The sun's rising.
The coffee's spurkin' and 24-feet more than it without stunt pros.
WRGN.
His honor, the city we're seeing Mayor Corey Mays hit us with us.
Thanks for joining us, Mayor.
Do appreciate it.
Look at you, Bruyne Electronics with you and everything today.
I'm happy to be here.
Usually it's just a cell phone to where you brought the whole
English pochanon here.
Well, the screen's a little bigger.
So is my eyes aren't with these two.
A little bit easier.
The arm went.
The window went in your house and now I know.
That's the hat trick.
OK, look, before we start with the list of things we have to talk about here.
Let's talk about the budget real quickly.
We had Melissa Capprillian in talking about the county budget.
Yeah.
Now let's talk about the city budget.
It's all done.
It's in the books.
It is.
It is.
So it was passed formally on signed along the 18th of this week.
So it moves forward.
Your tax bills will go out.
Shortly, I guess the one thing I was like to remind people when they get the tax bill.
And you open it up.
Most people do is they look at the number and like, well, how does this compare to last
year?
Well, I was like to remind people, while you will come to city hall to pay your property
taxes, when you come to city hall, you are not just paying city taxes.
You are paying the school district taxes.
You're paying the county taxes and you're paying the technical college gateway taxes.
Those all appear on the same bill.
So there are years where our tax rate will actually go down.
But if the other jurisdictions taxes go up, people might see a bigger bill and sometimes
they'll say, hey, what's going on with the city?
The mayor said it's going down.
Why did it go up?
So the tax rates are going down.
The other thing that the voters may notice, though, is you may see an increase in your
bill this year.
There were one, not one, but two referendum that passed this year.
So voters did vote to spend more property taxes for schools and the fire department this
year, which means because the voters agreed to assess themselves more dollars, you may see
an increase in your tax bill around those two items.
Now, the Regency Mall wasn't in, it's not receiving it, it is, what is the machine?
It is.
It is.
New name.
Yeah.
Richard Park Mall.
Yeah.
And you know, Richard Park apartments behind there too.
Oh, they're doing everything.
Yeah.
Richard Park.
Yeah.
It's going great and get good reviews on people talking about selection and price.
That's good to hear.
But you have behind that where the old markets theater used to be is where those apartments
are going in.
So they've got the first stairwell of the first building when I drove by earlier this week
that that's up.
So it's, you can see it from the road.
I should go back there.
If you drive by and Roosevelt there, you'll, you'll see it.
Oh, that's kind of neat.
You know, when they knocked down the theater, they kept their projectors seats and everything
in there.
Really?
They didn't need them anymore.
They don't use projectors anymore.
I suppose.
It's all digital.
Yeah.
Well, we don't need them.
Yeah.
Just knock it down and take it away.
What do we do with the projectors?
I suppose.
I suppose.
Isn't that weird that they would just knock it down with all the equipment in there?
It is.
It is.
They don't need those crummy seats because now they got loungers.
Yeah.
You know, in Memorial Hall, there is a projection booth way in the back on the second floor.
And they have them too at that golden rundown.
Yeah.
Occasion at the theaters there.
But if you, if you see that space in Memorial Hall, there is a projector there from 1930
something that's still.
We're still working.
I don't know if it works, but it's still sitting in there.
I mean, the thing looks like it weighs a ton and I think it's sort of like, how would
you even get it out of there and nobody uses the projection booth anymore?
Well, I have to get my eight millimeter movies all put on digital because in that
in the 60s, we had projectors to show them on a screen and out of a projector anymore.
And so I'm going to get them on there and who knows what's, I know some of the stuff
that's on there.
Yeah.
You know, you're raising an interesting issue.
I think for next year for one of the things we want to do for America's 250th is a time
capsule, right?
But we were sort of imagining, you know, somebody had planted a time capsule 50 years ago and
we opened it like what might be in there?
And you know, probably a VHS tape, right?
And so it's just like, where would you find a VCR recorder today to play it?
In my living room.
In my living room where I still watch them.
Thank you very much.
Right.
But we're trying to figure out if we're going to leave something for 50 years from now.
What's the medium that you put it on, you know, they could put a CD in there.
You could.
But you'd have to know that there's a thing that people would be able to put that medium
into 50 years from now and use it.
So it's an interesting, it's an interesting challenge to have.
But yeah, we're looking forward to one of the things to do to celebrate America next
year's little time capsule.
What a tax bill of America.
People have done that.
Well, also they would sort of funny.
We had one of our departments found a series of clippings that people had kept about the
city of Racine from the journal times from the 1930s.
So it was just this like scrapbook that somebody had made and so you're just going through
what the issues are.
And one of them, just we were talking about the tax bills, I had a line from 1935 that
read, taxpayers confused about their tax bill, which you know, you read through it and
it's like, well, because they're paying for multiple jurisdictions and they're not exactly
sure what it means.
I thought, wow, this is sort of a chronic problem that's there is explaining people's
tax bill to them.
Well, one of the things that we hope to do is just hopefully explain it a little bit
better to people.
But people should just be mindful of a couple of things.
When you see your tax bill, you're not just paying for the city, you're paying for the
city and the school and the county and the technical college and to refer into past.
And so when voters vote to assess themselves more dollars, you will, you will see that reflected
on the bill.
Get a new website, huh?
We do live soon.
So yeah, we're looking forward to it.
What's different?
So our website candidly was more than 20 years old in terms of its layout and its functionality
and everything that we were able to do.
I think what we've tried to do with it and we'll need, you know, and are looking for input
from constituents when they look at it because, you know, it's not set in stone.
We can modify it.
But it's, it's really our website was being used for a number of different users and
what we've really tried to do with the redesign is put our constituents first.
So if you're somebody who lives here and you need to find something, is it easiest for
you to find it?
Right?
As opposed to, well, staff is looking for it and so staff puts it here and then we put
it over here and this is where we store files and this is where we do other things.
We've really tried to put the constituent experience first so that when they try to find something,
it's as intuitive as possible and it'll have, you know, some AI features ability.
So you can sort of ask questions that are a little bit more intuitive.
So if you need to, you know, you might think, okay, I need to know when the garbage pick-up
schedule is, how do I find that?
It might be under the current website.
You might have to click a couple times and unpack a DPW and then Solid Waste and then
you hopefully find the link.
Now you can just, you know, type in on that front page.
What day is my garbage day?
And you know, the older people get the more they are interested in garbage.
The older, because I remember when I was young, I didn't care when I put the garbage
pile out, that's when I was like, what's the day?
I have to know the day they're coming in and look out the weather.
Did they come yet?
Yeah.
They become more involved with garbage pick-up.
The older you get with, we do have people who will call, or it's, it usually comes
by 8 a.m.
It's 8.05.
They're not here yet.
What's going on?
They will be there.
Just give it, just give it a minute.
That's one of the biblical signs of Armageddon.
They're five minutes late.
We do get that.
But we do, I guess I will do a plug for this because, you know, and it'll come up
on Thanksgiving, you know, whatever your garbage, if your garbage day is on Wednesday, you
know, we're going to not collect garbage on Thursday and Friday because they're holidays,
which means your garbage day will move two days after that.
So, yes.
Don't bother to do that.
But we do have, we do have an app that you can sign up for.
I get it.
Yeah.
It's really great.
You get a text the night before.
I got a text on my phone.
Tomorrow's garbage day or tomorrow's garbage and recycling.
And you can set the time you want to get it.
Yeah.
It's a nice reminder.
Yes.
That is a good feature.
My neighbor hooked me up with that one.
And we have quite a few people here.
So it's good.
It's good.
But we're, you know, we're doing everything we can to try to make it as user friendly for
our constituents to know what their, their services are going to be.
There are three things you cannot discuss in mixed company politics, religion, and the
amount of Christmas music to play on the radio.
It will start a fight every time.
And this Thanksgiving, don't even bring those three topics up at the table.
Better to shut your mouth, be quiet.
And everything will go fine on Thanksgiving fair enough.
There you go.
No, you really can't because people, oh, I like to hear it all year.
I like to hear it just about starting September.
I don't want to hear until Christmas Eve.
Yeah.
You're not going to please everybody.
Yeah.
So why start a fight?
That's right.
That's what I say.
Okay.
Um, let's talk about Thanksgiving closures.
Yeah.
We talked about the refute schedules.
Yeah.
They changed during the holidays.
Um, well, Thanksgiving obviously services close down for the day.
That's right.
City Hall and city services are closing fire.
So fire still going.
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
Emergency services.
Radio stations still going.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
But our emergency services obviously go 365 a day.
Days of the year 24 seven because it's an important service that we need to provide.
God forbid, people need it.
But yes.
But so for, for garbage pickup, um, Thursday and Friday, we're not doing garbage pick up.
So if your normal day is Thursday, that means that you'll, you'll get pickup, um,
on that Monday.
That little card you gave me with my tax bill.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I keep that handy.
Yeah.
Um, I will be here Thanksgiving morning live with David Mack with district all there.
He comes in everything.
Skipping.
We sit here for the morning.
We give it.
And, uh, play some music.
That's great.
Yes.
He'll be in here Thanksgiving morning.
You let him pick music when he's on.
I tell him he can pick it, but I really have it on schedule.
I say, uh, hey, David, how about this song?
Return to send their Elvis.
I know he likes Elvis.
He said, yeah, play that.
All right.
Yeah.
I do live and pick some music.
Nice.
Okay.
Winter parking regulations.
And we're going to, we have a caller just a few minutes ago.
We'll talk about that in the moment.
Winter parking regulations.
Yeah.
We got an early snow storm this year.
Right?
So then people were sort of a weird week, right?
It was 70, like, and then that's the week later.
We got, you know, seven inches of snow, suddenly.
Um, but yeah, it is that time of the year for people to start thinking about alternate side
parking.
And so people might say, well, I'll start inside parking.
Is it really that important?
Why do I have to do it?
The reason it's really important.
And we just want to emphasize as people is because when it does snow, that's how we
get half the snow off the road.
We need everybody to be on that same side of the street so that we can get people dug
out.
Um, you'll notice sometimes, and it just slows the snow removal operation up tremendously.
You'll see people who left their car there, and so the snowplow has to go around them
and dig them in.
And then they sort of get buried in there and they have to get extracting from it.
Um, it, it's really important if we're going to be able to do snow removal effectively
and safely.
I'd be able to do it.
It's especially important on those main arterios, those busier streets.
We really need people to get their cars off the road, um, so we can get the snowplows
through and the emergency vehicles where they need to go.
We had some trucks.
I, I told you this will win on the year today.
Some workers parked their trucks when the snowplows came by, snowplows plowed around
it, and I had that snow there until we have the 60 degree day and nobody can park in
front of the house now because there was too much snow there because they didn't move
their trucks.
So it's really important.
I know it, there's no snow that day or sort of thinking, why does this matter?
But you can't always predict when the next snow storm is going to come.
So people should participate and, you know, you, you can get ticketed if you don't comply
with the alternate side parking.
So for your, for your own benefit and for the benefit of the community when it's known,
please, please do the alternate side parking.
Now, we had a caller during the break.
Yeah.
And he asked, what about retirees?
I guess who used to snowplow, they're sitting home watching date line reruns.
Why can't we use them to help plow?
I don't know about the date line reruns, but I will say it's a good question that I,
I mean, honestly, it's an intriguing idea that will have to, I mean, I would need to talk
to the commissioner of public works and human resources and should have asked what to do.
So here's the hard part you never know about a snowstorm.
And when it snows, like we take everybody at DPW and everybody from parks who has a CDL
and we get them in vehicles and we're doing as much removal as we can, as fast as we can.
But there's only so many humans and so many equipment pieces to do it.
And there's only so long you can ask your employees to go without a break, right?
So it might be that if there was a major event, it's not a bad idea.
It's something that we should at least look into and see if we can have people in reserves.
And if you get a, you know, a 12 inch snowstorm that lasts for three days, you probably need
all hands and deck.
So it's not a bad idea to look into.
When he first called, we didn't quite hear him over the phone and it sounded like, what
is the mayor going to retire?
That's what I heard him say when is the mayor going to retire so he can drive a snow
plow?
I was like, well, that's, I don't know how those are my post retirement plans.
An interesting idea.
But yes.
So I said, could you repeat the question and then we found out what it was?
Okay.
Bigboard applications.
Yes.
So there are what are called business improvement districts.
We have three of them in the city.
One is in the uptown area.
Another one is in the downtown area.
And the other runs the full length of Douglas Avenue from one end, you know, from the river
basically to the city limits up by three mile.
And it's made up of, you know, local business owners and residents who, who believe it or
not, as a organization, they can assess themselves additional property taxes to do things,
to do programming for their individual business districts and they need people to volunteer
to serve on their boards to make recommendations on what that assessment should be and how to
spend those dollars.
So if people are interested, if you live in one of those neighborhoods, are you operate
a business in one of those neighborhoods, are you owned property in one of those neighborhoods
that has a business, we are looking for applicants of people to serve on those business improvement
districts.
Okay.
So what else do we have on the list?
We want to talk about this holiday season.
First of all, the downtown looks spectacular.
Yeah.
So we kill the crews and their people just made it look so festive.
The tree.
Yeah.
The reeds on top of the phone poles.
And it really looks festive going through downtown.
It does look really festive.
And the tree lighting was great and the parade was nice.
It was just really good to have people down there.
Yeah.
I think it's going to be great.
I guess the other thing, you know, it comes up every year, we talk about small business
Saturday, which is right after Thanksgiving.
But I guess if you come down for the downtown and you see the reeds and the lights and
the Christmas tree that's great, but while you're there, you know, go into a store.
Buy something.
You know, check out our retail options.
Go to go to a restaurant and enjoy the downtown.
But you know, the downtown works in part because we have these events, but it also really
works.
So people come and spend a little money to support those local businesses.
And when you buy something downtown, you don't have to wait to have it on your porch.
You don't week later.
It's going to be right in your hands at that moment.
You can wrap it that night.
And some of those storefronts are really beautiful.
They do a lot of work on those storefronts.
Thank you.
What's that?
There's one on the west side of the street.
Oh, I can't think of the name of the place.
Every time I pass by in the afternoon, wow, or the late morning, I go home, what a beautiful
window display.
Yeah.
Some people really get into it, right?
They really try to gusty it up as best they can.
And part of it is, you know, you want to, you want to attract people in and so, you
know, you want them to walk by and then that's really nice.
Let's head in there and see if I want to buy jewelry at the store.
If I want to buy something here, but yeah, it really makes a big difference and puts people
into the season of it.
But people got to come down and check it out.
It's well worth seeing.
I felt like I was living in Mayberry, gussied up, you know, that's something and be
which I'm doing.
We're going to gussie up the towel.
I haven't heard that word since I watched Andy Griffith.
Well, you know, it's, it's a nice turn.
Okay.
So we got snow coming up and when people complain at city hall and people call up, generally
when they call, they're upset about something.
If you speak nicely on the phone, you'll get a nice response.
When I was telling you, the lady I wanted to speak to wasn't out.
She was at lunch or whatever, but she wasn't there.
She called me back the next day and she left a nice message.
I called her back her name.
I think it was Kim.
I have the phone message here.
What a pleasant person to speak to.
I think it's great.
Now, by that time I, you know, I almost forgot what I called about, but yeah, but I told
her and she was very nice.
She said it was that leave collection and she said, well, they're supposed to pick it
up on the 21st, but let me just check as she came out.
They're a little behind now, possibly a 21st, count on the 24th.
Yeah.
And she was very, I said, well, thank you very much for, you know, being pleasant.
Well done.
I will tell you something.
When I last ran for re-election, this was in 2023 and, you know, you're not going
doors and you talk to six or 7,000 of your neighbors and you start to hear trends of what
they will say.
But one of the biggest things we got then in 2023 is like, you know, the customer service
at city hall could be a little bit better.
They said it that nicely.
Sometimes they, they said it a little bit more aggressively than that, but really took
that to heart.
So we created a department of customer service.
And now the number of complaints that we get in a given year is, it is half of what it
was last year.
So we really have trained people up.
We've consolidated customer service activities into one department.
And we really try to do our best job to go above and beyond to get people the information
they need in a timely way where they leave feeling like, oh, that was something I need.
Now from the city, they gave me good information.
I feel good about that as opposed to feeling frustrated and like, well, I can't find the information
and why won't anybody tell me what's going on.
So we really do strive to do better customer service.
And like I said, we've cut the number of complaints in a given year and a half and we're
hoping to cut in a half again in the year ahead.
So we take it all very seriously.
We appreciate the feedback.
I will be sure when I go to city hall from here to let the clerk's office know, hey, you
got some kudos on the radio.
It was very nice.
And keep in mind, when you do call, everybody can have a bad day at the other end.
Yeah.
They're all human beings.
And maybe something went wrong that day, be a little patient.
If they're not up to speed, the way you'd like them to be, just remember, maybe they had
a bad morning.
Things happen.
It does.
It does.
And we learned one thing this morning in this retirement, the mayor does not plan at
this point to drive a snow plot.
That may change it at a moment.
Well, nor do I plan on retiring anytime soon, but but someday when you do retire, snowplowing
was not on your list.
It's not on the list.
It's not on the list.
Not now, at least.
That's good.
That's good.
Thank you very much for coming in there.
No, my pleasure.
Glad to know.
I know it's a busy show and busy day for you.
And thanks for bringing in your laptop.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
