That's a good morning to his honor, the received mayor, Corey Mason. Thank you for being here,
buddy. My pleasure. My mayor. All right. Now, let's get right down to business here. No, I'm
let's first talk about our sister city, our brand new sister city. Yeah, yeah. So we have
a few sister cities, but our newest one, the council just passed a resolution at the last council
meeting to make Bradford, Ontario, or next sister city. This came about a part of the Great Lakes
St. Lawrence City's initiatives. I'm going to write the conference. You know, this earlier this year
and it just talking to a number of mayors, you know, strangely, just given the national politics
right now, Canada, which is usually our friendliest and you know, longest neighbor has some tensions
right now just going on in the news. And so the decision was made at this conference that, hey,
maybe we should, you know, create some sister city relationships between Canadian Great Lakes
cities and American Great Lakes cities. And so I happened to bump into the mayor of Bradford,
Ontario, literally on an elevator. And I think by the time we got to the floor that we're doing on,
we decided, well, let's let's become sister cities. We the thing that we haven't come the most.
Obviously, it's the SCJ footprint. Obviously, SCJ is based here, but their Canadian headquarters
is in Bradford, Ontario, but they're also, you know, sitting near the Great Lakes. And
oh, the way for people who don't camp with that together, I see Johnson.
Yes, I'm like Johnson. Sorry, yes, yes, yes, for those who don't. But that's where they've been
for years. And, and you know, they're a town of about a hundred thousand people and have sort of
similar demographics. And, you know, they, you know, they're about 70 miles from Toronto. And,
you know, we're about 70 miles from Chicago. So a lot in common and a common love for the Great Lakes.
So our, our council has passed the resolution and we anticipate that, that their council will do
so in turn and then we'll have our, our next sister city. So that summit was done on an elevator.
It was the elevator summit. It was, and people say you got to have an elevator speech to get
something. That was the elevator speech about why Bradford and Racine, a lot of people don't talk
on an elevator. They're quiet. They face forward and keep your mouth shut. They're not
you good for you. Okay, what is the benefit of being a sister city? Yeah, it's a great question.
So we have another sister city that's actually visiting now. This is Oiso, Japan. So there's
some high school students from Oiso that are visiting right now for, for a couple weeks.
The purpose behind it was started after World War II. And it was really with the idea of
Japan and Germany had gone to war three times in the course of about 80 or 90 years. And the
sister city program was put together. The idea being maybe a people in sisters in cities of
neighboring countries got to know each other personally and visited each other and had exchanges
with each other. There would be less of a chance of future wars. And so that's the premise behind
it. And so not surprisingly, there's more sister cities between France and Germany than any other
two countries. But the city of Racine has a sister city in Allberg, Denmark. We have a sister city
in all. I didn't know if they didn't mark one. Yeah. Muttelmar France is our longest one that was
set up in 1947 shortly after World War II. We have one in Mexico and one in Oiso, Japan, and now
ran for Ontario. So we're excited to do the exchanges with them and just given the mood with
tariffs and some of the other national discussions going on right now. It's been
helpful at a sister city level to still reach out to her friends and other cities and saying,
hey, somebody else might be talking about invading Greenland, but it's not, I said, here at the local
level, reaching out to the folks in Denmark and making it clear that we want to have good lines
of communication and diplomacy at a city to city level. And it's a great culture exchange, right?
It's been great for our young people to be able to go to some of these sister cities and for their
young people to visit us and visit the region. So it's been, it's been very positive.
I still like dull and boring sister cities. I think that was fantastic. It came up with that.
All right, let's talk about clean sweep. Yeah. So this is the first one that we did. I learned
about it at another conference. I was at with a group of mayors that were meeting
with the Bloomberg cities initiatives. But the idea was, hey, you pick like four blocks in the
neighborhood that could use a little bit of love in the public domain and help clean it up a little
bit. So this is everything from replacing sidewalk squares to trimming overgrown bushes to
replacing the garbage bins if they need to be replaced to patching up potholes. So we get everybody
from DPW and the parks department and and the fire departments there. The fire department went
knocked on every door and installed smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors in the homes.
And it was just us being there for two full days cleaning up the neighborhood, replacing fences
and mending fences literally in some of these yards. And you know, in a couple yards, you know,
they get these bushes that are, you know, way overgrown. You can't even see the house anymore.
Sometimes it's an elderly person who might live there. And so we're able to trim those back and,
you know, the fire department pointed out it's really important from a fire safety perspective.
If the tree or bushes have gotten so overgrown, they can't even see the windows on the second floor.
Or the house number. Yeah. Yeah. So all those things become so it was a big success. We had about 80
city employees that spent the two days down there doing various cleanup. The neighbors were thrilled
and and it's a project. We will do one more of them this year. It's a pilot project, but it's
we'll do another one in October. And I think it's been successful enough that we will
make it something that we do every year. Well, that's great. Yeah. Okay. Now you mentioned
something about the health center. Yes. So it's stuck about there. Yeah. So the couple,
we want to take a drink of water. Yes, please. Every time you reach this floor, you've got to put
the cap back on. Yeah. So a couple really exciting things going on with the Community Center Health
Clinic. Number one, the new one that's being built, it'll be done, you know, late next year.
But it's going vertical, right? So they spent all this time digging a big hole and putting the
basement in. But you know, you look at it and it's like, no, it's a hole in the ground, right? But
but now it's actually going vertical and you can see the the skeleton of the building is going up
and so that's really exciting. But as exciting, you know, the idea is that this is going to be a
federally qualified health clinic. But to do that, you need an FQHC provider to do that. What is that?
The federally qualified health clinic is what will go into the the health clinic. But it is a
federally subsidized clinic for people who have no or under or under insured or have no insurance
and they can go in, you know, for 20 or $30 and see a physician or a dentist or get mental health
care. And so most communities have these. We're the biggest city in the Midwest that doesn't have one
until now. So pillar health, which runs an FQHC in Kenosha in Walworth County. And now
Racine County has opened up in Julian Thomas school at the garden level. That's always been the
plan. This was going to be sort of the temporary space that they would do to sort of establish
themselves in the neighborhood while we're building the larger clinic. And so they opened just
last week and are open from seven to four Monday through Friday. And so if people need to see a
physician or a nurse practitioner, they have people available to do that. I didn't want to sound
old, but I'm going to say I'm old here. And I was a little kid. Dr. Theerman was my doctor
and my mother took me to the doctor for something. I don't know what it was, but we walk in and there
were mothers screaming at the receptionist. When we walk in, what is going on? They raised the
price from four dollars of visit to six. And the mothers were, I rate, but it was up two
dollars with a count that are four. Could you imagine paying four, even six dollars for a
visit? Yeah. I mean, I think that nobody used insurance. You just opened your wallet. You gave
her six dollars, right? Right. I mean, I think that's the challenge. Healthcare has just gotten so
expensive for people. And especially as these cuts are coming down from the federal government,
all the more reason we need a facility like this for people who might be uninsured or underinsured
to be able to go there. Now, here's something I have a problem explaining to people because I'm,
I think I understand it. The difference between Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare is you put into
Medicare when you reach a certain age. Yeah. When you're 65 or yeah, you can get medical care
through Medicare or one of the, what do they call those? Like the Medicare providers, they,
the Medicare advantage plan, yeah, which are pretty good. Medicaid is a state-run plan for people
based on income, not age, right? Right. It's, yes, it's a federally mandated program that,
that are run by the states and it's for people who are in poverty, right? Now, just to confuse it
even further though, however, if you're elderly and in poverty, you might also be using Medicaid,
not Medicare, particularly. No, why would it be that big? I mean, that's just the rules as the
the federal government has set it up. But if you're going into a nursing home and the federal
government's going to pay for that, that is going to come from Medicaid, not from Medicare.
So Medicare is more to see your, your doctor, I don't know, on an ongoing basis where if you have
surgery or something like that, but if it's a long-term home health care condition that you're in
or you need to be in a nursing home, it's Medicaid that would cover that if you income qualified.
What's asked my mother was real smart person? I said, what did they do before insurance in
Medicare? What they do, if they died. Yeah. I mean, life expectancy was much shorter. You didn't
go to the doctor, you died. Right. That was it. You didn't have the money. Whoa. Yeah. You
don't forget just how acute it was when we didn't have Medicare and Medicaid to fill in those gaps.
What's asked are two in the, in cities like New York, you always see these old pictures around the
turn of the century, 1900. People wearing these long woolen dresses, long woolen coats, the
guys wearing these heavy jackets in the middle of summer, when it's like 90 degrees outside.
You see the pictures are all dressed up. I said, there was no air conditioning. What did they do?
And she goes, when they got too hot, they died. And she's right. Or they could take the coat off
of its 90 degrees. Well, even then, if you go into your apartment. Yeah. And it's in cities like
New York, I mean, you go to your apartment. What do you do? Yeah. I mean, it's too hot. Yeah,
aggressively. You died from the heat. Yeah. That's scary. Thank you. Goodness. We live where we live now.
We do. We do. And if you're in a place where you don't have that, when it is hot, let's talk about
there are cooling places. We do have community centers that serve as cooling places. So if you're,
you know, encountering that, if you're air conditioning's broken or if you've got a neighbor
who's elderly, you might not have air conditioning, you can take them over the community center,
you know, cool off for a little bit and just enjoy some, some cooler air. And, you know,
we don't want people to get so warm that they have a medical event. So we do have cooling centers.
That was a kid. I hate to sound old again. But on a real, before we had air conditioning in our
house, my dad used to say it's hot. Like we're going to a movie. Let's go because the movie theaters
were air conditioned. They even have that sign up from with icicles hanging from it.
Air conditioned. Yeah. And he was a hot day. We're going to the movies. Let's go. Yeah.
Yeah. We didn't care what movie it was. Yeah. It's there for able body. I mean, I just
remind everybody late Michigan is always a relief from from the heat. Yeah. North Beach. It's
free show up. No tsunami. Nothing like that. That's right. That's right. No tsunamis here.
It's on our mayor. Corey Mason is here at City of Racine mayor. Have any, uh,
want to be governor? No. No, thank you. I asked everybody that nobody wants to be governor.
Yeah. I think there are several people who are going to run for governor. I will not be one
of the people running. Hey, it's open. It is. It is. I appreciate people asking. But you have
free room and board. It's true. It's true. You get the governor's residence. I was, I was
amazed the other day where you're talking that the president of the United States gets a place
to sleep at night free. Right. Everything else you have to pay for food. Really? Toiletries?
Yeah, you got to pay for everything. Well, if you have guests coming over, you got to pay for
the state dinners out of your pocket. If you've got, um, well, anything going on there,
you got guests sleeping, you got to pay for that stuff. Wow. He only gets the room. And that's
it. Everything else is on his tab. I never knew that before. I never knew that either. Yeah.
Well, that's true. You heard of the year first. Okay. Uh, let's talk about the YMCA. Yeah.
Is it all gone? It is. It is. Yeah, it is. And you were the first one to put a knock hole in
that. That's right. The extra. A back coat out to swing the knockup brick out of this. Yeah,
yeah. So, so now the next step is you got to clean up the site. You got to clean up the site
and stabilize the bluff. That's what's next. But it certainly makes it an exciting redevelopment
opportunity. So we're. Oh, and it clues to what's going to be there. I mean, I'm guessing it'll
be another mixed use sort of space. Right. I may imagine it's a great view. It's right. I mean,
so there's always hope that you'd be able to put some sort of apartment building or condo.
So how many more part? We got the breakwater. Yeah. Yeah. They've been refurbishing the main street,
main and state building. Yeah. They've been working on that for about months and months and months.
We have those two. You have Bell City Square. It's doing well. The old Horlick site on
Northwestern. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're doing great. And so yeah, more apartments. We do. We do.
You know, we just, well, here's a breaking news for you. We just did a market study that we
talking about soon. But it basically said, you know, the city of Racine could build another 1500
housing units in the next five years and not break a sweat. So really? Yeah. So there's definitely
a need for housing in the city and in the greater Racine area. It is a challenge that that we're
contending with is just trying to figure out how to do more housing. It's difficult because
money's gotten more expensive and the prices of building new houses has gotten more expensive,
but there's definitely a need for housing. And the reality is if you don't build new housing,
other communities will and that's where people will live if we're not. This is the housing.
I don't know how much the breakwater charges, but I don't think it's cheap housing. I mean,
it's market rate housing. Right. It's not income-adjusted housing. How about that big high rise
right there on the lake front that's been there for years? I rise. Yeah. I can't think of it.
Oh, it's right by right opposite to the north of Festival Hall, Festival Park. Oh, the condos
that are there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's still condos. They're still doing
well. I hope we're Winfrey's relatives. Yeah. Remember years ago. The Oprah story. Yes.
Supposedly she had a condo or a relative with a condo there. I don't think that's still the case.
But yo, those are still full and sold out. I mean, the condo market is it does. The condo market
nobody wants to build condos. There's certainly people that want to buy condos, but finding people to
build them is very difficult. I mentioned this to you before we went on the air. The city of Atlanta
ran into a problem the other day. Waymo has these driverless cars now. And I've seen them in
different cities. Yeah. It picked you up. You get in the passenger or the back seat and the car
drives and no driver. Yeah. So one had to be stopped. And the policeman didn't know who to
write the citation to. Yeah. You can't write it to the passenger here. It wasn't driving.
Right. You can't write it to the person who owns the car. They weren't driving.
And they don't know who to write the citations to. And this is a problem that never existed
before until recently. Right. It's a great legal question. What happens if
if the driverless car runs a stoplight? Right. What happens if the driverless car hits somebody?
Yeah. Yeah. Who do you? Who do you hold responsible? We're not quite there and we're seeing
you be able to do that. We have one autonomous vehicle called the Badger that we work with.
Really? Yeah. That we work with UW-Madison engineering department in Gateway. It's sort of a joint
project. You might see it down the parade route when we do the fourth of July parade.
In Wisconsin, though, even if you have a driverless car, the rule is somebody still got to be
sitting in the driver's seat just in case. So we're not to a point yet where we'll have to confront
that. But more and more communities are seeing driverless cars and autonomous vehicles come into play.
I can't imagine my reaction pulling up to a stoplight and looking over at no one's there.
Yeah. That's got to be scary. Yeah. It'll be different. I mean,
who knows if this is five years away or if 20 years away, but you know, it is coming.
Okay. We're seeing pretty big city with third biggest in Wisconsin. Fifth. Fifth. Fifth biggest.
Yeah. Well, when did we drop down? And we're behind Kenosha and Green Bay now. Oh, really?
Yeah. When did that happen? A while ago. But I mean, Kenosha keeps growing geographically and
can add people and we are landlocked. So the region continues to see population growth. But
the city itself is, is landlocked. So we're fifth and size. My top 10 on charts. That's right.
Okay. So what are we doing right? Everybody, you know, you take, you live in a city, you take it
for granted, everything's working right? There was cities where it's not working right? What are
we doing right? There's lots of great things to comment on what we're doing. I think right now,
we're in the middle of this youth employment program that we do every summer that we've been
doing it for the last four years. But we take, you know, 60 young kids aged 16 to 24 and we give
them internships in city departments, all the city departments. We've got a cadet program with
the police department and the fire department that they can do for for eight weeks. And then
but we place people with water utility or the DPW if they might want to be an engineer or what
have you. And it's a great experience. It provides additional resources for the city to get some
work done. But it also does this great thing where, you know, when jobs open up in those
departments and we're thinking, well, well, who could we get who might want to work for the
wastewater utility, for example? And it gives the utility opportunity to say, you know, we had an
intern last summer and we really liked him or her. And so it allows us to create an employment,
like sort of apprenticeship program for the kids. And then it also lets them do some positive
things. So they're all the more there to help out with the clean sweep program. They learn about
financial literacy while they're doing the program. But it exposes young people in this
community to careers that they might want to have whether it's in public safety or DPW or forest
rear or you name it. And, you know, we're working really hard to try to get more of our
employees to be city residents. It's a great opportunity for young kids and they're doing great.
We get great feedback from all the department heads. Simple way, just which we could keep them
longer. So it's a great program.
