And welcome my guest fifth district, all their Jens Jorgensen is here. And we appreciate
you coming in. Thank you for having me. I tell everybody first. I know it's tough getting
up before seven o'clock and schlepping in here. I know that. But some morning show and no traffic
right in here. No problem. I had, well, you don't, I always have a car behind me coming in.
Generally on 16th street when I come in right on my tail. And he's just, he can't wait to pass me
because he's laid for work. I'm not laid for work. I come here plenty of time. I allow over 35
minutes extra, but he's laid for work. So he's going to stay on my bumper because he wants me to go
faster than 30 miles an hour. And it's tough on 16th street to pass because the cars parked.
So he is trying so desperately to get push me, you know, I'm not going to go any faster. What should I
go faster? I allowed it plenty of time. No, I lumbarity time here. 15 minutes early or on time.
If you're not 15 minutes early, you're late. Okay. Everybody's asking. So we're going to get this
elephant in the room out right at the beginning. Jens Jorgensen. Jens is short for what?
It's so it's it's an old Danish name actually. So it is Jens Jorgensen. It's similar, you know,
like a gym, those kinds of names. It's actually my great-grandpa's name, Jens Jorgensen.
He very Danish. However though, he went by Norman and my mom, you know, that's my good Jorgensen
family question. My mom, when she was dating my dad, or they had just been married or we're
right around that time, Jens passed away and they went to his funeral on his headstone. It's a
Jens Jorgensen and my mom goes, who is that? I thought this was Norman's funeral. She didn't
really know that his real name was Jens until she saw on the headstone that we went by Norman.
He's a creepy to see a tombstone with your name on it. You know, I guess I never thought of that.
Well, creep me out. And I'm sure there were plenty of Donald Rosen's who were dead. I just
don't want to see the headstone, right? Because it's like Ebenezer Scrooge at the end. The Christmas
future saying his headstone was Ebenezer Scrooge at it. I don't want to see that. Okay,
you've been in the city council for how long now? Since April, so six-ish months. Is it
everything you would hoped and wished for? You know, I enjoy getting to serve the
district, the residents, the district and help to work for the city. However, it is mind-boggling
the amount of arguing and tribal politics that are there with very little getting done sometimes.
I mean, there's some meetings where we spend the whole time arguing what committee we want to
send something to and we get to the end and my wife goes, oh, what did you guys get done tonight?
You know what? I don't know if I could really give you a full list of material things we got done.
I can tell you somebody scored a political football, but other than that, not a lot. However,
it does seem like we're making some traction. One of the big things that I wanted to do is
work together with everybody. And so I've made sure that my first thing that I got done,
and we can talk about that, a very excited about it, stop sign, but that no one's going to pay
attention to. Well, I never say that it is. I'm like, give me a full rundown on it. It seems
you're doing good, but that was accomplished with Henry Perez, him and I. He was a co-sponsor of it
with me. And so I don't care. You know, if you're a Republican Democrat, if you like the mayor,
don't like the mayor, politics aside, I think we all just want to get stuff done. That's what the
residents want. I think they're just tired of having the political footballs trying to do.
You think arguing is kind of healthy a little bit because it brings out the best of both sides.
So when you finally have the bill or whatever you're passing, it's well thought out. And
the good points from one side, the good points from another side make it in that bill. So
now arguing shutting down the government is not healthy. And I think that's where the line gets
drawn of. If we're if we're and I think arguing maybe too harsh of a word,
debating if we're debating it. And it's truly something for the city. There's a tangible item
we're really trying to figure it out all day. I'd love to have those discussions and those are
some of my favorite times in the council chambers. But when it's the political football,
if I want this to go to my committee, because that's the committee I'm on or I don't want it to
go there because I don't like the person that's on that committee. That does that's not helping
anybody. It just it feels like you know, petty politics at its worst, unfortunately.
Now you're the new kid on the block. Did they make you wear the little beanie like in college
when you're a freshman? They had to wear the beanie on your head who designated you're the
freshman. You had to sign kick me on the back. Well, you didn't have that stuff. None of that
but it did. There are a lot of times where I have to talk to those who have been there longer
because I've been told the budget season is is wild here. And so I'm looking at my calendar
next week. My wife and I, we always sit down the week before and plan when we know what we're
going to do for dinner, what we have the next week. And every night next week is pretty much
something going on with the city. And she's like, I might not see you. And I go, I come to a city hall,
watch a budget meeting and spend some time that way. And she's not going to be doing that, I guess.
You know, I always wondered when politicians in Wisconsin who are members of Congress, whether it be
the Senate or they house the representatives, when they go to Washington for a long period of time,
they were away from their family. And that's and they have their own apartments over there in
Washington, but they're away from their family. At least when you go to a meeting, you're home
that night, right? Hopefully unless it doesn't go until two o'clock in the morning, you're home.
That's got to be tough on people. Oh, yeah, I couldn't imagine it.
That is tough. Okay, let's talk about, um, go through your list here. Let's talk about that
stop sign override because I want to talk about the other stuff later on. Let's talk about that
stop sign you mentioned. Yeah. So, you know, I'll give you the backstory on this. So it's on
St. Claren Lombard in my district. And when I went when I was running for office, I knocked on
the majority of the doors in the district multiple times over. And a pretty common thing that came
up was people would go, you know, you know, you need to stop sign here. And nine times out of 10,
it was usually the corner right by their house, which makes sense. They see, they see all the
accidents. They see, you know, people, you know, running the other stop sign or almost near misses.
However, when I was in this area of the district, people would go, I need to stop sign and go
right in front of your house. No, three blocks that way on the corner of Lombard in St. Claren,
those yield signs have to be turned into stop signs. And that happened over and over and over
again. And I'd be three, four blocks away and be the same thing. There was a lady I talked with who
said, you know, when I was teaching my children how to drive, I told, I taught them to go around that
intersection. Don't go through it. You go up and around and then back down again. Do not drive
through that intersection. And that got me thinking, wow, you know, this is this is clearly something
that's been this way. There was a lady who had been older and she was, I've lived here for a long
time. It's been that way forever. The city's never going to change it. They don't care. And so
I really wanted to get this changed. And I put it in, I submitted it right away when I got on
there to do a traffic study and they come back and say, yeah, there's some accidents there,
but it's not enough accidents. And it's probably fine. You know, it's totally fine. Leave it alone.
Leave the yield signs. And I just wasn't, it didn't sit right with me. I feel like the city's job
in a lot of things is to really listen to the residents feedback. You know, we have experts on
the staff who are experts at their craft and are great at giving advice from their point of view,
but also the council is there to provide its point of view. And its point of view should be coming
from the residents. And so, you know, I didn't invite anybody to come out and take a look at that
intersection. Sit there for 30 minutes. I'm sure the neighbors would stop by and tell you all
about the accidents or the time that a car was thrown into their front lawn or this happened,
terrible, terrible accidents that happened there. And you'd see people blowing through the yield
sign. You know, there was a guy who came through it and he would tap his brakes in the in the middle
of the intersection, which I good thought, but that's not how the yield sign is supposed to work.
And so the neighborhood just said, we need to, we need something to have, we need something better.
And so, I would talk to any, any and all of my colleagues who would listen about how terrible
this intersection was and how we needed to override the staff recommendation to put in a stop sign.
And Henry Perez, who is on the Public Works Committee, heard my pleas of how important this was,
and he wanted to be a co-sponsor with me. So he signed on. And the first thing that I got through
was him and I together, pushing back that yes, the staff recommendation is against it,
but there's laws in place that allow the council to overrule that and override that recommendation
for a reason. This is, this is why we have a city council. And so it passed 14 to one almost unanimously.
And it was a very long discussion about stop signs. And should we do this? And ultimately,
the vast majority of the council decided, you know what, it's time that we do the right thing for
that neighborhood and the right thing for the neighbors. I think it's going to be called the
Gens Jorgensen stop sign. Well, you know, you have people get streets name there for them.
You've got a stop sign name there for you. That's pretty neat. Well, and you know, I can't take
all the credit. There's so many neighbors there that should have their names well above me.
Well, then we'll put ETI at all. Yes, exactly. We'll get all of it. Okay. Now, you wouldn't think
it'd be that difficult to get a stop sign poured up because they're all over the place. Just stop
it all the time. You wouldn't think it would be that difficult. No, especially this one,
because, you know, if we wanted to put a stop sign on Main Street, I get it. That's that's,
there's a lot of studies that go into it. It's a big deal. This is deep inside of a neighborhood.
You're really not going through here unless you're going to someone's house coming from someone's
house. There's not really a reason that you'd be using this as a major thoroughfare. And that's,
that's where I think the line kind of got drawn in my mind. What a stop sign. It's not going to hurt
anybody. Yeah, exactly. We make them here. So it's not like this. It's this crazy expense. It's,
it was up the very next morning or at the with the wee hours of the morning, the stop sign was
swapped out right away. And the neighbors already have said that they've they've seen a vast
improvement, a huge quality of life improvement in the in the neighborhood. And so a victory all
around can tell you right here, the one victory avenue right in front of our station. I think one
out every two people makes an attempt to stop. I see it in the morning. I go out there and pull
they blow right through it. And there's some people that tap their break once just to say,
well, I tried and I didn't make it. And it's not a four way stop either. Right. But they figure
it's early in the morning. No one's coming the other way. And that's not true. No, I really feel
like just in general, the traffic through the city, it's so dangerous. Cars, you know, the speeding
is is out of control. I'm very excited for Main Street to open. Main Street through my district
is now going from four. Yeah, you get that whole zoo area. Four lanes down to two now. So
two lanes. And that's another, I think, huge victory for the neighborhood where there's
folks who live on Main Street. I was talking to them the other day. And they're so excited because,
you know, previously those lanes were right alongside their front yard. And you step off the curb
and you're in mass traffic. And now there's the parking lane, a bike lane, and then the single
lane of traffic each direction. And so there are a couple of people were telling me they're excited
to have their front yard back. Their front of their houses back open again. They're not worried that
if they step off the curb, you know, they'll be they'll be pancake immediately. So they're very
thankful for that. Very excited. But I think there's so much more work to be done, especially on
that corridor. One of the things that's important to me is you ever go to any city and you see those
yellow crossing signs, pedestrian crossing signs, you press the button, they flash yellow.
We don't have any of those in the city, which is mind boggling to me. You'd think that we'd have more
of those. But we don't. And that's another one where it's been an uphill battle to get those
done, but hopefully we'll be able to get those put in as a part of the budget. That's that's my hope.
Because there's so many school children that are walking to the zoo. There's families going to
the zoo to the beach and you're just in the lake in general. We need to make it safe for people to
walk around, especially in a neighborhood as dense as the fifth district. My guess,
Jen's Jorgensen, he's fifth district alder in the city of Racine. We're talking about a variety
of topics here. Let's talk about those crosswalk signs. Is that what we just talked about?
Yeah, those crosswalk signs. They're just so important to make it safer in the neighborhood.
And it's going to take the entire council working together on that. I mean, if we want to try to
build a safer Racine to be able to walk around, the whole council is going to have to come together.
I am happy to say, though, that even in my tenure, my short tenure on the council so far,
I've seen that there has been some recent comings together. One of them that I'd be remiss if I
didn't give a quick plug for the swim Racine. Let's talk about that because we had a couple of deaths
recently. Yes, then on North Beach tragic. And so the council came together,
you know, to improve signage, put a safety vest there. A lot of folks are coming together on it.
They actually have an event listening session on October 28th, my birthday. It's at 530 to 730.
Hold on, send gifts to where now? No gifts. But yeah, 530 to 730 at the library. Stop on down.
Lakefront safety is so important all the time. People, when I travel around or I'm talking to friends
who really don't spend a lot of time on Lake Michigan, they don't think of it as crazy as it is.
And it's an ocean. I always like to say Racine is on the ocean. It is not what you'd think of,
you know, you go up North to your small lake. It has tied. It has ripped tides. There's strong
currents. And so there, that group is going together to make it safer to, to be on the lake.
Give the listening sessions of the library. Yes, 537. And that's tomorrow.
October 28th. I have a listening session tomorrow. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Mine,
so mine tomorrow is at six o'clock. It's at the Cesar Chavez community center. And really,
it's just an opportunity to come together, much like theirs is, come together.
And I'll give an update on what I've been working on on the council. But most importantly,
I want to hear what residents have to stay. We're going into the budget. I want to hear what folks,
what priorities they have. It's going to be a tough budget this year. And so get in that feedback
of, you know, what's important, what they're looking for. And just hearing their concerns and their
ideas, most of the things, most of my best ideas come from constituents, the stop sign there.
I would have never thought that that intersection needed that stop sign, but it was so important
to the neighborhood. I knew right away that it was, yeah, I'm going to give you my complaint.
Oh, okay. And every older that comes in here and the mayor, I give the same thing on main street,
especially the manhole covers. They're like three inches below the street level. And when you
hit them, you think you broke an axle. My next door neighbor said next time you get somebody in
there, tell them about these manhole covers, especially by before you get to the zoo on main street,
just south there. There's a manhole cover now. My wife and I are going to go out there with a tape
measure when traffic is not existing out there. You're going to take a picture of it. And we're
going to post it. We're going to say, look, this is three inches below the street level. Why is
nobody fixing that? And it's not that you can go over it because if you go over it, you're in
the right lane or you're over the line, depending, you know how. Yeah, exactly. No, I've, I'll hit
those papples. But what are we doing about it? I know. Public works. I mean, it's one of those
things where they're so busy. They have so much stuff on their plate. But I just feel like we've
got to prioritize things like that because we, it's main street is an important thoroughfare.
And yeah, I hit them every time going home. Or if you, like you said, if you avoid them,
you're swerving around and you hope that, you know, the police officer doesn't think you
have to get the police officer. I know what the guy next to me slamming into me or me slamming
into me. Oh, I know. Yeah, they've absolutely. It's, no, it's, it's unacceptable. And how come
we have all these orange barrels all over the city? There's detours. I never see anybody working.
Every time I pass an intersection or somewhere where these, the orange barrels are,
there's nobody working here. Where are they? It is very frustrating. I know that a lot
of it, though, has to do with, you know, one of the things that we've done. Actually, I,
in my time on the water and sewer department on those committees, is we have a mandate to remove
all of our, our lead service lines. And so when you do that, there's a lot of, you have to open
up the street. There's a lot of different folks you have to get it because the, the people have
to come remove the lead service lines. Then you have the street open. So then you have to review
the water, me, but then you have to street open. Anyways, now you're looking at the sewer. And so
there's sometimes a lot of folks who have to play a part in doing a lot of coordination. But I
agree. When I, every time I go past some of the orange barrels and there's nobody out there,
nobody there. Or you feel like progress hasn't been made. It, you know, nothing's been paved for
weeks now. It seems. But hopefully we're coming to the end of, and also the speeding on Mainstreet.
Now I live on Mainstreet. And I could hear how fast they're going. Plus they put these loud
things on their mufflers now. And I hate to sound like an old concert. Oh, those kids today,
I hate to sound like that kind of person, but I'm that kind of person. They are just speeding
down Mainstreet. And a little kid walks out in the street. They're gone. They can't stop. There's
no way to do it. I don't know why there aren't more police at intersections on Mainstreet. Just
catching some of these people. Even if you put a fake police car there, just park it. Yeah,
police as well as they call it traffic calming infrastructure. And so, you know,
road diets is another name for it. You'll see it on Mainstreet through the fifth district. Hold
it right there. I got to hold you over for you to have to the news because I wanted to answer
on that one. That's good. We're talking to fifth district Alder Jensen. And the fifth district
is where not just some people know. Fifth district is north of the zoo. It's kind of by the zoo,
the lake. So it's east of Douglas for the most part north of of Gould. Kind of tucked in
there nestled in there right along the lake. Follow the orange barrels. Yeah, follow. When you get
to the part of Mainstreet that you can't go on anymore, that's the fifth district. Okay.
Jensen said it's with me. Fifth district Alder is here for a few more minutes. We just want to
clean up the calendar of everything we were talking about. When I go over the listening session
because I want to make sure people aren't confused, your listening session is tomorrow.
This is yours tomorrow. Yep, that's mine. You can talk to me. And we have one at the library
coming up on October 20th and that's to deal with. That's with swim recene. They're doing a
listening session. You'll be there. I will make every effort to be there. There is a budget
season during that. I mean, you won't be there. Okay. But that's a folks like Cory Sebastian
is helping lead up a swim recene. So if I'm not there, you're still being good hands with her.
But yes, swim recene is October 28th. That's at 530 to 730 at the library. But if you want to talk
to me specifically for fifth district issues, that's going to be tomorrow at the Cesar Chavez
Community Center at six o'clock. And now where is that center? Some people know. That's up on
Douglas. The address alludes me. But that's up on Douglas. It is not technically in the fifth
district, but it's very close within a few blocks. See, when I say I'll try to be there.
That's key. That's code for. I'm not coming. I don't know how it works with you. But people say,
oh, can you come? I'll try. He's not coming. That's it. No, I will. Every bus that
effort, but yeah, the budget season is time. I know. So how's the coming of the budget season?
Now, I'm going to ask you because I know we get government funding, federal government funding.
And the government is shut down. We know that here because we're trying to get some things done
and the government shut down here, but we have to deal with the FCC. There's no way to deal with them.
What are you going to do if this kid keeps going on because we need government funding? And
you know, getting it right. Well, budgets are always tough. Every year it's a very difficult
time to do the budget. However, that adds quite a new complexity to it because there's funding
questions. But also too, like you said with the FCC, if you have to reach out to anybody,
blights are off. Nobody's home in a lot of those play. A lot of those departments right now.
And so that makes it really difficult. If there's last minute questions, if there's things
that have to be done, there's impacts up and down all over the place. It really is making
it extremely difficult. Here's what people don't understand. How come members of Congress
in Washington are getting paid? I thought this I thought nobody's getting paid. How come they're
collecting a paycheck? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense if the if my Johnson or the head of the
Senate, the Democrats or the you know, the minority heads, if they weren't getting paid, you'd be
sure. This was all the president shouldn't be getting paid. Nobody should be getting paid,
right? The vice president. Nobody should be getting paid. You'd be see how fast we get this
thing solved. Well, absolutely. We're asking TSA agents and air traffic controllers to come to work
without pay. I think it's it's crazy to me that three weeks. Yes, absolutely. This is not a
short amount of time. It's it's impactful. Their families, imagine if with your budget at home,
if you still had to go to work for three weeks, but not get paid for it, how you'd pay your mortgage,
how you'd buy groceries and anybody out, you can sleep, sleep soundly knowing that your member
of Congress is still being paid. I don't get that. And members of the military, I think now they're
going to get paid, but they weren't getting paid either. But our heads of the house, the house
representatives and the Senate, they all got their paychecks. And there's something unfair about
that. There is absolutely. They can they can vote themselves a pay raise. I mean, I'd like to go
to my boss here and say, by the way, I'm getting a pay raise this week, want to put that through
payroll. Who else can do something like that? Right. No, this is another one of those issues too
that I truly believe transcend politics of Republican Democrats, anyone on the street. I feel
that we'd all joined together on that. We don't talk politics here, but now that I got you in
here, I got dog politics for a second. Thank you, Jen's Jorgensen, our fifth district. All
do don't forget he's got a listening session. And that is happening tomorrow, 6 p.m. at the
Cesar Chavez Center. And that's on, you said, Douglas Avenue, you'll find it. 6 p.m.
And people can bombard you with questions about anything, right? Yep. Anything as on the table,
ready to talk, ready to listen. You're a nice guy. Thank you for coming in. Thanks for having me.
And putting up with my questions about anytime down the budget. Thank you. And your dampers and
radio, you said, right? Yeah, my dad. That was what he went to, went to college for. He was on
the radio. He was in New London. He was in Fort Ackinson on the radio. And he was a morning guy.
Did a country all across the spectrum? Well, and what years were there? What years did he work
in radio? Well, he, I can tell you when he left. And that would have been I was born in 1996.
He left in 1996. He had to go get a job to pay the bills, I guess. That's when he went to work.
WCLO in Jane's Hill. Not in Jane's Hill. He was doing it in Fort Ackinson.
Okay. SJY. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I worked for that company. If WRJM was owned by the same
company that owned CLO. Oh, sure. For a year or 15 years. And so we would have been working together.
But we're not. Well, thank you, Jens. I do appreciate fifth district all their Jens,
Jorgensen. Thanks for coming in this morning.
