The Don Rosen Show (Hour 2)

I have his friend.

He finds he's really good deals on the internet.

You know what I'm talking about?

These deals are way too good to be true.

Another day he walked up to me, he's like,

dude, I found a cruise around the world for $300.

Seriously, cruise around the world for $300?

Yeah, I would love to say activities on that cruise.

Rowing.

Sailing.

Learning more as co-shooting flares.

Any other passengers?

What's the name of the cruise line, the Navy?

If I had a hammer,

I'd have hammered in the morning.

I'd have hammered in the morning.

All over this line,

I'd have hammered danger.

I'd have hammered out of the morning.

I'd have hammered out of love between my brothers and sisters.

All over this line.

Ooh, if I had a bell,

I'd have ringing in the morning.

I'd have ringing in the evening.

All over this line,

I'd have hammered out of the morning.

I'd have ringing out of the morning.

I'd have ringing out of love between my brothers and sisters.

All over this line.

Ooh, if I had a song,

I'd sing it in the morning.

I'd have ringing in the evening.

All over this line,

I'd have sing a danger.

I'd have sing out of the morning.

I'd sing out of love between my brothers and sisters.

All over this line.

Ooh, if I had a hammer,

I'd have hammered out of the morning.

I'd have sung the same song over this line.

It's a hammer of justice.

It's a bell of freedom.

It's a song of love between my brothers and sisters.

All over this line.

It's a hammer of justice.

It's a bell of freedom.

It's a song of love.

And 708 WRJN Radio.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Don Rosen.

And with me, his honor,

the Mayor,

Mayor Cory Mason is here today.

You and I both saw Peter Paul and Mary at Revenia.

Years ago, yeah.

Yeah, you were probably the guy sitting in back

and be pitting me with your knees to hold.

I was actually out on the lawn.

We were on the lawn too.

It was great to see that.

I love Revenia.

I used to take, we drove there,

but there was a train that actually stopped off there at Revenia.

They could, I don't know if it was Metro or whatever,

one of those trains.

I think it's Metro.

Yeah, it took you over there.

That was nice.

In the summer, they do nice concerts.

They still do them, you think?

They do.

They do.

I haven't been in years.

But they still do them.

There's a patty lapone there doing Broadway show music there too.

It was pretty good.

All right.

The mayor's not here to talk about Revenia or Peter Paul and Mary.

We're here to talk about what's going on in the city of Racine.

We in good shape or not.

We got some great things happening.

You know, downtown has got those new apartments going up.

Those will hopefully be ready to go later this year.

Every time I look at the add another floor.

I know.

I think they're done adding the floors.

It's like the tower of Babelbee.

It's a good five-story building.

It's going to have some great, great views of the hardware.

The verdant hotel just got certified as lead gold.

So it's the most environmentally efficient hotel

in the state of Wisconsin right now.

So I heard the food there is great.

The restaurants.

They got a rooftop thing going on.

If you go there, the restaurant, the Margarita and the ground floor is fantastic.

But you have to go up and see the view of the rooftop bar.

It is just really, you can look over one shoulder and see the lake

and the lighthouse and look over the other shoulder and see the SC Johnson research tower

and then look over another way and you see the river running through the downtown.

It's just, it's a spectacular view.

You can probably see our radio tower too.

You can.

You can see that from the United States.

320 feet of it.

Yeah.

So, okay.

So downtown is in good shape.

Yeah.

And we've got some great programs that we want to make sure people know about.

We've got these home repair grants that are going out pretty quickly.

So we have these neighborhood tids that we've created that allow people to do home repairs on their homes in those spaces.

And so those open up may first.

And so we want to make sure people know about those.

We've got a youth employment program that I wanted to talk a little bit about.

And take 50 young people in the community and match the talent they have with the opportunities to work for the city.

It's an eight week paid internship program that we have in the city.

What age are we talking about?

So 16 to 24 is the age group that we're looking for in that space.

Sixteen-year-olds are now saying, I don't want to, the mayor is making us work.

I kind of want to work this summer.

Yeah, it's actually, I've been thrilled with it.

We get more applicants than we have spaces.

People will submit a letter or make a little video about why they want to work.

And what's great about it is we put young people in different departments in every city department.

So if you think, you know, you might want to be a scientist, well, maybe we'll put you in the wastewater or water utility.

So you can learn how to do water testing.

If you think you might want to be a police officer or a firefighter, we have opportunities there for people to work down there.

And if they really enjoy that, we put them into our cadet program.

We just had three young people go get hired as cadets just this last week.

So it's a great way to, you know, there's some people just like, oh, there's not people here who want to do these jobs.

And, you know, this program is really meant to challenge that assumption.

What we find is when we tell young people, there's great opportunities to come work for the city, learn about these careers, get experience with these careers.

They do and they really enjoy it.

And so it's been a win-win for us.

We're able to fund this program with President Biden's American Rescue Plan Dollars and put people to work.

And what's great for us is it's a positive experience for those kids.

And it's a great opportunity for us to get the future workforce that we need.

So we're excited about it.

How did people sign up for it?

So it'll open up next week.

And so if you go to GrowReceeing.org, it currently says, you can sign up for a little text notification when it opens up.

We find the young people these days don't necessarily read websites as much as they do text notification.

So you sign up for the text notification and then you're off to the running and, you know, we've gotten some great applicants who want to do some great things.

And every city department has opportunities for young people.

And, you know, this will be our third year and it's great.

So we spend, you know, there's been four days for eight weeks working in the department and then on Fridays, we do sort of do financial literacy one day.

We'll do how to do an application another day.

We'll do, you know, a whole host of things that make them more likely to succeed as potential applicants for us.

And, you know, we're at a place as a city.

We've got like many employers.

We have an aging workforce and people are starting to retire.

We're going to replace those workers with the next generation of workers.

I urge all my neighbors to sign up for this from the city.

I get these text messages every, yeah, the curbside alerts at four o'clock today before the garbage goes out.

It's a great reminder.

Yeah.

You're sitting there.

You just took your shoes off.

You're ready to relax and all of a sudden take the garbage out.

Right.

Well, sometimes, I mean, I certainly, is it a recycling week?

Is it not a recycling week?

Yes, it tells you on there.

Yeah.

So it's really helpful.

I can never, I have the calendar at home that give you with your tax bill.

Yeah.

But again, it's this gold mean, yes, a green mean recycling.

What does that mean?

I don't understand it.

But you have to remember every time there's a holiday, the day it shifts.

That's right.

So that's where the text reminds me of my neighbor told me about that.

Yeah.

Which other my neighbors, my rest of my neighbors, then you need a text message.

My neighbors need a text message to take in the garbage pills.

We got to have that text message.

It's time to take them in.

We're ready to pick up your garbage.

Yes, you are supposed to take them in by the end of the day.

Well, when we pick them up, but there are occasionally people who will leave them out there a few days.

A few days.

A few days.

People will leave them out where I live all week.

They just take the garbage out to the curb and put it in the thing there.

Yeah, they should take it back to that.

Yeah.

Of course they should.

People aren't always nice about that though.

All right.

No more may.

Yeah.

So no more may.

So it's meant to get at two things that sort of cross against each other.

So unfortunately in this community, we get a lot of complaints on abandoned properties

where people just not maintaining their properties with tall grass and weeds.

Every year we're out doing enforcement on that and saying to property owners.

Sometimes there are absentee landlords and sometimes they don't do it.

So the city taxpayers wind up having to cut these lawns down to size.

So it doesn't feel overgrown.

It gets overgrown.

People start dumping things.

It can be a real hazard and it leads to community blight.

At the same time, there's been a move in this country to create more space for the pollinators.

Yep.

For the bees.

That's right.

And you know, I didn't realize this at the start.

We need bees and pollinators to make our food, right?

If there's no bees, there's no butterflies to pollinate the food that affects our food source.

In addition to just having the biodiversity, having those insects around us, it helps with the diversity of the plants that we have in the area.

So people are like, well, we don't want to mow in May.

There's this whole national movement of what to do.

So the question became, well, what do we do because we can't wait until June to start enforcing our tall grass

and weeds ordinance.

If you do that, it's already a foot high and then you'll never get ahead of it.

So we have a program now called no mow may where instead of getting a $50 fine for not mowing your lawn and wanting to have it for the...

You can buy a yard sign for 25 bucks.

You put it in your front yard and it says no mow may.

And then the enforcement team knows, oh, this is actually...

This isn't somebody letting their lawn go or refusing to upkeep their yard.

This is somebody who's trying to create some space for the pollinators.

We sort of give them a pass on enforcement for May.

And then June comes and they got to go back to enforcing it.

But we've had a lot of requests from people saying we'd really like to not have to mow in May.

How do we do this?

And so I think we've found a good solution that allows us to still enforce for those folks who should be cutting their lawn

and are just going to let it go for the year.

Which, by the way, is one of the number one complaints we will get in the office when the summer comes long.

When somebody going to cut that lawn over there, it looks terrible.

Like, you know, we get a lot of complaints about that.

With people who are trying to do a good thing for the pollinators.

So it's the first year we're doing it.

It's a bit of a pilot we're going to see how it goes.

But if people want that, they can go down to the clerk's office and pay the fee.

And we'll give them a yard sign.

They can pump it down on their yard and we'll give them a pass for no mow may.

We do it in the backyard.

My mother, there's a Freudian slip.

My wife, we were at the state fair once.

And they had a honey bee thing set up there where the honey's are.

And they had always honey bees.

And I didn't know it, but my wife said the honey bees were disappearing.

They don't know where they're going.

And where are they?

We need the honey bees.

I never heard of it.

I never give them much thought.

Yeah.

And I started thinking about it more and more.

And so we leave the backyard for the first week or May or so.

We leave it unmoved the entire yard, which is fine with me.

Then I start mowing little sections of it.

Now there's a section where all the bees go because I can see all the little things growing on the grass.

So I'm more around the edges.

And the next week I'll mow a little bit more.

And the end, I've got that five foot by five foot patch where the bees go.

And I leave that because if I let it go too long, I can't get the mow through the backyard.

And I'm like there with a machete going through the cane fields in South America trying to knock down with this stuff.

But we do it slowly.

And so we leave it to the end.

And yeah, it's true.

The bees are out there.

I see them.

Yeah.

No, they come.

The bees and the butterflies.

They'll show up if you get in the plant life to do it.

So it's, I think, a good sort of how do we maintain, you know, the neighborhood so they don't look like we got a band in properties or blight of properties.

But still get people.

So it's no mow may come down to the cook's office in city hall if you want to sign.

And we'd love to see more signs out there and giving a chance for the pollinators to do what they do.

And you know what it is, too?

The whole world is connected by different things.

And people think, ah, the bees aren't there, who cares?

You will care.

Yeah.

Because everything is connected.

That's the way the world was built.

Yeah.

Everything, little tiniest things.

I mean, I wish all the gnats would go away.

No, you don't, because animals live on those gnats.

That's right.

The insects.

You don't, you're just a wish they wouldn't bite you.

But you can't have them go away.

Well, and I said, well, bees, you know, we need the bees for the hunting and we do.

But I didn't realize how important pollinators are for our foods, right?

Right for all those grains, for all of them.

Yeah.

You need the pollinators to be in place.

So it's a good little way for us to do our part.

And for the people who are enthusiastic about wanting to do, no more may.

It's a way for them to do that program without running a rye of our tall grass.

The mayor is here.

We're at WRJN.

You've been right here.

hometown radio refreshed us.

Civic media station 719.

I'll be waiting and Sunday, Thursday.

You will come to me when you want to stand down.

Oh!

Start my day away.

Children want more.

And then you want to love you.

You're waiting for one five day.

You're gonna want me for your girl.

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

Oh!

One five day.

You will come to me when you want to stand down.

You've got one five day.

You've got one five day.

One five day.

Oh!

The chevons.

It's 722 WRJN radio.

Quickly, we're looking for some showers today.

Chance of showers with high near 53.

Cloudy with showers tonight, possibly.

Loads of 43.

But then, sun comes out tomorrow.

Highs near 55.

Sunny on Saturday, 57.

And sunny on Sunday with a high near 65.

The Brewers are in Cincinnati.

Take it on the red.

1135 this morning.

Breakfast with the Brewers.

1135.

You know, I was thinking earlier.

When the Dodgers play at City Field against the Metz at, let's say, a new game, a business

that used to call it a business man special, the new game, they're watching the game out

in California at 9 o'clock in the morning.

Oh, wow.

You wake up in the morning.

It's baseball and breakfast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And happens.

Mayor Corey Mason is here with scenes mayor and we're talking about a whole different

bunch of projects going on.

Let's continue.

You've got some more.

Yeah, we've got this home repair program that we're really excited about.

$10,000 grants that we give to homeowners that are in particular neighborhoods where we set

up this program.

And it's been really good for us.

It's meant to do two things.

You know, we hear people say in some of the neighborhoods, you know, what's going on with the houses?

Clearly, we got houses that need a new roof or need a new porch or there's something falling

into disrepair.

And so we've set up this program where you can get a $10,000 grant.

You have to put up a 10% match to do it.

So we put up 10,000.

The homeowner puts up a thousand.

But it allows them to do some home repairs that lets them get up to code on their porch or

their roof or their windows or whatever it might be.

And it's been really successful.

It's really helped stabilize the neighborhoods.

You have to be an owner occupant to qualify.

But we've had two neighborhoods that have been doing this for a while.

One sort of on the south side sort of historic district between, you know, 14th and to

COVID.

And then the other area is between Gould and Melvin and it goes from the lakefront all

the way to the to the city limit.

So we've had some real success there.

We have two new neighborhoods that will begin this year, sort of along the Spring Street

corridor.

It goes really from northwestern west and then everything sort of over by Osborne into a

sort of western scene and the Kinsey Heights in that space there.

If you're north of Kinsey there.

It's really meant to stabilize those neighborhoods, give homeowners an extra incentive to want to

fix up their houses.

And so if you're doing something and you're maybe on a fixed income and it's to get you

up to code compliance, it's a it's a 10-to-1 match from the city.

If you want to do something a little bit fancier like, hey, I'd like to have a nice new kitchen

or put in a new bathroom.

Then it's a one-to-one match.

Then it's a 50-50 split.

But we've had great success with it the first couple of years.

We're expanding it to two new neighborhoods and it really helps fix up the neighborhoods.

People feel really good about it.

We just put a new porch on.

Nice.

We find a guy who does great work.

Once you find a handyman who can do great work, we'll be friends with him because he put

it on this new porch.

We put a new railing on the other side of the porch.

Which we always want it because when it's slippery out and you're carrying stuff in your left

hand walking down the porch, it's hard to pull onto the railing.

So we put another railing in, buried in the whole porch, found some buried treasure under the

old porch.

Well, it's very treasure.

We found a crown, a scepter.

We found some rubies.

Actually, our home was built by Lake Michigan Sea Captain.

No kidding.

You can find that out at the historical society.

You can go through, even if you go to the library, you can find the old phone books.

Yes.

You used to have the occupation of the person in there.

So the guy who built our home, lived on Chad, I'm originally.

Sure.

Then decided to build a home on our lot back in 1914-1912 somewhere around there.

But it was a Lake Michigan Sea Captain.

So we had a wall replaced several years ago, and I said, I wonder if we buried something

back there in that wall, like a map of treasure map or something like that.

So when the wall was done, you took it off, took off the old wall, took a flashlight, and

I went through there.

No, there was nothing buried there.

But what I wanted to do was put a treasure map in there.

So 50, 60 years, and then I'd tear the wall down and say, I found a map.

It goes nowhere.

Yeah.

But they'll be tearing apart the city, looking for this treasure.

But yeah, there was nothing.

But, you know, who knows, there's a lot of walls in our house that are original and could

be.

Maybe he buried all his gold to balloons in there that he owned from, you know, his treasure

on Lake Michigan.

You never know.

You never know.

Yeah, you never know.

But look, go ahead.

So if people want to do this program, we've a website called BuildUpRacene.org.

If you want to see if you're in one of the neighborhoods that have the home repair programs, you can

go there.

The window to apply, because there's finite resources for it, is May 1st for the two new tids, and then

June 1st for tid 22 and 23 that are on the near north side and the south side historic district.

We want to encourage people to take advantage of them.

They probably, people might have a ton of questions, right?

Like, how do I, you know, I get the money.

Does the contractor get the money?

What's the process?

What does it look like?

We've got a lot of information there, and of contact, email, and phone number of people have questions.

But we want to have people to participate.

The other thing I'll mention to it, though, people say, well, Mayor, what happens if I don't live in one of these neighborhoods?

And we look at other neighborhoods where we might expand the program.

But you have to meet certain statutory requirements under state law for these neighborhoods to work.

And so what we do in the other neighborhoods, so it's great about this program.

It's not income driven.

You don't have to income qualified to be in that program.

Outside of these districts, we do have income qualified grants for lower income individuals.

And then we also have low interest loans for projects if you're not in one of these districts.

So if you want to invest in your home and help build it up, the city has resources.

It's obviously in our interest to have nice neighborhoods where the houses look nice.

And people want to take pride in their neighborhoods.

So we encourage people to take a look at those programs.

And, you know, we want to help you keep your home beautiful and your neighborhood beautiful.

We just redid the hole inside of our house.

We do a little pieces.

Sure.

You can't do the whole thing at once.

We do the floors.

We got rid of the carpeting.

We got the wooden floors.

Yeah, the hardwood underneath.

But they're not really fake hardwood.

But it looks real.

And the bathrooms are redone.

That's great.

The plumbing.

Everything redone in the house.

Because, you know, it's an old house.

And you know, you got to keep the value up.

I'm not going to be forever.

And when our son in there, it's the house, you know, he's going to have some value in the house.

And he keeps up the value.

People come in and say, wow, remember, it's all curb appeal.

Yeah.

You know, people walk in the house.

And when they see it, the house looks nice.

They're willing to pay what you want.

That's right.

If they see a dump, they're going to short you on the price.

That's exactly right.

So keep it up.

These are good programs, by the way.

Yeah, I know.

We're really excited about it.

Yeah.

And if you can't get the loan, mayor will give you his visa card.

That is not true.

I thought I'd drive it.

My wife will make sure that's not true.

Okay.

Mayor Corey Mason's here.

We have more coming up at the mayor.

Some of your questions you texted.

I've got some asturard wattles questions to all straight ahead here.

At WRJN Radio at 729.

We're looking for some showers today.

Highs near 53 right now.

It's gorgeous out there.

It's cloudy.

But it's 47 degrees.

Light jacket, maybe for work today.

That's about it.

You want to text us?

262-630.

What am I talking about?

262-300-7445.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think the game had a lot to do with that.

Obviously you're going to be checking.

You think about it.

junior year.

Now, if you think about it,

fats Chubby dominoes.

Chickers.

Oh, wow.

The name there.

There wasn't really fat.

But Chubby Checker and Fats dominoes.

She named both of those games their names.

What in the rest is history?

What you would have called me.

I don't know.

I don't want to know either.

We don't know.

We're talking about some programs here.

We're taking text messages from you.

262-300-7445.

You can tell me what was that.

262-300-7445.

You can download the Civic Media app.

Go to WRJN.

Text us that way.

We're talking about the composting program.

Yeah.

This is the pilot that we're trying to get off the ground.

There was an...

I mean, so composting, you know,

really important thing.

It keeps food out of the...

The landfills, which, you know,

a lot of waste that goes into landfills,

is actually food.

And so, you know, if...

I would be remiss if I didn't mention this is the town

that invented the garbage disposal.

So, you know, some people take care of their food waste that way.

But if you want to compost it,

something like, well, I don't want to put it in the backyard.

It's in there someplace else that we could go to do it.

So, we can get enough people signed up for it.

We will do a food waste program over at the Pearl Street facility

so that people want to sign up for the program.

We give you a little ticket that says that you're in the program

and you can begin to bring your food waste there

if that's how people want to get rid of it.

If they don't want to do backyard composting,

if they don't want to use the garbage disposal,

it's a chance to do it.

We had a number of people ask for the program this year.

And so, again, we need the first 100 people signed up for it.

It'll take care of covering its own cost.

And we're opening up people signed up for it.

People are interested in that.

They can give the city clerk's office a call.

It's $50 for the year to sign up for it.

You can bring your food waste in and compost it from there.

You know what I like passing by?

The Urban Garden.

Yeah.

It's great.

It's right near Pearl Street.

Yeah.

And I see people out there all summer long.

It's an Urban Garden.

It's a whole block.

And everybody's got their own garden in there.

It's like little sections and everybody's growing something different.

You get a little plot.

Yeah.

Yeah, you get a little plot of landing.

You grow your own stuff on there, Urban Gardens.

What a great idea.

Yeah, that's a real successful site.

The other place is over at Davies Park on West Boulevard.

We've got some Urban Gardens there.

And it's the same thing.

People get their little plot, right?

And they come out and they weed it and they plant vegetables.

Or they plant flowers and do what they want to do.

It's a great way for people to get outside and, you know,

get their hands dirty, literally, right?

And interact with other people, but interact with the land.

And it's a food source for some people.

And everybody's got a backyard.

That's right.

And so it's a great way to do it.

Okay, from Stuart J. Wattles, our news director,

he wants to know the status of the downtown YMCA property.

And if you have any insights on the future use of the property.

Yeah.

It's a great question.

Inside some future use is a bit down the road.

The first thing we've got to do is demolish the building.

So people may have seen the newspaper.

The city did acquire the YMCA from building from the YMCA.

We purchased it for $12,500.

It is a building that has essentially been condemned,

given the state of the building.

We knew we kind of needed to do something pretty quickly

to get a hold of building when I got a message from the fire chief.

It said, look, it is so dangerous that if there's a fire in there,

I'm not sending firefighters into the building.

We will put the fire out externally,

but it is not safe to go into that building.

So when they, I would say to any listeners who are out there

who might think it might be fun to go in and look around

and it is not a safe structure to be inside of.

So it would encourage people to stay out of it.

But the process now will be to do the remediation

to get all the asbestos and light out of the building.

And then after that, we will put up bids to take the building down.

Any idea what they're going to use the property for?

Not yet.

I mean, the most important thing is to secure the site

to make sure that it's safe.

So we've got to bring the building down,

got to do some work to stabilize the bluff.

There's apparently some underground oil tanks

that we've got to have removed.

We've got to get the site stabilized first.

And then, I think we can imagine what it might look like.

I imagine we'll put it out to bed and see what people want to do on that site.

I mean, can certainly, I mean, people will say,

oh my gosh, it's a great view.

It's a trickier site than people realize

they're just giving it's sort of on an angle on the bluff

and the work that you want to do there

would be substantial to redevelop it.

But it's a potentially very good redevelopment site.

What developers want when they come to town,

they want a site that's ready to go, right?

They don't want to, you know, here's a building that might cost

north of a million dollars to take down.

They want a development team is going to want to work

with a city that's got a site that's ready to go.

And so, hopefully, we can get the building down

this summer and fall.

And then, by the time we're able to do that,

then we can begin to think about what's next.

How do we build up a plan that thinks strategically

about what could be next for the Y?

You should bring it down like they bring down

hotels in Las Vegas.

Yeah, I know one big thing.

They have somebody push the button in a contest

where in the building, you know, I tell you,

when they started bringing them all down,

I was like, hey, can I sit in the, you know,

in the big crane and knock it over?

And they're like, well, you can sit in it, Mayor,

but we're not going to let you actually, you know,

operate the thing.

The same thing with, I'm sure, with any explosive.

Like, can I be the one to push the pump down?

And I'm sure they're going to be,

it's very nice, Mayor.

But now, I don't think new pumps,

I think they do that in Warner Bros. Cartoon.

Right.

I don't think they have that lever like you bet.

I think that's what the, the road runner used

or the coyote.

Everybody used that.

But yeah, that bringing that building,

and how do you work?

I worked to the workout there.

I know, looking at me, you'd never know it,

but I used to work out of that.

Well, look, I learned to swim there.

I taught my kids how to swim there.

I will say, I mean, I think there's also this question of

what's, we don't have pools in the city anymore, right?

The school district is going to close theirs.

They move the, the, I'm not a Torium out by case high school.

They're going to close the, the Horelok and Park pools.

We don't have the Y with the pool.

It's an issue that we don't have a space where kids can learn to swim in the city.

We have some in the broader community,

but it is sort of an issue that's there.

I think, you know, what the wise future looks like in the downtown.

I'm excited to continue to have conversation with them

and their board about what that looks like.

But, but that was just a building that had fallen into such disrepair

that it's, it's unsafe to have it continue as it is.

So we've got a responsibility to bring it down.

I was surprised when I heard that because I didn't think it was in that bad shape

when it was in there.

I knew the parking lot was fish don't kind of because it was all cracked in the,

a little pot holy,

but I never realized the building was in that shape.

All right.

Question two from Stuart,

where do you stand on the proposed casino in Kenosha?

Now that obviously you don't have a dog in the spot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I think if Kenosha wants to do their casino,

it's great.

I mean, there were previous proposals to do a casino

when I was in the legislature down in Kenosha.

And I was, you know, supportive of that.

If there needed to be a vote on it,

it was really a Kenosha proposal,

more than it is a recene proposal.

I mean, in as much that, you know, in an area where we're always looking for,

for good paying jobs,

and as much that if there's people from the recene community who can go down there

and get a decent paying job,

it might be good,

but it's not really going to have much of an impact here in the city of Racine.

It's really a city of Kenosha project.

I do know, you know,

with Mayor Antiremi,

and it was one of the things that he was hoping to get done before he finishes 10 years mayor,

and he has, it's definitely something that he can put on his list of accomplishments

as he's closing up a pretty storied career as the Kenosha mayor.

You know, if you add up all the numbers on the roulette wheel,

you know what they come to?

I don't.

666.

Oh, my.

Still want to play?

That is true, by the way, if you add them all up.

What's the old thing about, you know, how do you make money at a casino?

You own one,

but other than that, everybody else's.

For the most part, you're going to lose money there, right?

Well, we could turn the YMCA,

clean it up on the inside,

get rid of the asbestos,

and there we have it.

It's gambling on the lake.

Yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, you can see what Kenosha,

the first discussion I heard about Kenosha having a casino,

was in 1996.

So think about that.

So from 1996,

and then assuming they get it built in 2025,

that's, you know, almost 30 years of conversation to bring a casino to fruition.

They're not small projects to come about.

Remember all the greyhound tracks we had all over the stage?

Yeah.

We had one in Kenosha.

Kenosha, Darryl and Greyhound Park,

which was, we had parties there for our listeners.

It was fun.

Yeah.

You know, you go in there, you set up,

we had a buffet set up for our listeners.

Then you look out the windows, see the dogs run.

Yeah.

They have one in Lake Geneva,

which is now,

I used to work out in Jamesville.

I went through there,

and it was,

it's really depressing to go through and look at what it is now.

Yeah, it's all down,

and in the parking lots of weeds covered,

they had them all over the state.

And that was going to be big for the state of Wisconsin,

a dog home racing all,

what happened?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I remember when it opened,

it was my senior year in high school.

And so, yeah, to be 18 to go, right?

And so, it was like a big thing,

once your 18th birthday,

ah, we're going to go down

and check out the greyhound track,

and it was fun, right?

But, you know,

I don't think I went more than,

I think I went twice.

But, yeah.

So, it was, it was a,

it's also just sort of,

you know, you never know

from a development standpoint,

like, are things like,

a greyhound track going to work, right?

Is that going to carry the day?

Well, a,

and even as you hear about casinos,

they're,

none of them are just strictly gambling, right?

It's gambling and entertainment, right?

They bring insurance.

I'll tell you, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I think they could lose money.

They could.

Look at Atlantic City, right?

Or they, or they could be very successful.

So, you know,

we wish them well in connocia

on their efforts on the,

the casino.

Yeah, there's an opportunity for some people

in Racine to get some jobs on there.

I think it could be good.

But in terms of, you know,

I mean, that's,

that's connocia's gig,

and I wish them well on it.

Like I said,

voted for similar proposals

when I was in the legislature.

But, you know,

my feelings about it

are sort of irrelevant, right?

It's sort of,

it's connocia's deal,

and they're going to have a great project down there,

and we wish them every success with it.

I'm not much of a gambler.

You know, when I live in New York,

they just started the OTB,

which is off-track betting.

And I said,

what is, you know,

let me get down there and see what,

nobody knew what off-track betting was,

because it was always illegal

to bet off the track,

and I had with the bookie,

and the city said,

how am I going to get it

on this loot?

They came up with off-track betting,

and it was on Long Island in New York City,

and you went down to the little strip malls,

and they had the OTB office,

and you just bet on the horses right there.

They had the televisions

you can watch the races,

on closed circuit,

and you put your two dollars down,

and I never bet more than that.

I never bet more than I was,

and if I lost two dollars,

it was fine,

but people were betting hundreds of dollars at OTB,

and I only went to one horse race

once in my life.

It was exciting,

but you know, it was not much of a gambler,

so, you know, but they're people,

they're betting their mortgages

on these horses, you know,

so people should be doing gaming

and not gambling more

than I got afford to lose.

That's the challenge with all of that.

Yeah, everybody thinks they have a system.

They knew.

You know what Mike Tyson once said?

I have a friend of mine

who was the New York State Athletic Commissioner,

and he always said what Mike Tyson says.

Everybody's got a plan

until you get that punch in the face.

Yeah.

That's right.

And then what?

And then the plan goes out.

Here's a question for you

from one of our listeners.

What is going on

by the old Tannery Building?

The old Tannery.

You know what they're talking about?

I don't.

I don't say I don't either.

All right.

Well,

could it be more specific?

Yeah.

It's a text message.

Tannery Building.

I don't know.

All right.

Let's try this question here.

Can you ask the mayor,

what ever happened

to the Pershing Drive redevelopment

with the Rock Barrier Wall?

Yeah. Great question.

There's a lot going on there.

So you've got sort of that whole stretch down there

from, you know, festival hall

and then down Pershing Park Drive.

And at the end of it is Sam Myers Park.

Right?

So people right might remember

I will never forget the winter

and spring of 2020 within

six weeks we had

a hundred-year storm on Lake Michigan

all told from one end of the city

limits to the other

almost $80 million worth of damage.

So it was a substantial storm.

We had a cyber attack in city hall.

We had a ransomware event

and then COVID started

in March of that year.

That was all within like a six-week period

in 2020.

And I hope to never have

another six-week period like that.

But so the question becomes,

what do we do with, you know,

just the substantial amount of damage

that's there?

We've had some success

getting Sam Myers Park rebuilt

with FEMA funds,

with federal emergency funds.

And so that's underway now.

So if people drive down

on 10th air along Gateway

and see or 11th rather

and drive down by Pershing

and see what's going on,

just at the bottom there

and you look to your right after your past Gateway,

you'll see a lot of work being done

to reshore that up.

And then along Pershing Park,

on the south end,

we've put in some stone

to try to solidify it.

There's two big challenges

about how to figure out

how to rebuild the Pershing Park drive

to make it more secure.

So one of the madding things

with dealing with FEMA,

the federal emergency authority,

is we'll say,

well, okay, this rock wall just failed.

We've got to replace it

with something better.

FEMA says, no, no, no, no.

We'll only give you money

to replace the thing

that was there before.

But then you'll say,

yeah, but it just broke.

Like, it didn't work.

Like, why would we replace

the thing that just broke

in the big storm?

Well, that's our policy.

We only replace things

as they were.

But it just broke.

Why would we build that again?

And then the Army Corps of Engineers,

which is another part

of the federal government's,

oh, well, we would never

give you a permit

to build that thing

that just failed before.

So you're in this sort of catch-22

of what to do.