And say hello to Alder, Renee Kelly, 13th district, Alder. I get so confused over. Everybody's got a district number.
13th district, Alder, you're also on the County Board of Supervisors.
Second district. I am. And you're also the Union Grove Treasurer.
You also are the dog catcher for the City of Racine.
You also do those orange barrels all over. May as we set those up.
No way. And on top of that, you're a mother of two teenagers.
Oh, my goodness. That's a lot of stuff. Yeah.
Orange barrels one month. The Wisconsin flower.
I'm telling you, it's a matter of time before I smash into one. I don't know.
Right now, it's like you're practicing for the Slalom and the Winter Olympics going through some of the,
you know, I came up to one the other day. I didn't know where the Elaine was.
There were three lanes set up with the barrels.
And I didn't know which one I'm supposed to go down.
I didn't know if the center one was for the trucks. I didn't know if the left,
if the right one was for me. I didn't know. And I took a chance.
And I looked in the mirror. The guy behind me was following me.
So I said, oh, I'm down the wrong one. I got this guy behind me.
He's not going to be happy that he let the wrong trail.
So how long have you been into? And I know I know what you're going to say about politics.
I'm not in the politics. You are once you're in public office. You're in the politics.
Exactly. So how long have you been doing this for?
Well, basically since I ran for city council.
So unique story. The day of the cemetery shooting my house was shot 15 times.
When was that again?
It was summer June 2nd of 2022.
I remember when that happened.
And you decided what?
I just, you know, I didn't feel like I had a lot of representation from the city administration,
especially in my district. So I decided, you know, if I'm helping these people in my neighborhood,
I might as well just do it officially.
So I, you know, I don't want anyone to ever feel like they don't have a voice.
You know, and I definitely in that moment did not feel like I had a voice.
So that's kind of my theme always when I'm running is to give voice to the people.
Do you have a voice?
I do.
I mean, I always thought that you run for Congress.
You're one of, especially in the United States government, you're one of 400 some odd people.
You really make a difference or not.
I mean, the council is a lot smaller.
So you percentage of a loud voice.
Oh, you have a big mouth.
I didn't know that if I do.
I'm going to let that down for me as big mouth.
Okay. Well, that's important in it.
You don't want to be a shrinking flower in there.
You want to, you want to voice your opinion?
Correct.
Do you have any fights in there with people?
I don't mean, I don't mean hate.
I mean, like, shout down fights.
We have healthy, healthy debate.
Okay. So that's a fight.
Yeah.
It is entertaining for some of the people that like to follow what's going on.
You know, we just, if you don't, you know, say anything or bring things up.
Then people won't know because some people are, you know, educating themselves on what they're doing there.
And they're just, I call them button pushers.
So, you know, it's, it's good to have a voice and to bring transparency to what we're doing in local government.
Welcome back to that shooting for a second.
We just kind of left over that.
So, were you home when it happened?
My son was home.
I just got to be terrifying.
Now it's not.
Was it loud? You know, when, when bullets go through a window.
It's like, it's real.
You know, he or a loud bang as it goes into the house.
You hear it outside.
If you're outside with the bang, did he hear the gunfire?
I mean, he described it as fireworks going off inside the house.
Yeah.
Because there was, um, went through, uh, went through tubs and cabinets and pretty much hit every room of my house from top to bottom.
And I think when it hit the kitchen because he was downstairs when the glass tiles shattered the back splash tiles,
that's when he really noticed it because it was glass going all over.
How old is he? When it happened?
Uh, 16.
It's got to be terrifying.
Yeah. Yeah. It was. Yeah.
Whoa.
Yeah. So.
Did they pick your house out?
Are you just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time?
Unbeknownst to me, we had a couple gang houses.
So I think they were kind of stopping by the neighborhood to pick up some other people.
And, um, you know, just continued shooting throughout the district.
So, um, you know, and that was kind of one of the things when I went around to run for, um, alderman, you know, is when I'm knocking on doors.
People like to show me their, you know, oh, come here.
I got to show these bullholes in my house.
So it's unnerving, um, really.
But, you know, it was my goal to kind of clean up the district and especially, you know, selfishly in my street, which I worked very hard to do.
So a lot of those houses have turned over now.
And, you know, we have some nice renters in that area.
So.
Well, the people who shut up your house to necessarily live there.
They just drove through there and decided to unload their weapons in your house.
I think one of the people lived down this.
Did they get them?
Um, yeah, they got two people out of you.
Don't know the whole Carla.
Yeah, I don't know how many.
You know, I would get them to talk.
I probably wind up in prison with my methods, but I'd get them to talk.
You know, they could have killed people.
They could have wiped out a whole family in that.
And they don't care.
That's just it.
Right.
They don't care.
I watch enough of these cop videos and I watch, you know, on patrol live on TV.
I'm fascinated by how lousy some people are.
They just don't care.
And these high-speed chases.
They'd rather kill somebody on an intersection.
Then get stopped because they got a suspended license.
Right.
If something is stupid, will you just get a ticket?
Right.
Now you're going to prison.
Yeah.
I'm teen felony.
You just committed.
And you see a lot of that going on now with all the speeding.
And I've never, literally, never seen so many flipped over cars in the city ever seen as I have, you know, as a recently.
So, you know, I don't know where they're going.
You know, where they're coming from, where they're going.
I see a lot of temporary tags.
So I don't know if they're just passing through, but yeah, it's crazy.
I look at that too.
I look at these violations.
I look at, when I'm stopped, when I look at somebody's plate to see if it's expired, little tag on there.
And nothing I could do about it.
What are you going to do?
Right.
I mean, it's a ticket in here.
You move on.
So it's not worth going after.
On this live, on patrol live, I watch every weekend.
It's amazing how many people they stop.
And this is live TV.
I mean, it's just random traffic stops around the country.
How many people on a driver's license?
And they have drugs in the car.
And or guns in the car.
And these are random traffic stops for people whose tail light might be out.
Or that light above the license plate.
I was like, it was one woman on their gut stopped.
Because her light above the license plate was that she got out and screamed at the cop.
Who looks at the light above their license plate?
She said, I defy you to tell me you ever looked at the light above your license plate before you took off from your house every day.
And the cop really didn't know what to say.
I mean, who checks the light above their license plate every day?
Right.
So she really let them have it.
Anyway, but when they stop people like that, they find guns, drugs.
And the person doesn't have a license.
He doesn't have insurance for the car.
It's not registered.
Or it's a stolen car.
Correct.
This costs on a lot.
We're talking around the country.
You had to tell him I was seen.
Well, and a lot has changed.
And as far as, you know, I'm a little bit of a nerd when it comes to public safety.
If you were to look at any of my brochures that I passed out during my campaign.
But, you know, a lot of it has to do with policies that were changed since probably 2020.
So I don't know, you know, I can't say for sure of what has happened within the city limits.
But I know that they definitely have had some changes over the time that have basically restricted the way that they do their policing, which is unfortunate.
So, and like you said, you know, back to like the broken windows type of theory, you know, those smaller things that infractions that you would pull somebody over for.
Usually they find bigger stuff.
And they just had a police chase on the interstate this past week.
And people run for a reason.
They don't run for just because they feel like it.
They run for a reason.
They have to think of the hospital in Milwaukee, a 15 year old kid in the parking lot.
Beat up this woman in her 60s.
She was a nurse at the hospital.
She was in the wrong place.
The wrong guy.
He walked out.
He beat her up and took her car.
And this is like the fifth or sixth time he's done it and he's 15 years old.
So the judge says, you're going to detention.
No bond.
You're staying there.
And you're going to be tried as an adult.
This has got to come to an end.
Right.
I mean, we can't have your terrorizing people on the streets.
You're not going to stop.
Yes.
So incarceration is the only thing.
People say, well, you know, you got to rehabilitate them.
No, you got to punish them.
Right.
See, if it was up to me and I was a judge, everybody would get a life in prison with no parole.
See, I'd last nine seconds of that job.
Well, and it's unfortunate that, you know, a lot of the crime that's being committed now
is unfortunately by these younger kids, I call them kids and teenagers.
And, you know, what do you do?
Because they get a slap on the wrist and then they are back out on the street again.
Oh, don't start on next.
I'll get it.
I'll start screaming at you.
With me is Alder Renee Kelly.
She's 13th district.
Racine Alder's second district.
Racine County.
Supervisor Union Grove treasurer.
I'm going to find that out of that job.
All right.
Because I can handle my played monopoly.
I can figure out how to do it.
Be a banker.
I can do that.
Okay.
Mark.
I was just a moment here.
717.
Local news.
Yeah.
It's 721 Paul Harvey and the rest of the story coming up in a moment.
We're talking to Alder Renee Kelly.
13th district.
Alder and second district.
Racine County.
Supervisor Union Grove treasurer.
How do you keep these jobs straight?
And you got another job, too, on top of it.
You're the money job where you got to want to support you.
How do you keep all these jobs straight?
How do you know what you're doing?
You walk in these places.
I know.
It's like you've taken the hats on and off.
You know, constantly juggling balls in the air.
So I mean, that work in a couple of different radio stations.
And I unlike where am I?
I don't know where I am.
You know, sometimes it feels like that.
But I just, you know, honestly, it's just more tools in your tool belt to do the job that you're needing to do.
So what's your pet project?
The one that you want to get me before you're done with life before you're done with.
I know I'm going to say this again.
So what do you want to do?
What is your pet project that you want to see done for the city ever seen or the county ever seen?
Well, let's just rest the city first.
Okay.
I've been in that one a little bit longer.
So, you know, for getting probably, I guess, the top of my list would be to see the contracts for the police and fire to get those assigned.
It seems like an ongoing fiasco with the city.
So I guess that would be on the top of my list.
You know, trying to get transparency and trying to, you know, just a little more fiscal responsibility, shall we say?
So contract or city and fire, what's the matter with the contracts now?
They are still not signed from back, I guess, the expires December 31st of 2020.
Who's supposed to sign them?
Top of the food chain.
There.
Yeah.
He's supposed to sign the attorneys or, you know, whoever's representing him.
So, yeah.
But the fire police are still working.
They are.
But it doesn't help to recruit when you have contracts sitting on a table.
I think about it.
I always try to put myself in other people's situations and you can talk about, you know, retention and trying to bring new people onto on board.
I mean, if I was them and I was looking, you know, if I was out looking for a job, I'd be like, I don't know, you know, so I would like to see that.
I would like to see us totally fully staffed in both of those departments.
And I know now, obviously, it's very hard to, you know, get anybody to want to be a police officer nowadays, especially.
I wouldn't want to become a cop.
No.
It does not frighten me.
People yelling at you.
Yeah.
People not listening to you.
And you can't really fight back.
You got to be professional.
If your body cam's watching everything you do these days.
Yeah.
Again, I'd last nine seconds in that job.
There's no way.
Yeah.
Because the first time somebody didn't do what I asked them to do.
Lawfully, I'll be screaming at them yelling at them.
Yeah.
I mean, just I couldn't put up with that kind of stuff.
And they sometimes they do it in such a nice professional way where they're calm.
And the person they're talking to is going out of their mind.
I mean, I see this on that live PD show all the time.
And people are screaming at them.
Then you got to chase people.
You got to fight with them.
And you have to follow the rules.
They don't.
Right.
There's no rules for them.
For you, you have to follow the rules.
We didn't last nine seconds.
They ate seconds in that job.
Yeah.
But yeah, there's a certain kind of person that they would do that.
Same thing for the fire department.
Yes.
You know, one of my best friends in high school was a guy named Jeffrey Gluja.
Him and his brother, Gary Gluja twins.
And we always hung out together in high school.
And then you leave high school.
You move on.
You forget about him.
On 9-11, he was a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department.
And he was running in the building.
When everybody's running out, he died in the building collapsed on him.
So I started with his brother, twin brother.
And he said, we couldn't believe it.
This guy goes to my brother goes to work every day.
And one day he just didn't come home.
And that was it.
And it took a long time to find him in that rubble.
It didn't come the next day.
And it was just so hard to believe that somebody would do that,
run into a building that was collapsing when everybody else was running out.
And he did it.
He was lieutenant, the fire department.
His name is on the World Trade Center today.
Jeffrey Gluja, spelled with a G.
And yeah, so, you know, I don't know how people do these jobs.
Yeah.
You know, I start complaining if the air conditioning isn't just right in here.
I said, I'm coming in.
Fix the air conditioning first.
I want to get the air conditioning just right.
And these people do these jobs and you're right.
It must be difficult to recruit them.
It takes a special kind of person to want to be a firefighter or a police person.
Well, my daughter, she's on this goal.
She wants to be a detective.
So.
Oh, brother.
I know.
Well, that's not bad.
And you get to use your brain and you figure things out.
But still, it's a dangerous job.
Anytime you pack a gun, it's a dangerous job.
Yeah.
Yes, for sure.
How old is she now?
She'll be 16 next month.
You still have time to talk around.
I mean, still have time to go to help her out.
Yeah.
Hold on, we're talking to Renee Kelly, more with Renee Kelly,
Alder for the city of Racine and also a,
a supervisor for the county and Union Grove treasurer.
I got to find out about that.
What did you take that job?
I remember those right.
We had the monkey bars in school.
And she's right on a hot day.
Those things are like 130 degrees when you try to touch them.
Oh my gosh.
And you used to fall off in the middle.
You couldn't get out.
And there's no teacher around.
No one to help you.
And you don't want to cry because it's going to be remembered for the rest of your life.
By everybody if you cried and you fell off the monkey bars.
They saw a monkey bars at schools.
I think so.
Yeah.
I don't think no, no Mary.
Mary.
Yeah, we didn't call the Mary to run.
But I know we have one of the driving and used to push it around and get it fed.
And they had to hop on and grab the door.
It's like you're flying on the gravel somewhere.
And again, you didn't want to cry because your friends were there watching.
They had to suck it up.
You were telling me during the break there about 9-11 where you were.
Oh, yeah.
Tell that story.
That's, you know, it's like everybody remembers where they were at certain times.
And one of them is where you when 9-11 occurred.
And you remember where you were.
Yeah.
We flew out early out of West Palm Beach and we're heading to California.
Our layover was in Houston, Texas.
So we had arrived just as the first plane had hit the first tower.
So we got off the in the airport and it was just sort of, you know,
we're just waking up from a little nap.
And it just I was discombobulated didn't understand why people were running through the airport.
And, you know, people were saying, oh, everything's shut down, shut down.
So we went to our gate.
Our ultimate flight was going to Tahiti for our honeymoon.
So, but they ended up diverting like 21 international flights to Houston, Texas.
People that didn't even speak English and then shoved us all down in baggage claim at the same time or like get out, get out, get out.
Get out where?
Where you go?
They took every taxi cab company and intertwined us through the parking ramps essentially after we got our luggage.
And they had the taxi cabs lined up a mile long and they had just picking us up.
They didn't care where they just wanted you out of there because it was George Bush's international airport.
You know, and they thought that was a target.
And you were on your way to Tahiti?
Yeah, we were laying over.
We were landing and we were supposed to land in LA.
And then from there, we're supposed to go to Tahiti or honeymoon.
Did you ever make it?
No.
Was that an ominous sign?
I guess so.
So we just spend your honeymoon at the airport?
No, I didn't mean at the airport yet.
It attacked you kept circling the city.
Yeah, so we ended up spending the night and then actually the hotel manager, system manager, clocked out and took us in a little car and drove us to an hour away to the nearest vehicle that we could get for rental because everybody was trying to get where they were going.
And we drove, which was actually kind of cool.
You know, road runners and little dust storms and things like that when you're driving.
Yeah, exactly.
It was very cool.
And we drove up to Big Bear Mountain where my cousin was staying and then went to LA from there where she lived and spent a couple days and then went to Napa Valley and went out.
So what happened all the Tahiti money you spent to get it back?
Yeah, eventually after, you know, that's what.
So instead of Tahiti, you spent your entire time in a rental car going out to California?
Yeah.
But, you know, hey.
You weren't in New York when it happened or in the Pentagon or in Shanksburg, Shanksville, Shanksburg, Shanksville, Shanksburg.
I think so.
Pennsylvania.
Yeah, yeah.
I was at that.
We drove past there and there's a monument there to it.
We didn't go into the field, but there's a sign on the roadway and it says, this is where it happened.
I said, wow.
Yeah.
This is where it happened with us.
People just gave up their lives to save other lives.
A whole plain full of people just said, we're going to sacrifice ourselves.
They got in the plane that morning thinking they were just getting to a destination and they all became international world heroes.
Just like that.
Yeah.
Let's roll.
All right.
My daughter's bus stop there on their eighth grade field trip on their way to DC.
So she sent me some pictures from there.
So it was pretty cool.
Wow.
Let's selfless people.
I don't know if I could do something like that.
I just thought, I was wondering what I would do in a situation like that.
I don't know.
Yeah.
You know, you don't know after these people never thought they'd do something like that.
Let's roll.
Yep.
And they took the plane down in the moment.
Mm-hmm.
I'd happy your thoughts.
Yeah.
So now you are the Union Grove treasure.
How do you how do you wind up with that job?
You know, the living Union Grove.
I bet.
I have been stands.
So I've been doing accounting for years.
I was working in Kenosha since I moved back from Florida.
Basically, since I've I've come back.
I worked at Parkside for three years.
I worked for an electrician.
I worked at Gateway.
And then I had gotten the opportunity when I was working at village of summers for about a year and a half as the accountant.
I had somebody approach me about a position that they didn't have a treasure hadn't had one for a while.
So I went ahead and I interviewed and I got the job.
Is it hard to be a, I mean, Union Grove isn't that big.
But is it, is it hard to be the treasure for the idea that you have to find missing money?
I mean, how does that work?
What are you looking at when you're a treasure?
Well, there's, you know, state statute, Tory kind of guidelines on what your, your job, your role is for, you know, whether you're a clerk or whether you're the treasure.
So, you know, you're in charge of the taxes.
You're in charge of the budget, making sure there's a balance budget, making sure you're, you know, keeping track of that.
So I know, yeah, it's a little bit.
But, you know, it's good, you know, I'm learning about all the tids and, you know, everything else that, you know, all the different things there is to do within my job per view.
So I just have to keep track of my checkbook.
And I, the company where I pay my life insurance premium to, they, I, I mailed it out on July 31st.
It usually takes a few days in a cashier, but in cash, it's what I called them up.
And I spoke to somebody in some foreign country.
And we weren't getting anywhere because I said, well, there's only two places who could work to screw it up the post office.
And you, because I mailed it at the post office.
So there's only two possible places that could have screwed up because we never got it.
I said, well, how do you know?
We never got it.
I said, but you don't know that we never got it.
I said, give me a supervisor.
We never got it.
It's going to be over in a, it was on a card.
Anyway, so it's up to the supervisor.
And she said to me, well, we never received it.
How do you know?
How do you know you didn't lose it?
You could have lost it.
And she kept saying, well, here's how it happens.
And I was shocked.
There's a, there's a fast machine that rips open your envelope, separates the check and the, the coupon.
And then it's processed.
I said, well, maybe you lost it in that process.
No, I don't think so.
We, I'm trying to double checked.
I did an advanced check.
I didn't get it.
You know what?
Last night they cast the check.
Wow.
They did get it.
It was probably laying around.
And they just never found it.
Well, they cast the, in the interim, I sent them another one.
So what's going to happen with that one now?
See, I couldn't deal with this money thing.
I mean, I, I start screaming at people.
Because they give me, you know, well, we never got it.
You don't know you never got it.
If, how do you know that?
It turns out they did get it.
They always explained the post, well, the post office lost it.
Well, I mailed about three or four checks that they, everybody got theirs.
And cashed them in five days.
I got one of the post office and said, see, this is Don's life insurance.
I think we're going to throw that in the garbage, like Newman, the poster on Seinfeld.
I mean, it's not singing to someone to close it anyway.
Right.
Okay.
So that's the treasury job.
So what's the difference between the county and the city job, other than county's bigger?
Yeah.
Is there a different process for?
County government.
It's so much different than city.
I think, well, that's easier.
He's on my hesitation.
So, okay, I have to be politically correct here.
So it's, it's a lot more to learn for me.
So I usually stay pretty quiet at the meeting.
I'm soaking it all in.
I'm learning the process.
Things are run much differently.
You know, historically, the county has always been very mild tempered and, you know,
does things with a lot of class.
You know, things can get a little controversial at the city level.
So it gets a little hairy sometimes in some of those meetings.
But for most of the part, I enjoy, you know, the tools that give me the job, you know,
get me get the job done, I should say.
Let's talk about, and certainly your list here.
I don't want to get these in before anything we lose you here.
Sure.
Current events.
Oh, my, yes.
Let's talk about some of those going on around us.
So many things going on.
You know, I don't, I listen to the newscast.
Our local, we have a local newscaster.
Then we have a state newscaster from civic media.
Then we have CBS news.
So much stuff going on with the local politics.
I don't know how people keep track of it all.
I'm so glad I just have to sit back and listen to it.
Yeah.
So well, you want to do the big one first.
Is it okay?
Is it a big one?
Okay.
Let's start with the county.
So obviously current events would be the sales tax.
That's a big, a big topic.
Just get rid of it.
So they want to implement, you know,
a half a percent of sales tax for the entire county.
So,
half a percent more.
We don't have one currently in the county.
Well, that's right.
Can we talk about county sales tax?
That's right.
Okay.
So they want a half a percent on top of the city,
the state, the federal government,
they want to have another half a percent on there.
Okay.
So we have a lot of questions yet.
So we're in the middle of, you know,
trying to get some of our questions answered.
So how much would that bring in half a percent?
It doesn't sound like a lot when you say half a percent.
How much we talking about?
Well, because it's never been done here before.
They're guesstimating 20 million.
That's a lot of half a percent.
What are you going to do with the money?
Well,
as you know,
there's mandated services for the county.
That the government doesn't really,
they mandate them.
The state does,
but they don't really pay for the services
that they're mandating.
They don't give the municipalities that money.
So you have to fill the whole somewhere.
But me with my financial brain,
I have to where my multiple hats come in.
I'm like, well, wait a second.
You think money.
Yeah.
You think numbers.
Yeah.
And I have to see the numbers to be able to understand
what they're talking about.
I can't just say, okay, I'm okay with this.
Like I have to see it and understand it.
And you have to explain it to me.
I can't just have it, you know, forced down.
We are more to talk about this 20 million.
I'm just, because that's a lot of money.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you're doing, you're doing what you do now
without the money.
So what are we going to do more with the money?
Hold on to that.
Hold on a second.
We're talking, we're getting down to the nitty-gritty.
This is it now.
This is the 60 minutes part of the program.
We got all the pleasantries out of it.
Yeah.
This is the date line part of the program.
Oh, my goodness.
Alder.
That's you.
Sorry.
She came in.
Alder, Renee Kelly is here.
13th district.
Racine Alder.
And second district.
Racine County supervisor.
And Union Grove treasurer.
Do you prefer Alder Alderman Alder woman?
I don't really care either way.
I know.
Everybody I ask has a different answer to it.
I just say Alder.
That's fine.
It's just, you know, I never heard that phrase
until like a few months ago.
Because Alder is really a tree.
I know.
That's what they said.
I think that was Melissa Comprilion told me.
Yeah.
Alder's really a tree.
It is.
All right, work.
Have a 749 at WRJ on the local news.
Tamless hits.
Keep it here.
I love the new R.J.
Renee Kelly is with me here.
We just talked during the break about Jonathan Delegrave.
You worked closely with him at the county board.
Yes.
He was county executive.
And that must have been a shocker.
It was.
He was also a friend of mine.
So I was still hard to talk about.
But yeah, that's very sad.
Very sad.
I was unfriends with his ex-wife, Katie.
So yeah, that was a, that was pretty shocking.
I didn't believe it when I got the phone call.
So.
Speaking about the county, we're talking about the $20 million.
It was about a half a percent sales tax on.
You know, I remember going and vacation in New Hampshire.
And I was a kid and there was no sales tax.
The price on the item was the price you paid.
That was freaky for me because I wasn't used to that.
Right.
I was used to, well, what's it with tax?
There's no tax.
How do you survive without a tax?
No, that was, I'm sure they had income tax.
I think in my daughter lives in Florida.
You live there.
And I think she said there's no state tax down there.
Is that true?
Well, she doesn't pay it.
One of the other.
Yeah, but they have sales tax.
Big time.
Yeah.
But I don't think there's any income tax down there in Florida.
Well, where I lived, it was seven percent.
So I lived in Palm Beach County.
That's sales tax.
I believe so.
But I'm talking about income tax.
State income tax.
There is not.
No, I don't think there is.
So how do we have it?
How do they survive without it?
That's what I don't get.
And even with seven percent sales tax doesn't, I mean,
more money would come in with an income tax.
I don't know how, I don't know how people do that.
There is a ton of money down there.
Well, my parents lived down there for 10 years.
So we had money when they were down.
When they came out, they didn't have a penny.
When they were down there, they were over the million dollars.
But they came out with a lot less than that.
Okay.
So that's a big one for you.
That's a big issue they're working on for the county.
It is.
Yep.
Okay.
And your issue with the city now is getting these contracts signed.
Yeah.
But police and fire because you're looking for recruits to come in.
And it's tough when you don't have a contract.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Those are the two big ones.
Yep.
Absolutely.
What else do you have on your list there?
You know, we've got some things going on with this little thing called water,
with the Mount Pleasant and city we're seeing.
And so I'm just talking about that with somebody the other day.
Yeah.
This whole water thing.
Uh-huh.
Do you ever see the movie The Big Short?
I don't remember.
It's about the housing crash.
Oh.
That took place that 20 years ago.
So.
And it's a true story.
Exactly.
What this is when what's the name of that stock in Wall Street firm that went down in flames.
I can't even remember right now.
Goldman Sachs.
This is exactly that time when Goldman Sachs went under and just went out of business.
And the guy there was a doctor who predicted this whole collapse would take place.
And people were going to him.
How did you know he said because I crunched the numbers and I knew it was going to happen.
And he said the next big thing at the end of the movie.
He's on the screen.
And he says I'm moving on to water.
That's the next crisis in this world.
Water.
And I'll meet you later.
I better start getting bottled.
I'm starting loading up on mountain.
The ice mountain water.
Right.
I mean, water is that it was you can't live without it.
So what's going on with this water thing with mountain pleasant.
So from what I'm seeing from the outside and this is not any sort of thing that I'm disclosing privately or whatever.
You have to allow for a business to be able to continue on.
So if somebody applies to the city to allow a project that they need water for and they're paying 100% of that.
You need to allow that to continue to happen.
If you want to negotiate some sort of new deal or whatever it is.
Then do that.
But you have to act in good faith and continue to allow projects to come through.
You can't stime me or create a building moratorium just because you want another.
You know, this other slice of the pie.
IE Microsoft.
Couldn't all what a topical that was.
Yeah.
Now I'm pleasant.
I remember when they were down here.
I think President Trump was here with Scott Walker.
The ninth wonder of the world.
What a fizzle that was.
Box God.
Well, nobody saw that coming.
I mean, you know, but they should have seen it coming.
That's when you when you push people out of homes like they did in that area.
For some to sell their homes.
And give up their, you know, there would be generations in their in their farms and everything to give it up.
Didn't anybody check this company out first?
Didn't somebody do like a due diligence on this company to see that they don't keep their word?
Right.
I think it's partly that and partly COVID happened.
And a lot of different things happened in the economy because of it.
So.
Wow.
It was, you know, like a perfect storm.
So where's your future?
What do we see here right now?
You have three job.
You have a fourth job.
You have your private job, which, you know, you had the out of the public sector.
So my real job is the, you know, finance director slash treasure of Union Grove.
That's my full time job.
Was that the full time job?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You just show up every Wednesday afternoon to look at the books.
Oh, my goodness.
So that's a full time job or the hours that, you know, needed.
Yeah.
So that's where I'm at right now.
Maybe have me come back here in a year and I'll have a different.
Different story for you.
Different story for you, but I'm learning all the aspects of that job right now.
And it helps me in these other jobs that I have, you know, city and county.
Just puts more tools in my tool belt to be able to, you know, better make decisions.
You know, I'm so glad there's people like you around.
Because if the world were waiting for Don Rosen to be around, nothing would get done.
I mean, just ask my wife.
Nothing gets done.
She's got to like, you know, I'm learning the piano now.
Right.
I'm taking piano lessons.
And she's a piano teacher so she could teach me the piano and I don't practice.
And every night did you practice today?
And I'm not going to lie.
No, it's very obvious.
I didn't because I still can't play the tune.
And I just wish I had that drive.
Now we're also teaching an 11 year old girl.
And she's already going two hands and all this stuff on.
And I'm doing the theme from jaws.
You know, like two notes.
I could do more than that.
But I just don't have the drive you got such drive to do all these jobs.
I know.
It's crazy.
I don't know where.
How do you watch TV with all these jobs at night?
I mean, yeah.
How do you watch big brother and survivor?
Well, I actually don't have cable.
So I don't like, I don't expose myself to all of that.
But, you know, I have two dogs.
I have a cat.
Two teams.
So that kind of keeps me.
Two dogs in a cat.
Yeah.
How do they get along?
Great.
They're actually all friends.
When you're home, they're friends.
Right.
What's going on when you're not home?
There's a lot of sleeping going on.
You know, I guess just to wrap up, I would say that, you know,
my goal as far as, you know, being in these political positions,
I would say that, you know, the number one thing that people were
really concerned about was obviously public safety.
But, you know, I kind of ran on holding the line on taxes.
And so, you know, this bigger topic is, is a struggle for me,
because I kind of ran on that.
And the big thing for me is, you know, less government involvement.
You know, more transparency and fiscal responsibility.
So come budget time when people are watching.
They'll hear me keep putting that, that same phrase around.
I like to see a balanced budget.
I want to see fiscal responsibility, which means, you know,
we might have to make some tough decisions, whether it's city or county.
So.
Wow.
You get your hands full.
Well, you have an agenda and that's good.
You got to know why you're here while you're doing the job.
Absolutely.
I mean, if you don't know why you're there, you're just going to sit there
and take up space all day long.
Oh, no, not me.
13th district.
That's your district.
Yeah.
You're constantly showing your face in the district.
Now, I ask everybody who comes in, who's involved in some kind of political office,
do people come up to you when you're eating dinner at a restaurant or you're picking
save or you're somewhere around and say, well, I've got a pothole here.
Come here.
I want to tell you about my pothole.
I want to talk to you about my pipes are working.
Yeah.
I get a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls, but I have, you know,
I've been in like, binards and be like, oh, hey, I'm so-and-so.
I live here and it's usually public safety related, honestly.
It's something that's going on.
It's the racing through the streets.
Don't tell me.
I live on North Main Street.
Don't tell me that from racing.
Although there's barrels, they set a block in the street, really cut down on the racing.
Yeah.
The drug houses, things like that, you know, and, you know, just...
Well, it's been fascinating.
Happy New Year.
Great stories.
We got the 9-11 story.
I don't know how you went through that.
Happy New Year.
The bullet holes, 15 bullet holes in your house while your kid was home.
Whoa.
I was sending it to a tailspin.
Yeah.
We all had a little PTSD after that.
I mean, I find the empty bottle of soda bottle on my lawn.
I go berserk.
I want a complete investigation.
Who drank this on my lawn?
Because we live about a block or so from a convenience store.
My son figured out it takes you a block and a half to finish your drink and your bag of chips.
And that block and it was right in front of my house.
So they drop it on my lawn.
Right.
I want to catch them.
Yeah.
Because I want to drag them by the scruff of the neck and you pick it up.
Mm-hmm.
I'm not your garbage collector.
Pick it up.
That's right.
That's right.
But I never catch them.
They do what I'm not paying attention.
I get a camera and everything.
I never catch them.
So you think I'm in the wrong business?
I should have been like law enforcement or something.
No.
You're in the right business.
You need somebody looking out for your money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Somebody looking out for this stuff.
Yeah.
Well, good for you.
Thank you, Renee.
You'll be back.
I'll be back.
I like it.
You're a good talker.
Renee Kelly's here.
You're a 13th district older person.
Also, 2nd district Racine County Supervisor.
Where's the 2nd district?
Same area.
Yeah.
It just extends a little more east, a little more south.
Yeah.
Same here.
And full-time job union growth treasure.
Watching out for the money.
For the people in union grow.
Yes.
Giving an eye on things.
Thank you very much for coming in.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
All right.
It's 803.
Wow.
We're going to get to the news here at WRJN.
Who's timeless hit?
Let's do it.
