 Hello and welcome to the Donahue Group. We're coming to you the day after the mayoral and city elections and the April elections in general in Sheboygan. And we'll go around and just say who we are. We'll start with my friend, Cal Potter. Cal Potter. I'm pleased to be here and this is our third taping. Yes. And we're pleased to have one of the winning candidates with us today. That's... I'm pleased to try to follow local politics extensively and this is going to be a real pleasure to see one of the winners. Exactly. We'll know who he is. Tom? Tom Paneski at UW Sheboygan, a mathematics professor and a former alderman, former city alderman. We're going to skip over our special guest and our next panelist. I'm Ken Risto. I'm an employee of the Sheboygan Area School District and the only one who's got a bad cold here this afternoon. And the only... Well, I'm done. I'm going to spread it around here. Tan, too. Yeah. Just came back from Mexico. You lucky school teacher. Oh, I'm sorry. That wasn't a nice thing to say. And I'm Mary Lynn Donahue. I'm a humble city lawyer. And a hugger at night. Our special guest today is Alderman Juan Perez, now mayor-elect Juan Perez. We're delighted that you've joined us. I think we're your first television program as mayor-elect and may you come back many other times, but we have tons of questions for you and welcome. I'm sure you will. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here. And it's always a pleasure to be in a position to be able to talk to the community as we're doing today. So I'm happy to be here. Well, very good. Great victory last night, 54% to 46%. Ken has lots of statistics for us at a certain point, but tell us how you're feeling. Tired? Tired first, very happy second, but I'm actually more pleased with the community in general, because I think the community made a statement last night that they want their government back. They want their government to be responsive to their needs. And I think the people took a huge step in that direction last night. And that's what I'm most happy about about the election. And we'll all feel free to chime in with questions, but it was certainly a spirited campaign, a couple of press conferences that you held. Those of us who lived in the city got lots of literature in the mail and dropped at the doors, and some of us even had phone calls and so forth. From your perspective, what were the issues that were the most important to your campaign? Well, there were several issues, but one issue seemed to surface the most, and that was the Sheridan Park issue, when the council made a decision to destroy a park, a historic park in my mind, and one of our most important parks that's in central, central Sheboygan. When the council made that decision, I think the people realized that the council was not going to be responsive to their pleas. But the Sheridan Park issue, actually it was not a one issue campaign type of thing. It was the Sheridan Park issue embodied a lot of what's wrong with the city council now and the city hall. For example, it reflected on how the council and city hall were not being responsive to the people and not listening when we had three thousand signatures, three thousand plus signatures come in and ask just simply for a referendum, and they refused to do that, and it also reflected on how the city council is not fiscally responsible before they could even read and evaluate a second study on Sheridan Park. They went ahead and spent a lot of money and contracted an architect for over half a million dollars, sort of reflected a lot on their fiscal responsibility or should I say lack of, and it also reflected on their lack of seriousness and focusing on shared services also because Sheridan Park, as we know, there's a second report that says it will not provide for optimum shared services, and yet they kept insisting that they were going to build it there. So it reflected a lot of their unwillingness to support shared services. So all those three, at least those three main issues were embodied in the Sheridan Park issue. And then the final one is you don't take away parts from the people. The parts are for the people and they're in perpetuity and they remain for future generations to enjoy. So that's pretty much how it boiled up. Yeah. It's interesting. Did you see any, and folks just feel free to chime in with questions, but did you see any particular pockets of strength in your campaign, or was it more broad-based? Well, at times people said, part people are on your side, but I think that it was a very broad base. You know, I think you see that reflected in the way the words came out. I took several words in terms of higher votes. So it reflected the general attitude and the sentiment of the community. I think a lot of the people, whether you live near Sheridan Park or not, we're just bothered that how dare you take our part. And if that's the part you're going to take now, which one will you take later? Because it'll become so easy to do. Yeah, I heard another word just by talking to people, and you probably said it in so many words, that the council was arrogant. They just tended to shun the community. I think it was the sense of arrogance, because what people did to me was extraordinary. For the longest time we've heard about political apathy. People just don't want to get involved. They don't care. They don't think that they matter. When they found out that the park was going to be destroyed to put a police station, they actually went out and organized and collected all these signatures within a two-month period. So political apathy was no longer there. They wanted to be a part of the decision-making process. And that was extraordinary. But what was more extraordinary is for the council to file a resolution calling for a referendum to let the people decide. And that was filed on the council floor without going to any committee at all. So that demonstrated that arrogance that you're talking about. Instead of saying thank you to the people who are finally getting involved in our process, they said, how dare you? How dare you get involved in the garbage? So that was very disturbing to me. And I think it was disturbing to the people. And they proved it last night. They just didn't get it. I think it was a good way to put it. And I think the letters to the editor and other communications that were out there just show that the people were saying, if this were the only property in the whole community where you could build something on it would be different. But they were suggesting the Rice Building and the Sentry Store on the North 23rd Street. You could just see the sense that the people saying, I drive around this city. I know this city. There are other options that ought to be looked at. And don't tell me that this has to be. And I think it was arrogance. But just didn't get that the people were really serious about this matter. And they numbered, I think, greater than what some of the minority, they portrayed it as a minority of the population. But there was a greater percentage of people out there who were really concerned. And they just didn't read that, not read it at all. That's pretty good acting reading. How critical was the Moose study in terms of your campaign, do you think? Well, we're going to find out how really critical it is because we're going to have a second run at it to compare both studies at Kimming Report and the, I don't call it, it's the independent study, the Moire study for a better term. But it's going to play a key role because what that report does, it points out that first of all, Sheridan Park is too small and it doesn't provide for optimum shared services and it's going to cost, Sheridan Park is going to cost a site is going to cost us $3 million more. And we're also going to build a police station in a small park. It's going to become obsolete in two, three years after we build it. There's no room for growth and there's no room for expansion in terms of the neighborhoods or where are you going to go? You're going to start destroying homes, the limited parking, invading the area of the school district. It's going to cause a lot of problems. So that report is going to be critical. I want to get back a little bit to this whole issue of people not listening on the council level. Is that a function of, because you were there through all of that, was that a function of those who've been there a little too long versus the newcomers and newcomers being more open or why that unwillingness to put it up to a referendum or a willingness to kind of, why the sense of rush to judgment at that time? Well, I have my personal theories, but I think one of them is that it has a lot to do with somebody being entrenched politically, but it also has a lot to do with somebody saying, I have the vote, I have the power, I can do what I want. And what I say all along the election is you need to say what you're going to say before the election and keep saying it after. A lot of people will tell you anything they want, you want to hear just to get elected. And after that, they forget. And two years later they start telling it to you again and then they forget again. So you have to be consistent before you get elected and after you get elected and that's where you're going to be held accountable. And that shows your character and integrity. Well, building on that, it's the morning after, the afternoon after, what are your thoughts about what's next? What's next is I need to meet with the mayor and find out how we can create this smooth transition that we need to create. There's a lot of groundwork that's got to be done. There's committees that need to be appointed, there's people that need to be considered. One of the things that I'm going to put on fast track is a budget prioritization program that I've been talking about. We're going to go out there into the community, into every department, talk to every employee and every employee's input will be given equal weight. Doesn't matter if you're here or here. Everybody's going to have a say so. I think we're going to get some very interesting ideas, very good cost saving ideas. I think the money is there, it just hasn't been allocated correctly. So I don't know that we need to generate more revenue. I don't know that we need to go and tax people anymore, creating even more fees. I think the money is there, we just need to rearrange it, reallocate it. And we'll do that based on the results of the budget prioritization. On a day to day operation kind of basis, have you thought about who might be your secretary or what about assistant? My administrative assistant, actually I have not. I have not given that any thought because that's been probably the least in my mind right now. But I think the first thing I need to do is how willing is the individual is there now, willing to cooperate and carry out the work that I need done. That's going to take a meeting with the individual, sit down and talk and see where things are going to go from there. I want to be as far as I can to that individual so that we're on good terms. If people are interested in serving on commissions and committees in the city, because there's a process where they get appointed, are you going to be soliciting an appointment? Yeah, that's a good question. That's a good question, Tom. What I plan to do is actually put out an announcement in the Sheboygan Press and WHBL and list the committees that are going to be available and ask people to chime in and see if they want to participate in it. And once they call in, not only will they say, well, I want to be a part of the ex-committee, we'll be able to tell them this is ex-committee and these are some of the responsibilities that will be expected of you if you're willing to do it. That'll, again, it'll tie in with my community involvement, get engaged in the community and critical decision-making that I've been talking about. A lot of times people aren't even, we've got some good people out there in the community that can be great contributors to our government. They haven't been reached out to, and that's what we need to do. And we need to reach out to them and say, you are welcome. You're a key critical part of my, of the government here and my administration. I need your help. Do you want to help? Now, if they say no, it's another issue, but at least you extend your hand out there to people. I think that's true of the employees, too. I think we underestimate, oftentimes, people who do the job day-to-day and what they have to offer to make their job more efficient and run the department that they work in. You'd be surprised sometimes what creative ideas and how helpful they can be and how, once you empower them, how participatory they want to be. Absolutely, and it's pretty interesting because when I started talking about this budget prioritization process or plan that I'm going to put in place, people started already calling with ideas and sending little anonymous letters and looking to this, looking to that, try this, try that. It catches on. People really want to help. They want to be contributors. They want to be listened to. They want to be respected. They want to be treated fairly. They want to be a part of us. We just haven't let them yet. This is what I want to do. I want to let the people be a part of us. There's not only the change in the top leader in the city, but really a sea change in the common council. Lots of new faces and those of us who are watching the election returns last night were frankly a little astonished by the winners and the losers on the council. With a lot of new people on board, how do you think, what kind of relationship do you see developing with new, older people and how is all that going to work out for you? Well, there's obviously going to be a little bit of resistance. There was a, as you all know, there was a majority there in the council at times a pretty distinct split. But I think most of the older men are willing to work together towards a common goal. If you're able to present them with a plan that makes sense, that's workable, that's doable, I think if you explain it to them, if they're able to buy into something, I think they would be willing to work. There may be one or two that don't. And that's okay too, we're just going to move on. But we need to get enough people on board to say this is where we're going folks, we're here and this is where we're going to end up. I need your help to help me get there and I think a lot of them will buy into that. Well, I think the message of change was shown by the victors. So I think those who might be reluctant to be participatory are going to see, have evidence that they ought to be. Exactly. I think that's called writing on the wall or writing in the voting booth. When I was on the council and Dick Susha was mayor and then Dick Schneider ran against him and won and there was a majority of the council who favored Dick Susha. And of course they, we faced that same kind of situation. We got a new mayor and we were pro Susha and how we were going to react. It worked its way out over time, but not initially. There's a little. But the good where Cal was from, I mean, without making Juan's case for him here, but this is a pretty strong victory. 54% of the vote, I'm looking at the three, if you want to call them challengers, Susha, Meyer and Radke. When you look at their aldermanic districts, Juan got more votes than they did. And so you start wondering about co-tail effects and he was really very close to the Kittleson in the third. And actually, the only ones where Juan really didn't do as well was, you know, we got two unopposed, you know, Montemire was running unopposed, Davis was running unopposed. Even Alderman Berg in the first district, he hadn't, it's 973, if I did my adding real quickly here and you had 986. So I guess I have a question I want to ask you, Tom is, I mean, when you start seeing a mayor elect come into office with that kind of strength, and got more votes than you did in your own, don't you pay attention to that? You have built-in biases from the day before the election, let's put it that way. You are campaigning for your candidate, working for your candidate, and you just come with a built-in bias. It shouldn't have happened that way. Well, and I will say that when we, all of us who have run for school board or other elections, it is gratifying to come in as the front-runner or the top vote-getter, but once you're sworn in and you're voting, that doesn't make any difference. And trust me, nobody remembers that you got that much more of the vote than somebody else. So I think- But you're one of X number and a born, everybody gets one vote. Right, exactly. You know, in Sheboygan, we don't have a particularly strong mayoral system, but still, and I'm just thinking about the coalitions and everything, your old seat really comes kind of important. I don't know, you've been so busy probably running for mayor, or you haven't thought about it, but Machiavelli types like me do. That's right, he's gonna be the- Machiavelli. I mean, that seat, Italy, is kind of important. You've got three people that you suspect will be coming in and more or less agreeing with you on most issues, you hope. You know, so- Yeah, my position obviously is gonna be very, very critical. And I'm very cognizant of the fact that 10 Alderman endorsed Ram publicly. Now does that mean that they will not work with me? I don't think so. I think they endorsed him because at that time they just felt that they wanted to be loyal to him and they, hey, he had a good chance of winning. That's human nature. Human nature tends to do that to you, but I think now it's definitive. Now they know he didn't win. There's a new mayor. So I think some of those sentiments will change and hopefully we'll be able to get somebody and to replace me in my district that there will be an independent thinker and a thinker with the council. Are you hearing anything about who might be interested? Not at all. I don't think anybody, many or very many people are thinking about it because a lot of people don't even realize that I have to resign my position to be mayor. People haven't thought about it, but it's gonna hit pretty soon. It will, it will. And of course it's gonna change some of the politics. Politics is gonna change things a little bit on the school board as well because a new president will have to be chosen. Well I think I created maybe a mess there because I gotta be replaced in the council and the school board. So now there's two positions that have to be replaced. And at the university as well. And the university as well, that's three of them. You're getting a job right off the bat. Exactly, exactly. High paying jobs. We had a lot of students from the university campaigning for you. Now, did that mean they wanted you to win? It's like you wouldn't be here? Or because you were so good here that we got away, we got away. Actually it's because of the results. Yeah, that's why you got so much teachers so far. Yeah. Well, but it is interesting to, I mean, so many more people are willing to be appointed to a position rather than to actually have to run for it. And so we often find, or did find it with school board, positions that are a vast, well not vast number, but a substantial number of people would apply for an open candidacy. And the same things happen in the olden times. At least at the offside because that gives them a year in as an incumbent for a year and it gives them a little bit of the background and so forth. But running for office, and again, depending on which office it is, can be brutal sometimes. You get more where you don't. There's a lot of pressure on the candidate. You know, I wanna try to, we had another election out there and it seemed like it should have the town of Sheboygan chairman. And with the Walmart decision, the big hullabaloo about why did they approve the Walmart application, et cetera, et cetera. The town of Sheboygan chairman won. And there was a big outcry and everybody thought maybe the town of Sheboygan chairman would lose. Just like Sheridan. So Sheridan was a big outcry. So it wasn't more than Sheridan that because you just had this little single event the town of Sheboygan Walmart decision and they still won. But the thing that happened with Sheridan Park and I think I've shared it before is that when my 83-year-old mother-in-law will circulate a petition, not only sign one, but actually circulate a petition to change the decision on Sheridan Park, that's pretty broad-based and pretty grassroots. But just because our time runs quicker than we think, you talked about campaigning being a fairly brutal process and those of us who have campaigned for things, everyone but you, I think, can attest to that. Behind the scenes kind of guy. There you go. I'm not electable, that's not electable. I'm just not electable. That's just a plain fact of the matter. Well, we know that. But how's your family doing? It's a wonderful family if we didn't hear much about them in the election. Sylvia is still walking and talking. Oh, she's still walking and talking to me, I should say. She's doing real well. My kids are handling themselves really well. You've got three boys? Three boys. One lives in Madison and two lives here in Sheboygan. And we have a first-grandson who learned to walk about three weeks. They go and hand-stop sense and he learned to say his first word. He's mayor. Did you have the grandson leafleting? Did you have the grandson leafleting now that he's walking? Yeah. So he said his first word. That wasn't, no, I'm just kidding, that's a joke. But it can be very difficult for families, for spouses and for children, because the pressures, you're in a goldfish bowl, essentially, or a fish bowl of any kind. And it can be unpleasant at times. I think, as you know, there's no secret anymore at times that this mayoral election had a tendency to go into the ugly part, the negative part. I'm glad that it really didn't, but it was attempted and I stayed my course. I remained steadfast with my promise to the people that I was gonna keep it clean. And I did, and my campaign committee did too. And I think the people responded to that, too. Exactly. We don't wanna strip the mayoral election of its integrity and honor. And you do that when you get dirty and fight any way you can to win. I don't think that's the most important thing. The most important thing is to maintain that integrity and honor in that office. Because when it's all over and done and smoke is gone, that office has to shine. And well, and of course we're all the victims of nasty, unpleasant, dishonest, untruthful, not helpful political campaigns where television ads are decide issues that certainly shouldn't be decided. But it seems to me that one of the new campaign tools just in recent years, particularly in the April non-partisan elections are letters to the editor. That's new to me. I mean, there were always- Yeah, early in the past, they usually cut those off because they didn't want sort of the people stacking the mailbox one way or the other. But I think by opening it up, it allowed people an avenue of expression that they hadn't had before. And it was a pretty wide range back and forth. There's something else happening. I thought it was extraordinary with the park. And again, as I said, the parking body, a lot of the issues and concerns citizens have. But the press, the Sheboygan press itself did about the non-president at four editorials on just that issue itself, which they've never done before. So it was extraordinary from their part to be able to go out on the limb and say the council is wrong. The council needs to reverse its decision. I think it was a unique perception on the part of the incumbents in any case is saying that they made a difficult decision and they were statesmen. But in actuality, that wasn't the case. There aren't cases where you do have to make difficult decisions. But this was just a wrong decision. It was a wrong difficult decision. And sometimes you have to admit that. We all make mistakes. And I was surprised in a way by the fact that when you had this new report, it was really another open door for many of those people to say, yeah, maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we ought to put this off in the committee or off to the side, let's take it up. Let's see if we can save money. Let's see if we can have a different course. But again, enough people didn't get it. And you got it apparently, and obviously, and you ran with it. Let me ask one more about finances. Did you have a sense you were winning or winning the discussion amongst the people? Did people call you and say, I'd like to make a contribution to your campaign? As that sort of way, as you're moving through the campaign from January to February to March, did you feel that there were? Actually, yes, it was quite complimentary. When I ran for school board both times and even Alderman for school board, when I ran the last time, and I think the time before that, I came in with about 6,700 votes. Not once. Not once. And anybody call and say, how can I help? Not once. And anybody knock on my door and say, how can I help? Here's a check, or I want a sign. Not once. This time was extraordinary. I must have had hundreds of people call me. I mean, there was a pattern. At one time it was five calls a day for signs and then it got down to at least two a day. And I was getting calls for signs a day before the election. That's how people were encouraging. It was just awesome. And the phone call the day after the election was just today. It was phenomenal. It started when my phone started ringing at six o'clock. All congratulatory. I haven't gotten a bad one yet. You're sworn in on April 18th. I believe so. Give us, if you can, this is a little tough and we're coming down to our last minutes. Three months, six months, one year, where you think you'll be in terms of accomplishing what you're looking to do in those time frames? Well, I know that we can break it in those segments, Marilyn. I think it's gonna take at least a year to put everything in place and maybe another year to get it to work. And that's being realistic because there's a lot of work that needs to be done. Moods and attitudes that need to be worked on and that'll take about a year. Given that you and the police chief are kind of a part of this police on the department issue, how does that go to play out? How do you work? How do you work with someone who's diametrically opposed? It seems at least on this one issue. Well, it's gonna take a lot of talking. We're gonna be meeting quite a bit and we'll see where that could take us. And I think a reminder that when you're elected is different than someone who's in a pointed position. And I think that that's oftentimes you have to bring that forth to the people who are appointed. That when you're elected person, you behave differently. Oftentimes you look at things differently because you have a lot of bosses. Whereas an appointed person may have just a few bosses. Exactly. And an appointed person really does not, it's not in his or her mind to represent the interests of the people. They represent the interests of the department. Elected officials have to represent the interests of the people. And they can't forget that. They can never forget that. When they do, that's when they get in trouble. That's right. And we're getting really close to the end here. But given how the Sheridan Park issue played out and its importance in your campaign one, how is the ethanol situation gonna have to play out for you? Or how do you, how are you gonna approach that in your mind as you have another concern almost a similar community. It's just a couple blocks away. Concern community about that issue. Well, the way it will play out is the process that we're gonna put in place. And that's what, a lot of what went wrong with the Sheridan Park issue. The process was not there. There was no fairness in how they handled the situation. There was never community input. There was no listening to the people. We need to put a process in place where everybody knows what to expect. Here's what we got. Now we make a decision. People want to be involved. We just never reached out and gotten people involved. And that's what I intend to do. In critical decisions. Sounds good. Sounds good. So, well, we wish you the very best in your new endeavor. And this is a big new opportunity for you. And so we think that it'll be terrific and got speed. I look forward to it. All right. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you.