 and welcome back to the Donahue Group. We're delighted you're joining us for another fun-filled, information-packed, half-hour of discussion. We're going to be talking about some local issues and joining me, as always, the fearsome foursome. Here we are. Cal Potter, former state senator. Tom Pineski, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Shabuigan. Ken Risto, social studies guru. Maven, advisor to the superintendent. And my name is Mary Lynn Donahue. I'm the host and delighted to welcome you. Before we start, and before anyone says anything, my collar is supposed to be up. This is a fashion statement. Just so that everyone knows and doesn't say, gee, it was a nice show. Too bad she could not have put her collar down. So all right. Next show, you can fold it down. There we go. Then we'll know. You can call in and tell us how you feel about Mary Lynn's collar. Yes, and actually not. So very good. We're all sitting here pretty confident that the predictions that we made in our last show about election results, in fact, basically rang true. I think we're actually we're not a smart bunch at all. It was a pretty obvious kind of prediction. But I think overall we did pretty well. I disagree vehemently. I thought it was we had a great nuance and insight into the predictions. Well, very good. No, we were right. I don't think we missed one. I think we had a couple that were really kind of close. Well, one of the closer ones, although the actual election turned out to be quite the opposite, was Bob Ryan versus Jack Westfall. Westfall, if you remember, won in the primary by just a few votes and got what my one of my partners would call something of a schvetsing in the general election, I think it was a 60-40 splitter about that. And it was an interesting campaign. Jack, you work with Jack. And Mr. Ryan is a business leader. And so it's kind of an unknown quantity as to how all of that's going to work out. Dustin Haven and Silas Vander Wheeling, that was kind of one way or the other kind of election. And when I saw the votes at the end, as of Dustin, got 333 votes after all that campaigning and all the standing on the corner and the signs. Of course, Vander Wheeling had done a lot of campaigning, too. But it was a low turnout and just 333 votes. That was one we thought could go either way. I think we picked Silas. We picked Silas, but we thought it'd be closer. And we're getting back to Jack and I do work with him, so I'm probably a little skewed here. But I didn't see Jack in the general election campaign much. I think we showed up for the forums, but I didn't see a lawn sign. I think the week before the, I know the week before the election, he was on vacation out of the country, out of town, certainly. So I'm not so sure, you know, I think Jack was offering himself up as an alternative or a possibility. And I think once Ryan got in, there was, Jack was content with winning or losing. Yeah, that could be. And Silas has now taken, has won the elections where at the last city council meeting, or second to last city council meeting, Silas is now chair of the Committee of the Whole, having won that election. So obviously he's come back to some sort of political life after losing in a primary. And it is hard to fight back after a primary loss, even if it's close, you know, you feel a little, either you get really energized to work very hard or you, yeah, exactly, exactly. And sometimes no matter how hard you campaign, it really doesn't make much of a difference. I remember talking to one of your opponents once who had run a very good campaign against you, had worked as lights out, worked very hard and still had the same percentage of losses the guy who had run against you the time before and really hadn't campaigned at all, you know. So you never know how these things are gonna turn out. And it was a low, it was really a low turnout. Gene Clionis, as we expected one handily, Bonnie Serta won. I think there was probably not much question there. Mark Hanna fought back a brilliant opponent and clawed his way to victory and, but I think that, you know, that was probably a pretty easy race overall. And then Dan, you know, if Dan Byrd didn't win. Boy, he did not win. Didn't win. And, you know, he only kept his county seat. He was running also for the county board of supervisors by 10 votes. So if there had been just a little bit of a change there, Dan would have really had, I think, a really bad night as opposed to a pretty bad night. And then compounded a bad night by announcing immediately he was gonna run against Graf. And at least in, and I'm in that district. So I've talked to 20 or 30, 40 people in our district and just that if the quote is accurate in the press, that didn't sit well with at least the people that I spoke with. That there's a time where one should probably lay low for a little while and then perhaps if you wanna challenge a challenge, but the same night you announced that you're gonna run against the other incumbent, that wasn't a good move. That wasn't probably the most graceful defeat speech in the world's history, but there you go. It's hard to lose. It really is and some of us have been there. Although, you know, on the positive side, I always admire people that run. Because if you haven't run, you don't know what it's like. Exactly. Exactly. And we've said it many times on this show that the whole process of voting and having contested elections is incredibly important. But when you're in that wonderful position of having an uncontested race, really life is good. It's a real race. It's a real race. It's a huge relief. Did you ever have an uncontested race, Kel? Yeah. Okay, twice. Three times. Twice in the assembly and once in the Senate. Totally uncontested? Wow. See? But maybe there were problems even way back then about where you were just so formidable. In both cases, it came after I had done very well in previous elections. So I think recruiting of a candidate against an incumbent who doesn't appear to be in political trouble is more difficult for the party that's trying to recruit that candidate. And I think eventually they look at other races and say, well, are time and energy and resources, when you got an assembly of 99 people in the Senate of 33, half of which are up every two years, or are you gonna put your time and energy? So they sort of move on too. So sometimes by not having opponent isn't always a reflection of the candidate, it's a reflection of somebody else outside the system saying, where are we gonna spend our time and money? And it's not gonna be in a district where we think we're gonna lose badly. Well, it is a new day for the city council, that's fairly clear and there's a fairly sweeping change in the last two years. But it'll be interesting to see what happens. Also very interesting to me that night, and I have to say I was at the administration building from about 830 election night until 11 because I was telling the votes for the League of Women Voters. And so I actually had a job, a clipboard, and I was an official person. But I did, so I was there filling in all the sheets for these various little TV stations that we had calling the vote totals too. So I saw, and with kind of astonishment as the referenda votes kept coming in, and let's put it right up there, Sheboygan Falls Middle School referendum. Didn't do well. 87% to 13% and presumably the school board election results clearly, I think pretty clearly also influenced that as well. Not one single referendum one. None was even particularly close. I think the random lake at a 60-40 split was probably one of the closer ones. Clear message? What was the one for the nursing homes? Or the, that was 56 to 44 or 54 to? You're right, that one was a little closer, but then just the next question on the referendum, on the ballot about just exceeding spending limits was another 80-20 kind of vote, so. But you're right, does anybody remember that, the nursing home percentage? I think it was about 56, 55. So that one was actually close and of course really reflects I think the, not so much a divided community is, we're divided in, I think everybody's conflicted about wanting to keep the nursing homes and yet realizing that it's a substantial drain on the taxpayer. I think it also reflects the economic times. I mean, you've had a number of plant closings, you've come to moving there on many of the operations to Brazil, there are people today who are making much less than they did in the past. Gas may be $5 a gallon by summer, some people say. Food costs are going up, everything's reflecting higher gas costs. At some point, I think people are saying, my pocketbook and my credit card and my other debt just can take so much and I don't need any more property taxes to pile on. And I think there's sort of a reaction here where people are expressing feeling and frustration over the cost of living and the debt that they're incurring and this is the way they can. They can't vote on gas prices, they can't vote on food prices but they can sure vote on their property tax. And I think government takes it in the year every, frequently. We've talked about that before, is that the real median income in this county has not changed dramatically in 20 years. It's barely changed in 20 years. So you're absolutely, I write Cal, I think that's one of the things. I think the second thing is, I still think there's a perception whether that's fueled by lots of talk radio or maybe it is a reality that I still think a lot of people still believe they can get their services and still say no to tax increases. That there's a kind of a, kind of, there is a notion that there's just a lot of fat in government and if we put their feet to the fire, we can keep our services without having to, see tax increases and you got that going on as well. And the third thing is, I just think for a lot of families, what the definition of middle classes has changed as we've talked about before too, is I see a lot of people going further and further into credit card debt, trying to buy the things that they think a middle class family should have on top of stagnant income. And so there's just no mood to talk about raising spending caps. And that's why we're gonna get into the state segment. We'll talk about some of the same kinds of things. It's very difficult. And I've often talked about this before that 50% of the people get divorced. So many of them have alimony payment and trial support. And then they also buy in the second marriage, they buy another home, they buy a boat, they buy an SUV. Pretty soon their debt is up to their eyeballs. And so they've created themselves a very unfortunate financial picture. And again, who becomes the scapegoat? It's the property tax bill that you get in December, which is the sort of the straw that breaks the camel's back. Exactly. And I think those of us in the private sector who are always on the lookout for savings and where, I mean, the money I bring it in my office, I bring in, nobody gives that money to me. No, third party gives that money to me. Well, you have to go out and earn it. Well, you earn it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Making money the old fashioned way. This is not a commercial. This is not a commercial. No, I know. The last few months, I feel like I've earned it. Yeah, no, no, and I'm just. But I know I understand that. But in any event, I think there is that perception that, and I'm not even gonna say fat, it's just that there, when was the last time governments, you looked at how you do business? What was the last time you looked at your management structure? What did you look at this? When did you look at that? And there is, because it's tax dollars, certainly the public sector moves more slowly, it must, it should, it needs to be accountable to the taxpayers. But I think good leaders these days are at least saying, let's look at how we're delivering services, and wouldn't it be nice if we could do a better job of delivering services if the same or maybe even less money? I called the Department of Regulation and Licensing yesterday, and after about 87 different menu changes, I just hung up because I was getting discouraged. And then I have now, since then sent an email on a fairly urgent issue, trying to check to see if this particular entity is a licensed provider and so forth. There's no answer. I called a local agency today, trying to get some records for a client, and the voice message from the worker said, due to an unusually high volume of calls, I will try to return your call within the next 24 to 48 hours. And so in my little phone message, I said, please, I need to hear from you before then. But we get back to Mayor Perez in his state of the city message said, I'm going to bring a budget before the city council that will have no increase in property taxes, no dollar increase, at least as I understood it. That's a big challenge. People have to look at different ways of doing business. The library is doing that. Is it going to happen in other places, I wonder? It's going to have to. And I think also it's going to have to also happen is that people who are accustomed to certain government services aren't going to happen. Yeah, that generally means the poor and those who are struggling on the margins of society are going to be the ones that will see their services cut. They don't vote. There you go. They don't vote. They just don't. And so that's the way the political process will play out. Yeah. I know Tom. No, I didn't have anything. Well, and then that just brings me to just this little bump on the local horizon, which is the charge for marching in the world's longest parade on the 4th of July. We're filming on a day when the headlines tell us that the charge has now been reversed. The bump on the road is gone, the bump on the road is gone. Well, it may actually be in the other direction. I think a few wheels hit a hole in the road, but to me, it was an interesting way to, 4th of July costs the city of Sheboygan a ton of dough. It just does. Besides the generosity of the Johnsonville folks for the fireworks and so forth. And I love the 4th of July. And I even love that two and one-half hour interminably long parade. When I first saw it, I thought, oh, the parade will only be two hours or maybe an hour and a half. But it seemed like sort of an entrepreneurial idea. 10 dollars for nonprofits, that's a pretty reasonable charge, 75 for businesses. This is a fairly cheap advertisement. And boy, people aren't looking at new ways of doing things particularly. So I don't know, what do you think? Well, I think government is looking desperately for ways of covering overtime for police and public works and so on. But when you start implementing things that people just don't normally want to pay for or think they ought to pay for, they're gonna tell you about it. And I think this is one example. I think the letters to the editor that came from veterans groups saying, you're gonna charge them what? To barge in the parade? I mean, that was the killer right there. You're not gonna be able to implement something like that. I know, it was interesting. There were no businesses who made any complaints, but I don't know, it's... And getting 50, what is it to Johnsonville? Contributes 50,000 or more towards the fireworks. So that should be highlighted as thank you. You know, we appreciate that. We bring a lot of people in, enjoy the day, spend the money. Well, I figured, I think the newspaper article today said that the city's about $7,000 short. So in other words, the parade is gonna cost, or the whole day costs about $7,000 more than the income that's available. And I think that's what the mayor was trying to do is just kind of close that gap up a little bit. But... Better idea might've been just to pass the hat along the pay parade route. Let's see, there's $16 all overrun and if they contribute $100 and the mayor contributes $200, all right, you got the $1,800, that helps. I guess I'll play the, mixing my metaphors, the Ebenezer Scrooge of the 4th of July, is the city can't afford to do the parade, you cancel the parade. And maybe that's what sort of experiences the community's gonna have to have to understand that you have to pay for things. There's no, you know, as an economist, there's no, tell the kids all the time, there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no free lunch. Now I understand that, you know, people will say, you mean to tell me city government and that budget can't find $7,000 to run the parade? Sure they can. You look at everything you want and we keep finding money. We, school district does this. School district does this all the time. I mean, you know, we have proposals to cancel certain programs and then the parents do an uprising and they show up at the board and the board says, go find the money somewhere. And they ended up taking it, you know, $20 out of this budget and $80 out of this budget and $60 this budget and, you know. It works. Well it works, but then all of a sudden you're finding out, well, you know, there's other things you cannot do but they don't have a constituency to go to the board and yell and holler. And after a while there's an erosion of that. Now is, so I think, you know, we almost, and no mayor is going to do this of course and so I'm talking smart on local television here, can do it, cancel the parade. Now you can have the fireworks yet, Johnsonville will do that. You have the cardboard regatta, thank goodness that the art center does that. Or you tell the local business property because we're in the age of privatization anyway. If you want to parade in business community or the JCs or the Chamber of Commerce, be our guest, you know, raise the funds and we'll hire the police to do it. Yeah. Wow. City government will get out of the business of parades. Little revolutionary talk here. It's the caffeine. That's the caffeine. Memorial Day, forget about the Memorial Day. This is the only chance I have for a political career in this community. Because my opponent's going to run these tapes all day long. I hate to break it to you, you had no chance. So, there we are. Well, and one of the ways the city pays for all of this is the room tax. And Susan Hunley had kind of a, I had read Judge Langhoff's original decision, the lawsuit that was filed by the English manor, Susan Hunley, to saying that the city's use of the room tax dollars was improper. Having drafted a room tax ordinance myself, I can tell you that the statute from which all of this comes is hardly a model of clarity and sensibility. But the Court of Appeals was pretty tough on her, or not on her, on her argument. I think patently ridiculous, if I'm not mistaken, was the, yeah, we typically, you know, you always hope that the Court of Appeals is not going to rule on your case with that kind of language. But so, and there's no automatic appeal to the Supreme Court. So I think basically that's done. So the city does have some wide, wide leverage in terms of how it's gonna use its room tax dollars and does use, as I understand, I think, as I understand, uses some of that money for the 4th of July. And, but yeah, the city puts a lot of time and effort into making that parade go. So maybe it's something that the JCs or Rotary could take over. And. Oh, I thought our time is somewhere, what do we think is going on the development on the riverfront? We got this kind of changing subjects a little bit off the parade. We got supposedly the boat, the ferry that a little private industry's coming in is gonna do the boat. And I think that sounds like it's exciting. And all that development that's going on down there. I'm wishing everyone a success. That's putting a lot of money in there, but it seems to be, there's a little germ of growing there. Yeah, part of the problem is that, I mean, do you just see that the South Pier district being so crowded that, I mean, there's been a lot of criticism of the new three-story building down on the peninsula that looks, at best, probably. Yeah, not an exquisite architectural design, let's put it that way. Spaceport looks like it may just, in fact, be a go. Condos on that narrow little spit of land where the horrible green warehouses are now. It's gonna get kind of crowded. I mean, we're all happy to see the development. The problem now is whether there's enough traffic for the water taxi and so on at this stage of the game. I think Blue Harbor's future is a very bright one once you get more and more activity and more buildings down there and businesses. But right now you're really kind of half-built and that's always the problem, who can survive and make enough money in this early stages to keep going. We wish them all well. It's not gonna be the Staten Island ferry for a while. No, that's right. I mean, look, we had this little trolley car that used to go from the water front area up downtown and traffic was not very heavy there either. No, no. Some day, again, with the whole area developing, it probably will be. Well, as long as we're talking about innovation and things changing, just to switch gears a little bit, again, back to the school district. And there are some changes out and about in an entrepreneurial spirit in the school district regarding charter schools. And along with voucher programs, which we do not have here in Sheboygan only, Milwaukee, but charter schools are making their way into the Sheboygan area's school district next year, both at, I think, the grade school and the high school level. There will be what's called an Arts Infused Charter School. I know my junior in high school is looking at that for his senior year. And it sounds like interesting stuff, and what do you think? At least until today, you had a job in the school district? The opinions expressed are my own, and all of my own. I'm gonna start with that disclaimer. No, I think that first of all, in candored, again, this is just my opinion. Yeah, well, there you go. There's state money there. There's state money there, the cut to the chase. There's state money there. You can get a reasonably decent pile of money if you can create charter schools. So there's a financial incentive for the district, the Sheboygan school district. Although it's short term. Yeah, it's short term, it's over a couple of years. Yeah, it's for a couple of years, and then you have to be able to fund it. And by that time, you hope that you're drawing enough students from outside your school district or bringing students who have left your school district because of school choice back into the district that it actually ends up being a revenue enhancer for you, and at least revenue neutral. So you have that. Secondly, I think there are elements in the community that really don't believe that public schools can reform themselves if they're big and they're bureaucratic and there are hours in my life when I think the same thing. And so reform, having charter schools will give people more choices within the context of public education. The real question, so that's really the motivation there is to give people more choices. The district currently really does have a very customer service mentality. I don't mean that negatively, it's just, what do our parents want? What do our community members want? And we'll provide them with those kinds of forums. The multimillion dollar question for the state is, will these charter schools actually improve student achievement and serve those students well? And the record across the country so far is very spotty. Some charters have done very, very well and have increased student achievement and given kids who would now normally have dropped out of their alternatives, others have failed abysmally. And so we'll have to see how it plays out in Sheboygan. Right now they tend to be sort of, I call them niche charter schools, arts infused and that's not gonna be a charter school next year, it's gonna be a program and then it's gonna phase into a charter school. And then there's some other proposals that may or may not be online. So there is kind of an entrepreneur bent to this right now. But the charter schools in Sheboygan or anywhere in Wisconsin for that matter that are associated with public entity still have to take those fourth and eighth and 10th grade tests. And if they don't, they're actually under the statute under a lot more rigor and they will be dissolved faster than a public school under the no child left behind legislation. So that's- Which seems appropriate, I mean. Well, and that was put in the statute to make sure that if you did have a fly by night operation or if you did have something that wasn't working that you could get rid of it pretty quickly. So it'll be interesting to see. And what's gonna be interesting for the people of Sheboygan is those students are in a sense part of a separate school. So people in Sheboygan don't know it. We have three high schools in Sheboygan now because the alternative school at Central on Virginia Avenue is now a third high school. So those, yeah, those, that's a charter school now. It's not a program any longer. So they won't be this year wearing a different color down at the bowl, but they will be next year. And they'll have a diploma signed by the Riverview principle, not North or South's principle. And their state scores will be pulled out of North and South and be looked at separately. And that'll be interesting to see how that plays out in those three high schools. New information for me. Charter school movement is an interesting one because it serves a number of masters. I've been watching it with a lot of interest. I voted for the legislature for the creation of charters and with a lot of reservation because in many cases it is really specialty. And can you take the no child left behind comprehensiveness that you need to get out of these kids in tests and so on out of a specialty school? We have to stop. We have to wrap it up in the entrepreneurial spirit. Thank you for joining us.