A Look at Local Election Results with Mayor Cory Mason

And it's Monday morning you know without me I don't really want to do the work today. I don't really want to do the work today

We all kind of feel like that. I don't know why I'm doing that. Yeah, Monday morning blues, right?

His honor the mayor for seeing Corey Mason is with me this morning. I got a lot to talk about this morning. First of all, thanks for coming in

I do appreciate it. Am my apologies for saying 735 when it was 705 and

That's I don't know. I should be fired anyway. So let's talk about the election first of all. Yeah, kind of a couple of surprises here a couple of

incumbents out right and like three major ones Corey Sebastian Jeff co and Melissa Caprily in the wild what happened so and four four new alders

So Terry McCarthy didn't run for re-election. So so we'll have four new alders sworn in and

Mary land is the one incumbent who'll return. So

Yeah, so it's you know, it's just a reminder that politics is still very much a retail sort of thing where you have to

Knock on doors and talk to voters and oftentimes the person who puts in

The most effort and has the best message winds up winning. So it you know, I don't think it's anything more than that

I mean certainly some big surprises even statewide right? I'm the margin with which

Crawford won the Supreme Court race. I think yeah to people now what was that now what happened there?

You had Elon Musk spending millions and millions of us on dollars. Yeah now people say when that's nothing to him

It's it's something it's really it's a lot of money. It is a lot of money to anybody any lost and we haven't heard from him since that election

Right, so was that just

Wisconsin saying you can't buy us I think I think I think I think that's certainly this speculation, right?

I mean it'd be good to see some analysis based on but it's certainly

anecdotally you heard people saying I really don't like this

I really don't like you know this billionaire coming in from out of state and trying to direct how we're gonna

vote in a state Supreme Court race and so you know Susan Crawford

I think said the day of or the night of the election that you know she felt she was running against Elon Musk as much as she was her opponent

So you know I I think big picture just stepping back

I mean just comparing it to the local elections, which is still not going to doors and talking to voters one at a time

You know one of the things it's just so hard in this country is just the role that billionaires now play in these elections

I mean it's not just like it used to be when you ran for office

It's like well are the environmental groups supporting you or the labor union supporting you or are there local organizations getting behind you and now more and more

You hear people talking about like well which billionaires are getting behind this candidate George Soros on the left

Yeah, Elon Musk on the right and I mean it would just be my opinion you know much better if it wasn't about which billionaires can

Can fund us and you know what you can do to

To raise support within your own community or your own state to to move things forward

But I think it's gonna continue to get

Words before it gets better. I mean, even just this last presidential there's lots of well which billionaires are supporting which candidate

And it's like my goodness

You know, I'm a person a lot wiser and smarter than me said

If you have confidence in your candidate you need you don't need to spend millions and millions of dollars on them

If you have confidence they can win if you don't have confidence they can win you better start spending money

And maybe they just have confidence and branch him will win. I don't know. I well

I would not take the argument that if you have confidence in your your opponent

You shouldn't spend money on them running campaigns does cost money. I know but the millions are making it the biggest can't biggest election in US history

Yeah, but at $20 million on a state Supreme Court races

Just on one side. I mean, that's just sort of unheard of so you know

Being in the advertising business here we were happy that I'm sure I'm sure it went very well for for advertisers

But yeah, so I think that's that was a bit of a surprise

But for the council, you know, it was a couple of like surprises

But again, I don't think there was anything much more to it than people knocking on the doors and interacting with voters

And then we had the fire referendum passed and the school referendum passed so that was a good

Good step forward for local public services making sure that we've got the firefighters we need so that if you call 911

We can get there to quickly

Our call volume is certainly increased over the years so firefighters are being asked to do more and more

With the number of calls that they get and then for the schools, you know, public schools are critically important to educating our kids

So happy to see the results on both of those now the people who voted no on those referendums

Are referenda referenda or referendums as I understand it referendum is singular referenda is a girl

People who I just want to be yeah, I'm going to be right here

I want people to look up to me and say boy that guy really knows this grammar

All right, so on the referendum the people voted no

Their reasoning was I want our print property taxes going up anymore. Yeah

And the people who voted yes said yeah, but what if my house burns down what if you know my kids

I don't have them growing up stupid right so I see both points sure no absolutely and look and then there's certainly frustration

About you know funding local services whether it's fire departments or schools you know that

The state is sitting on a four billion dollar surplus right now and certainly I know democrats in the last legislative assembly

Or session we're saying, you know, maybe it'd be good for us to send this money back to these communities

So we don't have to keep relying on the property taxes for everything so that it's a legitimate frustration

People have already paid the taxes once and we're asking them to do more at the local level because they're just sitting on a

pile of money in

In Madison, so I get the frustration

But ultimately that's why it comes down to a referendum right whichever side gets more votes

Has the day I mean we've had referendum in the past that are not passed right we have a police

Referendum a few years ago and and a failed so we weren't able to move forward with those police resources

so you know, it really it does come down to

What the voters preference is and again, um, you put it on the ballot you make your best case and whichever side wins

I mean Kenosha just had a school referendum in February and I failed right so really just comes down to what the voters want

You know is it possible

That you they don't understand when they read them on the ballot because they they're written by attorneys

And they're written kind of like well does it mean if I vote yes

I actually mean no if I know I mean yeah

I actually had someone had to explain it to me

Yeah, and I said this is what I want what should I put down yes or no

I mean, and I it's reading the ballot now I knew what I was going to put down but it's reading it

It is not self-explanatory. It's not and unfortunately state law requires it to be written that way

And it it couldn't be more

Um, I shouldn't take could I bet they could make it more confusing if they really tried

But it's not it's not it's not it can always be make more right it is not clear

Right, I mean you almost like it to say like if you're four of the schools if you're four of the fighters

Firefighters, yes, yeah, if you're against the the firefighters having the positions

If you're against more money for the schools vote now, but we write it in this whole convoluted

You know, you've got to disclose how much money it's going to be so people can see that

But they could certainly write it in a way that's more simple

I think I was in here before and you're just like just to be clear so that it's not a double negative

I think you're the guy I asked yeah, it's not a double negative, right?

I'm voting yes, it's actually yes for the schools, right? So so that's the the complicating piece of it

I had a teacher in college

And he purposely wrote wrote the eight questions like that because he wanted to make sure we read them and comprehended them

And he wrote all these double negatives in there and by the end he said well, what do you think the answer is

I don't know what the question is

But he did it on purpose to get us to think yeah, and it was probably a good idea because it did make us think

And I think it's a good exercise academically, but when you go to the ballot box

Yeah, it should be clear to people what they're voting on so how do we change that?

You have to change state law

What's the law say make it convoluted?

It I mean it certainly seems like it was the intent but it actually lays out what language you have to use so you know

Really that whole paragraph that you would vote for for the fire referendum

I mean we can sort of insert like the description what it's for

And you know what the dollar amount is but the the structure of that paragraph is driven by the state statutes

I think I voted the right way. I think I voted the way I wanted to

Because I think I you're the person who told me if you want this vote yes if you want this vote no

Because I didn't understand it

You don't really get to me sometimes. I'll vote in my wife will tell me as she voted

She basically canceled out my vote and I canceled that her sure that it ticks me off. Well, I mean

You could say that about your neighbor. You could say that about your brother. You're sibling. You're canceled out my vote

Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's up to markets. It works. I did do some write-ins this time. Nice. Yeah

You're rarely do they really do they but it's it's on the record. Yes

Yeah, that's right. You know, I was vote. I was number

374 when I voted and I voted it like two colloquial after me soon at Red Apple school

And I've never seen it that high so it it was almost

Haven't seen the final numbers, but during the day it was somewhere between 75 80% of presidential level voting

Um, which you know does say something about

All the money that was spent is we did get more participation than we've we've typically seen in that spring election

And so for that um, I'm happy to see more people participating. It's always better

One more people participate in the democracy even if it doesn't go your way

It is a better thing when more and more people participate

Yeah, and when I always say there weren't a lot of people there, but I I

I always thought they can tell

How you voted by the number because when you go in they give you a little slip of paper

With a number on it

And then you got to take the ballot and that number over to the next table

And they give you they sign something they write something and

And they say now that number is a correlated to my ballot because I always thought it was and they said no

There's no way to tell right. I said you don't write that number on my ballot. No. I didn't write that number on your ballot

So there's no way to tell however

I think there is because when I put the

slip in there, I'm number 374 right the person who took that ballot also took the number

And they know that number is now 374

And so is there a way to tell however reverse engineer? That's a good question

I don't mean it's typically not what's done right, but I guess if somebody said let's look up

That you were number 374 and then tried to

Look at the file of all the ballots in the box at that point and find the 300 and so but they don't

They don't count them like that. I know. I know. I think so. That's the

So why do they even give you a number? Why do you have to hold that number in your hand?

I don't get the post of that. It's a double entry, right? So they want to know that they're that you as a human

I call correlate with the same number of ballots that should begin the box. I know

I'm sure that they're not falling behind and you know what I don't care if they know how I vote. I really don't care

Well, it is still what they call Australian ballot where it's a secret ballot people can't find out how you vote

I mean, I don't know in Australia. That's that's where the tradition comes from that secret ballot is also known as the Australian ballot

But that's one of the things that's important for democracies. You get to go in that little cubby there and like mark your

Bubbles in however you see fit and you know, it's not like the old days when they used to pull the drape but that's right

Out of the lever but I first voted in 1972 had right my mother when I was a little kid used to bring me in there

And she worked for the county of a county was deeply Republican and she was not

And she always thought they can tell how she voted she that's what she believed

So she had a vote Republican in that district

And she used to bring me in there because she couldn't bring yourself to pull the lever to pull the lever

Yeah, and I asked her years later. She said I couldn't bring myself to do it

Wow, so she made me pull the lever down now a lot of people then used to push the levers back up before they open the door

And that means your vote didn't count. Oh, no, you had to leave the lever down

And when you open the curtain

They all popped up, but it counted your mouth. So if you ever put them up and people didn't you vote never counted? Yeah

It's not ever seen Mayor Corey Mason here. We got a lot to talk about this morning. Let's talk about the whole apartment

What's that all about? Yeah, so over by Regency Maul the the whole group bought the Maul and I think it's people

Oh, those are the hall apartments, okay, so the the uh

You know, you might have seen the Woodman's going up where a lot of them all used to be. It's gonna be a huge building almost a five acre building

So it's gonna be one of the biggest Woodmans in the state

So people are excited about that going up but behind the target there where the theater used to be years ago

Because the whole group brought most of the the Maul property there

They are putting in 260 new apartments right across from

Pritchard Park there. So they're be called the Pritchard apartments

But really excited to see them break ground on that. So we actually three developments go through

The the council last week. So we're excited to see that that one moving forward

Now was that we're seen around pleasant. It's in the city of Racine. Yeah, because right, of course, the street must be around pleasant

Because I lived in some apartments there. I was a mountain pleasant. Yeah, if you go to the south across the other side of Durand Avenue

you're in

Maul pleasant and if you go to the west you're also in Maul pleasant

If you get right on the corner of

20 or I'm sorry 11 and 31 or Durand and green pay road that's sort of the

The corner where the where the olive garden is. Yeah, that's that's sort of the corner where the city stops on that side of town

The city lose a lot of tax base when the Maul all the stores

Why not because there was some big stores in there. Yeah, absolutely

So this is like why the redevelopment is so important

We used to have millions of dollars of tax base invested in there

And so when all those stores get empty and then I won't bore you with the details

But there's gonna call the dark store comparison

So you would have you know property owners like the Maul say well that came out over there is empty

And and we're not charging them anything so you shouldn't charge us anything either and so

There was a real effort to drive down property tax revenue from from retail

So having something new in there like some grocery stores and some apartments really helped stabilize

The tax base and then the part of the Maul that remains is about as much retail as we I mean the the days of sort of

Having the hey days of the Mauls are kind of kind of behind us now just as Amazon and everything becomes

Where most people get their retail, but there still be some retail space in there

What we're excited for people to use

But it's it's you know, it

Essentially, what are we going to do with with that space in the 21st century?

Is it going to be like it was in the hey day of the Mauls in the mid 80s?

No, probably not again, but it can be something new and different and

Provide some much needed housing in the area and a nice new grocery store

And so we're excited about what that means

You want to hear something? Sure

Elmwood Plaza when it first opened up

We had the Jim and Carolyn are talking about it. They brought some jingles along with them

This was Goldblatt's department store

Yeah, and this is before they had Mauls

Eve just the strip Mauls and they hear the jingle from there

Everybody's hurrying to Goldblatt's for good old-fashioned savings

It's Goldblatt's fabulous one-day only sale tomorrow Thursday Goldblatt's great low prices on brand new items

Values in every department with extra late shopping hours to help you save even more

Look at these great values

Save seven dollars and Oster 10 speed blender only 1999

Colgate toothpaste with an mfp only 89 cents each

Hurry to Goldblatt's one day only sale tomorrow and bring a friend

That's it. That's saying that saying Colgate is now like three and a half four and a half bucks. Yeah

Absolutely

He's not in cents and then we took a blender for 20 bucks. That sounds kind of pricey nine

Yeah, that's that's that's that's that's our chief and I'm sure the tax wasn't was pretty low then so

Yeah, Goldblatt's and then it went up in flames

Yeah, yeah, but we also have one for Cresquis a play later

That was became came art. Wow. Yeah, no, it's

So I grew up on West Lawn Avenue

So my like early memories were sort of looking over at that

I'm with Plaza and seeing when the JC Penny was there people might

Remember that before the mall opened the JC Penny was in Elwood Plaza, but yeah, it's a great great memory time to run

Yeah, yeah, whoever thought you know when downtown was king and with Plaza thought they were gonna put downtown out of business

Then the mall thought they could have put them with Plaza and downtown out of business

The mall's gone Elwood Plaza's still there, but downtown is still vibrant. Yeah, we're thriving

So another development we did I mean to the hotels there the breakwater the new apartments that are there

But one of the other developments we did last week was

The folks who own hotel verdant are expanding they bought the building next door

They're gonna put a nice spot day spot in there for people to

To enjoy whether that you're a member of the community want those services or if you're staying at the hotel

But then they bought a couple of their buildings where they're gonna build a new apartment building back where the drive in

Bank used to be and and put a really nice new parking lot next to the hotel

Where they'll put in some electric charging stations and some other things

So it's another really big investment in the downtown. It's a dominion properties is the name of it

But yeah, they're they're doing well and glad they're doing well

Yeah, that's great

So well enough that they're ready to expand and and do another phase. So we're excited to see

More development happening in the downtown

You know, I will say this for the downtown when when people you know want sort of an authentic town experience

You can't really recreate what what downtown has in terms of that historic district there on

Main street and six and seventh if you if you want to feel like you're walking down

A real place in a real sense of community people really enjoy that

So I think it's part of why you're seeing our downtown and other downtowns across the country have this sort of renaissance coming back

Kelly Cruz coming in this week. Yeah, we'll talk about more events coming up down

Well, they do a great job of doing those events that people want to come down there to work

It is it is she's got a step not that big to do it. Yeah, she she does great work

Have a few more minutes with us honor the mayor of the city of Racine

Gory Mason we were talking during the break there

The markets down over two thousand points. Yeah, as we stand right now

And they say well, how does that affect the city? You know it affects everything and everyone the you told me it's something interesting

I said because you said the city does not invest in the stock market correct

Well, if the tariffs go into place and so say for example, you know vehicles cost 25% more to buy now

Then get a year ago. Well, you know, we buy vehicles right we buy police cars we buy

Vehicles, you know for the water utility and public works department if those become more expensive

That's going to have a real impact on taxpayers. We're either you know buying fewer of them or

Asking taxpayers to pay more for them. So you know indirectly affect everybody at every level

Anything the city buys exactly you guys don't have a pipeline to free stuff. I wish we did

Like things easier. Let's talk about a few more topics here the Lincoln King townhouses. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about those

So the Lincoln Community Center is going on that empty block

That's just to the north of Julian Thomas school on on Martin Luther King drive there

But around that we're going to put in 32 new townhouses

So you might have noticed some of those houses had been boarded out for some time and not in the best state of repair

So we got a in addition to the money we've raised to build the community center

We got a $15 million grant to to repair

Ten homes and and build 40 new ones. So we're going to start to see in addition to a brand new community center

You're going to see some nice new housing going around it as well housing going up

Yeah, we need it. I mean, it's I'm proud to say that that's your reaction to it because what we hear from communities across the state is

Well, it's just not enough housing. So we're doing everything we can to to create housing opportunities for people to live here

I was going to put a tent in my backyard at one time my wife and I were going to try living on the back

It's just a few days during the summer. So we set a little nature camera up in my backyard it runs on it just you set it up there and

It's not infrared, but it's got a it really is bright when you see what's going on in the backyard

You don't need them. It's light and it's it's motion

I can't believe the wildlife running around my backyard and I when I'm sleeping

We got possums all over the place raccoons. We got straight cats putting their face right in the camera lens

There's a lot. I'm not sleeping in my backyard

I don't need a knock on my door from a possum in the middle of the night more than when I locally than you thought yeah

Wow, okay, let's also talk about now. This is something I got a memo on yeah

From the city

You are looking for this something I didn't know people to be on boards committees and commissions

Just don't you don't have to be elected. You just have to apply. That's right. It's right

So we have a number of boards committees and commissions

So obviously you can't apply to sit on the city council or to be on one of council committees because you have to be an elected member of

The council be able to do that, but

We do have everything from the parks board to the harbor commission to the board of health

to the

civic

The the common council of the community that what you can't apply to the common council but community development authority our planning commission

These all require citizen members now some of the positions require you to have a professional

Credential to be able to do it some of positions will require realtors or developers or

Architects or lawyers, but for the most part if you have an interest in say the harbor commission or the parks board or

some other

You know work that we do we really need people to participate. It's actually more than 70

Citizen appointments that are made to these boards committees and commissions and for it to work

We need city residents to apply so if you're interested

Please check out the city's website and if you just google city ever seen boards and commissions

You'll get right to it and our democracy works when our people participate

So we want to encourage people to apply and the current round is through you have to apply through April 11th

That's when you have to write which one's that Friday. Yes. Okay, for any

Yeah, I was looking to list here. You don't need this jockeys for anything

So that's not specifically, but a disc jockey could apply

And get turned down everybody could apply get turned down

So what else am I missing your anything this morning you want to bring up? No, I mean

I think those are the big thing. I mean it's it's a new council that'll get sworn in on the 15th

So we look forward to that and that's when the committee appointments are also made

So we're looking forward to all that they get to work with new people now. Yeah, yeah

Just when you thought yeah, everybody figured out you got to refigure on it's democracy right?

I mean you never know what what you're gonna get every year half the council is is up for election

And so you know as many as half could could come back or as many as half could be replaced now next election

We're gonna do the even numbers correct

Correct see

And I didn't know this until I looked at it said no these are all odd numbers on you right all the odd districts

And now it's gonna be even districts so that number districts are up in the odd number of years

And the even number districts are up in the even number of years is the council similar to what we have in the Congress

Where you get the Democrats just voting everything down the Republicans want the Republicans voting everything down

The Democrats do you do you run into that kind of stuff in the council?

Sometimes yes, but for the most part it's still very like you know

Do you want this development in your district or not right?

Do you do you want the the buses to run on time or not? So one of the things that

You hope to see um more of is just making decision making at the local level

It's just it's really where government touches people most directly right?

So people just want things to work and so there's a pragmatism that comes into place

That you would hope would would uh

Would override some of those partisan instincts that people might have

At last nine seconds in your job. I do tell it shut up and sit down and that would be the end of me

I couldn't I could you got to have a um

That's in kind of discipline

Yeah, because if I would just so annoyed with people when I hear them doing stupid things and I'd yell at them and that would be the end of my job

Well, you know, I mean look everybody has a right to their opinion and to express their opinion to be heard

I might be thinking on the inside. Well, that's not the way I would have put it

But you know, everyone has an ability to express their opinion

We hope at the local level that the

That the interaction is civil and respectful sometimes it goes a little off the rails

But but for the most part you got to give it space for people to have their say and it's not whether or not

I agree with everything that people have to say it's whether or not they had some space to be heard and that's where local democracy

Is still I think the closest to the people and the most effective and what the best part is

We can bring the mayor in here and so talk to him every month

Yeah, I mean a lot of people don't want to talk on the radio because they don't want

You're afraid of questions

Well, I'm glad to say you're not afraid. Oh, no, no, no, that's good

It's on her mayor Corey Mason is here the mayor of the city of Racine and if you miss this you say oh, I want to know what he said earlier

We'll have a podcast this week forever. That's right

That's why you're gonna be careful what you say

Everything in this world now is forever. It is it is every photograph

Anything you say is forever, but this was a great broadcast today. Have you one day everyone? Yeah, thank you very much

Mayor Corey Mason the city of Racine