 It's, well, good evening everybody. Thank you so much for coming out this evening. My name is Ryan Sorensen. I have the privilege of being the mayor of Sheboygan. I know everyone has just been thinking about summer. That's why we wanted to come out here today as we're in the dead of February right now. Okay, I was hoping for a laugh. That was supposed to be a laugh line, but no, no, it's all good. In all seriousness, thanks for coming out. We have an awesome opportunity here for the city of Sheboygan to start hosting an international powerboat racing competition right here in the shores of Sheboygan. Now, if some folks have remembered, there's been something like this way back before my time in Sheboygan again, so we're happy to kind of get this back on the radar as well, but we're really excited and want to just get some feedback and inform the folks and the public about what this means, what it means for the community, a lot of different agencies across the community as well too. This is a great opportunity that is just another great example of Sheboygan and the capacity that we have to host large scale sporting events. A lot of folks know NASCAR at Elkhart Lake, the Ryder Cup, PGA, a lot of golf stuff too, but now another great water activity as well too. So we have some of our friends from P1On Online as well as Stuart here from Mercury Racing, friends right down the street on 23 from Fondalac. We'll share a little bit more about just why they chose Sheboygan, what we're looking to do moving forward in August, obviously that this is going to be a big event on the water. So news flash, yes, it's going to be a busy weekend. It will be a lot of people here, but we're excited to put Sheboygan on the map. We want to make sure that everyone, no matter what entity or part of the marina, a hotel, restaurant, shop, whatever that you take full advantage of this opportunity for Sheboygan and just kind of, and just take advantage of this great opportunity what we need for the community. So we'll kind of start just with some presentations and then towards the end we'll do a quick Q&A and ask what questions we might be able to answer. Now we've just totally recognized that we're not a, we might not have all the answers to all the questions just yet, but it will help us in the planning process moving forward as well to just a few housekeeping items if anyone needs to use the restroom. Feel free to step out. They're right over here on this side of City Hall. So thanks so much. I'll turn it over to Stuart. Just say some few welcoming words and we'll turn it over to some of our friends online here. So thanks again. Hello everyone and thanks for coming out. So I'm Stuart Halley, General Manager of Mercury Racing. I've been up in Wisconsin and at Mercury for 30 years and really excited to have an opportunity to kind of float this plan that we've been brewing. So Mercury Racing is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. So 1973 in the middle of a cornfield up in Tachita, the old man as we call him, Karl Kieker, he and his son kind of created this business. It's merged through the years. We've worked, we've had a few different brands, Kieker, Aero Marine as part of our history, Mercury, Precision Products and all those have kind of evolved into a big melting pot of a company that likes to innovate engineering solutions for marine products. And we like to basically supply product to customers that like to be seen and like to kind of have that, they have that high performance gene. So our business started out supplying products to race teams and over the 50 years we've transitioned probably, there was a couple of milestone events in probably 2010, we came out with an engine called the QC4 which is a nine liter or twin turbocharged V8 that makes 1350 horsepower in the original version and people have liked to use that on something called poker runs where they go out in social events and meet with their friends and they go to different places for lunch and that and then at the end of the day, they get up, they've accumulated a poker hand, whoever wins, basically the charities win because everyone of these events is basically a local charity that benefits from veterans to just different things, children's hospitals. Then again in 2015, we've introduced an outboard that again is kind of really grown this market. So we have four events planned for this year. Our first one is next week down at Miami Boat Show where we're gonna be launching a new product and kind of teeing up our whole year. And then we have another event in Charleston, South Carolina and then this one that really is kind of a big one to me is our heritage. We started Empower Boat Racing and we wanna really kind of bring notice back. It's one of the most emotional sports to me and it just doesn't have a following with NASCAR or IndyCar or Formula One. So we have a lot of partnerships that we've been developing and you'll get to hear from two people tonight from two really great organizations, P1 Offshore, Michelle's gonna talk a little bit later on and then I think Tim Siebold, which if you're no Power Boat Racing, Siebold's a very famous name based out of St. Louis. And I'm lucky because next week at our event down in Miami, I get to see the Bill Siebold and Michael Siebold and of course I see Tim all the time but it's a really cool little niche group. But I've been here 30 years, I love Sheboygan, I've stimulated the economy. We're looking to really stimulate the economy with this weekend in August. And we wanna work through it if there's any issues, definitely we're gonna understand what the roadblocks are but when we first started looking, we looked Chicago, Milwaukee, Manitowoc and I've been familiar. It's interesting but anyway, that's for another discussion but what a great location, the Blue Harbor. What's really nice about this location is people can park a car and then the Blue Harbor is central location, the offshore course will be right off Lake Michigan and then the protected water for the circuit racing. So we're bringing, the idea behind this event is to bring the top classes. We're only bringing the top classes and that's three offshore race categories which will race in the big water in Lake Michigan and then the circuit racing group which is they need more calmer water than big offshore water. So that triangular area you have will work out great Tim will show you that. And then what I'm really excited about is we have a new project. We're working with a group out of Europe called E1 series. They've done electric power series before. They've done the Formula E, a car racing series Extreme E and now they're doing something called E1. There's a boat called the race boat, a race bird. It is a hydrofoiling electric powered boat and we do the power for that and that will be here in August as a demonstration. And it's inaugural racing series will be in Saudi Arabia in December. So you guys will see it first time in the U.S. But pretty cool event and I'm gonna turn it over to Tim Siebold who will kind of go through everything. Michelle or Tim can either of you try to unmute and talk, we can't hear anything. Thought Scott, we can't hear you yet. Scott, can we log in as our own user and just put it next to the mic? So we can't, if you, we can see your mouse moving. I don't know if you guys, if you can hear us, we can't hear you. So just a minute till we can, can you say something now, Tim? Can you hear me now? Yes, we can, go ahead. Ah, perfect. Well, hello, my name is Tim Siebold with the Formula One Power Boat Championship. We are one of the partners along with P1 Offshore conducting this joint venture with Mercury Racing to celebrate their 50th anniversary. We're very excited to return to Sheboygan. Actually, I'd never raced there but my father years ago raced in Sheboygan. So it's gonna be a great return. This is a fantastic setting on the riverfront of Sheboygan because we can showcase not only the offshore boats that'll run in the bigger water but also the circuit boats that'll run in the harbor along with the E1 exhibition that will be the first time in the United States showcased at the Sheboygan event and then possibly another drag boat exhibition. So we're very excited if we can bring up the presentation I think a picture is worth a thousand words so we can actually show our vision of what we are going to do. So we are combining the best of the best for the Mercury 50th anniversary showcasing the best talent in both circuit racing which is the boat on the left and the offshore racing in three categories, four categories, which is the boats on the right. So we will have class one which is the biggest fastest boats in the offshore series down to the super stocks with the 300R Mercury racing twin engines which will be probably the slowest class in offshore at this particular event. So we're bringing up the site plan so we can give you an overall view of what we are envisioning to bring not only for the racers but also the thousands of spectators that will visit and partake in this festivities. So as you can see we've got the offshore racing circuit to the lower right, the circuit boats in the harbor which is that triangle on the upper right and then we'll have VIP area hopefully with the completion of the peer construction so that way we'll be able to see both race circuits from one VIP area and then throughout the harbor we'll have pit area we'll have some vendors in town and we're looking to do also a street party on Friday night. So the block party is something where we display the boats for the fans to get right up close and personal not only with the boats but also with the teams so they'll be able to meet the drivers they'll get autograph signed and it's a fantastic way to kick off the event showcasing the powerful hardware that Mercury Racing produces and we use for our racing boats. So this is usually it'll last three or four hours and the public's invited because it's far them and we are going to determine final site when we come on our site visit at the end of February. Right now the two possible locations is on the street there you can see them outlined in blue or and I'm sorry I can't hardly see it from here but where the amphitheater is I think is the name of it towards the top of the page. So we wanted to give you a little insight to what we're thinking for the pits. So the peach area you'll notice is where the the boats will be staged for the weekend. We've got some overflow areas in the grassy area to the top and then for the marina we will have access in and out with some parking up by the marina building. So with the offshore boats we put them in by crane because most of them are too big to put use on the ramp. So a lot most of those boats will be launched by crane and the formula boats will be launched by trailer. So we'll be using the boat ramps not only for launching the boats but also for any water evacuation that we may need to do from on the water. So this will give you a little bit better idea of which boats will be staged to wear. So we've got the different offshore boats and the circuit boats all being encompassed in the same area. Then you'll see where we have the ambulances and the EMTs by the ramps, the crane on the other side of the ramp. We will be leaving one of those ramp sections open for emergency use. And then you'll also notice that's where the crane is and then the EMTs on the other side utilizing all of the area. This is just a picture of us launching one of the class one offshore boats. So the unique thing that we have at Sheboygan and the attraction to bringing this event to the waterfront is the fact that we can have the longer course for the off shores off the beach area and then the circuit boats in the harbor area because the circuit boats are only 17 foot long and they need some calmer water. The offshore boats are used to the open water because they range from 32 foot to 50 foot so they can handle the big water. But this gives us an opportunity to put the VIP hospitality area in that little blue section and that gives you the best vantage point for both race courses throughout the weekend. One of the reasons that we are partnering the circuit boats with the offshore boats, it's a unique situation because we don't normally run together but the nice thing about it is we can alternate the races so that way there'll be a lot of action on the water throughout the whole weekend for the fans and the public. This just gives you a look at the safety area which is outlined in red and we'll use some patrol boats along the perimeter there to keep the public safe because they'll also be watching not only from land but also spectators in their boats on the water. So the VIP area is important for the events in not only for mercury racing, bringing the VIPs, the customers, the employees, but also other sponsors to the event in giving them a place to host their functions with their particular groups. Now we have got two possible locations. We know that the peer construction is scheduled to be finished on July 4th, but we have an alternative location which is in the city green area right in front of Blue Harbor Resort Hotel. Safety is the number one concern not only for the boat racers but for the fans who are watching not only from the shore, but also from the water. So we have got several patrol boats, several safety boats, watercraft that will be on the course at all times. We've got EMTs in helicopters so that way we can get to our participants should they need our assistance. This just separates the different safety zones, how we go about it from the conducting club side of it to conduct the race so that way we can better handle each situation and stay in contact not only with our own team but also the local Coast Guard and water patrol service people. That just gives you a little view of how we will get the boats in and out from the pit area to the offshore course and the circuit course. That's the side of the ramp, section of the ramp that we will keep open for emergency situations should they arise. Well, I'm sure that we have some questions and by all means if anybody now's the time and we'll do our best to answer each one of them of your concerns and if we don't have the answer we will do our best to get you a quick decision and get back to you on it. Thank you, Tim. This is Chad Peleszek from the city of Sheboygan. We'll take questions in the chambers first and then we'll take questions for those folks that are online afterwards but a few follow up comments. We are aware that this is also the Coho Derby weekend. We believe in discussions with city staff and the Department of Public Works that we can accommodate those requests for Coho Derby as part of the A Street boat launch. We've talked to visit Sheboygan about using their parking lot as overflow for that event and we're also talking with the owner of 14th Street boat launch to see if we can use that property because the boat ramps will be closed down Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So we will be doing massive public relations on that and getting information out on that. The fact that that's gonna be closed but and then working with the groups that do Coho Derby and those types of things as we move forward. So at this time, if anybody has any follow up questions I would ask you to step to the podium so that those online can hear them. This is also being taped and we will share the recording on the city's website after the event in case anybody wants to link to it and share it with other people. But if you do have a question in the audience here if you care to stand to the, come up to the podium to ask your question now is your time. Hello, I'm Amy Wilson from Visit Sheboygan and I have two questions right off the top of my head. What's the plan for public parking? It's the expected attendance from what I read is could be up to 40,000 people. Tim, do you, I don't know if you wanna, can you answer what the attendance might be from this first time event? I believe that an event celebrating the 50th anniversary was gonna draw probably between 25 and maybe as high as 40,000 and that will probably be over a three day stretch. So it's not like you're gonna have everybody there at one time. So one of the places in Chad you might be able to help me out with this as well. If we can bring up the site map that has a surrounding area then you might be able to tell us where we're gonna park because I know we discussed some of the grassy areas that are downtown that could be used for that. And my pointer doesn't point to any of it but we have got the grassy area up by the pits. We also have the one that's down by the channel that we talked about possibly putting some cars in as well. The Armory Sightings are referring to. Yeah, so just this is Ryan again, just a few things regarding parking. This is one of the things that we're still hammering out the full details and we definitely recognize that it's just gonna be busy and people might have to park a few blocks away but we're also having conversations with our transit department to utilize some shuttle-based services with the trolley so folks can get around and obviously there's gonna be a lot of activity through certain times of the day so we're gonna be kind of building a schedule in terms of how we're gonna mitigate and vice for parking down there, so. Okay, my only request for that would be if we could get maps for specific areas. We'll load them up at your parking lot, Amy. Yeah, we're already getting phone calls. Just so people know, so we can hand stuff out and then I'm also wondering if I can get a copy of the maps in this presentation so that we can get our staff trained for this. Okay, thank you. If anyone needs a map or pictures, we have those, just let us know and get us your information. Any other questions? Come on, we warmed up for this. We can probably, we'll probably put the link to the presentation and the link to the video on the city's website so you can grab it off of there. And we'll, we will also include on our, the series, the P1 and the F1 websites. We'll also include those maps so that you, the public will know where they can park and have the easiest access. So, but again, we are still working through some of that stuff right now. And just another note hopping back a little bit regarding access to the harbor. So when there are, I know we mentioned that there'll be some racing in the harbor. So those will only be a couple of minutes. I don't know the exact time of that, but those will just be for a few minutes in the harbor as well too. So access for the harbor will still be accessible throughout the day. Tim, can you talk about what the schedule would look like? Somebody could talk about what the schedule. Tim, can you talk about what the schedule would look like for the racing in the harbor and for boat traffic that's coming in and out of the harbor? Yeah, let me, let me pull that up real quick. And so when we would do the circuit racing in the harbor, the, sorry, I'm just trying to find that. Here we go. So the races are approximately, you know, six, seven minutes for the heat races. And then the final will be 17 minutes plus one lap. And that will be on Sunday. Chad, do you have a copy of the schedule that we sent over? Can we put that up? But basically- I don't know where the schedule is. Was it included in what Michelle sent? I believe so, but I don't know if it was. That's fine. It should have been attached. We can, I don't know if we have that loaded up, but we'll make that available. And I don't, if you just want to talk about it now, we can share afterwards. So far the harbor on, you know, normally we get going at seven or eight in the morning. Now that doesn't mean that we're necessarily on the water at that time, but we are getting things prepared for the day. So we don't have on Friday, we don't have anything on the water until 12 o'clock. So, and then we are done with Formula One testing by four o'clock. And then on Saturday, you won't see anything on the water until 9.30. And then we will, the last race will be done by 5.30 on Sunday. We have a 9.30 start for, for racing on the water. And we will conclude by four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. Does that help me answer? Yes, it does. Thank you. We have another question. I'm Jerry Slavins from Sailing Education Association of Sheboygan. And it was mentioned that the first meeting that was held here, I don't remember when it was late last fall, if there were availability of power boats in the area for some of the patrol boats. So we do have boats available. I don't know if that's still needed. Just asking questions. It's definitely needed. We're hoping to come and meet with you when we're up there on the 27th or 28th of February. We got some meetings lined up and we're just getting them all scheduled right now. So we're hoping that we can meet with the Jerry and kind of give you some more of an outline of what we'll do, how we'll utilize the patrol boats that you have to make this a better, safer event. Perfect, thank you. Thomas Heckner, resident of the Ellis Historic Neighborhood District and a fan. So in everything that we've discussed so far, the race course looks beautiful and it runs along a wonderful bluff on the south side of town. I imagine that we're gonna have fee areas and non-fee areas. And I imagine that South Lakeshore Drive is gonna be a nightmare when they're racing a thousand yards offshore. How is that gonna be handled? Where do you want fans to be and where are you gonna charge them to be? So our idea right now is the only charged area is gonna be the VIP hospitality area. So all on the city green space in front of the Blue Harbor Hotel, that will all be free to the public from what I know right now. And Michelle, that's everything that we talked about on that, correct? Correct. So the fans are gonna be able to spread out all along that area and even on the other side of the, let's say where the circuit boats are going on the harbor and definitely all out on the water. But we've got more free area than we do pay area for sure. And just for the Lakeshore Drive question, we recognize it's gonna be busy. The analogy we're gonna use is it's gonna just be like the 4th of July watching the fireworks over there. So that's not that we had a 4th of July meeting today, but that's just the anticipation of the capacity that'll be. I was with the SIN, meaning that the block is right there and the gavel is a short of my hand. You could easily put seating to an accommodate. And I'm way more people than I think. I would believe that public works department can probably, I would believe that the public works department and our capabilities, we can probably make a note of that and see what we can do to accommodate that. Good suggestion. I'd be like, you know, should Boykin stakes out their spot right before a parade or 4th of July? That's what you're gonna have to do, yeah. Amy, we only get one question. I know, I'm sorry. Logistics, logistics. How much of flying as opposed to driving traffic are we expecting from the general audience? I'm asking simply because in our county we have just over 2,000 hotel rooms. So I'm trying to figure out, and I already have people calling for accommodation. So we're trying to put the best radius together so that we can send people beyond our area because we're gonna be sold out pretty fast. Yeah, we're gonna be sold out pretty fast. So let's book your rooms now and. But do we have an idea of how much is flying traffic as opposed to driving or where most of the general out of town audience is coming from? Anyone online, any thoughts or suggestions or we'll have to make a note and do some more digging on that one? Okay, and then my other question is city logistics. Is there a plan for even food trucks along the lakeshores or portable restrooms or, okay. There is a plan and we've gotten a lot of inquiries and we've shared it with them and as the plan comes together it's the plan is to include those at places where public can access them. We can't answer that at this stage but we've had inquiries ourselves that we're working on. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we've had a lot of, since the announcement, a lot of excitement from local vendors and vendors from out of town as well too. So yeah, we gotta get the porta-potties nailed down because porta-potties are hard to get at this day and age. So we're working on that still. Okay, so my name is Bailey Kupfer. I'm the general manager of Watershed Hotel and we've already gotten a lot of calls about people, about parking for the boats and maybe Tim knows this better but the pit areas, are they allowed to park there all night and come in early and park there on Thursday or Wednesday? We don't have the parking at our parking lot. We have a 24-hour street parking but these boats are thousands upon thousands of dollars and we don't have the camera or security to be able to watch them 24-7 because we don't have somebody on site. So what's the game plan for people coming in early for me to tell my guests where they can park their boats because all I can tell them right now is called the marina and the marina isn't telling them anything, so. Well, what we'll do is we will get that nailed down on the start time because we're just putting the team information together now and we'll include that with our team information on where they're supposed to put their boat prior to and how we can best accommodate everybody but what we'll end up doing is we'll park them in the pits and then once we do that then we'll have security far the pit area to keep all of our participants' equipment safe and the public as well. Can I just get clarification on that last question? Did you mean the boats as in the racing boats or the boats as in the fishing tournament boats? The racing. Racing. Racing. Okay, thanks. We will address that with all the teams. We send out a packet, basically email a packet out to all the teams that gives them all the particulars on each race site that we visit. So we'll include that information in there. All right, Mike, come on down. The boats will be parked in the pits overnight. They'll come in probably Thursday and they'll stay there until Sunday night before they leave. Right. I'm Mike Froh. I'm the chair of the City's Marina Parks and Forestry Commission and also a slip holder in the marina and I have two questions. I'll mention that right up front. First of all, I wasn't real clear on that map where you're looking to have the party. It looked like it was South East Street, South of Pennsylvania Avenue and then another area up around Fountain Park. I have some clarification on that. Yeah, the one option is around City Green and closing the streets down around City Green and using City Green. That's the preferred option. We will tour that when they're here later this month. And the second option is to close off basically in front of Visit Sheboygan from the swing streets to the bridge. Okay, it was that other location. I couldn't quite... Yes, on the top of this map, that's around City Green. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense up there. Other question. In the initial contact, we talked about the parking lot for the marina. We have 191 seasonal slip holders we're anticipating with this event. We're going to have quite a few transient boats in Sheboygan. It was our understanding that part of the marina parking lot would remain available for the slip holders. And the map that you were showing is using the entire parking lot. Scott, can you go to the site plan that's got like blue and purple maybe or something? Yeah. And so if, nope, not that one. Keep going. One more. So this one, you can see on this one that the top blue, and I understand it's small, we'll share this with you, but basically the parking immediately outside the admin building down to like the dumpster would be still used for marina. And then that whole blue area that's the current parking lot where YMCA and those types of things happen would be all reserved for marina staff, media, organizers related to the event. So the plan is to, public works will be working on a plan to help close off and utilize those parking lots because they're going to need a lot of this space and they're not going to allow cars to be driving through the pit areas. So the marina people would be communicated to come through that city parking lot and go through that circle on the end and come in the back kind of way as to what the traffic would normally be. Perfect. Thank you. So question was about how the Coast Guard is handling this so far. So we've brought the Coast Guard in early on when this was first getting discussed and a lot of the entities basically have to pull a permit from them so the Coast Guard is well aware. They were actually surprisingly very flexible and understanding about this and they're excited to be a partner in this too. So they're well aware and we're working with them. And we're trying to also meet with them when we come into town at the end of February. Yep. Is there anyone online that has questions? There are a couple of questions in the chat. Oh, okay. First is on Goho Derby weekend, the marina can get backed up for over an hour to launch a boat. The marina can handle six boats launching at once. How can fishermen be expected to use two or possibly three launches all weekend? I think we're still working on all of the different ramps that are available. Yeah, and I think the ramps will be available and yes, we expect some backlogs. My understanding is that is the second weekend of the Goho. I think it runs almost a full week is what I looked at the schedule. So yeah, yeah, there'll be potential some backups. Again, my understanding is most of the fishing vessels are out early in the morning, well, out well before anything with the race or anything like that for access through the Sheboygan River out to Lake Michigan. That should not be an issue. A little more from fishing. There are many charter services in Sheboygan that need access to their docks. What is the schedule to allow that traffic through? All that was mentioned was the length of the races within the harbor. Please speak about how traffic will be allowed through. Well, when we're not racing in the harbor, well, you'll have access to go through the harbor then. So, and I don't know if you got to pull up that schedule or not, but once you have that schedule, then we can post it where everybody can see it to see those times. Any other questions, Scott? And those are the only that have been typed in the chat. Thank you. Anyone else in the house? So there's gonna be certain times that we're gonna be closed. Yep. Coast Guard will be the opener and closer of it. You're all there, right? Yeah. Jason, you're here. I'm Jason Dean here. Yeah, exactly. All right. I'm Jason Dean here. I'm the comrade of the Sheboygan Yacht Club. Just a quick question. We're obviously almost ground zero for the boats in the harbor. With Penn Avenue, the way it is, is there gonna be any shutdown or a way that it's going to impact our members, staff, anything that we are not gonna be able to get into our club or allow other people or guests and whatever into the club on that, because it's gonna be so busy. Right now, there's no anticipation. Closers, closings of Penn Avenue or Broughton Drive. There will be some traffic back and forth on the Armory property, because that will be some overflow staging and parking for trailers and boats related to these events, but we don't see any impact of access to the Yacht Club or anything. All that stuff will flow as it does today. There'll just be a lot of traffic. All right, thank you. Last call forever now. Hold your peace. All right. Well, thanks everybody again for coming out tonight. Obviously, it's only February, so all your questions and concerns will help us kind of build more of the planning and information as we move forward on this. So we're excited and we hope that you all can stay in touch. I'm sure that we'll have more informational meetings as we get closer as well. So, yeah, Scott, we'll put it on YouTube. We'll get the video on YouTube. We'll get the PowerPoint and the schedule on there and we will also have some contact information on there so that if somebody has questions, you don't have to be funneled through the city. You can go right to the event organizers and they can help you with whatever your questions are. Yep, all right. Sounds good. Thanks everybody. Thank you everybody.