dive group meet every other Thursday this is a great opportunity to meet with other local businesses as well network understand that we do have a large variety in different businesses all across this community as well and plugging with those as well but again in terms the city needs to be an advocate and how we're helping local businesses grow and thrive if they need resources and we identified that there's barriers that the local government is putting up for that business to grow and expand then the government's got to get out of the way and help that business be successful as well a lot of businesses that I've been talking to don't necessarily feel like that's happening to everybody and that the city does pick favorites I think we need to really address that as well too and when we're working with folks either downtown or in the south pier or anywhere in this great city okay well we have time for one more question as long as we cut your time in half so if you can answer in just a moment but what should the city do with the property for Memorial Hospital once that is vacated it's my understanding that that'll be turned over to the city so Mr. Somerson I think it needs it needs to be determined but what the neighbors want I think that's that's a pretty dense neighborhood I know a lot of folks live in that area as well so it needs to be what the neighbors want single family homes like I've talked about before would be appropriate townhouses incorporating green space as well I think that would be a good fit in the neighborhood whatever goes in that space needs to fit the neighborhood needs to fit that community Mayor Vanersen right now the city has an agreement with the hospital that they're going to work with the neighbors to come up with plans that will will create a single family neighborhood in that area and they'll be hiring a development company and they have three years after the hospital moves in order to demolish the hospital and then after that that neighborhood will be developed and we've had many meetings with our neighborhood associations in that area that the neighbors are involved they've set up a website they've gotten the input from the neighborhoods so I think we're really in a good place that you know that's the highest producing area in the city of Sheboygan for tax dollars we don't want to do anything to to destroy that we want it to be positive and we want to continue to see the types of homes that are in that neighborhood takeover that site where the hospital was located okay well I'd like to thank both of you for coming and joining us today thank you for your very diplomatic and polite exchange not turning this to a violent debate like we've seen so many places in politics these days I'd also like to thank our sponsor Preve Health for helping us to fund this and put on the event if any of you in attendance or anyone attending virtually has any topics that they would like to see us cover in the future I would ask that you share that with us so that we can make sure that those topics are covered for you in the future in addition and so with that I'd like to give you each an opportunity to give closing comment Mr. Sorenson awesome well thanks again everybody for coming out on this lovely Friday afternoon thanks for the chamber for putting this on so at the beginning I talked about a tale of two city situation so the point of my campaign and a lot of folks that I've been talking to is really highlighting that Sheboyin County is experiencing a lot of prosperity and progress however there's still a huge chunk of our population that is being left behind we need a new approach in terms of how we're helping those citizens in 1862 Abraham Lincoln told Congress that the dogmas of the quiet past cannot inadequately help the stormy present right now we're in a stormy present we need new leadership and how we're supporting our community because we must think new we need to bring new ideas to the table your businesses have not been successful if you stayed the status quo you guys have innovated you've gotten creative I think the city doesn't need to do this the same if you're interested in following our campaign check us out online sorensonfirstsheboyin.com and we're on Facebook as well thanks everybody thank you for that opportunity you know in the past eight years I think I've really been a change agent for the city of Sheboygan we've picked up our our road construction we've really accentuated our communication with our community we've added the Sheboygan inside of which is a monthly newsletter we put in next door as a communication tool for our city and our neighborhoods to use I've really worked hard with our neighborhood associations to grow them from two associations up to a 12 now and really help our police department implement and keep their community policing program in place and this has produced 31% decrease in part one crimes I think the safety of our community is really in good hands with these projects that we've done and the work of our police department so I hope that you'll support me and this is my interview for my job for the next four years and I hope you'll decide to hire me for the next four years and keep Thank you Thank you both