The Don Rosen Show (Hour 1)

If you are JN weather, I'm Corey Hartman.

Hey, I saw something interesting today on social media.

Somebody posted a very strong political opinion.

And somebody replied, good point, I changed my mind.

There's something I've learned about social media.

The expression just saying, ain't never preceded by a compliment.

When I tweet, I never want to try to sound too young.

But I also don't want to sound too old.

And I saw Metallica in concert.

They're great.

And I wanted to tweet that they were great,

but I didn't want to come off like an old funny dirty.

But I also didn't want to try to sound like a young whipper snapper.

So I settled on, boy, these fellas sure and I had a boogie.

I think I hit the sweet spot on my followers thought I was the cat's pajamas.

All the day.

All the day.

All the day.

All the day.

All the day.

All the day.

All the day.

All the day.

If we took the holiday.

Sometimes it's a great.

Just one day out of life.

It would be.

It would be so nice.

We thought it's better work.

I just read that Madonna was going through some kind of problems too.

And everybody's getting old in this world.

And now Madonna's having problems.

She broke something not too long ago.

Everybody's breaking it.

I'm the only person who's got this original hip.

I found out over Christmas that my brother-in-law is having a second hip replacement.

I said when did you get the first one?

A couple years ago.

Everybody's getting their hips replaced.

Did not get them a note.

One of our best friends, it's got his shoulder replaced.

I didn't know they could do that.

And the first part of becoming Robocop is that he's got his shoulder replaced.

I'm Don Rosen, good morning, 609 at WRJN Radio.

And Denise Lockwood is here, founder and editor of Racine County Eye.

We're going to talk about the year in review.

We've got the op-its for the year as well.

And we're going to talk about how you Christmas was, first of all,

because obviously you had a good Christmas.

I had a bifurcated kind of a situation.

We have many Christmases in the Lockwood Davis household.

We've got a hyphenate of household.

Yes, we do.

We do.

Good Davis, yeah.

You know, so we have my husband's family.

We all really get along, so we all hang out a lot together.

And we know each other so well, because you know a lot of families,

they don't often times like socialize all the time.

And they might, but like during Christmas, we kind of amp it up a lot.

And so we do really exchange presents per se, but we do white elephant presents.

And so are you familiar with the white elephant in the middle of the room?

I know what, yeah, I know what a white elephant is, but yeah, go ahead.

So it's the gaggy, the dark side of the present giving kind of situation.

So we, so Lair's family, we got together yesterday.

And that is my husband, Mr. Janice, I call him.

We have, we have another players go ahead.

We do, we do, we do.

Yeah, so we met at his cousin's house.

And the Terkelson family is his cousin's family, right?

So we're at the large group.

The house is full, right?

And there is the newer side to the white elephant giving process.

And there's the old school white elephant giving process, right?

So the day before we had a lot of white elephant giving on another side of the family.

And so it is fair game to regift your white elephant on the other side of the family, right?

So it kind of brings this interesting dynamic because the one side of the family doesn't know how to give white elephants

because they like buy new stuff.

And we do not, we go in our basement and we go like rummage sailing for the white elephant.

And like, you'll get like, John got a gourd, a painted gourd.

And he had, I actually got, I got a bottle of wine.

But then I also got this really interesting calendar about where beautiful places where dogs go to the bathroom.

Did you put a garbage pill right in the room so they don't have to go outside and throw this stuff out?

No, no, no, no.

But you know, some people like Lair's dad, Lair's dad gets this toy truck with a deer hunters and a deer on top of the house.

The top of the hood of the car.

And the deer is singing to sweet home Alabama.

My father had billy bass.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's been tossed around.

That is old school.

My father used to have that bill.

And he used to love it.

Somebody gave it to him.

I didn't give it to him when he had in this house.

Every time I went in there, he was playing that rhyming to the river or taking me to the river.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So as it looks like you had a good time.

Oh, we had a great time.

I had a traditional Christmas with my wife and I and our son came down for an hour.

And that's it.

We don't have any family here.

So my brother is in Kenosha, but he spent Christmas with his kids in Illinois.

They live right over the border.

And you know, all our parents are gone.

So they're all gone.

And that's it.

That's who we are.

My daughter lives in Florida.

So our son gave us something interesting.

It's an outdoor camera.

And what it's meant to do, it's a motion-detected camera that records.

And the reason he gave it to us, we see these critters in the backyard all the time.

We see their footprints in the snow.

And it looks like there was a Martigraf festival back here.

Everybody's running around.

Where are these animals?

One day he comes out.

He leaves earlier than I do like 515 in the morning.

And he comes out.

And there's a possum staring at him on the fence.

But all you see, the two jewel eyes staring at you.

And they pointy news.

Well, you don't see it's too dark.

All you see is the eyes.

Yeah.

And the possum staring at him, not moving.

And he woke up.

He said, I wonder how many other animals are out of here?

I said, there's tons of them.

They're all over the place.

I came into the building today.

I heard cats and animals screaming in front of the wall.

I was going out of here at 515 this morning.

I screamed.

That's hilarious.

So he got this camera so we can film.

It's walking around our property in the middle of the night.

And we'll see what happens.

There you go.

There you go.

You're going to document the whole thing.

Well, I just want to see what's out there.

Keep some field notes.

Yeah, I'm going to see what kind of, you know, you know,

Autobahn thing's going on in my backyard.

In the front yard, too, when it snows, if I told you,

and I hate when you find the big tracks, because what was that thing?

You know, whether the deer that came by, we had two deer walking down our street one day.

And it sat on my next door neighbor's property.

They just two of them.

They just sat there.

Wow.

And where did they come from?

You mean to have the Christmas cow?

No, the Christmas cow.

Christmas cow, yeah.

My wife set up a really nice house this year.

She then I'll show you a picture over later.

It's a whole Christmas village.

She set up with the snow and the lights on it.

And the people squared dancing inside the house.

Oh, nice.

I loved it.

I used to square dance back in the day.

I did.

I did in school.

They made us do it.

Yeah.

No, I actually competed.

So when you grow up in where the little town that I grew up in is Worcester, Ohio,

and it's surrounded by a lot of Amish and Farm, it's very quaint.

It's very, very beautiful place.

And so when you grew up Lockwood, you, you square dance, right?

So we actually competed at the state fair.

Don't ask me like any of the moves now, because I can't do it.

Promise me.

Take your partner home again.

I know.

I do remember, I do remember the very first dance that we did.

We competed.

It was Luke and Bach taxes.

I remember that song.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know you can square dance of that, but I guess you can.

Oh, we did.

You can put a square dance.

Yeah.

So my grandparents lived in Brooklyn.

And in sheep's head Bay, there was a square dancing club.

I never knew they belonged.

And one day my parents were going to Worcester.

I got left with my grandparents.

And they took me out.

And the first time I ever saw my grandmother wearing one of those skirts that they squared

answers.

Oh, yeah.

The fluffies.

Yeah, I never saw it.

Yeah.

What was this woman?

And my grandfather was wearing a bull tie with the, with this, you know, bright jacket.

I said, who are these people?

Who was I left with?

And I saw them square dancing.

I didn't know they belong to a square dancing club in Brooklyn of all places.

It's fun.

It was very fun.

Oh, we did it in high school.

And we had a lineup on one side of the room, the girls lined up on the other side of the

room.

And you try to figure out who you're going to get stuck with.

You try to maneuver around.

And you're moving up and down the lines.

You don't get stuck with the loser.

Right.

And I was considered the loser.

So the girls were maneuvering around and trying to get away from me.

So that was your Christmas.

Sounds like it was fun.

It was a great, great, great time.

We had a really good time.

But you know, whenever, because I'm a grandma now, I'm a grandma now.

Yeah, I am.

I am.

My daughter is 30.

And we'll show be 30 in February.

But I know I don't look like that.

You don't?

I am.

Yep.

I'm 53.

Thank you very, very much.

Yep.

And so I'm a grandma now.

And so like, I'm very nostalgic now.

So I remember like growing up Lockwood.

I think I'm going to write a book called Growing Up Lockwood.

Because when you grow up with two parents who are from Cleveland, Ohio,

and they decide to buy a farm and have no clue how to farm.

Is that what they did?

They certainly did.

Yeah, yeah.

There is a book they read.

It was something about a 10 acres and like sustainable living, right?

And so my dad was an engineer for the telephone company.

He literally would come home in a three-piece suit.

And we'd slap hogs.

He was green acres.

Oh, yeah.

Oliver Wendell Douglas.

Right.

Right.

Right.

My mother was certainly nausea.

Good boy.

I can tell you that.

But it's so much fun.

No, no, no, no, no, no, darling.

Well, that's interesting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you're a farm girl.

I am.

And so like that's how I paid for my whole first year of college was because when you're a farm girl,

you go take your animals to auction.

That's how I paid for my whole fourth year.

Oh, that's got to be terrible.

Oh, no.

Until you read Charlotte's web, it was fine.

No, no, no.

I don't take animals to the market and stuff like that.

I can't.

No.

You know, I always say, if I had to kill my own food, I'd be eating, you know, dandelions

outside because I couldn't do it.

As long as somebody else kills it, I can live with myself.

Yeah.

Well, when you have 300 hogs, you kind of were like, we need to reduce the stink count.

No.

No.

All right, we're going to talk about the year in review.

Right.

We're going to talk about your Christmas review.

Yeah, we did.

Denise Lockwood is here, founder and editor of Racine County Eye.

I'm Don Rosen.

You're at W.R.J.

and it's just about 19 minutes past the hour.

Stay where you are.

Music

Met my whole lover in the grocery store

The snow was falling, Christmas Eve

I stole behind her in the vows and foods

And I touched her on the sweet

She didn't recognize the face at first

But then her eyes blew open wide

She went to hug me and she spilled her purse

And we left and did we cry

Music

Here at 621 at WRJN

Home town radio refreshed

And he's lockwoods here from Racine County

Talk about some of the big stories that happened locally this year

Racine County I actually had it to best year ever

I'm super, super happy about how this whole year went with regards to Racine County

This whole year went with regards to the website

So we actually take a guess on how many stories we wrote

I looked

I know that's right, I did tell you

Sorry, it's 2,805

And so we had over 3 million page views

And it was the best year, it was great

So we had a lot of stories that you would not think were

Top news stories and it ended up being top news stories

That weren't news stories at all

Like Halloween trick-or-treating times

Fourth of July schedule

Fish fry

We love our fish fry a lot

Yeah, well I came here and noticed that

Yeah, it's a thing

We were super into beer brats

All of those things

So tell me about the Halloween trick-or-treat time

What was that about?

As advertised my husband

It was basically just the when you were going to pass out the candy

Because we're super want to know if it changed

We are really hard down on our Halloween

You know and it's funny to say that

Because a week before

You know what day is it's like the garbage

When the garbage man coming, they change because they change the times

Here in town every holiday

And the big thing is I used to look across the street

When our neighbor put out his garbage fail

And that's how I knew he passed away

And now it's like everyone's looking at my house

Frozen putting out the garbage

I know and you know what ever

And it changed again because it's a week from this Tuesday again

I know and so like every year

This is as a news nerd

It like breaks my heart just a little bit

But I'm like why do you guys pay attention so much to the fish fry?

And I'm like okay, yeah it's culturally

It's what we do

So the fish fry is

We're very ritualistic here

And the southeastern Wisconsin area

We have a social regiment kind of a thing

So those are some of things like holiday train

That is always in the top like 50

Of our stories

But here are some of the things

That we had as our top news stories

So we had the Canadian fires

So the smooth

I forgot about that

Yeah, we weren't breathing well for a while

And those were, that was a national story

We had that quite a bit over in New York

You know, Ohio

I know

Yeah, that was something because you go outside and this hay

And you smelled it

Yeah, it was like where's this coming from?

It's hard to believe it's coming from Canada

It had to pass Rhinelander

It had to pass Mata to get to us

And it's still here

And so the second one

By the way, did they put that out?

You know what?

That's a really good question

There are thousands of fires

Right? It wasn't just one fire

And it was spanned all across the

Like almost over the border

Into the, into southern Canada

Yeah, I might geography in Canada

Sorry

Alright, so we'll assume they put it out

What's next?

Okay, so the next one was the Raymond story

Yeah, so we did a whole story

There's a lot going on

It's going to be a big story coming up for next year

Is somebody else resigned?

So the superintendent resigned

And the, so they've got a new principle

Get back up on the story a little bit

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so basically

The school board was kind of like

Taken over by a

Four women that adhered to

The Moms for Liberty group

And they are

About getting rid of banned books

They get rid of like

Woke culture

It's a very, it's a national group

And they're

Unfortunately, they have

It's not unfortunately

I misspoke

It's been a really big controversy

And so the principal

Was, his contract was not renewed

They got rid of what's called

Social Emotional Learning

They replaced it with another curriculum

And it's been, I mean

It's been a very upsetting

To the apple cart kind of scenario

And this is a little school

In Racine County

And this is happening all over the nation

It's not just a

Raymond school story

It's a national movement that is happening

And so like even

Racine unified former superintendant, Eric Gallion

He went to one of the

A school district in North Carolina

He was on the job for 90 days

And the Moms for Liberty group

Basically got rid of them

For not doing the things

They wanted him to do

So their slogan is we don't

Co-parent with the government

Mm-hmm. Wow

Yeah. So the latest one

Is the school superintendent? Yeah

The principal was put on paid leave

They decided not to renew his contract

The...

And a bunch of other people left too by the way

But go ahead. Correct. Yeah. And then they

Like they they lost

This is a tiny school

This is about 400 kids total

K through eight

They ended up

Nine of the 34 staff members left

It's been

It's been very tumultuous

And they've lost

Students as well

Pro board. Some parents are

Against the board

The parents that are against the board

Filed a recall petition

They just turned in the

Signatures a couple of weeks ago

And so there's going to be a recall

Election of two of the board members

Gwen Keller and

Janelle Wise

And it's

That one's not going anywhere

Anytime soon

Plus those same parents filed a writ of

Mandamus which basically means

They're suing the school district

For not honoring the

Resolutions that these parents pass

The Raymond school is what's called a

Common school district

And so common school districts

Have an annual meeting

Where parents can say hey i want

I want a

Baseball park or whatever

They can do

They pass these resolutions

And they pass to resolutions

But the board chose not to

To follow through on them

And so the parents are suing them

So

And then so the latest on that writ

Is that the school district

Is filed for a motion to dismiss

And so there's a lot going on

I didn't realize parents had that much poll

They do

And that's common school districts

Are not a norm

But these are very small school districts

And so that's one of the things that is

A dynamic that

Is at work in this particular

Case

Boy the makes you not want to work in

School

All right

And he's locked what is here from

Rasing County i we're doing the year in

Review or to come up it's

1400 day and 99.9 FM

And 98.1 FM

Home town radio refresh to civic media station

And

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For you

Home and I wake up

Before I move on

I make a

Sailing

For you

And while

Coming my hand

And wondering what

Press to when I

Want my hands on you

Forever

Forever

stay in my heart

Forever

Forever

Forever

Forever

Together

Together

Together

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Partners

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After TITLE

opening a store near the Regency Mall.

Yes, you know, my brother shops at Woodman's

because they're right near his house and they swear by it.

And their big thing with Woodman's is they always have a lot of lanes

opened up with real cash years where this where I go they have one.

And I went to the manager and I said, you know, I had three items

and I was stuck behind two people doing a month's worth of food

shopping. And she said, well, we've got five do-it-yourself lanes.

I said, I don't like those. She goes, well, that's the way it's

going to be. And I said, well, maybe you'll be losing me.

Well, pick and save it. I mean, pick the Wigglys

over there, festivals right over there and go go try them out.

Wow. Wow is right. Instead of saying, you know, it's

tough. We're trying to hire more people. We understand

please bear with us. It was like, you don't like it, lump it.

Well, you know, that's a very dominant theme because we don't have

employment is still a major issue with a lot of employers.

So we have a quality problem and we have a quantity problem.

If the COVID win are these people, go they didn't want to work anyway.

Well, a lot of them didn't. So like when you when you look at

because I'm a nerd, right? I mean, this told news thing.

So the labor participation rate has has tanked.

And so there's not a lot of people came back.

How are they paying their bills? Well, probably tick-tock

influencing. I'm not sure. Good question.

I mean, all of a sudden, they nobody came back to work.

And that's what happened at the supermarkets.

They can't find people to work. They won't pay them a little more.

That happened a lot at the restaurants.

If you notice, like we my husband and I went up to we had he had some

some we were in Brookfield and we go to the Taco Bell.

And we they didn't they didn't take your order.

They had a key ask.

Oh, yeah.

And so that's a big thing too.

So and that's because of a lot of the labor shortage,

a lot of the automation and labor, the cost of labor in those sectors

has jumped exponentially.

I used to remember not too long ago you had McDonald's workers trying to

unize to get to $15 an hour.

Now they're paying $16, $17.

Well, you know, I never I don't go.

I don't eat a lot of fast food.

So my wife wanted a big Mac the other day.

So I drove to McDonald's.

I get up to the window and she says, are you ordering on the app?

No, I'm ordering with you right here.

I mean, talking to you.

I mean, why would I order on the app?

I'm talking to you just to get me the food.

And she was very pleasant.

She was very polite.

Both the person who gave my order to they couldn't have been more polite.

But still you ordering on the app?

No.

I'm talking to you.

I'm ordering face to face.

Yeah.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's going to be a dominant theme too.

You also have a lot of development is happening.

So you've got Microsoft.

They they purchased.

They've got several phases.

They bought a lot of the box con.

What happened with five?

That was supposed to be their trip here with Scott.

What's his name?

The governor's got Walker.

He would say they were the shovels.

They were going.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Holding hands.

And we look at this.

We turned to nothing.

Well, it's not nothing.

It's nothing.

It is not nothing.

They've got the globe.

Come on.

Yeah.

And you know, I think a lot of it.

So just because there's a couple of different things

that were happening, right?

So it's not 15,000 jobs.

It is not 15,000 jobs.

That is inaccurate statement.

And so one of the things that I know that happened

with that development, there is a market shift too.

And I'm trying to remember which year I'm having

one of those not enough coffee moments.

So the Chinese market, the major market share,

so you have to understand what Foxconn made, right?

This Foxconn is an electronics manufacturer.

They do not dream of the things.

They make the things other people dream of.

That's OK.

Commercial.

I know.

So the Apple phone that I have is something that Foxconn makes.

And so they make a lot of electronics.

And one of the things that really hampered that development,

there were two major things.

One deal had another deal.

They had to make broker deals for their suppliers.

And so the glass company had to have a deal.

And this company had to deal.

So they made the deal with Foxconn.

And then they couldn't get the rest of the deals done

with their suppliers.

So that was part of it.

Then there also, once the uncomfortableness of a lot

of the contract and the controversy around that happened,

once that contract was hampered out,

that developer's agreement, which is a very long document for it.

I have actually read it.

And so there were two major things that they were supposed

to do as part of that contract,

which it was capital improvement and employment numbers.

So they had to hire so many people.

They also had to build so much so that they could create the tax base

they needed to qualify for the tax incentives.

So there's a lot of insider baseball kind of stuff

that just didn't happen.

And a lot of that was predicated that the market wasn't there.

So this electronics manufacturer was probably,

it was not the best deal,

but the one thing that they did do

is they did have some clawbacks and some out clauses.

And so they were able to broker this deal with Microsoft.

I'm told through the grapevine that there's more coming.

And so it'll be interesting, an interesting year.

In the bank building where I bank, Foxconn bought the building.

And they were going to turn that whole first floor area

other than the bank.

They were going to turn it into a welcome center.

And they had all the construction stuff there.

It's still there two and a half years later.

Yeah.

Are you talking about Bimo?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was one.

The other one, there is a building right on the corner of Maine

and Lake Drive.

No.

Maine and Sixth.

Maine and Sixth, it was a law office.

And the irony is that one of the...

No, yeah, I know that.

One of the people that was in that office

was a woman by the name of Christy Hall, who was a lawyer.

Christy's house was also one of the properties

that were bought out by Foxconn for the demo.

So she loses her house.

Then the building, she is ousted from her house

and then ousted from her building.

Yeah.

You know, when Foxconn first did this whole deal

and I had Trump and Walker were down there

patting each other on the back and kissing each other

whatever they were doing on this whole deal,

I said, when I see it, I'll believe it.

A lot of people say that.

And you know what?

I don't think they're wrong to be skeptical because...

It was too good to be true.

Well, and this is what happens a lot in a scene

over the last 25 years.

You've had a lot of developers come into the city

and what happens is they come up with the pipe dream

and like machinery row and there's a point blue.

The list of broken-hearted deals is long.

A broken heart.

A ball of art, a broken dream.

Well, I kind of like it to the woman who's left at the altar.

That's a Green Day song.

Yeah.

And so this is hard for us.

As recipients, we're very skeptical

and I don't think they're wrong

because there's a lot of things that just weren't happening

for so long and what was happening.

I started asking these questions of why are we keeping...

Why do we keep getting left at the altar, right?

And so one of the things that I learned

in talking to the developers and the people

who were brokering with these deals is...

And it comes down to we're just not okay

from a market share for like these housing projects.

Machinery row didn't...

wasn't viable once the lenders were looking back

into the pro forma, the documents that they had to sign

to be okay with the deal.

And so they're looking at all of this poverty, right?

So you have like 11,000 people in the city of Racine

that don't have a GD.

And this is a big problem.

And it is one of the underbelly kind of issues

that I don't think we talk a lot.

Talk enough about.

We also have lead poisoning problem

because we have 11,000 homes in the city of Racine

that have lead paint in them

and that causes learning disabilities.

There's a lot.

You know when I was a kid,

we had asbestos shingles on our house.

And during the summer it was always cool.

My friends and I used to put our tongues

and lick the asbestos shingles.

And look at that.

That explains a lot.

And my mother didn't stop me.

Now I don't think they thought

my father had asbestosis all his life

because he worked with asbestos

and they didn't realize how bad it was until it was bad.

But we used to put our tongues on it to cool off.

In the summer,

I used to lick in the asbestos shingles on the house.

Mom, why didn't you stop me?

What were you thinking?

I don't think it did any damage.

You know, I got this twitch,

but other than that, I don't know.

I got into radio, so I don't know.

Maybe it did its damage.

But I didn't think about that stuff.

And you're right.

There was a, I tell you what,

I was a date-liner 2020 about this

child who mysteriously died and they found out

the child was eating paint chips on the porch.

Yep.

Led paint is...

Because it's sweet.

One it is.

And one of the things that it happens,

we did a whole five-part series around

led poisoning.

Childhood led poisoning is a major issue.

And when you look at the maps of poverty

and educational attainment and income

and who goes to jail and who does not,

led childhood led poisoning is the under,

underbelly story that we honestly

don't talk enough about.

And we did a whole five-part series

around it and at the end of the day,

we're going to keep, keep paying attention

to that because there's some interesting partnerships

that are starting to happen.

The Racine Interfaith Coalition is starting,

is working on some...

It's very preventable.

It is.

Yeah.

Get rid of the lead paint?

Well, and that costs friend about $45,000 per house.

But don't let your kids pick chips and eat it.

That's a thing.

And there's a lot of education.

So when we did those story series,

we did a whole, you know,

what to do if you have led poisoning

led paint in your house.

Talking to Denise Lockwood from Racine County Eye,

we'll continue with a year in review coming up.

649 at WRJN,

1,400 am 99.1 FM and 90...

No, 99.9 FM, 98.1.

Too many numbers for this hour.

And I hope town Brady will refresh

to Civic Media Station.

We're coming up stereo.

You need a reason.

Be playful.

Run in your state side games.

Lose your load.

Leave your mind behind, baby James.

Oh, Mexico.

Your sounds are simple.

I just got to go.

The sounds are hot.

I've got to go.

Yes, I'll have to go now.

I'm American.

Not the sleepy eye.

But his body's still shaking like a live wire.

Sleep is in your reader with the eyes on fire.

Oh, Mexico.

Your sounds are sweet with the sun singing low.

The moon's so bright.

Back to light up the night.

Think everything alright.

I'm going to go.

I'm going to go.

I'm going to go.

Leave your mind behind, baby.

The moon is all gone.

The foot's way home.

Don't want to talk.

James Taylor, sweet baby James Teppin.

Sweet baby James.

And I mentioned to you in when I was in high school,

we brought in his brother, Livingston Taylor,

your performance.

You said he's performing here in Wisconsin.

He did a few years ago.

I was doing some freelance work for one of the newspapers

up north.

He was playing at the Cedarburg,

one of the community theaters,

and I interviewed him.

This would have been maybe 2009.

It's tough being the brother James Taylor.

Oh, your James Taylor's brother.

When I went to high school,

we had the main high school,

and then we had ours was the secondary high school,

because it was a newer high school.

They said, oh, you're going to miss people high?

Oh, you go to the other one.

Yeah, I go to the other one.

That's just put the other one on the outside of the building.

And they're right because it's not there anymore.

It's a building, but it's empty.

I think you're using it for storage now.

It was a thriving high school,

and I went there with almost 4,000 students

in the building at one time.

Wow.

So, yeah, it's no longer.

These lockwoods here from Racine County,

I, the founder and editor of Racine County,

I would talk about some of the local stories in review.

What else you got for us?

Okay, so we were talking about the development history of Racine,

and we've had a lot of heartbreak here in the city, right?

But there's some really interesting things like Hotel Verdant.

If you haven't been to Hotel Verdant,

it's very beautiful.

I heard.

I saw pictures of it online.

You know, I can't picture because I remember the building

when it was going to be the Imaginearium,

and I gave $100 to the Imaginearium.

That was $100, I'll never get back.

But anyway, yes, it looks really nice inside.

Oh, it's saying it right, Verdant.

The Verdant.

Yeah, there's the top of the, in the top,

there's a bar, and it overlooks.

There's actually a, like, a veranda that overlooks the lake.

Now, could you go in there and have,

go to the bar and stuff without having to, you know,

because I live a few blocks away.

I'm not going to go.

I work just a few, like, a block away.

You can just go in there.

Yep.

They serve dinner.

Yep.

Well, they serve, I think, like, a tapas kind of site.

They just serve some food down up on the top.

But there's also a restaurant.

It's amazing.

It's called Margarit.

And that's really, really good.

They did a lot of that building.

They did.

They did a lot.

Good for them.

Yeah, and then there's also another commercial residential building.

That is coming over where Point Blue was supposed to be

right next to the chancery right on Lake Drive.

And that's huge.

That is coming down the pike.

What happened to the Walker Manufacturing site?

That was supposed to be, and it's still empty.

Well, and that is another piece of the heartbreak, right?

The deal didn't, because COVID hit, right?

They were part of the Boulevard of Broken Dries.

It is, unfortunately.

You know, but I see some interesting things happening.

And the other piece is the Lincoln King neighborhood.

So the Lincoln King neighborhood is over by Racine Steel

and over by Memorial Drive in that neck of the woods.

And they're going to be building over 100 houses there.

And the reason why that's important, and also the old,

if you haven't been over having one of those moments,

Northwestern, I believe, is the road there.

Yeah, it's Northwestern.

The Horlick Milk Festival.

Yeah, yeah.

Horlick Milk Festival.

That is amazing.

Yeah, I've been there.

They have all these little shops and factories within that whole district.

I've been there before, yeah.

Right.

And so there's a lot of neat things happening in Racine.

But Walker Manufacturing is still going to be empty?

It is going to be lengthy for a while.

And I have one of the things that we're starting,

and this is one of the great reasons why I want to show up to these things,

because I want to talk about a lot of the things that are happening.

So we actually started a page called Remaking Racine.

And we're going to be really promoting that in the next few weeks.

So that's where all of our stories about development in Racine County

are going to live from the...

So that's one of the things that we're really hard down on in Racine County.

Racine County I is the Remaking Racine Projects,

because there's a lot.

City building is really hard work,

because especially when you've got the rust belt kind of effect

where you've had a lot of these properties that are industrial, right?

They were used for industrial purposes.

They have to...

Those are what are called brownfield properties.

And so there's a lot more to repurposing those buildings,

to making sure the ground remediation,

the property that is on Lake Drive and State Street is the...

Right next to the chance tree, the one that's being built,

that had to go through years of ground remediation,

because that used to be we energy's property.

And so there's a lot of ground remediation that needed to go there.

You know, I used to walk my dog on the Lakefront,

or Chester is a year gone in December 20th.

Anyway, we used to...

December 19th, we used to walk him all the time,

and like Franny said, Daddy, what is that empty land with nobody using it?

I said, that was the Walker Manufacturing sidechester.

They're still working on it.

Daddy, I'm 13 years old.

It's been like that for 13 years.

I said, it's been a lot longer than that, Chester.

He said, they're going to fix it soon.

I said, I hope so, Chester.

I hope they're going to fix it real soon for you.

So he was very concerned about it, and he's beagle.

So...

Conversations with Chester.

He was very concerned about it.

You know, that dog didn't bark in 13 years.