We're lucky to have his honor. We're seeing Mayor Cory Mason with us. As we do every month, they get the lowdown on what's going on all around us in our city.
Yeah, good morning. Good morning. How are you?
Well, you know what I got for you this morning. What's right of this athlete for you? I water. Thank you.
A bottle of. Thank you. Nice mountain water. They ever see the SNL skit when Perry A water first came out. Now I know they showed it was a guy in a beret.
He was filling up water bottles from the toilet and said, you're a medic. It's so stupid.
It was that we do have great water here. You see water utility internally. I know that's making great water. I know, but you know my taste buds.
Got to that water. Yeah, even other bottle water. I have problems with my wife bought this off brand of you know spring water. Yeah, I could taste the difference.
Oh, all right. We talked about before we went on there. My OCD and everything. Yeah, that kicks in. Let's talk about some of the things going on in our city. Sure.
And we've got the apartment ground breaking. Yeah, Richard Park. Now this is where Regency Mall used to be. It's where the theater used to be behind target.
That's right. That's right. So people might remember. I almost at the ground breaking went through like, you know, this is where I saw Gremlins and the karate kid.
And then I thought, I don't know that anybody's going to care what movies I saw there in the 80s. But, you know, if you were there in the 80s and 90s,
it's where a lot of people went to theaters. There was a six screen theater there for a while. But the building's been gone for more than a decade.
And so when the whole group bought them all and took it over, they're saying, you know, we think this would be a nice spot right across from the park.
You know, behind target there. And so they're putting in more than 200 apartments. And they'll be ready to go in about a year. So look for that. It's exciting. It's right on Roosevelt there.
If you're sort of coming in on, you know, just off of grand where you turn in to go to the target across from picture park will be a few hundred apartments that are going to go in.
Is there still a dog candle back there? There is not. They left. Yeah. So that building's going as well. Oh, wow.
Yeah. Yeah. They're out in street of it now. Oh, okay. Here's a little thing about that theater. People don't know when they knocked it down. The market's never took the projectors out.
The projectors got because you don't need them. Yes. They don't use projectors anymore. I suppose so they knocked down the theater project. The only thing they took out with the seats because they could repurpose those.
But they left all the projectors and everything where they knocked it down and it was in the rubble. They didn't need them anymore. They don't use projectors. Wow.
Yeah. They use computers now to play the movies and caters. So that's the groundbreaking is there when they expect that to open in about a year and about a year.
So yeah, look for that to happen. We have a lot of new apartment buildings in our area. We do. We do. It's exciting stuff going up. I mean, there's look there is a real need for housing. I mean, you hear about it all the time.
You know, we they do these market studies that are out there, but they're like, look, the recene area could absorb 600 new apartment units every year for the next 10 years and not break a sweat.
So there's definitely a need for those apartments. This will put in about 230 of them. So we'll look for that to pop up in the year ahead.
And it's, you know, just across the way from where the new woodmins is going in. So look for that to open before Labor Day. So you go to your apartment. You can walk right over. You don't have to drive anywhere.
Still a card. Yeah. And there's. You don't have to steal a car. You know that's going to happen. You know, it's going to happen. The targets right there. People see the car. It seems to work out. It seems to work out.
It's still like that. But the building is five acres. That's how big that woodmins is. I know it's going to be pretty great. You got to take like a like 12 energy pills just to get through a woodmins.
You know what the horrible thing was. I went to the one in Kenosha only once. My brother lives next to it. So I went there once I was with him.
And I forgot something. And it was like a four day hike to get to the other side of the store. And I said, you know what? Forget it. I don't think of the options you have though.
I know. It's just a very big store. Yeah. Very big. Okay. Next up. We've got the cop house kids meals. Now we had in here two of the ladies running that we had the Sherry in here.
And we had the officer hood was in here. Gabby's great. Gabby. And we had her then both in here last week. Yeah. They were talking about it.
And she sent me a picture of all the meals and all the people sitting there eating their meals. And you know, I don't know how you grew up. I think I knew how you grew up. I never
grew up as hungry. No. The fridge was always full. The cupboards were always loaded. Anything we wanted. We had to eat. It's hard to, you know, for people to fathom that what do you mean?
You don't have any food to eat. Right. What do you mean you're hungry? Yeah. How does that happen? I mean food insecurity is a real thing in this country and in this community.
And people again, if you've never experienced it, if you've not had to worry about like, wow, we don't have much money until payday. We're not going to be able to have food or what not.
It can make a big difference. And we know in that Lincoln neighborhood in particular, you know, for a lot of those kids, the only consistent meal they get during the school year is at school, school lunch, right.
So what do you do when school's out? And so what what Sherry and Officer Hood are trying to do there at that Geneva Street cop house is like, hey, look, every day money through Friday during the summer come on and we can serve you a lunch.
And so, you know, the kids come with their parents or more aptly parents bring their kids, but you know, they come, they have a good meal.
You know, they turn on a few hoses in a slip and slide in the back and the kids get to play and burn out some energy, but it just creates the opportunity for those kids not to go hungry over the summer. And you know, I applaud both of them for for taking that out.
I find it hard to believe that people are hungry in this, you know, area. Well, it's all the food in the supermarkets and it's just hard to believe it is a unique thing in America to your point.
It's not because there's not enough food in this country. There's enough food. It's just how we structure. You know, this is where these proposed cuts to food stamps that are being debated.
Yeah, so I mean, you know, it's one of these things. I mean, I rarely sort of stray into, you know, federal policy is getting on. There's sort of thing that we talk about, but you've got, you know, between the cuts to food stamps or snap is it's called now or
and the Medicaid staff, which will have a huge impact on people who rely on Medicaid for whether it's a nursing home or for low income folks who who need health care, it's going to have a real devastating impact on the community.
And so I'm really hoping that, you know, Congress is debating it this week and you're starting to see a couple Republican senators from North Carolina and may say this is going to be really bad for our state here.
And, you know, it's tough and it's one thing if they're like, look, we've got to do this to balance the budget, but it's almost the exact number between those cuts between food stamps and Medicaid and CDBG and all these other things that the city relies on to keep, you know, working class people out of out of the ER for health care and fed during the summer and just basic human necessities that people need.
And then they're going to extend a huge tax break for people that don't really need it, right? I mean, it's going to by and large benefit people who are very wealthy already.
And so it just seems like Congress really has priority screwed up here and I really hope there's enough folks who are going to be level headed about it and say this is just too big of a devastating impact to working class people.
Even some of our politicians Republicans are against these cuts. I heard one Senator yesterday from Kentucky and figure out who it is.
And they were talking about the people are they going to suffer with these Medicaid cuts. His answer was they'll get over it.
Yeah, I mean, isn't that funny? I don't think they will. I don't think they should get over it.
Yeah, I mean, it is. Look, I mean, again, people don't realize how much Medicaid pays for whether it's, you know, mental health services for kids in Racine Unified or your parents nursing home or just the low income folks who need access to health care.
It has a huge impact in our community and, you know, and communities across this country. So, you know, people should know that it'll have a real effect here in Racine as well.
What is the difference between Medicaid and Medicare?
Yeah, good question. So Medicare is for older Americans. So you got to be 65 to qualify for Medicare. Medicaid is for low income individuals.
So for people who are in disability or for people who, you know, pregnant moms and children and other folks.
So that's how Medicaid violence pays for. But it also pays for nursing homes for low income people too.
So there's also older seniors who, who might benefit from the Medicaid program as well. But, you know, the estimates are that there are hundreds of thousands of people that could lose their health care here in Wisconsin.
And if these changes go through the way they're talking about.
I think they will. I mean, I don't have a crystal ball.
I hope not. I mean, you know, there was a time when Trump was present the first time when he wanted to get rid of Obamacare altogether and it was a big deal and, you know, it didn't get repealed by one vote.
You know, John McCain came in at the last minute. I remember I remember the thumbs down and we're not doing it. We're not getting rid of healthcare for all these Americans.
I'm hoping for something like that again here, but just people should know it will have a devastating impact here in the, in the community of Racine because we've got, you know, we got a lot of working class.
People who are low income, a lot of seniors unfixed income and they rely on those services to keep their kids fed and, and their families healthy.
It's on a Racine Mayor Corey Mason here, more coming up at the mayor in the moment, 747 local news.
Tameless. It's right here at WRJM. Good for showers and thunderstorms in our forecast today.
Tonight, tomorrow 72 degrees. The high for today. 64 the low tonight 82 tomorrow.
Cloudy 63 at Radio Park. You ever get your window fixed? Now we're still we're in line.
We're still waiting. We're the only people that last storm about three or four weeks ago.
You had your window blown out and that storm. Whoa.
It's still still boarded up. It is. It is. We're in line.
It's not a Racine Mayor Corey Mason is with us this morning. We're talking about a variety of topics here.
Let's talk about the Island Park beer guard. Yeah, it's out.
Tell people exactly where this is. So Island Park, people should know where it is.
You can either come to it right where the bend at Kinsey and Sixth is sort of by, well, you can be in church on the, on the hill there.
If you turn in there on, you know, stay straight on Kinsey, you'll drive right into Island Park or you can access park off of South Memorial between Sixth and State Street.
There's a turn in there called Liberty that you can turn in there and it takes you right through Island Park.
But it's part of the chain of of parks that run through the city of Racine along the river there.
And so it's called Island Park because the the river actually splits there and there's a sort of a big island that makes up.
What is the park? It is where the Racine Zoo once was more than a hundred years ago was actually in that park really. Yeah, yeah, it's where it started out.
So it's got a great history to it, but it's got a great historic pavilion from, I believe the 1930s it was built.
And in the last few years, we've done some great improvements to it.
We put in some new pickable courts that we did the softball fields.
You know, new children's playground equipment and a pretty nice dog park that we put in the year before last.
So if you like running your dogs around a dog park, that's great.
And then now for a few weekends this summer, we're going to have a beer garden there over the weekend.
So people can come and you know, walk their dog, bring their dog in the park and run him around in that dog park and then enjoy a beer in a nice afternoon and just really enjoy.
You and the dogs both have a beer. That's good. I don't want to get the dog in the beer.
But it's a nice opportunity for people to have something to drink and in a family friendly environment.
And you know, like I said, bring the dogs, run them hard and just enjoy island park.
You know, for the people who use island park, they love it.
But we have just as many people who may be like, you was like, tell me where island park is exactly.
I don't know that I've been there.
Yeah, I know.
So, you know, it's got a nice canoe launch on it.
We've tons of, you know, baseball games and softball games that happen there over the summer.
And again, with pickleball on the rise, tons of people use it.
It's literally just across the river from Lutheran high school off of spring street there, although you can't drive into it from spring.
But that's roughly the area that it's in and people love it.
And you know, what we get when people come to the event is it's like, well, I had no idea this was down here. This is great.
So it's just a way, another way to invite people in.
We know that people really seem to enjoy beer gardens in the summertime and got a family friendly place where you can be there with your family and bring the dog and run him hard to get there.
And run him hard to get him to, you know, hopefully not wake in the middle of the night.
Yeah, go to sleep.
Just to get home.
That's right.
Now, when did you, would you imagine some of the second to go here?
Oh, I forgot what it was.
See, I, as you get old, you're.
It's all right.
It'll come to me in just a moment here.
Can I give you the weekend?
So we're going to have the beer garden.
Yeah, they do the weekends.
Yeah.
So it's not every weekend, but if we just had it last weekend for the grand opening that'll be July 18th and 20th.
And then August 22nd through 24th and then September 19th through 21st and the hours are Friday, 4 to 8 Saturday, 12 to 8 and Sunday, 12 to 6.
I'm just not remember what it was going to say.
Was I in a coma?
When did pickleball come around?
Oh my gosh.
It hasn't been around that long.
It's maybe 10 years.
It is the fastest growing sport in America.
It is.
I mean, people just are.
I mean, just taken with it, right?
I mean, it's just really, and it seems to be a friendly sport for people at all ages and all skills.
Where it's tennis, you got to be like able to really, you know,
ace somebody with a monster server, whatnot pickleball apparently slows it down a little bit.
Lower 10.
Lower 10.
Lower 10.
But I will tell you, I mean, in the community centers, there's even sort of a, you know, you've got to be at a certain skill level to play at one of the community centers.
If you're just a beginner, they expected you go to one of the other community centers.
They don't want, you know, you've got to bring your game if you're able to do, but it's huge.
I don't know if I was in a coma when it started because I don't remember it ever starting.
It's just one day was there.
What are you talking about pickleball?
I mean, I didn't really know about it until during COVID when people were sort of sequestered and whatnot and still, you know,
how can we go outside and do something and people were doing pickleball because you're still far enough away and doing it.
But it's apparently started before that, but it is a, it has just taken fire in this country.
I mean, young people love it.
Older adults really love it.
It is a lot of tennis courts are getting slightly modified into pickleball courts because people play a lot more pickleball and they are tennis these days.
Let's talk about the big fourth of July parade coming up.
Yeah.
And it couldn't be better. It's on a Friday.
So when you were exhausted, a lot of people don't have to get up on Saturday and that would be me.
And so I went to the drivers meeting last night, a hundred and forty units this year.
Oh, that's great.
That's a lot of people in the parade.
And you said you're going to be in it.
You're going to walk through it.
Absolutely.
Do a rear.
And there is a car for you.
There is.
But you decide to walk it anyway.
Yeah.
How many miles does it?
It's almost three miles.
Oh, it is.
It is one of the longest parade routes in the Midwest.
So it is.
You know, but it's also it's like our big homecoming party, right?
Everybody comes out for it.
It's one of the biggest in the country.
It is.
It is.
They say it's the biggest in the Midwest.
You know, I think last year we started seeing close to pre-pandemic numbers being the first couple of years after the pandemic.
It was a little bit light.
But people are coming back and we're getting more entries into the parade.
And you know, it's a great way to see the parade.
And then, you know, the fireworks that night are just, you know, a fantastic part of it.
It's just one of the one of the things when you think about like, wow, what makes for seeing sort of great?
I think, you know, in that top 10 list of things if you were to pick, I would put that for the July parade on that list.
I mean, it's really a remarkable thing.
We bring everybody down.
We enjoy and celebrate our country and enjoy each other's company for the parade.
And then you take a maybe a little little nap in the afternoon before you go back out for the fireworks.
And at least maybe I do after you walk through the parade.
You also have food part.
Yeah, lots of eating, lots of, lots of family, lots of friends, lots of cookouts, all that stuff.
So I went to the, the driver's meeting I told you, there's a lot of planning that goes to this.
So people don't realize this is like, this is like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
They start planning the day after the parade.
To the fourth best board deserves a lot of credit for doing this.
They're great partners with the city.
There is about half the money for the day's events between the fireworks and the parade and all that work,
which is, which is fantastic.
And the city puts in the other half, but they do all the planning.
They prepare for it.
They, you know, they work with the police department.
They work with DPW.
They're working with public health for the, you know, people who are selling food and all this stuff.
And I should also say for a lot of our city employees, they do not get the 4th of July off.
They are, they're working that parade route, right?
I mean, police and fire in particular sort of all hands on deck to make sure it's an event that's safe for everybody.
You want to get no holiday stuff?
Go work in radio.
We're 24, 7, 365 days a year.
There's no closed radio stations.
I know.
But for police and fire, it might be a normal day.
People gist and it's kind of all hands on deck on that day.
And so, you know, we appreciate the work that our public employees do to make the 4th of July fun for everybody.
Thank you, Mayor, for coming in.
My pleasure.
It's honor.
Mayor Corey Macyns from the city of Racine.
We'll talk to you again next month.
Looking forward to it.
All right.
We'll get to see how well you walked in the parade.
Maybe we'll see at the beer garden.
Yeah, maybe.
I haven't had a beer my entire life.
Who knows if I'll start?
We'll bring your dog and at least enjoy the dog.
Okay.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you.
