 Welcome to the Donahue Group. We're delighted that you're joining us for another fun-filled half hour of conversation regarding issues of great interest, at least as some of us. Joining me today, I'm going to start on my direct right this time. An itinerant social studies teacher. Gypsy. A gypsy social studies teacher from the Sheboygan Area School District, Ken Risto, a social studies guy. A more respectable sort. Tom Pineski, professor at the University of Wisconsin, Sheboygan, teaching math. Cal Potter, our former state senator and former DPI, Assistant Superintendent of Public Libraries. I'm always so happy when I can get that all out. Well, it actually is longer than that. I had eight different bureaus. So you just picked on one of them, so keep it. It's that simple. I'll never get that. I'm Mary Lynn Donahue. I practice law here over and over again in the city of Sheboygan. We're talking about local issues today, and we've got quite a lot of stuff to talk about. We are just before the April election, about two weeks away, I think. Reminding voters, Tuesday, April 4th is voting day. And at least for now, you don't have to show a picture ID. So you can just come and vote as you will. But we have a huge electric bill with you. And bring a huge electric bill. Prove where you live. A lot of angry people at the polls. We have to live in Wisconsin. It cost us $400 in utility bills. We have a bunch of each and every district has a contested race. The primary has win out the candidates down. I just want to run through the list, because I think it's an interesting group with some interesting issues. And I'm looking for predictions, prognostications to the extent that you're comfortable. First district, Alderman Manny has been challenged by a Patrick Gillette. Manny, I think, is coming back for his third term, if I'm not mistaken. Tom, you're a district one resident. That's correct. What do you think? Who's going to win? Oh, Manny. All right. And is it the power of the incumbency? I think so. I'm going to stop. If you're listening, Manny, you've yet to come to my door. You've yet to put a piece of literature on my door. And that does influence me. All right. But he's got two weeks. You've got two weeks. Unfortunately, by the time he sees it, it's too late. The election will be over. But you can say I told you so. In the McLaughlin group, the predictions come at the end of the show. We're doing it right up front. And we'll keep. I actually did enter a donation. I put a donation in the office, donation basket regarding the NCAA basketball tournament. And I'm doing pretty well. I got 119 points so far, which I think the guy who's running the donation. You're doing all the stats in schools. You're really in trouble. Well, I did. That's why I'm not far ahead. I had to pick the Wisconsin schools. We got Manny. I'm sorry. Let's put that in their bracket. OK. West Fall and Ryan. Now, that's an interesting position being vacated by Don Van Akron, who, after losing the election last year, was reappointed by the council. That's my district. I don't know. The primary results, if I remember correctly, were within 10 votes. West Fall ahead of Ryan, but not by much. Ryan did not participate in the public forum pre-primary. I'm sure he will be at the forum now. Any ideas? I'd just say when you got two new people, who's going to the door? We don't know. If you don't live in the district, I guess. You don't know whether you've got literature or not. I know it's a shaboying custom to look at lawn signs. And certainly, Ryan is, I've not seen a West Fall sign anywhere. They may be out there. I just haven't seen them here. Ryan's are all over the place. And of course, he's got the resources to do that. I think it's going to be close. I think it's going to be real close. The name is simple, R-Y-A, yeah. And West Fall has been in the news a little bit for his local station for the survey. Yeah, there you go. It'll be interesting. District three. Did you predict? Oh, you said we don't know. I think it's really too close to call. I would probably, I guess in the interest of full disclosure, I know Jack and work with Jack. But I got a feeling Ryan's going to prevail in that race. It'll be close. I think it'll be Ryan. Yeah. I think your point is well taken about how the election is run and who you see at your door and so forth. Clayunas and Wolfe are running in district three. This was the most interesting result out of the primary with our incumbent being completely blown out of the water. Clayunas clearly, clearly a commanding lead even against the second place finisher. My bets are on Jean Clayunas. True. I think she'll be a fine addition to the council. I think she's very thoughtful and I don't know Mr. Wolfe and he may be just the same, but I like Jean and I think she's intelligent and will work hard. The fourth district brought us an interesting race with challenger James Moran coming ahead of Dan Berg, the incumbent by a significant number of votes. That's your district. It's my district. And how's that been playing? Well, first of all, stepping back, Joe Heidemann who was just a brand newcomer to the city, lived in Sheboygan Falls all of his life and a challenger also got a reasonably, I think a good chunk, a good showing for his first time. So that gives you kind of the anti-incumbent sense. And so I can't imagine that those of us who voted for Joe are going to cross over and vote for the incumbent. So I'm thinking we're gonna have a new alderman there. Right, right. You know, go by lawn signs. Clearly, again, the challenger's got some resources. They're all over my neighborhood. And I would say, I say we're gonna have a new, my prediction would be we're gonna have a new alderman. Yeah. Dan Berg, of course, is unchallenged. Second that, yeah. You agree with that? Yeah. Unchallenged in the county board race. So he'll remain on the county board, but it'll be interesting. District five, the incumbent Bonnie Serta against Jeff Schucho. They were both victims, apparently, of some fairly nasty hate letter that went out, that the DA is looking into. Was it Jeff, or is it Larry? Is it Jeff? I'm not familiar with him. Oh, I don't know him. Schucho, I think it's Jeff. Is it Jeff? Okay, I thought I saw a sign that said Larry, but maybe I, okay. But it's an indication, really, of how debased politics can get. And of course, whoever did it sent letters out, hate letters about both of them. So, you know, it was sort of an equal opportunity, hate crime, and maybe not a crime, but certainly an unpleasant reflection of the worst of American political life. There's so much that's good, but this is just. And why people don't eventually run, why do they want to possibly subject themselves to that type of behavior? Yeah. Well, Bonnie works out here at the, she goes to school here, and she has part-time job here, and she really is interested in serving the city, and I think she will continue to, I think she's probably campaigning in as best she can while working and going to school. And she had a considerable lead over the, over both of the opponents. So, I think Bonnie sort of will come back. I would go with Bonnie. And Cal doesn't really care, because outside the sphere of influence here. Not in your district. These people are working hard for your endorsement, and you're just sitting on the sideline right now. Come on up. You know, I think I've got my numbers mixed up actually for districts. I apologize. I think Clayunas is actually in district five. I beg your pardon. District three is Jean Kittleson versus Scott Lewandowski. Jean Kittleson, I believe, is just coming back for her second term, if I'm not mistaken. Scott Lewandowski is kind of a perennial candidate, awfully nice guy. I haven't heard much there, one way or the other. My sense is that Alder, the incumbent would. My sense would be, it's not my district, but I would think that Jean is going to be reelected pretty handily. I think talking with people rightly or wrongly again, in the first round of candidate forums, Jean is real thoughtful, quiet, is not a person that's going to play to the cameras. Real careful about taking a position, wants to think it through, and in the candidate forum that was presented as, you know, who is he, where is she, she's never, we don't know what. And I think it came across as being pretty mean spirited. I probably wasn't intended that way, but it came across when people who watched the forum and the people I talked to in the Pigley Wigglies and all that kind of thing around town, was that, you know, it was a little tough on her and I think she's going to get some sympathy and there's going to be some backlash against that approach. And I haven't seen and heard too much in the next, we'll see when the next round of candidate forums how that's going to play out. But I think Jean perceives herself and really does work at trying to be, and I again, in the interest of disclosure, know her pretty well. I think tries to be a bridge builder in a council that sometimes probably could use a couple of those. So I got a feeling my sense would be she's going to be reelected. District seven, Bill Steffen is leaving. Mark Hanna, who is just finishing up his term on the Sheboyganary School District School Board is running against a young man who as I understand it, we could probably say might not be a completely serious candidate, only in the sense of having brought a beer to the televised debates that the... Again, I think the mistake was not bringing everybody else one. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to run for politics in Sheboygan, I think you got to bring beer for everybody. You can't just have one for yourself. Yeah. And I mean no disrespect to this young man. That may just have been his way. Well, I am. I kind of break me. I'd go to the forums. Yeah. Well, Mark, I'm a bridge builder, Ken. Well, I'm sorry. I'm trying to be kind to it. But I think Mark had a little bit of a gift here in terms of this race. I think certainly some of the other matches, let's put it this way. Yeah, but Mark runs city-wide or school district, right? He's well-known. His name is out there. And Mark likes to be out there. They voted it. The seventh district people voted for him before for school board. Mark was someone say Mark is out there. Mark is. No, he's real. I mean, you're absolutely right. He's, you know, everybody knows him from the school board, school board president. Yeah. And he's obviously been involved in a lot of service organizations and involved in his faith community and. So. That's a shoe in. Mark's not going to break a sweat. Yeah. Well, everyone deserves a race like that from time to time. Yeah. And finally, in the eighth district, we have the incumbent Silas Vanderweel, who I think is running for his third term, if I'm not mistaken, against Dustin Havens, who ran last year in my district, apparently has moved since then. That's going to be an interesting one. And I think really pretty kind of hard to call at this point. The primary results were very close, I think within, I think fewer than 10 votes if my memory serves me correctly. And so I, I'm just not sure. Any ideas, thoughts on that one? Well, you think the incumbency would help, but you don't know as a result of all the shenanigans that have gotten a lot of publicity as far as the institution of the Common Council and how much anti-incumbency might play in a race. There are those who, no matter how long you've been there, if you're in there for one term, you're the incumbent, you're the institution, if there's something wrong with it, whether it's spinoff from the library situation or whatever, people will say, well, we want change. But the incumbency is a very difficult thing to overcome. It really is. And of course, last year in 2005, I think there was a huge issue that really propelled a whole lot of the race. And I'm seeing in just in how these things are playing out that this may just be a completion of that cycle. I think people were discouraged with how the city council was doing business. A year ago, and I think clearly that is a sense that remains at least to some extent, when you have 24 people running for eight spots, one, we've talked many times on this program about celebrating democracy, but it also is a pretty clear indicator that people are dissatisfied with how things are going and looking for a change. So, well, we'll see how we do on the scorecard. And- We're gonna leave that at high. Too close to call. I think that's too close to call. What's great about this is that by the time this is actually shown, it's not gonna influence anybody. Right, I know. You can say what you want, because it's like Doctor Who in reverse. Yeah, well, it could also, I mean, how about turnout? I mean, what other issues are there to encourage people to turn out? Well, I think Vanderwill's gonna be reelected, but it's gonna be real close. I think because he lost narrowly in the primary, I think he's gonna make a concerted effort to try to get his folks to the polls. And with the referendum, I think you'll end up narrowly squeaking out a win. Well, and we're gonna move on, I think, to talk about other issues that may bring people to the polls, but before we move away from city politics, Christine Menard died this past week, and I think all of us knew Chris, and she was a force unto herself and a unique, quite wonderful person. Tom, you served on the city council with Chris? Yes, I served with Chris, and Mayor Sol rest in peace, bless her heart. She was a fun person. She loved politics, she loved the city. One year, we sort of campaigned together, I mean, she and the second district, me and the first district, when we did a restaurant and have a good time. And she, when we were doing, remember the ambulance controversy? Well, how could we forget? Chris and I were just like that on that, and she was very vocal and very supportive, and I think she's been kind of ill of late, I guess, yeah, and so I was kind of surprised just to see it in the paper. I didn't realize she was that old. I think she was 77, and so she has served the city well. And we'll miss her. We'll just harken back to the days when it was really hard to get a good cup of coffee in Sheboygan, and I remember you could go to Coffee End and buy your coffee beans, and 15, 20 years ago, that was a pretty big deal, and... Well, that's true, also if you, and if you wanted to talk politics, she'd love to talk politics, you go into the store, you make all kinds of deals in Coffee End. Now, this is sort of an aside, but if I wanted to create a rumor, I'd talk to Chris. Because she knew a lot of people, she talked a lot, and I'd say, well, I'm thinking of doing this, and pretty soon everybody knew I was so good. Chris was the trial balloon. So she was good, though. I liked Chris. I enjoyed her tremendously. I mean, I used to go into Coffee End, which was actually one of the first, when you look at the waterfront now and all the different boutiques and things, she really was one of the first people that really understood marketing and retail and of course she came back from Sheboygan from New York City, where she did some of that, but she had kind of the first boutique store, and it really was the only place to get really what we'd call an agurame coffee, and I used to have a lot of talk with her, and then of course she held court over at Rupps. I saw her sitting at Rupps, and she would hold court. She'd have a martini sitting there in a cigarette, and she and I would sit and talk, and we'd have great, great conversations. Yeah, that's right, that's right. But she was kind of had one spot, and I'd see her there from time to time, and everybody could go up to her and talk to her. She was one of the most accessible people that you ever want to meet. So let's bring a little bit of fun back to the city council, huh? It doesn't seem like it's much fun these days, and it's... Well, two candidates campaigning together. I mean, that's what I was struck when Tom was telling the story. Two candidates actually kind of enjoying each other's and jumping in and seeing people out of Tia. Well, just a quick aside, but John Buchan, circuit court judge here for many years was our neighbor for any number of years as well, and he tells the story when he and Nat Heffernan were both running for district attorney when they got back to Sheboygan after World War II, and old Mr. Buchan Gustav, who had been in the legislature, I believe for a protracted period of time, old Mr. Buchan had the car, and he would give the car to John Buchan and Nat Heffernan on alternating days. So that they could drive around the county. And of course, Chief Justice Heffernan was well-known for campaigning and every bar that he could possibly find. And he tells the story, these are good storytellers of having campaigned hard all one afternoon, only to find out he had spent about three or four hours in Ozaki County. He had crossed the line in his efforts, but that's equal opportunity campaigning, so. Let's talk. Campaign momentum. There you go. Momentum. There you go. Sometimes I think those days have passed and we're the poorer for it. The county has a, the referendum is, I think gonna draw a fair number of people to the polls. Advice to the county board as to whether or not citizens are willing to exceed the allowable tax levy in order to support the nursing homes. That's how is, how is it worded? Does anybody? Well, there are two questions. One is on exceeding the limit for the nursing homes and the other is just exceeding the limit for county expenditures. So it gives, I think, the people of choice of whether they wanna be very generous or generous only in one area. Oh, sorry, I'm gonna have two. We'll get to vote yes or no on two questions. Two questions, okay. And as with all referenda questions, and I think we'll be talking about this in our next show about statewide referenda, how you word items clearly influences the outcome. I think the wording here is pretty straightforward and pretty neutral. It does not reflect the complexity of the subject but how could a referendum question reflect that kind of complexity? So I think it will be interesting and 9,000 people signed, 9,000 plus signed a petition to have an advisory referendum. So my sense is that it will turn the voters out. We haven't seen much in the newspaper. We're still a good two weeks, right? Yes. Out from the election. But those of us who have been in contested elections know that the last two weeks are the toughest and that's when things really do start to heat up and people start paying attention. I think it's been quiet so far. The ambiguity is we don't know how much we're voting for if we exceed the limit. Does there is any dollar amounts attached to this? Like well, I'll vote yes to exceed the limit and that'll mean X dollars, it doesn't say. Well, the county board struggled. The supervisor struggled and struggled to find language. They'd given up at one point and then I believe it was Carl Adi who brought it back and the language is simple but it's straightforward and I think captures and remember it's just an advisory referendum but captures the sense of how citizens feel about their nursing homes. Is it worthwhile spending any more money than we would have to spend or that we would be allowed to spend under revenue caps and so I think it'll reflect the feelings of the populace of the voters if not certainly not the incredibly complicated realities of maintaining nursing homes and the cost and medical assistance reimbursements. Sunny Ridge and Rocky Knoll get the sickest of the sick and the most difficult of the difficult patients and residents just because a number of private nursing homes just don't have the resources to provide services to that group of folks so it really is and interestingly enough the population at Sunny Ridge is I get the minutes from the healthcare center committee meetings and that population is steadily going down to that target of 150 I believe. So not kicking anybody out but just in terms of not taking in new admissions so I mean there is that diminishment and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I suspect the people who will vote yes on the exceeding the limit for the nursing homes are not gonna be that concerned whether it's two million or three million. They're just very committed to the county providing that level of care and not getting out of the business totally which is I think of the fear that many people had and the downsizing while it didn't set well with the true advocates for the homes I think they're willing to come forth and say we're gonna pay for what we need to pay for to keep these places open. Yeah. What about another item? Let's get to Shmoygan Falls and let's go. We should comment on the county board in the sense that there aren't many races and that in a way is a shame and maybe that will lend hopefully if there's a smaller county board maybe we'll get to the focus that you have on the city council. It always amazes me how almost all the seats are contested in the city. Here you have 35 county board seats only a handful are contested and here you have a budget that's just million many millions of dollars. Zero press coverage. Yes, yes. And hopefully if they'd go down to 24 or 17 we'd get more focus on that office and the magnitude of the decisions that are made on the county level. It's really a shame in a way. Yeah. Well I see that I've completely lost control of hosting this show. And Tom is anxious to talk about Shmoygan Falls. It's a very democratic forum. That's a democratic forum. I mean, I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. I hope we throw the arbitrary host and let's talk about what we wanna talk about. The gypsy host, we can just pass it around. But Tom. No, I was looking for Calix. Let's see, that's his area. Are you living in Falls? That's right. So how are you gonna vote? I saw the big, I mean they're very dramatic. It's just a big red sign that says no. I think Shmoygan Falls deserves additional facilities. If you look at the size of the community, it's very close to Plymouth and look at Plymouth. I mean a number of elementary schools, they have a middle school, high school, and Shmoygan Falls for years did so much in so few buildings. Maybe that's probably part of the problem is you try to catch up, you try to do multiple buildings within a short period of time and you get sticker shocked from the electorate. But the fact of the matter is a community that size should have, I think, a middle school, a high school, elementary schools. And what you're trying to do here is probably catch up for a lost time. But like I said, it comes on the heels of a fairly new elementary school and it comes on the heels of people who are having property tax bills that are with the cost of homes today higher than they'd like them to be. Exactly. The critics of the referendum talk to a few of them and they really are concerned that if the state starts playing around with funding mechanisms, they're gonna end up, as you said, Cal funding a lot of debt in a short period of time. And then with revenue caps going to, being forced to go to the public and saying we need to exceed the caps and what happens if you can't? And then you start to talk about cuts in programs and in staff and those kinds of things. There really are in a tough spot because the building is, I'm not walk through it, but I've talked to some staff who teach there and I've talked to some people who walk through there. Falls doesn't even, Falls doesn't even, when they have new parents coming in, they show them the elementary school, they show them the high school, and they sort of just say, oh, that's our elementary school over there. I mean, our middle school. They're really in a rough, between a rock and a hard spot because they waited. Now, the opponents are saying we have to wait 15 years. 15 years for that older building. I mean, it's a tough call. Do you keep dumping money into a building that you know eventually is not going to pan out? And layered on top of that is there's some, all of this still residual unhappiness in the community about the football situation and how the board and the school board and how they make decisions. And yes, last night, I'm told this afternoon that last night they actually, the old board just before the election just offered the superintendent another two year contract. And I think there's gonna be a real backlash to that. I think the timing there is just absolutely dreadful because it looks like the old guard is trying to present a potential new guard with a superintendent with a contractor ready. And so I think that's gonna make that referendum even more difficult to pass. And I suspect it'll fail. I wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, and most referenda do fail the first time out or the second or sometime the third. My folks are from Antigo with little town up North and they have a beautiful new high school that took them about 40 years to get two lawsuits through the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They, I mean, it was an incredibly complex process because the community simply did not want to spend the money. And now they have a beautiful school, but nonetheless, they did not wanna spend that money. And I think it's a big price tag for a middle school, $24 million. And as I followed the news, it started out at 13 and just kind of steadily went up. And so I think there may be, I haven't paid close enough attention, but I think they're gonna really struggle. Plus again, a very contested school board race. There are six people running for three seats and I don't know how that's going to turn out, but I think that, I think that's it. It reflects the division in the community and the division over this issue as well as other issues. And anytime you have that type of contention, it doesn't bode well for the easy passage of a building referendum. It really doesn't. I think Sheboygan was a good classic example of getting all the ducks in order to get the field houses and the other expansions you have here and get the vote you did. It was just to magnificently run PR as well as operational thing between the school board and the constituency out there. Well, the key in the 96 and also the past referendum for the Sheboygan area school district truly, I think you hit it on the head. There was just this incredibly wide, broad base of community support. Well, next time we'll know how our prognostications happened and we'll see. If we're wrong, we won't mention a thing. We'll have a little poster. And then we'll post the NCAA results and we'll just see just how good we are. Thanks.