honor this mayor of
nowhere of the county,
it's or hoy's happy to
oter this week yet not getting
to the city right now pretty
good. Yeah pretty good. We
about some projects we got
coming up the summer. We had
the governor in town just
yesterday to talk about
affordability and his
proposal to reduce property
taxes with some of the states
surplus that would certainly
be a welcome move here for
residents. They saw quite a
increase in property taxes
with the last budget that the
state instead of giving money
to local schools said to the
schools, you can have more
money, but only if you
increase the property tax bill
which puts school districts
in a tough spot to our school
district, like many others,
increase the property tax. But
boy, we've sure heard about it
when people paid their bills
this year. So there's extra
money at the state that they
want to help lower people's
property tax bills that would
be a welcome move, I think.
Yeah, my bill went up. Yeah.
And it went up, you know,
things go up in price. I wasn't
that didn't bother me as much
as a lot of other people. I don't
know why. It just didn't
bother me because I just paid
it. Yeah. And you know, it's
different when you have a
mortgage. The money comes from
the mortgage company. So it's
kind of painless in a way.
Right. When your mortgage is
all paid up, now you got to
write the check. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a little more painful
and feels like it's just
part of built into your
monthly budget. It's a little
bit lighter. You don't feel
it as much. Yeah. So, uh, the
governor of good news, other
than, you know, uh, he's
property taxes. He's got to
go up. He's got a proposal
that, you know, I mean, it'll
be great if they could find
a bipartisan solution to doing
some property tax relief. And,
you know, so there's a couple
months left in the legislative
session before the legislature
adjourns for the year. Um,
and then, um, you know, ideally
they would reach some sort of
agreement before they go home
for the summer. So with any
luck in the next couple of
months, we can find a bipartisan
agreement that they can reach.
I know, um, legislative
Democrats have been working
hard on their proposal with
the governor. So it'd be great
if we get to a place where
there is some property tax
relief, either by funding
the schools directly again, or
just some sort of abatement
for property taxpayers. But
you know, you know, you know,
you can find a bipartisan
agreement for property
taxpayers. But, you know, the
trend that we've seen really
in the last 20 years is where
the state used to fund two
thirds of schools or the state
used to, you know, substantially
contribute to police and fire
costs for cities like we're
seen. They've really walked away
from that commitment. And so
that leaves cities and
school districts with little
choice, but to put it back on
the property taxpayers. And,
you know, we'd rather see the
state live up to its
responsibilities to help
fund local services. Police
and fire, contract done,
done, yes, yes, yes, yes.
So we have a four year deal
with police and fire. So our
thanks. I think we've got the
staff officers unions to do,
which is a smaller group, but
they usually have a very
similar deal there. But yeah,
both the local 321 and the
Racine Police Association have
four year deals.
You know, we had a house
burn a couple of blood not far
for me on Buchanan and Hubbard
and person lost their life.
Youngaway to lost their life
saving their siblings.
I know it's a horror story.
Yeah, but the fire department
came in there to rescue. These
people run into burning houses.
They get ready else is running
away. They're running into a
burning house. Yeah. And it
was a tragedy. I saw the memorial
set up in front. But I mean,
I don't even know what started
that fire. They don't yet as
yet. But I just think about,
you know, being a 21-year-old
and you've got these, you know,
younger siblings and you literally
put your life on the line.
They're going to have to get
them out and then, you know, she
made it out of the fire, but
then expired a few days later.
I mean, we really were hoping she
was going to make it. But yeah,
those firefighters are calling
on to do very dangerous work. Police
officers too. Police officers, you
know, I watch enough YouTube
videos. You can pull someone over
for a seat belt infraction. You
walk up to the corner, pull a gun.
I mean, you never know what's
going to happen. I would never
deal without them. So I have, you
know, it's a dangerous job and
it's not for everyone. It's not
for me. I'll tell you that. I
like being nice room with nobody
around except you. Okay. If you
have a question for the mayor,
you can ask and just go to the
Civic Media app download the
Civic Media app and you'll see
WRJN on a list of radio stations
there. And just click on that
and write your question. We'll
try to get to it. Let's go out
to Sister City. Yeah. I thought
Sister City was in France. So do
we have more than one five Sister
City? So we do have a Sister City
in Oiso, Japan, which we've
been Sister City. Now this is neat
what the students can go with it.
That's right. That's right. So we
have received students from Oiso
for the last several years. And
this year they return. So we have
an opportunity for three students
to go to Oiso, Japan. They have
to be city residents that are
between 9th and 11th grade and
will help to first some of the
cost. But if you are a young
young poor or you're a parent
or a grandparent of a young
person listening, thinking, boy, it
will be great to have my son or
daughter have an experience within
a week long exchange and go to
Oiso, Japan and see another
culture and learn about another
culture. Here's an opportunity
to do that this summer. I'll see
where Godzilla used to walk. I don't
know if that's in the tour.
Godzilla was all over Japan. Oiso
is right on the ocean about an
hour and a half southeast of
Tokyo, so it's a nice seaside
city of about 50,000 people
and you know, they're always
very hospitable when they come
here and are so great and you
know, this is our opportunity
as we've hosted people from Oiso
here for several years. This is
our chance to send some students
over who want to, you know, try
their hand at learning a different
culture and representing our
community overseas. It's a great
opportunity. I certainly encourage
you to do it. So if you go to our
Facebook page, we've got information
or you can call our office or if you
Google Sister City, we're seeing
we've got application on the website
there for people to apply. How do they
pick receiving as a sister city?
So the sister city is a great question
so people sometimes ask, what's the
idea? What's the sister city? Let's
what's that all about? So, you know,
after World War II, there was this
feeling that, you know, maybe
if there were relationships between
cities, you know, France and
the previous hundred years between
France and Germany in one form or
another, so maybe if we could do some
exchanges with people when national
governments get a little bit out of
whack or want to be overly aggressive,
the fact that they'll have these
relationships between communities can
lead to some better diplomacy and
tamp that down. So, we have a
sister city in France coming out of
World War II. We have a sister city
in Japan that we established in the
60s. Our most recent one is in
Canada. It's a brand for
Ontario's and most recent
sister city, but it creates
opportunities for us to be able to
you know, reach across, across
national divides that might exist
and get to know people on a personal
level and to cultural exchanges
with different communities and it can
be a very powerful edifying thing
for members of the community to do
to host people from another culture
and to go visit another culture
and, you know, as national politics
or out of whack, it's a reminder that
we have these personal relationships
city to city that can transcend
some of the international politics
that might go right. When Greg
Berg used to host the, we're seeing
Symphony Orchestra at Festival
Hall. Yeah. Could make it one day.
They said, can you do it? I feel
like I've got my talk show. I'll go
over there and do it. I brought my
girlfriend with me and I arranged
with a conductor that an
intermission do not let the, keep
them off and I'm going to propose
to my girlfriend. Oh, well, and
that was the night. Francis, the
Francis city was there. Yeah,
much Lamar. Yeah, they were there
and I brought her up during the
intermission. She was shaking.
Thank goodness. She was dressed
really nice. I'm going to
touch it over and I proposed.
That's great. She said, yes, you
know, I was about 20 years ago.
That's great. Yeah. So that was
a city was there to remind you
of it. And by the way, just a
little thing, there is one place
in all of Tokyo in 70 Godzilla
movies, 70, that he never
destroyed one place in all of
Tokyo. What is it? The Empress
Palace. I never expect for the
Emperor. Godzilla didn't make that
choice. The filmmakers made that
choice. That's the only place
he never, he's never destroyed
into everybody else. Everything
else was up for, you know,
for stopping his honor city
received mayor Corey Mason
joining us this morning. I know
this is not a good breakfast
topic. Let's talk about lead
pipes. Yeah, absolutely. Because
you got to replace them. We do. We
do. Is there a date they have to
be replaced by? Yeah. So we have
10 years under the mandate from
the federal government to remove
them all. However, the federal
government's only giving money
to help you pay for it for the
next five. So it's a quirk
of the infrastructure law. I
didn't write the laws. I'm just
going to take advantage of it.
We got a $40 million grant
for the government. So I'm going to
give you a $40 million grant
to make sure you're not using
those lead pipes. And so we've got
about 12,000 households left
that have those lead pipes. And
so we'll begin that this summer.
So if you live just north of
the River sort of near Main
Street, that's the neighborhood
we're going to start with. North
mine. Yeah North of the river on
that Main Street area there going
over to about. Not as far as
that. Oh good. How did people
get to their homes? So it won't
be like a road project where it's
ripped up for weeks and weeks and
weeks, right? So the idea is that
we do a few. So when I first
looked at him, I'm like, are you
telling me we're going to rip up a
square mile of roads for like the
entire summer? No, but they do
it like basically three roads at
a time. And there's there's some
roads where the the lead main
was replaced a long time ago. We
just need to take out the lead
and we're just digging a small
trench in the road to do that.
There are other streets though
where the main and the laterals
have to be replaced. That's going
to be a bit more invasive, but
they'll do them a few a few streets
at a time and you know it won't be
like the Main Street project. We just had
that was months and months of
redesigning and rebuilding an entire road.
But it will be disruptive. And so the
good news is we have a five year plan
to replace those 12,000 lead pipes
and we're going to be able to
do that. We're going to have a
grant funding. We'll have people
knocking on doors. It's a little bit
warmer and we sent out letters to
be able to do that. But we do have a
mandate now from the federal government
to replace those lead pipes and
money to go along with it. There'll
be no cost to homeowners when we go
to do this work. So it's not like
they're going to get a bill after it
happens. And you know gets the lead
out of our water supply, which is
something that's long overdue.
And so the other thing is that
they're going to have to do it
for a couple of years before they
were a lived. They ripped up the
entire street to put sewers in
because there was no sewers in
area and they ripped it up for the
entire summer. And we had a
park on the other side of two
blocks away. And it's okay if you're
just walking. But my mother had a
carry groceries. Yeah. And every time
she went out, she had to keep
walking two blocks when it's raining
and it's an inconvenience for people
who have disabilities that they're
dealing with. We do have the
dark buses that'll be made available
if we need to bring people closer in
if they're disabled and unable to
get out. So we do want to accommodate
people with pretty clear, you know,
there's now Americans with disabilities
act that didn't exist when you were watching the
Watergate trial. That gives people better access.
But we want to give people a heads up
so they can plan for it and have the
expectation for it for the weeks or
weeks. It's okay. It will be an inconvenience.
But in the long run, it means that
we're going to get that lead out of the
water supply, which, like I said, is a
really important public health accomplishment
that we want to do over the next five
years. That was a phrase, get the lead out.
That might come from out. I don't think so.
But it is what I call the project
internally. Give a lead out. Maybe we should
play the Zeppelin on the way out
here. Give a lead out. Absolutely.
Okay. By the way, the pipe that goes
for my house to the center of the street
is clay. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Because we had somebody sneak in a
couple of years ago, and he said, you
got one little tiny branch going into the
clay, but it's very tiny. It's nothing.
And it's not even alive anymore. It's just
there. But yet clay pipes. We have, we have
some clay pipes that are still part of our
infrastructure. We have some wooden pipes.
I remember six street head wooden pipes.
Yeah. So, you know, hard to believe.
But yeah, I mean, there's the, the
journey of being a legacy city that's,
you know, 175 going on 200 years old.
We have some older infrastructure.
What's amazing, though, is some of it still works
just fine. A clay and wood won't kill you.
Lay the pipes well. That's the good part.
Okay. We had a listener yesterday who
wanted to get her question in.
And she wanted to know about Mark Rail.
And I have a look at Mark Rail is the
rail system from Milwaukee to Kenosha.
Yeah. So, so people might remember a
previous iteration. Caram was talked
about maybe 15 years ago as a thing.
This is a different proposal. It's really
it's fewer stops. But the idea would be
that we would have passenger rail on that
U. P line that's where the metro stops in
Kenosha, that we would just continue that on
for a stop in Racine, a stop at the
Milwaukee airport and then on to downtown
Milwaukee. And if we can get that designation
from the federal government, we can begin
the work of planning that process to do
this to be eligible to apply the cities
of Racine, Kenosha, and Milwaukee had
to form what's called an intergovernmental
commission. And so, each of the respective
jurisdictions voted to do that. And that
makes us eligible to apply when those
funds become available this summer.
And then since then, cut a hay, which is
where the Milwaukee airport stop would be,
also said, hey, we'd like to join too. And so,
they've passed the resolution to be able to do
that. And so, we're very excited to have
cut a hay joining us. And it'll put us in a
really good place to have a strong application.
I do have to give a note of thanks to
Senator Tammy Baldwin, who gave
Congressally directed spending, otherwise
known as an earmark, to this region so that
we could put the best possible application together.
So, we're very excited about when that application
comes open this summer that we will have a very
competitive and exciting proposal to give to
the federal government to do passenger rail.
I mean, it just makes sense we're between
Milwaukee and Chicago. It's a huge metro area,
but we don't have passenger rail in the
core of those cities coming through along the
lake. And so, to be able to extend that service
will be a great opportunity for Racine and
the entire corridor.
Okay, that question from our listener, Jamie,
from Dave, this question just came in.
Could you ask the mayor?
Are there any new developments with the YMCA location?
I assume we're talking about the lake avenue
along because there's several YMCA's in YWCA
is floating around in the downtown.
But we hope to this spring put out what's
called a request for qualified proposals
to look what development is there.
The expectation is that we would do some sort of
housing redevelopment there that would overlook the lake.
So we're trying to figure out some of the geometry of the site
and give people clear expectation what it would look like.
But that is one of our best redevelopment sites.
And so we look forward to whatever proposals might come when we
put that out later in the spring.
I haven't seen it lately.
There's a completely flat now.
It's not flat because it's still on a hill.
So it's got a bit of...
No, I mean, there's all the debris gone?
Yes.
Yes.
If you drove past it now, you wouldn't see any
remnants of the old Y building.
Or the parking lots below sort of all have been sort of
fine now.
There's a lot of memories, a lot of great memories in that space.
But it creates an opportunity for something new.
I used to work out there.
I did too.
I learned to swim there, taught my kids to swim there.
I missed it.
My wife was a swim teacher there.
Yeah, yeah.
I had a purse stolen on the parking lot.
What?
Great memories.
Anything else before we wrap up?
You know, I think just I think it's people move ahead.
Again, if you're interested in your son or daughter,
you might be in a high school going to Japan this summer.
Check out Racine Sister City and get some information out on it.
We'd love to have your son or daughter applying and be a bit of a diplomat
on behalf of City Racine as he sends them folks over to Japan this summer.
They'll say, what nice children they raise in Racine, Wisconsin.
That is the hope, yes.
Yeah, well, that's good.
That's good.
And when do they plan on sending them?
I believe it's in July.
Oh, this year?
Yeah, it'll be this summer.
Oh, wow.
That's coming up fast.
Yeah.
Thank you, Mayor.
That was a pleasure to have you in here.
Always happy to be here.
It's just like that.
All right.
His honor, Racine Mayor, Corey Mason in and we'll see you next month again.
Absolutely.
Yeah, stay healthy.
We'll do.
