 Hello, and welcome to the Donahue Group. We're delighted that you can join us for another half hour of fun-filled and sightful, intelligent conversation about issues of the day. Joining me today, Ken Risto, who's always good. Fun, intelligent, sightful, most of her three. So here's the fun person, Ken Risto. Tom Paneski, I forgot what you were, but you are currently Professor of Mathematics at UW-Shabuigan. Highly intelligent, Cal Potter, former state senator. I'm a lawyer in town. My name is Mary Lynn Donahue, and we're here today to talk about some local issues of most interest, I think, and relatively recent in the past are the primary election results. Overall results statewide. Turnout statewide for the primary. Any guesses? If you know the actual answer, don't tell me. No, I don't know. I don't know. 18%. 18%. I would say even less. Yeah, I would say even less. You want to say 10? I'll go 20, and I'm optimistic. 7%. 7%? No. 7%? Really? According to the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, or excuse me, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. That's why I buffed it up a little. That could be a new record low. That could be. A new one. A high new low. In any event, before we get over-involved in that, the local results were quite interesting. I was, as you know, I watched the votes come in for the League of Women Voters every election, so I'm down at the administration building and calling the results to various TV stations and so forth. And always an interesting process. It was certainly much quieter with such a low turnout. But we did have some interesting, first of all, good news that there were lots and lots of primaries. Statewide, or I'm sorry, in the Milwaukee area, about 66% of all positions not only didn't have primaries, people are completely unimposed. So Sherboygan, again, does not fit that bill. In the first district, I predicted, I don't think we did predictions, did we? No, we didn't. Oh, too bad. That's been, we could have found out who was really smart and insightful and just playing fun. Jim Gisha and Bruce Christensen were the clear winners in the first all-demand district where there was a big turnout. 284 for Gisha, 249 for Christensen, and then Neil Altman, Tim Lorenz, and Job Jose came in last with 16 votes. Both, I think pretty, these of course are non-partisan elections, but I think both Jim Gisha and Bruce Christensen would be considered conservative. That would be correct. Yeah. It's a conservative ward, goes, usually Republican in the elections. And I think the characterization of the campaigns in the paper from what I read was that those who went door to door did it and the rest of them didn't seem to put forth the effort. And I think if you showed up at somebody's doorstep, when it was about 10 degrees out, I think you probably got sympathy. Or either that or just a question as to your good sense. See, you never had to run in a quote, spring election. And if you're driving around, that was the only two signs you saw was Christensen and Gisha. I didn't see any other signs like Lorenz or Jose or... Tim Lorenz, you'll remember, ran against Joe Liebham in his very first race for the assembly back X number of years ago and got beat then. Neil Altman is a labor guy. Fun, I like Neil. But, and then of course, Joe Posey with only 16 votes, I think, I'm wondering if his... Whom does the bell toll, he tolls through the... You love to run though. Yeah, love to run. It's the oldest smile that you send out returns to, I don't know. But it'll be, I have no predictions on... My sense is Gisha wins, but I'm not sure. I think it's pretty gold earned close. Any... No, we'll wait, I'll wait until they have a little... The forums will get now a little more crisp because you only have just the two candidates. And I think there'll be some differences between the two. And then people will decide, I think, on the differences. Any other... Do you have any sense of what kind of differences they'd have? I heard one that Christians... Bruce said that the ambulance belongs in the fire department. And I don't know that Gisha believes that. I'm not sure, but if he does, I don't know who I'm going to vote for then. It seemed in the first forum, and I want to be sure, when I was listening and watching on television, that Jim was a little more open to looking at the reserve monies and possibly using some, whereas Bruce was pretty much saying, we have people that we hire to give us expert advice. And those experts are saying, we should probably be real careful about going in there. So I sense there was maybe some difference there, but other than that, of course, when you got five candidates and you got the stream of people coming in with some of them asking questions and some of them giving speeches with maybe a question to act at the end, it was kind of hard to tell. But you're right, I think the forums know with only two of them. But the two will be a little more crisp when they find what they think a little bit. And hang on to the Vehicle Maintenance Fund because I think that is a very interesting issue and it's an issue the county has as well with noisy answers as far as I can see, but we'll get to that hopefully. I'm just gonna put in for Gisha, we'll see. I'm thinking Jim too, although I know Bruce and I've worked with Bruce for years at South High School. He's, a lot of people know him, because you know, thousands of students have streamed through South and know him. Gisha, the true is the Republican activist having been, I think, on the official and the Republican Party, and that's a Republican ward. But like you said, Christensen's very well known in the community. I think Jim is a little more used to the public forums and speaking. I mean, Bruce really represents his positions fine, but Jim is pretty slick. I mean, he's pretty comfortable on his feet. And if you're watching on TV, I think he's gonna come across being, for lack of a better word, a little more eloquent. And that might make a little bit of a difference. I don't know. We'll see. There's one other thing, but just working through the list and I don't know, I do know these guys did a lot of doors. You'll remember Anthony Bonet ran for Alderperson in the first district. Two elections ago, I think. I can't remember, but my brother lives in the first district and he said, you know, Anthony Bonet has been to my door three times. And he said, it was great talking to him the first time. You know, I really enjoyed the conversation. The second time we didn't have that much to talk about, third time I didn't wanna see him anymore. So I think, is there, you know, there's a point of no return where you just can't knock on the door one more time. Well, when there's only a 7% turnout, that's why they end up coming so many times. There aren't too many voters to knock on the door. Yeah, it takes a while, you know, you're walking, it takes a while. I do think the turnout in Schwoigen was higher than 7%, that was statewide. But the third Aldermanic district, again, a very interesting race. Danver-Hasselt, Dimple Adams and Scott Lewandowski. Danver-Hasselt is the incumbent, but appointed, if I'm not mistaken. And so this is his first race. Dimple Adams, of course, a great supporter of Sheridan Park is a good location for the police station. Good, you know, a strong supporter of the police department, I think. And then Scott Lewandowski, formerly a big supporter of Mayor Perez, but actively involved in the recall from what I understand. Was Dimple involved in the recall effort as well? Sure, she was the treasurer, or was she the president of the group? That's what I thought. Yeah, I know Barbara Tyshinski was one of the main spokespeople, but I thought Dimple Adams was a... Yep, I thought so too, but I just wanted to make sure my memory was serving me correctly. So, it's close, though. For the longest time, I didn't know who Dimple Adams was. I said, you know, I was... All I gotta do is listen to WHBL, because she virtually was an open Michael host for a while. Yeah, but I missed all of that, so when I saw the sign Dimple Adams, I was like, who is that? That's a cute name. That's a cute name. It's hard sometimes to run with a cute name, but she did very well. She came from the south, came to Sheboygan in the 1970s, I think. Well, mind you, though, the difference here was small. 237 votes for Vahassel 218 for Adams. That's pretty, pretty small. And then Scott Lewandowski was a distant, with 80 votes. Scott, of course, has some life because he's running for the school board. Now, with those numbers, he's not. Oh. Sorry. I don't know. Well, we can talk about that. Now, with those numbers, he's not. If you can, I'm sorry, I mean, I'll be the contrary in voice here today, but if you can get only 80 in an aldermanic when you go to a city-wide race for school board, you're done. That depends on who the opposition is. But in any event, it will be interesting because we have the first-mong person actually running for election. I'm sorry. Myshua Vang did run last year in a one-year term, so she came in fourth, but she was elected. Fong Li is running against Scott Lewandowski, and an interesting fellow. I had the chance to meet him quite bright, and of course, we all know Scott. Well, we had a chance to talk about that as we get closer. Right. Yes. Move along, come on. All right. You're just excited because the district is fairly dramatic. Joe Heidemann really, as we say in my firm, really schvetsing Jim Graf. 243 to 141, and Dan Berg had 29 votes. That's interesting, yeah. I think Jim Graf has, he's just been in the paper too much for the wrong things. I don't know. That will see. Well, again, it's hard to tell. If I were Jim, I'd be very, very nervous because you're the incumbent and you lose in the primary. I mean, there's a lot of time to get your people out there to vote yet, but I know that Joe was really working doors again. I don't know how much Jim was, but I know Joe was at our door. I wasn't home, but he spoke to my wife, and I don't believe, unless again, Jim was not going to be there. I'm not sure how energetic Jim is working out of his district. And didn't Joe run last time? Yes, he did. No, that wasn't against Graf. That was against... That was Berg. When Berg was up for reelection. He didn't make the cut on the primary. He didn't make the cut on the primary, yeah. But this time, Joe's got some signs out, and they're all pretty strategically placed in high traffic areas, Lakeshore Drive on the south side of town, Lakeshore Drive, it's 12th Street, 8th Street, you know, and he looks like he's putting a much more serious effort this time around. Well, there's nothing like running one bad race to learn all the mistakes that you've made and then figure out how you change and... And I didn't get a chance to get to the forum, but I saw it on TV again, and I think Joe did very well in that setting. It was, I wouldn't say a hostile audience for Jim Graf, but there were a couple of police officers in the crowd asking pointed questions. One had to make, which I thought was a low blow, and I thought it was pretty shabby, but one made a comment about a secret John Doe investigation, and I think Jim, I think Jim is one of these persons who understands that city issues are a little complex and sometimes it's tough to explain that to an audience. And there was just a lot of vague accusations and then the question came at the end, so it wasn't a very friendly forum. I don't know how many of those people who were actually at the forum were actually people who vote in that aldermanic district. It seems like you have the same cast of people, the same carnival, kind of moving around. That's a good choice of words. Well, I mean, I watched a lot of them and you're hearing pretty much the same sort of harangues and then at the end, it's the moderator has to say, is there a question in there somewhere or the candidates look at each other and they don't even know what to say. Well, there you go. Moving right along before we completely fall through the ice. The six aldermanic district. Bill Wongerman. Wasn't that fun? It was great fun, I wanna thank you. I'd like to ask the insightful and intelligent people on the panel here, as opposed to the fun person. It's all yours, guys. Okay. Let me know if you want me to talk again. I'm happy to do that. Bill Wongerman handily beat Jeff Radke. I do think I predicted that. Bill, of course, is a very well-known name in town and Radke has only, this is his second race. He won the first time and who did he beat? I am trying to remember. I don't know. Wongerman ran before and won, saw his action and then he stepped down and decided not to run again. I mean, he already has won once. He was in the police department, so he knows people. He has an article on the paper every week practically. So it's very well-known. Very well-known. He's the city historian, right? Yeah, so I think Jeff probably has his work cut out for him. There's no advantage to the incumbency there. No, I don't think so, I don't think so. And I think the last two years on the city council have frankly been fairly rough and that I think people who have participated in that council rightly or wrongly may be viewed as part of a pretty dysfunctional group. And so I think that that is potentially kind of a tough spot. The Plymouth School Board, not of great interest to our listeners, but we just have to say that finally the Usberg school district referendum of $9.85 million won. And not by a huge vote. It was 1,282 to 1,055. That's a lot of votes. It is. That is a lot of votes. And since they only lost by six votes the last time, I thought that was pretty interesting. I think Brian did a good job in getting the community behind this vote. Brian Haynes. It's a successful, right? Who used to be in the Sheboygan system, was he not? Right, yes. You know, the Sheboygan example of getting the community behind a major expenditure of money helps it get through and that's what they did. They got church groups and others involved and that was very positive for him. Well, you think of the brilliant job the school district did with its last enormous referendum which passed overwhelmingly. And that was really very much, I think, a community effort and to sell $32 million, $36 million in a referendum was pretty impressive. So good for Usberg and I'm glad that that worked out for them. We're just gonna touch base on the town of Wilson simply because they've had their controversies with the fire department and volunteer fire departments can often be an interesting source of politics but the incumbent chair, Keith Satchel, came in second to Roger G. Miller who was pretty much the decisive winner and Brian Hoffman who had previously been on the town board is out and then the two incumbent supervisors, both, were they running for two positions or just one? There's the town chair, which is one position and then there are two. So when the people were voting, they were voting for two and they were, so there was a prime. Right, there were four people, five people running for four spots. Oh, okay. Five people running for two spots. Two spots. And so the two incumbents were the top vote getters and then there are two other folks who will run against the two supervisors but then the town chair, there was just the one spot there. So it'll be Miller versus Satchel so that'll be interesting to see. So overall, I think it was an interesting primary and I will say we'll get into this in our state episode a little, in a different episode but Annette Ziegler won handily, handily in Sheboygan County. She got 68% of the vote in Sheboygan County and Joe Summers was just a few votes behind Linda Clifford and Summer, of course, is the candidate, a lawyer from Madison who at least is currently under investigation by the Supreme Court for alleged unethical conduct. So not a good night for Linda Clifford in Sheboygan County. I'll tell you that. Well, statewide Ziegler did very well. Yeah, more than 50% statewide. Yeah, but a small turnout again. Yeah, but there were a lot of, there were major independent expenditures in that race which is a new on scene, I think, for the court system. I mean, it used to be that the courts were the last vestige of using public financing. Yeah, not anymore. Not anymore, no. We'll get into that. I'd make a pitch for public financing. Just as an aside, when I went to vote there, I had a choice between the ballot or the screen. I chose to do the ballot, but did anybody choose to do the screen? I reject the screen. Well, I don't trust him. You don't trust him. I did the usual ballot. The ballot too? Yeah, yeah. I want a paper trail. Well, I think there is a paper trail on our machines. That's a good question. I'll find out the answer to that and let you know next time. On the touch screen? Mm-hmm. I'm kind of curious how many people actually use the touch screen. Well, I did poll watching in the 2006, November 2006 election. And there were a number of people who tried it. It's a little, if you're in a hurry, I mean, I was in a rush moving in and out because I almost forgot to vote. And so I'm rushing in to vote and the screen takes more time in my experience, just having watched people go through it and so forth. But I think it's interesting, but I will check to see if there is a paper trail. Most states, they aren't and they're having major revamping of the voting machines in many states because they're no paper trail. Right, exactly. Exactly. There's, how can you do a recount without a paper trail? I mean, it takes away the whole concept of a recount, I think, so, but it's called, the machine is called the EDGE. The EDGE? Yes, that's what the... Living on the EDGE, yes. Living on the EDGE. Well, it's fun if you're in the administration building and you watch people, all the clerks bringing in ballots from all over the county and I enjoy doing that and you just hear what's going on. So that's what you were seeing, they were bringing a print out from the... No, no, I mean, everything was in boxes. Okay. But I did not ask if there's a paper trail. I had just assumed there was, but... Well, I think it's just a computer. All you have to do is press the button and probably print it out, but I guess you always have to have faith and the magnetic disk goes from the, you know, the information from the disk to the paper correctly or not. I still miss the little lovers. Sure. When you used to pull the, you'd pull the big handle and the curtain would close and then you didn't have to, well, in any event. So we're going on to the general election, but just some interesting, interesting other issues. Big source of controversy and Tom, I'd be interested in your perspective as a former alder person about the vehicle fund, which has been discovered, $8 million used for purchase of police and other... Maintenance. City cars, maintenance. I'm not sure what it's used. It's used for replacement. And now is it just public works vehicles or is it police department vehicles? I'd have to check it out. I thought it was just police department, but that doesn't make any sense. No, it's more than just police. It's because they're big trucks in the public works department and those wear out and they need replacement. And they're not cheap. And they're not cheap. They're not cheap. So I thought, what would I do if I... Generally, I don't like to raid funds when I was on the council. They're there for a purpose. The Industrial Park Fund was there for a purpose. This would be there for a purpose, but maybe there's better equipment nowadays and the fund is a little too high. So you'd have to really, before you made up your mind whether to take any, maybe look at the record, see how much over the last four or five years the vehicle fund was used. Well, it seems to me that is something that the finance department could make a logical explanation of what's needed, what should be there, what shouldn't be there. And... Sometimes you just say, okay, every year we're gonna put this much in the fund and maybe you don't monitor that very well. And it just grows and grows and grows. And then you say, oh, I didn't have to put that much in the fund. I could have gone by with less. 8 million seems high, but I don't know. It would really depend. And of course, the county has always had a substantial surplus. Most organizations, just like they tell you, you should save up enough money so that you can live if you lose your job. Governments and nonprofits, typically you like to have them save some money for the rainy day fund. And I know the county has done that, but Pat Whedon, long time county board supervisor, really was a strong pusher to get the county surplus spent out, which was considerably more. And of course we don't know what all the city surplus funds are. Yeah, and I'm sure the fund was around when they had the incinerator and all the vehicles that worked in the incinerator, you had to replace those. Now, they may have cut back on the fund at that point, may not have it, maybe just so. What do you think of Mike Warner's idea to, if there's this big fund, to use part of that for the police station, but then borrow more money and actually spend more on the police station? Well, all the police aren't happy with their garage situation. And I don't know whether, this is something that ought to be addressed. Now is the time to do it. If that garage maintenance issue is so dysfunctional, you ought to address it. Well, it sounds typical politics though. You find money, spend it. I mean, if I found money, spend it. Why spend it? But the characterization in the paper was that how much time officers are spending, taking cars to maintenance and coming back with them. And I mean, when you're paying an officer to be an officer, you don't want them driving around with a car, trying to find where they're gonna have it fixed. If there's a legitimate time wasting here, somebody ought to look at that. Well, then you got, that goes down to, there was a police maintenance group and then there was the public works maintenance group. And so should a city just have one maintenance area? So in validation and services? It would seem to make sense, but who knows? Who knows? Yeah, because the police maintenance, was right next to the city hall. That building, yeah. Well, what it was characterized in the paper is that you simply move the folks that fix police cars down to the city municipal garage and they're sort of being put in a corner over there to work and there's really no pooling. No pooling? I didn't get that from the, I don't know. But I didn't get that from the article in the paper. It was criticism that there wasn't enough savings to warrant that move. I don't know. That's gonna be the hard thing. He's trying to figure out, is this just one of those things where it's inconvenient and we'd really, I mean, I would like to have a nicer faculty lounge at South High School. And I'd like to carpet it and I'd like some new furniture and there's lots of things I would like, but I know that if I have to put up with it, I'll put up with it. Or if it's as Cal suggested something, that where it really is in the long run, you're a, you've saved a penny but it's gonna cost you a pound. And it's really hard to sort that all out because I haven't seen a really, what I would consider a informative discussion on that issue yet. Well, the police aren't really happy with the garage. It's gonna be built at the police station either. Maybe those two can be lumped together and say, let's do this right. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. It's such an intense situation though sometimes. It's gonna be hard to kind of separate the politics out to Tom, like I think you said. But I would sense with Renee Susha going off the council that if it comes out that there's a reasonable case to be made to spend more money to do it right this time around, even if it means dipping into some of that money and borrowing perhaps a little bit, I think there's gonna be, I think the council will go along with that. Depends on how many of those officers are running to get elected too. Well, the last episode, we were assured that none of these guys have a common agenda. Okay. So I'm hearing from the informed side of the room as opposed to the cynical side of the room that perhaps this may not be the case. Well, let's just- Well, they're pro-police. Let's put it that way. Let's continue on. And that's where it should be. Good news is 9.3% increase in tourism tax dollars. A correlation being made between the city taking tourism in-house and the additional tax money. I did not read the article, so I'm not up on it, but- It went from something like 340,000 to 415 or something. I don't have the exact numbers and that was a 9% increase. And I don't know what was going on. This was 206 over 205. So it's a two-year period of time? 205, they measured, so it was the increase over 205. Oh, I see. So it was the money that was brought in in 2006? Yeah, it was the money brought in in 2006. Which would have been the year that the tourism bureau was in place. Yeah, and pretty much in full swing. So I think that's interesting. I think, you know, I'm on an email list, so I'm getting emails about interesting things happening around the city and so forth from the tourism department, but it seems to be a pretty lively group. And the materials they're putting out are good. The art festival down at Blue Harbor was fun. But Sheboygan is, yeah, is becoming a destination so more people will come because, you know, at the golfing and the road America and just other events, it's nationally becoming a destination. And so maybe the tourism bureau helps it, but I don't know that it would be, I wouldn't give it the full credit. No causation, just correlation. Correlation, yeah. We will note that it looks like the county board is coming up for a vote. Going to be selling Sunny Ridge, kind of an end of an era. And we only have a minute left. And I just want to say that we've had the passing of two local, wonderful people, one Dwayne Nye, formerly of WHBL and- News director for many years. News director for many years and a kind and gentle guy. And Leo Brie, rather, an icon in Sheboygan labor politics and a dear fellow, as I remember. And so we wish them well on their next journeys. And of course, nationally, my favorite columnist, Molly Ivins, passed away a couple of weeks ago. She was a giant of a woman in more than one way. I met her in Milwaukee in pre-chemotherapy. She was over six feet tall and had red hair that just kind of swam out. And one of the funniest and most insightful and courageous columnists, I think, that I had ever read. Never feared a president, that's for sure. That's it. Got all three of us in there, funny and insightful and smart. And we'll be back. All three combined.