 Welcome to the Donahue group. We're delighted that you could join us in this award-winning show We've been priming for the award. Where is it? We haven't received the award quite yet But when we do we'll be sure to prominently display it so you can share with us our thrill and excitement Along with other shows on Channel 8 So it's a great TV station wonderful people behind the cameras And so we're very lucky to be here joining me today is our usual cohort of Nair de Wells and do-gooders Cal Potter State senator assistant Which are which here now? I got a feeling I know this is going to play out In any event Cal Potter former state senator, and I won't go into the rest Tom Pineski UW-Shaboygan Mathematics professor, and it is my understanding with an administrative position Associate Dean really Congratulations, and we'll try on this award-winning show not to say anything to rob you of that wonderful position You know through scandal or whatever The scandalous Ken Risto Still currently just sitting here at least for a little while minding my own business the king of social studies for the Shaboygan area school district. I am Mary Lynn Donahue or so I have been told Lawyer with O'Neill Cannon Holman de Young in In Shaboygan, and so we're in our city show our county show, and we have lots to talk about I Was not able to attend the Memorial Day parade, which I had been looking forward to as our Son called from Ashland, Wisconsin to indicate his ride had fallen apart, so we were 12 hours on the road on Memorial Day anybody attend I Was in the parade I was in the Dean as it no no no as I was a shaboygan early bird I had a wrote the Rotary the Rotary Club, and we were sponsoring our new lobster Logo we have somebody dressed as a red lobster and Red lobster to be named we gonna have to find a name for him, but we were in the parade and Our red lobster walked down the parade and Yeah, so it was funny we handed out flyers for our lobster boil and no little pieces of lobster to entices to the And I asked people what a little what a baby lobster is Called and I they said I don't know and I said I don't know either So if anybody knows what a baby lobster is He's making this up as we go Oh Third week third week in July, I don't I don't have the date believe it or not. I can't recall Or something yeah, excellent fundraiser at Fountain Park lobster boil $40 a ticket entertainment Supports scholarships that Rotary Distributes to people and lots of other good things. Yep. It's a great club, but I was in the parade. They were like 60 or 70 Entries, so we were like 56. I mean that's as big as the 4th of July and it really went fast because most people They had a couple bands and it went fast and we stopped at the park Fountain Park Speeches were very good. It was fairly quick and And what is it 21 gun salute or whatever it is and I hear the turnout was excellent turnout was excellent It was very nice. I mean what what a great way to turn Nothing into something Silk purse out of a sows ear. I mean I congratulations to the vets groups and to the mayor I think who really you know brought the issue into into sharply for people and Everybody responded so sounds like it was a good time. Yeah. Yeah, it was a good time And it was a it was warm too. So I mean it actually was a Nice day for a parade and I stay for an event so the lobster got hot, but the rest of you were doing okay, but I wore a long sleeve shirt red I Got a little warm running around in the crowd handing out flyers for the lobster boy Well, some other good things happening You should get a dunk tank with the lobster for the event Put the lobster in a tank of water And you're cooking it. Yeah, you should actually have an actual dunk tank. Oh, you and others Oh, and they can sell tickets, you know dunk dunk Maybe we should Okay, did you have like a lot of coffee before you came here today Not much more than usual. Okay. Well, just like calm down a little bit and we'll see if we can move forward here But if anyone does have any ideas for the lobster or the name we're gonna have to introduce Yes, please contact the associate dean Just to bring the the level of conversation either up or down depending on your perspective There have been some good things happening at the city recognition of both at the city and the school district of conservation efforts and It's nice to see municipalities going green as it were. What's been happening at the school district? Well, they created a position I guess a column I call them energies are and that person is really focusing on Finding very you know, very small normal day-to-day ways to reduce reduce energy Consumption and so a lot of us. I mean across the district We're turning off printers and turning making sure computers are turned off at the end of the night rather than having things on standby You've got televisions in a lot of the high school classrooms and they're in standby And you can turn switches off on walls and there's been an effort to close doors during the winter I think there's been real efforts to turn the heat down, you know, it's April 1st, and there's no more heat No matter what happens to the temperature So that's been a little bit of an interesting experience this summer this spring And a lot of use of if there are overhead fans in some classrooms use fans during the winter Which is something that's sort of counterintuitive to a lot of us, but by changing the direction of the fan We get the heat that's up on top down below So lots and lots of little things and just being a little more aware of not leaving things on at night more than anything else And this may be apocryphal, but it is my understanding that Charlie Sykes had heard about the Energy efforts at the school district and had made fun of it saying that can't possibly be true Someone from the school district called and explained everything that the district is doing and presented hard facts about reduction in energy costs and so forth and Charlie Actually apologized on air or so I I think a rare moment or a rare moment facts were brought to bear and Charlie's opinion changed It doesn't happen that often, but there you go I thought that was pretty cool, and I think that Jean Clayoun is a current alder person who is heading up the city sustainability task forces At least according to I'm very allergic here today. Sorry for the sneezing and coughing and rubbing, but Jean seems to be Looking at more than just token kinds of things, but sometimes even the token things will save you money so it'll be interesting to see how it goes and That hasn't quite come into private businesses yet in terms of energy reduction and so forth, but well There's a business out in Plymouth. It's Orion That's become a very large business and their business is to go into a business and retrofit the lighting and various electrical and energy consuming entities that are in that business and Showing how that what they're paid to do this is recouped within a very very short period of time And there are a number of businesses that have availed themselves of their service and this company is the stock I guess it's doing very well Some of our remodeled rooms here, you know be it's motion activated lights. If no motion I just shut off. I've been in a meeting. It was kind of quiet meeting and all of a sudden the lights went So we go And they go back on again This is just somebody throwing something Yeah, all the rooms that north and south are Organized along the same line So if you leave your office lights on or you step out of the room for really not much more than a couple of minutes And the lights go off and then they come back on when you walk in the room It's made a big difference not a bad idea and particularly with gas at 394 and we're among the cheaper Communities in terms of gas prices. I think things really are changing at least to some extent Mother Jones just to go off subject for a little bit had a long a whole magazine devoted to Alternative energy and what was on the what was legitimate? What was a little questionable rating different alternate energy ideas as their you know the cost of production? I think Ethanol has basically been shown to cost more to produce than you can sell it for and those kinds of things So I mean that these are just interesting times in terms of sustainability, but I think The fact that it's cool and the people are doing it and that businesses can save money at it I think it's just a huge step forward, but you know I wonder what's going to happen to the city and the county budget You know you got all the sheriff vehicles and all the police vehicles are out on the road You got our bussing costs are gonna be absolutely awesome and you got all the public works vehicles They're out regularly work, you know so the fuel budgets gonna have to take a big jump Although I don't know how that's gonna feel like Roger Lies are now retiring Superintendent assistant superintendent for business services the finance guy and just one of the best people in the world At least at certain points when I was on the school board. He was buying gas futures so that Not risky particularly but just good planning that with the idea that prices will always go up to you know It's kind of like buying a forever stamp That you know you've got a fixed cost and and really did save the district a fair amount of money at various times So it'll be interesting. Well, I just want to talk a little bit about Both a newspaper article that was fairly short-lived But then a letter to the editor that appeared recently and this all circulates around that Controversial position of the mayor's administrative assistant. I'm not sure that's the the title Held by Susan Hart, but who's not really doing that job now because she's the interim HR director I was surprised at Steve Sharp One being hired and two being deciding to only stay on the job for a day I don't know quite what was going on there I do think that the mayor on a temporary basis has to fill that position one. He clearly needs it And didn't I mean Ed Serg now as an alderman so he doesn't have he does not operating in his Personnel director mode or human resources mode, but wasn't there some sort of condition on benefits? You know he's a Steve Sharp was a retired fireman and benefits kicked in now He took this job and he was going to lose some benefits and so then he had it I mean Siric was aware of those kinds of things because he was director for Eight years and I think I thought that was part of the discussion that there was some benefits that he Sharp would lose because he's back to almost full-time When he was retired I'm not sure it was that so much as just I Think that there were rumblings about how how it all happened and I mean it just seems to be fairly poisoned in terms of filling that position I don't know what you do. I mean Susan Hart is the interim HR person well Which ties in the letter to the editor was essentially? Why aren't we hiring? The human resources director and why doesn't you know this this other position get filled And it's because they're both the city and county have agreed to talk about shared services And so Susan Hart is in the interim HR position and from what I hear doing a fine job But that administrative assistant position remains open and I mean I don't think until the city and county either decide they can do something or They can't we're gonna have to set a deadline at some point where you say okay We can't come to an agreement. So we're gonna hire or we're gonna put out a Call for an administrator or assistant human resource person. Well, I think the city county Discussions have you know a bit of a flavor of you know mid-east peace talks You know their progress is made and then you know There's certain personality flares and and then progress isn't made anymore. And so I I guess I I would be Both hopeful and a little discouraged at the same time about anything ever really happening But the city is not actively looking for a human resources director. I mean it just isn't Because there's an interim who's doing a good job and They're looking and exploring with you know with the county about ways things can be shared It's interesting. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is to it, but Did they get a finance director by the way Yes I That's good. Is he started or she the young man's name and I say young because he is young Of course almost anybody is young in my view these days except well no and He's 30 just sitting here 33 and from a suburb of Duluth and I'm very affable has a great skill set. I think and You know anxious to move the city forward and So I think the change all the computer technology get new stuff and bring that up again Because it took a while to find a suitable candidate within the price range of the city. It did it did yeah But the couple the the city has not even begun the process of filling that human resource person right well, there was the big brouhaha when when the mayor appointed Susan Hart and Right and so since that time Susan has been acting. She's withdrawn her application To be HR director, but his acting is the interim and it's my sense probably doing some of those administrative Assistant jobs as well. She's you know pretty energetic about it But well now the city does have the the new IT person to Julie. He's going full guns I mean, he's like shot out of a cannon and so the the I think the city has made more progress computer-wise in the last two Months than it had in the last Well number of years. Let's put it that way We've moved up away from 1985 and how far much farther. I don't know but but it should be interesting I don't know city politics is It just never does seem to calm down particularly does it? We have these different camps Perez camp and then you still have the old shrimp camp and there's a recall folks that are still out there And you know, we are seeing it with the people who are already saying they're interested in running for mayor And so when any type of these decisions come up, you're gonna have somebody Coming in with a contrary decision or opinion and a letter to the editor just So this pot is just ready to boil and it's gonna and then during really boil during the next election Oh, I think so. I think it's gonna be a hot one. I think it'll be very interesting Yeah, and strategically maybe the mayor didn't necessarily want to announce quite sorely That he was running for re-election, but he did and so I'm surprised only two people have come out Well only one formally belong in The word is certainly that Bob Ryan will be doing that and that is very early I mean we're talking about a year next year like yeah, the next election is the major presidential election That's not till November right talk about after that. It's just too early. Well, I remember Back in Susha's time Richard Susha You remember Eddie Darko Remember the name I remember I was a new alderman Eddie Darko was the new alderman and after council meetings we would go down to Susha's bar or something have a drink and then one time I went down with him And Tim Lorenz and we stopped at the Harmony bar. I have a drink after a council the next day Tuesday was the final day for filing nomination papers for mayor This was January we had a meeting in January council meeting on Monday and Tuesday was And having a beer Eddie said, you know, I think I'll run for mayor Next day Got his nomination papers in it when he gave the mayor Susha A run for his money run for his money. Yeah, oh funny. That's how you know, you got plenty of time to decide You know, I think those I think those I think those casual days are gone don't you I'm not sure we would necessarily get anything like that again, but Interesting well also Just changing the landscape a little bit and while I don't blame them one bit and I'm going to ask our librarian To talk about it. We now have I think the headline was even library police You can now go to jail For not returning your your books and Judge Dela Hunt of the municipal court does Is not at all shy about throwing people in jail for not paying fines so Oh dear is this what do you think? Well, I think Things that people don't return I'm cheap any longer. You want to buy a book you're talking about $25-$45 and people Sometimes take whole arm loads along and they don't return them and they've literally got hundreds of dollars that they've Scandid from the library which means the library needs then to replace those materials when someone wants them and Because they're on the card catalog. They're supposed to be there and if somebody says literally stolen it by neglect if nothing else They ought to be held accountable. I think people have maybe got this image that it's a ten cents fine or something You know, there's nothing what's the big deal about we not returning a library book or something But I get you get to a point where some scoffals gotta be held accountable And how do you do it? How do you convince somebody who's got a pile of books in their house that they should return that they ought to do it? Some people you got to hit them alongside the head to get their attention. I don't know how else you do it They do you send them notices saying they have overdue books and would you please return them? And then if that doesn't happen their name goes to a collection agency and the collection agency tries to recover Recover the book and then if they can't well the next step is the police I think a lot of people have not used the library facilities for a while. Don't perhaps realize to the library Loans out CDs and DVDs and a whole host of things other than just books And so, you know, some people said why would you care some folks? Why would you even keep books? Books Car with bunch of books and it would steal books But there's a lot of other things that they loan out as well that can run up a big bill pretty fast if they have to Be replaced right and I do think it's a public trust Yeah, and I do think that at a certain point you when you have just like the county has a large number of collections out in the city And so forth it You do have to take some some aggressive steps to start collecting so And I think in most cases it's not going to be one book. It's going to be after a process that Tom You know explain plus it's going to be something of substantial amount of accumulation $500 or whatever it happens to be and that's gets to be theft to a certain point It really is I mean it's negligent. It's I don't think normally it's not intentional. I mean my boys I always said my Lovely boys who adored the library and were there all the time and yet could not get their things back on time I just proudly stated that we were great supporters of the library Many ways, you know through our taxes and donations that we made and then the fines that my boys had to pay and continue to pay and Michael's credit record is is Terrible because all the fines that have been sent to the collection agency and of course he eventually does pay them up and now We really would like him not to get arrested We will urge him to continue to do that, but other small things Paul Gruber dr. Paul Gruber great guy has Suggested that the city enact an ordinance banning the use of cell phones while you're driving And I understand I think in the hand you could have the car Right for the headset hands off hands off with the Bluetooth. Is that what it is? Don't you still have to dial? You know press the buttons. We're getting to the point where no no you just Depending on the facility depending what you have in your car. Yeah, okay, but it was if you're actually I want those little things Yeah, yeah Well, you know in the last Three or four months. Well, I've been driving through the swing streets on 8th and Indiana Avenue and a couple other places like that. I Have narrowly missed hitting three cars because they blew through stop signs and all three of them were on the phone at the time They went right through the stop sign and they were on the telephone and they were just oblivious They're just that both is There's a whole lot of studies now that have been done that show that you really it's unlike listening to the radio or some Other things that you might be in the car This is a whole different set of tasks that really do take away from your ability to to drive safely Even worse than eating a quarter-pounder, huh? Putting on your makeup Well, and I really had to stop doing that. I guess aren't there some cities in Wisconsin have have already established those ordinances Yeah And I don't think it's so unreasonable in this meaning like Sheboygan Where you have ample parking off-street to pull over to the side of the road and continue your conversation Without going into a heavy traffic situation talking on the phone I don't think that's that much of an inconvenience It really is the rotary situation in particular I mean you really have to be kind of alert and I've discovered you really have to use two hands to turn around the circle and so it did it really does help to have so instead of Moving the hand around in the jerky fashion. Well, it'll be interesting to see what the city council does. I I think it's a great idea it's it's just too dangerous and So we'll see what happens with that. Well, it at least keeps it keeps the city council busy and you know doing productive things I I Also wanted to note that the room tax is up 10% for the first quarter which Blue Harbor, it's my sense is not doing well and And yet for those revenues to be up that much I mean essentially means more people are in hotel rooms. It is an 8% tax and Sheboygan is one of the lower ones, you know, you go to some cities and you're paying 11-12% tax, you know, so your hundred dollar room is suddenly a whole lot more expensive than you then you had Anticipated, but it's a great revenue source and you're dinging the people from out of Dinging the people from out of town. So I am what's the hotel downtown across from the bank? The new one that's going up is called the grand stay Are you talking about the old executive and it's been remodeled refurbished model Those rooms are on right, right That could add well rates are probably up Considering energy costs have gone up and all the different costs of just maintaining a hotel labor costs I'm sure so if you're gonna 8% you know increase of a higher rate. You're gonna collect more. Yeah Well, I am the the new hotel is going to be open I was at the business to business expo yesterday that the Chamber of Commerce did at UW Sheboygan here Which was terrific and one of the exhibitors was the it's called the grand stay hotel and That's the one going in on the parking lot And I went up to the woman who's the general manager very affable and she's very cheerful in their opening. I Think July 16th. She said Which since the brick seems to be going on Brick by brick. I mean it's not going on and a great speed Whatever thought that it'd be hard to find a parking place in downtown Sheboygan remember the vast lots of parking lots You know, I mean you could have parked an army in downtown Sheboygan now Not so much. I think it's going to be Parking places are going to be a little bit more dear and Which is great. I mean it really shows that there's there's good business going on and and things like that so And just finally we just have a couple of minutes left Noting the reopening and the moving into of landmarks square and I Anybody here know anybody who's moving in I? I do I do too, but I can't come up with a name because somebody just told me they were moving into landmark I just know So that's who it is. It's Lucy. Dolly-Bolly. Yeah, my former colleague at South High School Spanish teacher Long-time Spanish teacher and now over Lutheran and some other places. Oh, and they're just a ton of people That's why I ran into her at Yonkers this last week. Yeah, she was devastated by the burgers I was at Yonkers And so now we're getting back into the lobster boil I think that I'm looking forward to the lobster boil. I just don't want to jeopardize our award-winning show and you know I think this is why we got the award The big claw award I'm with you Tom In any event I do think again just the level of building that's going on in In the downtown is pretty pretty amazing So it's it's good stuff and we're on the move and we are on the move We'll say goodbye and hope to see you again sometime soon