I'm closing in the morning WRJN.
Malink Frazier joining me in Alderman in the first district here in Racine.
Well, good to have you on board.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
First time in here.
Yes, sir.
And once you're in, you're always welcome.
It, you know, just come on in.
So I got a whole bunch of things to talk to you about because we don't really know
much about your brand new.
Yeah.
Just got the job back in April, I guess, April 15th, April 15th, April 1st, technically.
So the first district for people that don't know is where it's downtown Racine.
The northern boundary is main in Hamilton.
The southern boundary is main in 11th.
You live in that district?
I do live in that district.
Do you have to do if you're in Alderman?
Yes.
But you have to live there.
You have to live there.
Okay.
All right.
I never planned to ever get in the politics.
And I got to ask you, why did you do it?
You were a young guy, you're bright, you're, why get into politics?
It's like, I was talking before we went on the year.
There's no website to it, unless people say, well, I want to help people make a difference.
And that's, that's good.
That's very honorable to do that.
But it's tough.
It is tough.
I always had a love of history growing up and my mother always bought me history books that
dealt with wars and presidents and local issues like civil rights and the depression and
stuff like that.
And just watching how people rally to meet their moment, which is sort of my key phrase.
Meet their moment back then kind of gave me the motivation to do this.
Okay.
Let's do a little background on you.
Okay.
You're from Wisconsin.
You're a local.
We're about to miss.
I grew up.
I was born in Milwaukee, lived in Kenosha, and then I moved to Racine when I was 12 years
old.
Okay.
That's pretty good.
So you never, but you are in the army, um, reserves, army reserves.
Yes.
And so you do travel.
I travel a lot.
Now, when I spoke to you recently about coming on here, I heard people with a southern
accent in the background.
So you weren't.
I was at Fort Benning, Georgia.
I attended officer candidate school.
That's right.
Right on the border.
It was very hot.
And I did that for three months, you successfully completed the course, and I'm a second lieutenant.
You are a bright guy now.
You have a master's degree.
Why don't you tell him about your education?
So I have a bachelor's degree, well, first, I graduated high school from Racine, Lutheran.
And then I went to Carthage College and got my, um, bachelor's of science in political
science.
And then I got mobilized with the army during COVID and completed my master's in public
policy from Liberty University.
That's a lot of accomplishments for a young guy.
Yeah.
So what do you want to go from here?
Uh, right now, I work full-time for the Racine County Sheriff's office.
I enjoy what I do, um, so just staying within the realm of, um, law enforcement for right
now and then seeing what the future holds.
What are you doing in the sheriff's department?
Um, so I'm, I'm a patrol deputy, um, but my, uh, assignment right now is the school
resource officer for Union Grove High School.
Uh, so during the school year, I'm in the school, um, hanging out with kids, talking to
teachers, talking to students, uh, going over public safety plans in case the school,
uh, ever has a catastrophe, God willing.
We never have to experience that, but I'm just there to, to maintain and leverage relationships
with it with all of the stakeholders.
I guess this first district, all their Malik, uh, Frazier, when I went to school, high
school, we didn't have police in the school.
I mean, I don't remember having any trouble in school and we had four thousand students
in my high school, just in my graduating class, nine hundred and seventy, but we had four
grades and they were all about a thousand each.
And so we just have any trouble with all those people in the school.
Yeah.
Now you've got to have police officers in the school.
What changed?
Uh, I mean, there, there's a lot that changed.
I think people's minds, that's an attitude changed, um, and today's time, one of the
think, one of the topics that have come to the forefront is mental health, um, and
understanding that mental health is a real stigma that needs to be addressed, um, and
then, you know, just some people just like doing violent things for no, no reason, no
call change.
Cause again, in my high school, I don't remember anything happening like that.
I don't think we ever had the police called in the four years.
I was there and I lived in a, you know, the New York area.
So you figure out somebody would be causing problems with nobody dead.
Yeah.
I just don't know what changed.
I mean, I'm not really sure what changed, but one thing that I can tell you is, um, having
me in, in that school or just law enforcement in any school is good for our current climate
with law enforcement, um, simply because we can, uh, unearth some of the, um, mysteries
of law enforcement.
And if I can create a good relationship with a 13, 14 year old, uh, to where they're comfortable
around law enforcement, hopefully what they see in the news or on social media can, um,
not influence their behavior or their attitudes towards law enforcement, you know, breaks
my heart when I see these news stories, even YouTube videos with a, uh, a 12 or 13 year
old kid with a gun who shoots somebody.
He just ended his whole life.
Yeah.
His life is over.
Yeah.
He'll spend the rest of his life in it.
Juve a little detention or prison, you know, they just, they just give it up like that
and some of these kids are being tried as adults as minors because of the egregiousness
of their crimes.
I just don't know why what puts somebody's mindset to just throw their life away like
that.
They don't think obviously if they thought they wouldn't.
Yeah.
I mean, but when we talk about kids, you know, my mother was a, has been a, in social work
for over 35 years and we've had trainings that bought the adolescent mind and how it's
not developed.
And if we aren't careful with, um, how we handle these young people, um, it can trigger
thoughts and emotions and actions that are not incaping with who they truly are.
Okay.
So you became a first day straight to Alder.
Mm hmm.
What made you do that?
Um, because you have a full time job already.
I mean, it sounds like you're very busy.
Yes.
So what made you choose to, uh, the older Joe, um, my mother, uh,
always instilled in me that services is, is the ultimate goal.
Like that, that's what we're here to do, um, and it's just another capacity for me to
serve.
Uh, there are a lot of issues within the first district, um, and I just think that it's
time for them to get addressed.
Okay.
Like what, um, right now, one of the biggest things, and it's not just, it's not limited
to first district, but it's, it's everywhere.
It's public safety, uh, is an issue, um, downtown.
How do we attract more businesses?
How do we get more people downtown to shop, um, our homeless population trying to get
them the resources that they need so that they can become productive members of society?
Um, it's just, it's, it's a lot of common things.
The financial status of our city right now, uh, is, uh, a hot topic.
And then, uh, grocery stores and the lack thereof within the city of racing.
Okay.
Um, I don't know if it's your district where, uh, um, um, um, um, memorial in state.
Is that your district?
No.
No, cause Walgreens is closing there, uh, uh, save a lot closed up across the street recently.
Yep.
And I mean, they're running out of places for people in neighborhood, unless you have
a car.
Yeah.
And you had to go out to my, my Pleasant or Caledonia and for a lot of people, you
know, it's not that the timing is just not affordable.
I know I, that was my Walgreens.
Yeah.
I feel terrible.
They closed August 5th at 12 noon.
I want to be there at 1159 and cry.
Yeah.
I've been going there almost 20 years.
Yeah.
That Walgreens.
And I just, now I have to go with a bunch of strangers up on Douglas Avenue.
Got to go to Caledonia.
I'm not a big person who loves change.
Yeah.
And when they said to me at the counter, they said, you know, we're close.
That's after the car range.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel terrible.
I've been going to get my drugs.
And I knew the people in there.
I mean, we are creatures of habit.
So, you know, when things change, it kind of throws us off when we get older and things
change.
It's even worse.
Yeah.
I mean, just being back for, I've been, I've been home for two days and it's just, it's
weird already.
So, when you were in the reserves, is it just, what are you doing?
You're just drilling a lot?
Yeah.
So, it's mission dependent.
Every unit or organization rather is different.
So, for me, I've been in units where I was traveling a lot.
I was one of my jobs as a sergeant was a railway advisor.
And we would do missions in Africa and in Poland and in Europe.
You traveled there, huh?
I didn't travel at that time because it was COVID and we had a lot of restrictions.
One of the coal missions that I did go to, go on was in Alaska, where we went to a joint
air force base in Alaska and we were, we inspected their rail.
So, walking 10 miles of rail every day was cool to see.
I got to see a moose.
I didn't realize how big moose.
That wasn't in barrel, Alaska, it wasn't way up.
No.
No.
No.
We were in Anchorage and we were in Phoenix.
Oh, yeah.
That's good.
So, you know, the first place was to go to, I thought we were up in barrel where there's
just nothing.
No, no, no, no.
No, we flew into Fairbanks and then we had to drive six hours to Anchorage.
So, most people have to pay to go there.
You don't have to pay to go there.
Yeah.
That's true.
I mean, I pay all my time.
Yeah.
So, you were second lieutenant.
Yes.
So, you get to give orders, which is good.
Yeah.
It's always good to give them rather than take them.
Okay.
So, you do that how many times a year do you have to go get called into the reserves?
Not a bare minimum.
We drill monthly.
So, that means for those that don't know, we go to our unit, typically the first week
and not the month or whatever the schedule dictates within those 12 months.
We go to the range and we do sticks exercises here and, no, I have a new unit.
So, I don't know exactly where they go, but typically I trained in Fort McCoy Wisconsin.
Oh, okay.
It was part of it.
It was part of it.
Yeah.
Over there.
Well, that's good.
And we were talking before we came on the air and they asked all the orders this, once
you become an older people spot you and they want to grab your sleeve.
Pull your, come on.
Let me tell you about something.
I got this loud car coming down the street every day.
Yeah.
You come back at this pothole.
It's nobody's paying attention to this guy parks his truck over here every day.
The garbage wasn't collected last week.
You must hear that stuff every day.
Oh, and what's interesting is because I was gone, I was restricted to phone costs.
So, I would get, get at least three to five phone calls a day about issues that people
have.
Whether it's, you know, my neighbor is working on his car early in the morning, early
at night, speeders that go down my street, you know, in certain areas of my district
it tends to be more violent, crowds tend to assemble more to where they're just
loud and disorderly, just things like that.
Firecrackers going off all hours and then I'm near the fourth and fifth, sixth, seventh
and eighth of July.
Yeah.
And I and one of my friends, one of my best friends that lived in the first district.
She posted on social media as soon as age, July 5th, 1201, she posted on social media
that if you pop a firecracker, she's calling the cops.
There was an aldermen who used to be in the fourth district and there were people
sending off fireworks.
Even on the ninth of July, he walked up there and he walked up to their house and he
said, if you do it again, we're calling the police and just to pick them off, they threw
one firecracker.
He said, that's it.
The police were down there.
Yeah.
I mean, so just do one more.
Yeah.
And they called them on it and they got the police down there.
Yeah.
I mean, I understand the fourth July of firing fire.
Probably start the week later enough already.
I mean, and even in my law enforcement capacity, you're not supposed to do it at all.
Having to do that.
And then one of the things I was an intern for the mayor's office a few, no, almost like
10 years ago.
And the mayor at that time wanted to start a program called Protective Act and it dealt
with vets who have PTSD, yes, the loud noises that really affect them and it's a real
thing.
It's not just something that's how people get triggered and their mind goes back.
And then when they go into that high, high tense moment and their mind is back to when
they were in war, you know, having to de-escalate and calm them down and try to bring them back.
Yes.
That's a real thing.
I know same thing with people on animals, they, I have a picture of my phone.
We have a pit bull that comes over every Friday, but on the fourth of July, she spent
some time over our house and she was just staring into the corner of the room.
She put her face into the corner and stood there.
I'm just for hours on end because she didn't want to face the noise.
I mean, people, animals, they just hate to let the people of fireworks.
They don't care.
You know, my wife did once, our neighbors, this is years ago.
Next door neighbors were setting off fireworks and you can leave that closer to you in that
soda.
So when you were pushing things around, they were setting off fireworks and the visiting
mother next door said, once you set them off over there, not in front of our house.
So my wife said, don't set those fireworks off and they did anyway.
She took a garden hose out and hose them down.
And the mother came out and said, I warn them if they continue to set them off in front
of our house, because they were going on our lawn.
They were shooting off Roman Canada going all over her property.
I was going to stop it and she hosed them down and that was the end of that.
Yeah.
Before she did it.
I mean, that's when that's when we were big into community and villages raising, raising
our young people.
Well, my work for the police department in California, and that worked for several years.
So you know what you can get away with.
Do you have any aspirations to go bigger than older?
Right now.
No.
No.
Go for the jobs opened up.
Yeah.
And I have no interest.
I'm 30 years old.
I have enough on my plate as it is.
Okay.
Okay.
Here's why I would, there were a lot of reasons why I wouldn't become president.
But here's another reason I found out the president gets free rent to the White House.
But the president has to pay for everything else.
Groceries, housekeeping, parties, vacations, toiletries, you can't even get free soap.
And a lot of people don't know those facts.
Yeah.
I thought everything you want your president boom, you got to pay for your groceries.
We can't give the guys some, you know, free Oreo cookies or we can't give them every,
every little thing.
A glass of milk.
A glass of milk.
A glass of milk.
I don't go Sam has a way of getting his time.
He has a way of getting his time.
I never knew that before.
Yeah.
He has a way.
Okay.
So what are the burning issues right now when you go to the council meetings?
What's the big burning issue do you have when they're right now?
Right now, at least within the first district because I can't talk about other ones.
Oh, I will.
Yeah.
I have no, I can talk about anything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I said, public safety is one I had a meeting with one of my constituents on Saturday.
And he was talking about, all right, one, two people actually I met with three.
A lot of people.
And public safety is is and forever will be a hot button issue, whether it's traffic
down in downtown and in speeds, there's going through intersections or people making
threats that make, you know, potential shoppers feel unsafe.
So that, you know, and then the other side to that are our business owners who are getting
their property vandalized by, you know, kids who come into the store and just cause chaos
and wreak havoc and don't, you know, pay for the dammit, pay for the property that
they damaged.
So that's a hot button issue right there.
You know, either on Maine told you and the speeders on Maine, all hours of the night, especially
on weekends.
And these cars now have the, I don't know what that sound is on their mufflers, they'll
fill out exhaust.
Yeah.
It sounds like gunshots.
Yeah.
It sounds like gunshots.
Yeah.
And this is especially on weekends.
Yeah.
All hours.
Yeah.
You get used to it, like living near the ocean, you don't hear the waves after a while.
But you know, the funny thing is, is before I moved downtown, I lived in Mount Pleasant
on, brought in 31.
So being there and then moving to downtown, I texted my friend and I'm like, I asked
her, I said, how do you, how do you do this?
You got parades and festivals and bars and people driving like crazy and it's just so
much noise for me to get used to because my apartment faces downtown.
So it, it's a lot, it's an adjustment.
It is.
And when you live on Maine, you have to get used to those noises.
And of course, the parades, we're on lockdown when the parades come through.
But you know what?
It's kind of fun to have it right in front of your house.
Right.
I don't have to worry about a seat because I can just look outside of my window.
You want to snack?
You want to snack?
Go back.
Yeah.
Go back to my apartment.
Yeah.
And of course, we have friends and neighbors who can, can we use your property?
Can we set up a tent?
And we, it doesn't matter.
Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.
Well, thank you for coming in today.
I appreciate it.
This wasn't as bad as you thought was.
No, no, I'll be back.
Yeah, you'll be back.
I never had anybody, Molly Jones, she passed away recently, but the first time I had
her in here, she was so scared and nervous.
She was shaking.
Really?
And I said, this is going to be a conversation by the end of the conversation.
Oh, I wouldn't mind coming back.
Yeah.
My hands were shaking.
I love she thought this is going to be 60 minutes.
I don't know.
Or date line.
I mean, I like pressure, so you know, one thing that I will announce before I leave is
I have a town hall, August 12th at the brace center, and I want to say 630.
So for everyone who is a part of the first district or people who are just passionate
about community issues, please come on August 12th at 630 at the George brace center.
Okay.
That's one more time.
August 12th.
Mm-hmm.
What day of the week is that?
That is a Tuesday.
Time again.
630.
630 p.m. at the brace center.
At the brace center.
Yeah.
And we're on the center street.
I don't have the exact address.
Okay.
So it's on center.
Yeah.
But it's in, it's in, it's in, it's in our district right down the street from the police
department.
Is this your first one?
This is my first one.
Okay.
You never know what you're going to get.
I know.
And I'm ready for all of it.
And some of these congressmen are holding the problem in congressmen and they're getting
an earful.
In drill.
No.
And I don't think some of them are ready for it.
But that's what I signed up for.
Good for you.
So I signed up for you.
I think you had a good future ahead of you.
I appreciate it.
Like a good human being.
And I like that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Malik, phrase your first district all there.
And we will have you back again.
Yes, sir.
We got more stories to get out of you.
All right.
All right.