All The Latest News On Festival Park With Patrick Flynn From 5K Events

Patrick Flynn, founder of 5K events is in studio with me. Thanks for coming in this morning. Get close to that microphone. I want to hear every single word you have to say. I don't want to miss a word here. All right. And Patrick Flynn, you're the founder of 5K events. Right. And let's give a little background first. 5K events. It sounds like a marathon. You're running.

5k event, your 5k races. Is that how it started? Well it started, my wife and I went to a fitness company called Anchor Fitness and we would do a lot of 5ks as part of that group but it was a pretty fragmented industry and my background is in franchising so we started to look at that and thought it'd be a neat company to start up. So that was back in 2012. So I can't tell you how many runs we've produced since then but it's

It's hundreds, if not thousands. Whoa. And the thing about one of those runs is, you wind up in the same place you started, and it would be nice if everything was in a straight line. Never in a straight line. At least you'd be somewhere when it's over. So you started 5K events, but before that, you told me a franchise Minuteman Press. That's big. That was my first job out of college was Minuteman Press out of Farmingdale, New York.

We started, when I started with them, there was 200 franchises and now it's the world's largest printing franchise in the country. Wow. So how did you get involved with Festival Hall, Festival Park Memorial Hall? How did you get involved with the management of that? Having been in franchising and putting people into business. It's always intrigued me that park, I was there for the grand opening. I was there when they unveiled the parking lot and the founder square and it's just

There's something about this lake and about this city that has always been exciting, but when the prior management took over and things just became dormant, I wanted to bring it back to life. And every year I would call the city, I would put it under account, I would put it out for RFP, I would put it out, they never did. And we're about ready to retire, my wife and I, my wife's already retired.

All of a sudden they said yes, it's we're gonna put it out for RFP and I said well might as well do it so so we did it that was three years ago and Brought it back to life. So you start you brought salmon salmon arama back because that was dormant for a while Yes, as it was Harborfest dormant um salmon arama has always existed. It was left Yeah, it was good left to go somewhere else also They changed the name to the big fish fest or something like that, but they did leave for a while. They went to a different location. Yes

And you brought it back to Racine. And my feeling with Sam Arama is that Festival Park would probably not exist if it wasn't for Sam and Arama. They're the ones who really brought the lakefront to life. And for them not to have a home just seemed ridiculous to me. So before we even got the contract, we were already working with them to try and negotiate to bring them back, to figure out how we needed to bring them back. And then we used that as the model for

every festival after that. This was taken, oh, back in the 90s. There's a very young Don Rosen in the picture with a first time Congressman Paul Ryan at Salmonorama. You surely don't look like yourself in that picture. Yeah. But that's Paul Ryan. He was, I think he just became the first Congressman at that point. He's just a kid too. He sat in with me at Salmonorama for a couple of hours and we just talked. Yeah, that was it. We used to broadcast every year from there. Anyway, so you're from here originally, right? Yes. Yeah.

You were born and raised in Brazil. Born and raised, got eight brothers and sisters. Local Yokel and everything. Yeah. That's good for you. Pretty active in the community, the whole family. So this is really personal for you. It is personal. And now there are three elements here we're talking about. We're talking about Festival Hall, the inside. Yeah. Festival Park, Rotary Park, the outside. And Memorial Hall. Yes. Which was the site of the very first WRJN broadcast a hundred years ago. That is correct. I knew that.

You were there! I don't know, I wasn't there, but I knew about that. That is still, you know, the late Marc Eichhorst used to work here. He held concerts, they brought in oldies groups for Memorial Hall, and they were always well attended, did a good job. The acoustics in that building are unbelievable. And you got a balcony, like the old days. Yeah, it's my favorite.

favorite part of the whole campus is that building and I wish there were more weddings and galas there because it's just absolutely gorgeous. Now what happened to the prom thing? You used to be at the festival park. I don't know what I don't really want to talk about prom. Only because we watch it every year and then a couple of years ago we watched it and it's from Union Grove. Yeah we'd love to see it come back. You know every year we bring it up again but the community just doesn't want it back.

I wouldn't say the community. The community wants the back road where he doesn't want to. Because there was an after party and everything there. That's what it was. It was fun. Well, that's kind of neat. I see the schedule here you brought. Yeah. A lot of things going on. A lot of things going on. But what you don't see is our fall and winter schedule, which at this time would normally be full, but we don't without a contract. We're not planning. All right. So we're going to talk about it in detail, but just give us a brief overview. What's going on with that? So we're pretty much in the dark. So

We had a two-year contract. Now, this is with the city of Racine. Yes. Okay. And it's your contract with the city to run Festival Hall, Rotary Park, and Memorial Oaks. Correct. So we had a two-year contract with a two-year renewal option, which we exercised in June of 2025. And then the city had 180 days after that to let us know if they were going to terminate or keep us. And all we had was crickets. Nobody talked to us.

And then come March, the city came in with a contract to take it or leave a contract that we simply could not sign. It just was a ridiculous contract. So it was basically, it looked like they were trying to push us out of Festival Hall or the Civic Centers. And so we got all, everybody got a little nervous about it. So in that contract there was...

Some complications that would wouldn't allow us to succeed and one one one of those or I'll talk about those two things But we could not As a business person sign that contract the way it was written we're talking the Patrick Flynn founder of 5k events and We're talking about the bit of controversy now because you don't have a contract we do not have a yet from the city and You were expecting just

normal just to get your contract signed and it wasn't signed. So what exactly is holding it up that you know of? That's the big question. We're pretty much in the dark. The city administrator, the city attorney, the mayor, they don't talk to us. So you would think you didn't get started with negotiations right after June when we submitted the renewal, but they didn't start until March and that wasn't even a negotiation. They came down, sat at the table and said, take it or leave it.

They didn't let us even, you know, we had changes that we wanted to make it better, but they didn't even address those. And so then, a few weeks ago, probably five weeks ago, we got word that the administration, the city administrator had approached Hotel Verdant, Michael Godfrey, and asked him to take over the contract in place of us, so that everybody got a little scared. So I got five full-time people that

earning a living there plus a lot of our tenders and All of a sudden our job is in jeopardy and so we posted the whole situation on Facebook and It's just kind of exploded from there, but but what they're asking us to do is is really unrealistic and is kicking us out of the festival grounds But it's not definite though. Not definite. Not definitely. So so what is the hotel verdant is it verdant verdant? I know how to pronounce that. I call it verdant

We're done. We're done. Now, do they have experience running these parts? He says he does not. So now that's not such a terrible thing. We didn't have experience managing buildings either. But when we came into the picture, venue works wasn't doing very well. And so there weren't a lot of events going on. Whoever takes over the contract after us has a full schedule of events. They got to hit the ground running.

where we had time to learn about the buildings and fix the buildings up and repair them. So we had a little bit of time to take care of things. Now, I get your latest schedule here on this. I like these giant things you give us here. So people with bad eyes can read it. Right. And I notice it goes through November 26th, and that's it. And a lot of blank spaces after that. Is that you can't sign contracts yet? We can sign contracts, but is it fair to the people that?

are sponsoring those events. So we've already canceled Uncle Sam Jam, we canceled Fiesta Day Latino, and right now we should be actively pursuing Festival Trees because that's a month-long event. We're not doing anything. We're just hoping we're still here tomorrow. So all we can do right now is focus on the events that we have scheduled and pray that we have a contract. Sometimes soon otherwise our whole fall-winter schedule is

up in the air. So if you call the people in power who deal with your contract, if you call them right now, what would they say on the phone? They won't talk to us. They won't even answer the phone? They don't respond. The city attorney who's doing a negotiation only works by email. He doesn't. He wants everything in writing, so he doesn't want to have a conversation.

Well, that's kind of scary. It is extremely difficult. That's like having your radio job and the boss doesn't want to talk to you. Yeah. Well, and I don't think you should send a city attorney into negotiating a contract. The attorneys for, in my lifetime, have always been deal breakers, not deal makers. And this attorney is definitely not willing to negotiate on any points that we have. So this is blank. How far in advance do you need to fill that up now?

Most of our events are six months to a year in the planning. Well, you pass that now. Yeah, we're well ahead of that. So, I mean, we're way behind. So, but it's also a problem for the upcoming events. So in this new contract, so we have no contract and we've been told by the mayor that and the city administrator, we can't put any signs up. We can't put any banners up. That's part of the problem is when we sell

Sponsorships we need to recognize those sponsors in the park salmon or am alone has probably 7500 banners all throughout the park So in the new contract they want us to get have the common council approve every single banner that we put up its micromanaging it. It's impossible. There's a no event venue in the entire state that has a Policy where they have to go to the common council to get that approved. That's always done by the venue operator so

Samurama has $76,000 in sponsorships that's up at risk. Saints on the Lake has $25,000 in sponsorships that they need to recognize, and they need to get their event just coming up in two weeks. They need to get all those banners to a printer to get done, and everything's on hold.

What's this whole thing I heard with receipts and Expenses and proving you what was all that about when the mayor was in here? So that I don't know where that came from because mayor said that it was all about our financials You know the reason we're not moving forward is because we don't have their financials Which is ridiculous because we submit those every month to the park and rec director So either the mayor is completely out of touch with the departments and and the people that work for them

or he's not paying attention, but our financials are submitted every month and they're submitted annually to the city. And then they put on a system called Legistar where all those documents live and breathe so anybody can go on a Legistar and see that our financials are sitting right there. And we're the first people to run Festival Park to actually show a profit. The facility's never been profitable.

Well, I hope you get it straightened out soon. Do you have a times table where it has to be straightened out by a certain date or is that date passed already? Well, two weeks ago the Common Council gave us Tuesday until June 9th to sign the contract as is. Let me ask you this. What is in the contract you don't want in there? Well, the sign ordinance.

We need a sign ordinance for festival parks. So all of the people that are doing events can promote the sponsors that can promote what's, you know, can promote their event. So without that, everybody's at risk. So imagine taking, you know, $10,000 from Marine Bank and I can't hang their banner to recognize them as a sponsor. That's exactly what's happening right now. Has this ever come up before? Never, never. They've always been able to hang sponsors in the park. Yeah, I know. I've seen the banners.

So two and a half years later, all of a sudden the mayor says, can't hang those banners. Got to follow the ordinance. So apparently there's some kind of downtown ordinance and somebody made a complaint and of the banner that was up there and he shut the whole thing down. Yes, something is on my mind. The parking. They took all the parking meters out. They did. Now, who's they? Who's they? Who took them out?

That would be the city administration and then they turn the parking lots over to a company called ABM to manage those lots. Okay, so it's not you and it's not the city, it's a third party doing it. Yeah, and strangely, that's the Civic Center parking lot, but we have no control over it. So, and our biggest, we're not opposed to people paying for parking. We think that's fine, but we're opposed to the process of how to pay for that.

During voting is when we get most of our complaints. You come in, you want to vote, you come out, you got a parking ticket on your car, because usually we aren't walking around with apps on their phone to pay the parking. You got to pay my credit card now. And I know that's the thing that's going all around the country now. It's not just here. It's people wanting to pay by app. And I feel very uncomfortable giving a party that I don't know my credit card information. We've had situations where somebody put a QR code on the sign.

So when you get there, you scan the QR code, and that's how you pay for that parking. Well, that QR code didn't go to the actual app. Somebody put a sticker over that. There's so many ways to... It's mad. I know. I'm not a big change person. I don't like change. I like to put quarters in meters, because it's a sure thing there it says. I have time on there. Let's talk about the next event coming up, though. It's coming up next week, Harbour Fest. Harbour Fest is next week.

Wow, that was quick. June 12th and 13th, Harbor Fest. And they're not too happy because they can't put their banners up. Not even for that event, huh? Well, why can't they approve the banner thing now? You tell me. And then we get the lighthouse run June 20th. Used to come by my house. I used to have a little shower thing out there for the... That's right. I used to hold everybody down. Yeah, but they don't do it. Now they don't go past my house anymore. No, that changed. Pride Fest came.

And so they, you know, to go down Main Street, we need police officers on every single intersection. Oh, is that it? Well, there's a shortage of police officers. So we switched to the trail system, which has worked out very well. Only they don't go past your house to get wet down. I put a hose up there. I put the nozzle, the spray. Yeah. And I put this big spray thing. So one of the police officers came by staring at it. I said, what's the matter? He said, I think it's a great idea. I just never saw anybody put a hose. It was on a broom handle.

Gaffer take to a ladder and it was hanging into the street and people used to run by and get spritz Yeah, and he said I think it's a great idea. I just never never said it was like a room Goldberg to have to set up Well, we can get you on the trail. We'd love to have that back. We're in that's a 48th year for lighthouse run Yeah, so we've been doing five years up to the 50th. So every year we do a metal Race, you know finishers metal and each metal features a lighthouse that existed in Racine at one time or another

I got lighthouses all over my house. My wife's big. I have the first big art project downtown with lighthouses. They did. We bought one of them because it's a giant lighthouse in my living room. I love that. Yeah, they got those too. Thank you, Patrick, for coming in. Patrick Flynn, founder of 5K Events. And when you get it all settled and straightened out, come back and we'll fill in the rest of the blanks on this thing. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Thank you, my friend.