 Welcome back to the Donahue show. We're delighted that you can join us for another fun-filled half hour of political chatter, talking on the local scene right now. Joining me, as always, former State Senator Cal Potter, Professor Tom Pineski, Math Department here at the University of Wisconsin-Cheboygan, and Ken Risto, who has some obscure position as a social studies curriculum assessment instructor, assistant, and so forth. So, we're having- His holiness would be fine. These are interesting times in the city. Mayor Prez has been in office about 110 days, 120 days or so, and I think there have been some interesting things going on. I thought we would talk about, I'm just very interested in the Chamber of Commerce spectacle, if we can call it that. It was a most interesting process by which a fairly long-term, long-standing, but kind of quiet organization really has experienced some fairly dramatic changes. What do you think? An eight to eight vote. The mayor exercises his power and votes to terminate the contract. Good idea, bad idea? I think it's something that was boiling for a while and people didn't recognize it. I think the funding mechanism, whereas in the city provides a very high percentage of the total budget, was something that probably people were wondering whether they were getting their buck, bang for the buck for quite a while, and when push came to shove, when the contract was up, people said, let's walk. And I think it's something that the Chamber is gonna have to start addressing as far as the funding mechanisms, getting in other communities to participate. And then I think the city probably, as the mayor has indicated, they're willing to re-look at it, but I think a more widespread funding mechanism is something that needs to be looked at. Yeah. That was a dumb idea. Basically, I thought it was dumb. I talked about it all week. I thought, yeah, I don't know. What was dumb? Cutting the- His veto. Or his- His tie-breaking vote? Tie-breaking vote was a dumb vote, but... Tell us what you really think. That's what I really thought. I mean, I thought the shared services, you talk about shared services, he can't even work with the Chamber. They've offered some suggestions on how to work, you know, like you said, I don't know how long it was brewing, but they offered suggestions on how to resolve the issue prior to the vote. And then when it came down, he votes to not fund. And where's his opinion? Where's his shared services? Kind of emphasis. He's saying, we're gonna go it alone. We don't need you, basically. And how is he gonna deal with the county? Now, in retro, and after the fact, it looks like things may have worked out. So maybe, you know, the proof is in the result of the pudding afterwards. And when it's all done, said, and done, I don't know that the city's gonna do any better than the Chamber with their own efforts, but... Well, I did see the PowerPoint presentation that the Mayor's Office had put together, talking about the contract and the performance on the contract. And at least, by what the Mayor's Office was saying, there were some fairly substantial failures of the Chamber to just perform the tasks or the agreement that they were going to promote the city. A lot of things hadn't been done and so forth. So what surprised me was the speed at which this happened. That was, I mean, in terms of city bureaucracies moving quickly, it seemed to be fairly supersonic speed. But two, three weeks from start to finish, maybe it was a month, I don't know, but it seemed pretty dramatic to me. I was pretty surprised. I thought they'd give the Chamber another year to get their act together when the Chamber offered an olive branch, but when they offered a one-year, let's try this another year, let's put it on the table, which you're unhappy about, let's see if we can work this out. I thought that was what the Council would bite on, but I was really surprised about the vote. There wasn't the typical kinds of coalitions on the floor. And I was surprised how some business leaders were really excited with the Chamber and some really had had their fill with the Chamber and all worked out, so it was pretty interesting. It's been playing into sort of the theme of this mayor, which is churning up the water, making change happen. So I wasn't too surprised how he voted when it came down to a tie, but I was very surprised it came to a tie. I thought they'd give me another year to get their act together. I think the idea of building a visitor center is something that this community leads. When I was in the Senate, it was a time when a man in a walk built their facility, and that's very highly utilized. Is it? People stopped there looking for directions for all manner of things, and I think Sheboygan could use that, particularly with the tourist trade that we're now experiencing with the golf courses and so on. I think it's good to have a central place where people can come right off the I-Roads, so I would hope the city and the county can get together on something of that nature. Well, I think that that's the key. I don't know if it's the city of Sheboygan whether it can stand alone as far as tourism. I mean, virtually, good chunk of the reason why people come here, got very little to do with the city of Sheboygan. But I think that was the- The golf courses are outside the city of Sheboygan, rode Americas outside the city of Sheboygan, and it'll be interesting to see how that all ends up playing out. But I think there was some wish to emphasize the fact that the city itself can be the destination point, and that the city of Sheboygan is not just there, as an afterthought, and then you go, after the golf courses and so forth. Go find a place to eat. Yeah, and I think that city, in my opinion, when you take a look at our waterfront, of course the art center to me, which can be set down in downtown Manhattan and shine as an incredible institution. Blue Harbor, obviously. There are all sorts of things that go on that I think if you had a real city-centric focus with a highly skilled public relations firm, well, I mean, I think that's what the idea is, and it'll remain to be seen. But I was on vacation last week, but getting back and reading the newspaper headlines, it certainly seemed that the doors of communication are still open between the city and the chamber. So we'll come back in six months, and if we're all inundated with tourists and so forth, as a result of the brave new world of... You get on airlines and read an airline magazine that says, come to Kolar, Wisconsin, and golf. They're the ones that are advertising, of course, they're the ones that are promoting us. So I don't know that the money we generate, we wanna do it ourselves, as a destination is the main destination. I don't think so. But wasn't that one of the reasons? I mean, isn't that what we touted Blue Harbor as? We were gonna make Sheboygan a destination point. Now, of course, there'll be Spaceport. Yeah, that would be, yeah. I mean, that's a fascinating idea. I remember the aquarium idea some years ago, and we're down on the corner of the eighth and Indiana, wasn't it? Didn't, there was an effort. Wow. A thought to build a... An aquarium, freshwater aquarium. Right, and that went nowhere. But the Spaceport idea, I did take a look at the plans, and it looks like a fun plan. And it seems that in terms of development, that particular area with the warehouse building across the street seems like that is an area that needs to be brightened up a little bit. And so I'm thinking, we can actually make Sheboygan a destination point, and it truly has one of the best waterfronts, I think, in the world. Certainly nicer than Milwaukee or Manitowoc. Nicer than Gary, Indiana, I agree. Nicer than Manitowoc, nicer than Milwaukee. And accessible, the path along the lake and all the rest. Speaking of accessible, I loved the article in the paper where Paulette Enders has described the pedestrian bridge as the new Kalatrava of Sheboygan, the new Soaring Monument. She's gotta get the award for the most oratorical overreach for this week, doesn't she? We're referring, of course, to the great wing spread at the Milwaukee Public Art Museum, built at a modest cost of what, $750 million, and having bankrupted the museum as far as most people can tell. But I did see the schematic drawing in, and it looked fabulous in the newspaper. It looks, and it has the little wings, I guess that's the Kalatrava connection, but I thought, we probably won't beat out the Milwaukee Art Museum on that point, but it's a good idea. It's a good idea, functionality. I think you need to tie the two sides of the river together. People need things to do, and Blue Harbor as nice as it is, it's just not gonna be the destination and self unless you really hung up on waterslides, other than that, you need to have people get access to the art center by foot. And tourists are usually, being a tourist myself, I love being a tourist. I love to walk in a city, and my husband and I actually decided to walk to Blue Harbor and the trek around the peninsula there, while being good for you, does take a... Are we there yet? A fair amount of time, and so that's interesting. Was that state funds or federal funds? Well, this is this huge windfall. I mean, if the money does come through... Or pork is the case, maybe. From the Republican Congress. From Representative Petra. Representative Petra. I had to get him to thank for it. We absolutely do, and I love it how these Republicans spend recklessly. I mean, it's just, it's... For the benefit of Sheboygan. Yes, it's just wonderful, but that $25 million is an extraordinary sum of money, quite frankly, and if, I mean, I've heard discussion, I don't know what you guys think, but we can't spend that amount of money on trails and... Well, the bridge would put a good debt to you. What's the projected cost of the bridge again? I remember reading it last night. 4.8 million. 4.8 million. Who, I'm a little ignorant about this, who's going to decide how that 25 million is going to be ultimately split? Is that going to be spent in the legislation? Is it going to be the state? No, some of it is. It comes to the county. Yeah, and some of it's already earmarked for trail development, bicycle trail. Okay, that's what I thought. I think it's the Highway 23 expansion is part of that as well. I don't think so. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. I'm not left in Chevrolet County anymore. You know, it'll be west of Plymouth when the present construction is... I was pretty sure it was for conservation trails, bicycle trails, pedestrian enhancements, and not motorized traffic. I could be wrong, though. But Shannon Hayden, who's the planning person for the county, as I understand, is going to have the main responsibility for shepherding the money. So, and she and Paul at Enders, as I understand, have a pretty good relationship. So, hopefully that... Will the county board and the Common Council have any input, whatever, in those decisions? I presume. Yeah. Well, that'll make it interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll make it very interesting. But just the thought, so much money coming in and how do you get it spent, but who am I to talk about the wisdom of the federal government and how it decides to... Pork things up, yes. Well, you know, it's a pigs fanny pork, and I think, you know, the answer is, well, we'll just move right along. The... As long as this TV show is on, and who knows how long that is before the censors grab us and pull us off. Is there any money for community television in that? Is there community television money? We think that there should be. I know the Republican party is scrutinizing public television, but I'm not sure about, you know, the tentacles of the federal government will reach all the way into the studio. Well, there you go. Probably coming down the fireplace, if I'm not mistaken. But that would be quite the trick. Tom, Tom, yeah. With the face of George Bush. Tom will be keeping a close eye on that for us. The police station is ever with us. The final study, the alleged final study, has come out in favor of the North 23rd Street site. What do you think? Doesn't surprise me. I think most studies have kind of pointed to that, and I think there's the always point of cooperation with the county. Whatever degree might occur at 23rd Street, at least it's the focal point for the topic. And so I think things are pointing in that direction very substantially. Well, here's my idea. Because there's some question now about the fire station on the south side. And really, truly, it's someday the mayor will join us and we'll talk about the state of city finances, but we're pretty broke. I mean, the credit card is pretty much maxed out. If the consumer credit counseling agency worked with municipalities, we'd be one of their top clients. But I think that the idea, now here's my idea, that wonderful fire station downtown, which is so nice and old fashioned, and when my kids were in preschool, we toured it, and they didn't let them go down the fire pole, but the fire pole is still there. Expand the police station to the north, take down the fire station, remodel it or whatever, close that fire station and move whatever forces were there out to the south side. Good idea. Brilliant. Another oratorical overstatement, but it must be the summer and it must be the, I don't know if it's brilliant. Well, okay. I like it. But you know, they've talked about the site right behind City Hall. City Hall is the second on the list. So the 23rd streets was first and then City Hall was second. So if you throw that piece in there, does that lift that? And what we could do is keep a- Raise that to the top. We could keep a small band of firefighters at the police station for EMT calls and, I mean- No EMT calls. Well, that's what they're doing. The vast majority of their business right now, but I think that I kind of like the idea and then we solve the fire station because I think there are some equitable issues about getting the fire station more south. Well, they did not spend this last week that Warner is going to put 160 new houses on the south side that's growing leaps and bounds in the southern direction. Eventually, I think you have to recognize you need a fire station there. And it's too bad that we, just talking in terms of shared services that there isn't something, as I remember, the town of Wilson, the village of Usberg, the town of Lima and another municipality have tried and in fact do have shared volunteer fire services for the southern part of the county. But as those houses go out further south to have some sort of arrangement or shared services, even with a volunteer fire department to really maximize the amount of fire service that's involved makes some sense to me. But firefighters, 20% of their calls now are fired. The other 80% are really emergency response, you know, getting there just before Orange Cross does and it's an interesting issue. That's, and you know, Sheboygan was unique for a while in having the only police ambulance service and we finally got it into the private sector. And a lot of the communities have their EMT and medical paramedics in the fire department because that's the tradition. Sheboygan has moved it a little bit out of that traditional mode and having it in the private sector. So I mean, we could leave the way and just say, hey, fire departments don't need to deal with that anymore. There's some basic issues they need to deal with. I mean, jobs of life and extrication from accidents and they're gonna have to be on the scene. But if it's only 20%, the fire suppression is only 20% of their business, that's their main function, they could reduce. Well, you also have to remember that one of the things that's been very successful is the almost daily inspections of buildings to improve safety. So when I was right, they've been successful. So at what point do you start hindering the success of your success by cutting back? Well, I think fire inspection is clearly, I mean, I don't know what the fire chief would say but it's my understanding that fire inspection, there's a direct relationship between good inspections and fewer fires. And it certainly is not 100% by any means as we don't have folks coming into our private homes but those of us who are in businesses are well acquainted with the inspectors who come through and they're serious people and they have a serious mission. And it is interesting, I mean, just in terms of how we think about delivery of services or should the fire department in fact take on EMT work? I was on the police and fire commission for five years and I will tell you that we had to interview all the potential firefighter applicants. The vast majority of them had EMT certification and some of them had actual paramedic certification and it's just you don't hire firefighters anymore who are not EMTs, it appears, from the experience that I had interviewing, gee, I bet a hundred and so it's... Well, what you get is firefighters with the paramedic experience have a second job with Orange Cross. So they work out the city, they work out Orange Cross. So they have really two jobs, so they use their experience. But it still doesn't mean they should be doing paramedic stuff. Is this something that's on the public's mind? Is this discussion coming up at the various budget meetings that are going around, the input meetings that are going around town? Well, we can segue right into that. As you know, the mayor is hosting 16 listening sessions around the city, one in each ward or two in each district. And with the purpose of getting input from citizens about what the city's doing well, what the city's not doing so well and what issues are important to people. And I've been a part of that process, it's really been fun, I've facilitated now, I think four of the sessions that have been held. And it's a most interesting discussion. There are a number of people who come to every session and are lively and certainly enjoy talking. But at each session that I've been involved in, there are six, seven, eight, 10, 15, up to 15, what I call regular people who come in and just express their opinions on a wide variety of topics. I would say there's little criticism of the police or fire departments. There's a lot of concern about the cost of the police station. And I think now that the figures have been brought up about how relatively inexpensive the Janesville Fire Department was to build, obviously that's gonna be an issue. And there's no money to build anything. There is no money to build anything. Won't the station pretty much take us to the 70 billion or whatever the cap is on death? We're over? The debt limit right now, we're within $3 million, I think. Tom, have you paid closer attention to that? I thought the number, what was the total debt limit? 70 billion? Yeah, 70% of the equalized. That's where the number 70 is, okay. Equalized. We are at 3%, you can borrow up to 5% of your equalized value. The city has had a good self-imposed 3% limit and it's now within 70, I'm sorry. It's very, very close to the top of that 3% limit. It could always vote to rescind and go to the 5% of equalized value. But again, then people's taxes go up and that's really not a fireman. I think it was recently of higher property values in Sheboygan will be a big factor in saving that 3% figure, I think. Exactly, exactly. So I think what's on the mind of citizens I think is how efficient the city is at doing business. And I think those are always really good things, private businesses that succeed are those that are efficient. And always thinking about that and sometimes bureaucracies just tend not to think about it because everything is pretty steady. And so I think these are unsteady times with respect to that and I think citizens are responding to that. It also gives the mayor an opportunity to talk about his challenges. For example, gas, $3 gas for the police department. Anybody who's got a piece of equipment running on a municipal level is just killing them. Most municipalities are close to their total and budget amount already for the year. And while obviously with prices still going up this is gonna be a major problem for most budget countries. Yeah, the school district is pretty smart. It buys petroleum in futures. And so there's always a risk that the price will go down but that's a smaller risk probably than as opposed to the price going up. So, and I don't know if the city and county do that as well, but it's the district has been relatively successful in saving at least some amount of money by doing that. In any event, the citizens budget process goes on. The mayor has charts that he briefly goes through at the beginning of each session that I have found very informative about where the money comes from, where it goes, how each main department, how their budgets have either gone up or down over the last few years. The fairly extraordinary difference between revenues and expenditures and how that gap has just been widening as time goes on and then just shows how we've made a fairly extraordinary leap up to near the top of that debt ceiling. And so it's, for me at least, it was an enlightening experience to learn about all that. But I think the process is a good one. What happens next is that citizens are able to complete a survey on the web. If you haven't been to the city's website lately, it's great, it's revamped and it's pretty interesting. They'll have the surveys in the library, I think, and at City Hall and trying to get more input from people and really try to provide as much information as you can for the council. So Jack Westfalt from the school district has been pretty helpful in putting all of that, I shouldn't say pretty helpful, very helpful in putting all of that information together. So we'll see. Any of you guys been to any of them? Have not. Have not. I just think the mayor probably watches this show and he'll probably give him his input. Whenever he gets there, we'll put him right there. We'll give him our input. We'll put him on the budget forum, we'll bring him here. We promise to do that. I've gone online and done the survey. Have you done it? Yeah, and it actually works really very, very well. It's identical and almost identical in format to the type of survey used at the district too when we started looking at educational issues, not budget issues, that's what we're gonna be doing this year too is doing budget prioritization process, the same process, Jack's in charge of that one as well. And we'll see whether that heads to. But what are people to satisfied about? You've done four of them. I have to say. Besides the police station cost. Yay or nay, people are unhappy about what really comes up a lot as public works is, you know, two guys getting out to, you know, mow the lawn and one standing next to the truck. And I don't know if any of those things is true, but that is a recurring theme. People, I think are, I think they, it's clearly like the city and that they're happy to be here, but they think things could be more efficient. It's transportation like buses. Well, the bus issue is always there. And it's a tough one because as I understand it, the big buses are more efficient to run. That's what the federal government will give you money for. And because people are talking, we need smaller. I'm almost thinking, you know, Mary Lundani who's great ideas about how to run the city. Let's just have big vans. And you, you know, like a handicare van because except for school buses, you know, and when schools are out, you have kids get on the city buses and they're pretty busy, that's about it. And could you handle a dispatch kind of center where people could ride? And it wouldn't have to be a door-to-door taxi kind of thing, but you could have just a number of, you know, the jitneys kind of service that you have in bigger cities and just pick up people that way because it's clear there are a number of particularly poor people who are absolutely dependent on the bus service. And I don't think that we can just say without a care, let's get rid of the buses. Can't do that. The cost of transportation, as you've seen in New Orleans, is that people who couldn't get out or people who didn't have cars and they couldn't afford to get out. And they were poor. They're poor people. And the cost of a car and the cost of gasoline is not gonna be anything that's changing in the near future. Exactly. That's true, I think people could be great but you don't have buses in Sheboygan Falls, right? You don't have buses in Plymouth. No. How do you? I don't think so. The Falls is served by the Sheboygan transit system. We serve as that. Yeah, but not real extensively. No. Yeah. So I think that those are some of the issues that people are upset about. It's been good that we have older people come from time to time. They get a little defensive sometimes. It's hard to have your, you know, criticize but come to a budget session. We're at the end of this session and we'll talk again.