Yeah, absolutely. It's a bright sunny day. It's cold out there, though. What's the city
going to do about that? You're in charge. You're going to do with that cold weather. You promised
this beautiful weather. Actually, it's going to be beautiful from Monday Memorial Day. Let's start
off with Memorial Day. Yeah. I mean, just a reminder to everybody, we do the parade every year over
on West Boulevard and we wind up at the War Memorial in the cemetery when it's done. But it's a great
celebration of those who've paid the ultimate sacrifice and defense of our liberties and our freedom.
And I think it'll be particularly meaningful this year with it being the 250th anniversary of America.
But for those who we see out there every year looking forward to seeing again, but for those who
might not know about it, if you're looking for a way to honor those who've given the ultimate
sacrifice and preservation of our freedom, we have a Memorial Day parade that starts on Monday morning.
And again, then we have a program that we do every year at the War Memorial and the cemetery.
And if you've not seen the War Memorial, it is worth checking out. I know a lot of people,
so where is that exactly? But if you go back into the cemetery there, it's really, it's worth seeing.
So we'd encourage people to remember those who've given so much so that we can enjoy the freedoms
that we live under. Here's some other things. And I always feel funny saying happy Memorial Day.
Yeah, because it's right phrase. It's not happy. I mean, people say it all the time. Yeah. I don't
know what you say, but it's not happy Memorial Day. No, it's happy Veterans Day. It is.
But it's not absolutely Memorial Day. Yeah, I mean, what we're celebrating is the
somber day, right? We're doing an in-memorium for those who died. And again, go to the cemetery
there and, you know, mountain and Grayson, there's, you know, there's war dead from people going
all the way back to the Revolutionary War to more recent folks who've given the ultimate sacrifice.
So, you know, it is a somber day. And again, I think it's, it's a good way to remember those
from our community that have given so much so that we can enjoy our freedoms.
I go to Union Grove Cemetery. That's from my father when he was a US Marine. He didn't die in
combat, but he, he's buried there. And that's where I'm going to be. Yeah. Just to, you know,
in case you want to see me. And so they do a ceremony from the American Legion Post every year.
They bring out the gun salute. They have a high school to play taps. And they choose one person
who has to weigh the most recently. And my father and I was honored too, because they didn't have
any, we think goodness, the best way recently. But there is an American Revolutionary War dead.
Yeah, buried right there in Union Grove Memorial Cemetery. Not the, not the,
the veteran cemetery, the Memorial Cemetery on Highway 45.
And I'm thinking, Matt, this is, is the guy he fought? This is at the beginning. No, it's, I mean,
there's three Revolutionary War veterans buried in Mount Cemetery. I mean, it's kind of an amazing
thing. They, they, they, they were at the beginning. It does make you like, you sort of wonder,
is like, were they like 15 when they fought this war? And then they came over here to the West.
And, you know, when it was clearly the frontier. And yeah, you, you wonder what their stories are.
It's like, where were you that you were fighting in the Revolutionary War in the 13 colonies that
you then wound up at the end of your life in Racine, Wisconsin? It's a, it's a, it's a great question
that I would love for somebody to figure out. But yeah, it's an amazing way to think about it.
That's a good tour of Mount Cemetery. There's somebody to give us a tour. And the first mayor of
Racine did not have a headstone for decades and decades and decades. And finally, people got
together, pulled their money and got them a headstone. How does that happen? I do not know what
happened long before I came along. I don't know. This is not part of your administration.
Now, if you want something else to do, we had some guests in here from the Pritzker military
museum and library. Have you heard of it? I have heard of it. It's summer. I've driven past it.
Yeah. It kind of looks like a spaceship landed in the middle of some farm fields. I've not had
the chance to be inside of it. I've been invited to a couple of events down there. Unfortunately,
I had scheduling conflicts with stuff here in Racine. But I am told that it is an amazing facility.
It is. And they're open house and their ceremonies are this Saturday. Oh, great.
Even on Saturday, I think 11 o'clock out of here somewhere. I was all prepared here to give it.
Oh, here it is. I had it. No, I don't have it. Anyways, the Pritzker military museum and library.
And they're located on, I think, 12th Avenue, 12th Street, 12th Avenue in summers. You can't
miss the building. You cannot. He just, he told me what the building was an architecture from.
And I can't remember what it was now. But if you want to know, you can check out our podcast
at WRJN.com civic media that US Spotify Apple podcast and just check it out there. He was on
a couple of better week or so ago. That should be interesting. Okay.
So many papers here. Okay, let's talk about clean sweep. Now what is that?
Yeah. So we did two of them last year and we're doing three this year. But we did our first
one. But essentially what we do is we'll we'll pick a neighborhood and we'll bring sort of all
the city resources together, right? So the forest re equipment, the fire trucks, the DPW,
bring out some dumpsters. And we go in and we replace sidewalk squares that need replacing and
we'll fill potholes and we'll cut back some abandoned lots if there's overgrown weeds and
do some tree trimming where it's needed to remove some tree stumps if they've been abandoned.
But it's basically a neighborhood cleanup where we work with the residents there. And then
with the homeowners that are there, we can do some light construction work to repair fences or
porches or some of the other things where they might need some light repairs.
It's just a neighborhood cleanup that we do for two days. What was great about the neighborhood
we picked here is right at 10th and center, which is where the new red apple school is, right?
So we were really able to involve the kids in, you know, planting some flowers and leaving some
potted flowers on people's porches. But it was a great way for the new school children
that are new to that neighborhood to meet the neighbors that were there and for the neighbors to
meet them. There's a really positive experience. And, you know, people were really thrilled to
to be there and see city staff there really doing everything they could. The firefighters
installed, I think, dozens of smoke alarms and fire detectors in people's homes.
We really got a great, great feedback on it. And, you know, you will hear from people say,
why can't we do more to clean up some of these neighborhoods? So we'll pick three neighborhoods
this year. We've done the first one that the next one will be on prospect and I believe the
third one will be in Racine Street. But it just gives us a chance to clean up the neighborhoods,
bring all our city resources together, and improve the neighborhood with the folks who live there.
So we've had really great response from it. I would love to tell you that I invented this idea,
but I was actually at a conference and heard a presentation about the city buffalo that does this.
And I think that sounds like a really great idea. That's how we're taking credit. That's just the way
I am. That's how we're different. Well, I will say, you know, one of the things about being
mayor is, you know, you can learn a lot from other people who've done this job either.
In different places or in different ways. And yeah, maybe you come up with some good ideas
yourself. But if you're willing to learn from other people who've had some success and
can bring those good ideas at home, that's, that's worth doing too.
If people want to find out what neighborhood date, time and everything, where do they go?
So that, yeah, they, they're, if you go to the build up Racine website, it'll have where the next
ones are. Again, it'll be on part of prospect at some point in July. And then we'll do Racine
Street in September. So we have that going on. And then the other thing that we should mention
that's sort of related to clean sweep, but is the home repair grants that we have out there
right now. So we have five of these, what are called neighborhood tax increment districts that
do these home repair grants for homeowners. And right now, we're doing Tid 27, which is sort of
kid is what for people to know tax increment district. So what we've done is we've set aside
the increased value in these neighborhoods and set them aside into a segregated account.
And then homeowners in those neighborhoods can come apply to do home repairs to their home,
up to $10,000. So if they need a new porch or a new roof or new windows or whatever it might be,
gives us the opportunity to do that. And that really helps those homeowners, particularly if
they're on fixed incomes, get to a place where they can get their, their homes back up to code,
up to the building code and make sure that it's a safe place for them to be back to clean sweep.
Can I get my backyard on that list?
Unfortunately, no. If you were in the neighborhood, we could probably help you,
which has actually happened in some neighborhood people like, I have a big thing in the back.
Hey, guys, look at that. I mean, it's a brush clean in my neighborhood. And we have done that,
right? I mean, particularly for some of the houses that might be abandoned or overgrown. And so,
you know, it's really, we picked them in part, we have a neighborhood enhancement district that
will go in and, you know, write up code violations for houses that are out of compliance. But,
you know, we, we need to enforce the code, particularly for landlords, if they're not keeping their
houses up. But we also, where we can want to create some resources to help people out if they're
having a hard time paying for those things. So with my backyard, about a third of the backyard,
beginning May, we left for the bees down the no-no name. We mode everything at the third.
Then the next week, it got smaller. And then we give to that. It got smaller. Now there's a small
square. And I put the bees on notice after this weekend, you're on your own. Not to see anything
else, the polity of that square. It's like a four foot square part of, and then it's, how tall is
it though? It's not that it's not as tall as you might think. That's good. I mean, the one more
it can take. I got to bring you a lawn mark. Oh, there you have it. His honor received city,
received mayor Corey Mason is here, led removal into pipe. So why do they put lead in there to begin
with? Yeah, it's a great question. A lot of these lead pipes are removing our lead pipes that are
100 years old, right? I mean, it's kind of amazing. But obviously in the, you know, 1920s,
and they weren't thinking through, I mean, lead is a very robust material, right? It lasts for
a long time. And if you didn't know that it was going to leach harmful chemicals into the
drinking supply, you wouldn't know better. But we do know better now. And so, you know, we've had
a total of 12,000 some pipes that had lead in them. And we've removed about 2,000 of them over
the last decade, right? We've been doing it pretty slowly. But with the new federal mandates and
federal funding that's available, we've made the commitment to remove the remaining 10,000
lead laterals and lead mains in the next five years. And so it's an aggressive approach. We got
a $40 million grant to be able to help pay for it. And so we're starting. We have sort of five
neighborhoods that will do over the next five years. The area we're doing now is like just north
of the river and east of the lake. We're doing that neighborhood. We'll do 1200 of those this year.
And another 3,800 next year. And, you know, we're going to keep it rolling until we get it done.
But we wanted to talk about it for a couple of reasons. I mean, first of all, it's great to have
all the cameras down from Milwaukee to do it. I think they really wanted to see the the actual
action of taking the pipe out and then connecting a new pipe in and doing all that. But we really
wanted people to know a couple things. It's free to you. There's no cost. Nobody's going to send
you a bill to replace this lead pipe to make sure you've got safe drinking water. Because there is
no safe level of lead in our drinking water. So we really need to get those lead pipes replaced.
But the other thing is we need a right of entry form signed by the property owners to be able
to get into their yards to replace it. So we also want to let the community know if people come
knocking on your doors and it says, you know, Equiflo City of Racine lead pipe program. That's a real
thing, right? I mean, we really do need permission to be able to they need to be able to get in there
and into the basement and sort of see where the lead line comes in and make sure they remove it safely.
So they do need those right of entry forms signed. And so we're asking as people come in the
neighborhoods and do that that there's a chance for for us to be able to earn your trust and do that.
But it's it's again, no cost to the to the property owner and it allows us to make sure that you
and your kids have safe drinking water. My pipe leading into my house is clay. That's how old it is. Wow.
And so when the guy came to look and he said, it's a great shape. It's clay because my house is
like 115 years old. We do still have some pipes that are clay and wood. Believe it. Yeah,
the wood ones were on six street. I remember I saw them and wooden pipes. So in my neighborhood,
well, I love my main street. They aren't digging up the streets. They're doing something which is
different. They're putting a liner in the pipes. And it saves the city from having to dig up
main street and replace it. And they've been doing it for a while. This and cameras down there to
check it out. Then they inflate the liner. Yeah. The guy I went up to him. I said, well,
can I see how this works? I got my flashlight. Something the whole thing. He said, well,
here's what we're doing. And I said, that's transparency. Yeah, literally. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that is for that is for the return flow side. Not the inflow side. But yeah, I mean,
a lot of the infrastructure we have in some of it's 100 to 150 years old. And so, you know,
we look for for cheap and innovative ways to do it. But what the lead pipe program is really
no other way around it. And so, you know, we'll spend $40 million of this federal money
that we receive to make sure 4,000 homes no longer have unsafe drinking water due to lead.
And like I should also just clarify too. I mean, we do put out a chemical in the water now that
lines the pipes right now that so we don't really have particularly high levels of lead in our
water. So I don't want people to think we're flint Michigan because we're not. Well,
but I do, I do, but it's still low levels that are there. There's not really any safe level
that is there. And so we want to make sure that that people have access to safe drinking water.
And what we're sending to the homes is is safe for people to drink. Remember, Aaron Brockovich,
you ever see that movie? I do. You remember when the people from the episode of the gas company,
Kay, and you have a glass of water in there. Here you go. We got it special.
That was so good. I got to watch that movie again for the mayor. This is from Pat for the mayor.
Why are we giving the contract to the new hotel for running the festival site without
giving the current one a chance to continue making the city more money that is made in years.
And they understand they are going to make a ballroom in hotel out of it. The current operators
have finally brought life back to back to it like Sam and Ramma back in the concerts,
making it affordable for the highly taxed residents. Thank you, Pat.
Yeah. So I'm glad you asked. Glad to talk about it. So first, let's talk about the good part of
what we've seen from festival hall Memorial Hall. We've certainly seen more events. We've got a
farmers market. You got a harbor fest coming back. It's a really successful empty bowls program.
And that's great, right? We've wanted to extend the contract. What we cannot get from 5K
are actual discernible numbers about what their income is and what their costs are.
And when they say to us, so we just need you to cover whatever our losses are.
And that's the condition of renewing the contract. It's like, what do you mean we need to cover
whatever your losses are? We need to see your numbers. So I love that festival hall has been
going well. And so you think, why is the mayor fighting over this? I love that Sam and Ramma
is going to be there. And just to be really clear, nobody's threatening to take 5K away to this,
to make those events go away. That's not what's happening. Pat needs to show us his numbers.
Like actual, reliable, verifiable numbers on what his income is and what nots cost.
And that's not the person who sent it. Yeah, I'm talking about Pat Flynn, who's got the contract.
Sorry. He needs to show us reliable numbers. So this sort of thing of him, you know,
getting people scared that Sam and Ramma won't happen now. And this is terrible. We would like to
extend a contract. But here's the other thing. The other thing I hear from voters all the time is,
man, our property taxes are really high. You know, what are we going to do about this? So in a year
where we had to go to referendum, just to keep nine firefighters on staff, I can't write 5K
a blank check and say, go do whatever you want. Everybody has to live in a budget, right? Everybody.
And so we are happy to sit down with them any day next week. So from Memorial Day, obviously.
And I can tell you our city administrator and our city attorney have been asking for these numbers
for a long time. So I don't generally spill tea in the middle of a contract negotiation.
But 5K is trying to scare everybody into believing that we're going to tear the festival hall
down or that all the contracts are going to, you know, so if you want that contract to continue,
you have to show us your books because we have a responsibility to tax payers to make sure that
everything's getting taken care of. And I will also say this, it can't simultaneously be
that they're making more money than ever. And they need more subsidy from the city rescind taxpayers.
Those can't be true at the same time. So look, the city of rescind officials, the city attorney,
the city administrator are happy to continue meeting with 5K for as long as it takes to reach a contract.
But they have to show us their numbers, verifiable numbers, not numbers written out on a spiral
notebook, but actual verifiable numbers. So we know what their income is and their costs are.
We have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers to make sure that they're getting value for what's
there and that there's not anything going on. So far, I don't know if they're unable to produce
those numbers or they're unwilling to, but so far, we don't know what the costs are. And we
would very much like to see what those costs are so that we can bring this to a conclusion.
But lastly, I want to make sure people understand. We will make sure that the events that are scheduled
for this summer continue. But there is no contract that's being handed over to another group.
We've certainly had other people say, seems like something weird's going on with 5K. If they're not
going to run it, we like a shot at it. So we're happy to continue to talk to 5K, but you've got to
show up with the numbers. You've got to do your homework and you've got to know this is a facility
that's owned by taxpayers, not by 5K. And we have a responsibility to have great events that people
love, which we're so happy about. But we also have a responsibility to taxpayers to make sure that
we know what's going on and that the cost are fair. And with regard to the ballroom and hotel,
you can't build it, right? Yeah. So there was a proposal before COVID seven years ago that we would
potentially try to do a new festival hall and put a five-story hotel and all this other stuff.
DNR said it's too close to the lake. You can't build it there. COVID hit the market on it collapsed.
And so we moved on. And so now we've got hotel verdict down there instead. And we're having great
success with that. But nobody's tearing down festival hall. There's no proposal in front of us
to tear down festival hall. And one last time, it's pronounced hotel verdict, not verdant, right?
The owners of the hotel pronounce it hotel verdict. Okay, we wanted to get that straight. Yeah,
you heard it here from the mayor, verdant. Yeah, because some I say it either way because I don't know.
Yeah. Thank you, mayor for coming in. Glad to be here. Happy Memorial Day, everyone.
Happy Memorial Day, right? I know you want to say you want to say you have like this.
Have happy family gatherings on Memorial Day this year. Let's be happy about the freedoms we have
because those who gave their their ultimate sacrifice in Memorial on Memorial Day. So let's do that.
But yes, let's remember the people who served. It's great to go to the sales and all the other
stuff. But if people can get to an event where we remember those who've fallen in defense of our
liberties, I would encourage them to do so. And Kudos, shout out to Nicholas. And what's
actually the double? What's had you pronounce his last name? Wilton Wilton. Yeah, it gets all
this together. Yeah. Thank you, Nicholas. And thank you. All right. See you next month. Yeah,
looking forward to it. Thank you, Mayor.