Look who's here.
We have fourth district older.
David Mack is here.
I'm getting I'm getting used to the older.
My pronouns are aldermen.
OK, aldermen.
I'm old school.
But you know, I got so it was very odd for me to say that if I get going now.
There's no problem.
It's not an alderman.
What are my grandfather, Alder Cocker?
What do you say?
My mother used to tell you in your old all the cockers over there that my grandfather's old friends.
Well, good morning.
Is that a Yiddish word or?
I don't know what it is.
I just know she used to call them that.
Well,
thanks for coming in.
Do appreciate it.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
The invitation and you didn't have to call me and wake me up this time.
Oh, that's right.
I didn't
have it on my calendar last time.
And it's like, oh, no, when I saw WRGN, Don
Rosen.
Yeah, that's right.
You overslept.
Let's talk about you're my older and my older man in my district, fourth district.
And for a couple of years now, people have been hanging signs, let Lakeview Park be Lakeview Park.
They used to be a building there.
There was a fire, they tore it down.
I went to preschool there at that building.
It was a community center.
Right, but it burned down and then it was just empty.
Now we're talking about a space just south of the zoo, literally across the street from the Racine Zoo.
And it was empty for a long time, and all those banners were up all over town.
Well, it wasn't, it wasn't empty and,
you know, a little history prior to me
being... It was a parking lot.
I saw cars parking there.
No, no, no,
no.
Prior to me being an alderman.
No, no, I'm talking about after the building burned down.
Okay, hold on.
Prior to me being an alderman, the mayor allowed a developer or suggested that a developer put in a proposal to put...
housing on that lot.
And that's how the Save Lakeview Park came about.
But in the one corner is a baseball diamond.
The other corner is tennis courts and a basketball court.
And we had one slide set with, I think, two or three little slides, a swing set, and this thing that picked up sand, it was like a little shovel thing.
And so it wasn't empty.
You know, we had something there, but what was there?
Lacked big time.
So when I ran two years ago, when I was asked to run for Alderman, I started thinking, you know, what are some things that I want to accomplish?
And having young grandchildren, I'm tuned into playgrounds now.
Well, even more so back then when the seven year old was five.
And I took him down to Kenosha and we went to the dream playground.
I thought this would be really cool.
They have a dream playground on Lakeview Park.
And that's kind of the impetus.
So I talked to the parks director and, you know, he liked the idea and not much came of it.
And then the mayor put money in last year's budget or this year's budget last August when I met with him on
the budget, I said, so I understand you've put money in for a playground at Lakeview Park.
And then I said, how about if we use that as seed money and go to the community at some point to enhance it?
And he liked that idea.
So we'll see what happens with that piece of it.
But I was very surprised at how large this first phase is.
I mean, I don't know if we even have to go out there and add additional pieces to it.
It's already- This is only phase one?
Yeah.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
That's if we raise money.
If we can't raise any money there, you know, but the parks department was able to find a little extra money left over from last year from other budget areas.
And so the park actually is more enhanced than what it was.
I met with
the interim park director at the time.
Matt Kepnick last December, he subsequently became the parks director and I brought my grandson along and he's bait.
Well, he
was
already he'd already woke up the oldest one and usually sits on the couch and wants to watch YouTube videos.
I don't understand that one.
Yeah, grandpa.
Yeah, grandpa.
Sit down and watch a movie.
Yeah, grandpa
or watch
cartoons.
But these YouTube videos where these people are shouting while playing video games, just I don't understand it.
But anyway, so I said, we're going to go for breakfast.
OK, I said, but I got a meeting beforehand.
How long is that going to be?
And so I take him over to the annex and we meet with the parks department.
And next thing you know.
He's engaged in the conversation.
He's checking over the, you know, looking at the pictures of what the possible ones and say, I like this one or I like that one.
Is it like a catalog?
You get to pick out what you want from rides and stuff.
Well, they do have catalogs because going to the League of Miscipalities conference for the last couple of years, I was grabbing catalogs, but they had
I think they told the the contractor kind of what they were looking for what they'd like in the the contractor worked up some different options.
I thought they'd be a designer who designed.
Yeah, yeah, there's
a designer.
There's a designer.
And so but here again, he's going to give you a couple of different options based on how much you have to spend.
And so, you know, we're looking at like option A option B option C. So it's not like
My grandson was sitting there with a catalog and saying, I want that.
I want that.
I want that.
Give me that.
But there were some things that I asked for.
My wife is a music teacher.
So I said, can we get musical instruments?
And actually, we had seen those in Frankenmuth, Michigan.
You ever been to Frankenmuth?
Nope.
You have not been to Frankenmuth, Michigan.
Nope.
Never heard of it till now.
Frankenmuth, Michigan is a Bavarian town.
They also have a store there that is the largest year-round Christmas store.
I can't believe you haven't been to Frankenmuth.
You've been everywhere else.
Yeah, I've been everywhere else.
You like that
song, I've been everywhere, man.
And so they had, it's a Queen Little Village in this one area, it was a public area, and they have these musical instruments.
You know, that you could play.
I've
seen them.
Yeah.
So I came back and I went to the DRC downtown downtown.
We're seeing corporation.
Yeah.
We're seeing corporation.
And I said, hey, there's a little park on Main Street.
You should invest in some of these, you know, public instruments and put them there.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK.
But so when I had a chance to have some input on the park, it was like, you know, I think that would be really cool.
Ironically.
My wife and I were in Oshkosh on Tuesday and before we drove back we checked out their little zoo.
Their little zoo is part of a bigger park and there was a playground almost identical to Lakeview and they had the musical instruments that we had so I don't know if that's kind of a standard practice now or if it's an add-on.
I also suggested that we have some STEM type activities because
When I go out to raise money, I'd like to hit up businesses that emphasize STEM, and I can't hit them up if we don't have any
STEM-related activities, right?
We're talking to Fourth District Altar David Mack, talking about the new playground.
Now, I asked him before we went on the air if he actually went on any of the rides.
He claims... No.
He did not.
I
haven't said I
haven't.
I'm going to check the video.
We'll find out.
And we're talking about the new playground, the Lakeview Park playground, which I got to tell you, I have seen nothing but kids swarming that place.
And the first thing I was loading up with gas at the Citgo across the street and I'm looking at these kids playing.
And I said, you know what they're not doing?
They're not on their phones.
They're not on their tablets.
They're not playing video games.
They're actually out in the fresh air.
on a playground.
There's no electronics on it whatsoever.
It's the old physical playgrounds that, you know, older people grew up with.
Yeah.
Well, back to the question,
have I tried out the equipment?
I have not had an opportunity to try out the equipment.
The last time I was over there was for the ribbon cutting.
They had just installed the swing sets.
And if you see me at a playground, I'm usually on the swing set.
Going as high up as I can but I have not had the chance to do so I did I just want to last comment I'll make about the playground is it was really interesting watching it go up from excavating the area to laying the foundation and I was I was over there a couple times a week checking on the progress taking pictures posting it on my official Facebook page
and it was interesting the comments like I posted a picture they had laid the gravel down had flattened it out and I said they put the base down and you know to prepare it for the surface that they're going to be laying and somebody gets on there and criticizes the fact that it's gravel and imagine some kid flying off that swing set and hitting that gravel.
Excuse me, but I said there's going to be a surface laid and then you know People are getting getting ahead of it.
It's like read it first, but it was amazing watching how quickly it went up and I Don't condone this but even before it was finished kids were out there
playing on
it.
Why do you think you're going to keep him off a ride?
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so I took the first time my boys got to see it.
You know, I took them there when at first, when they first laid the foundation, they checked it out, it was really neat.
And then I took them on Memorial, Memorial Day.
That was the next time that they had seen it.
So a lot had progressed since then.
And my oldest looks at me, the one that I took to the planning meeting.
He looks up in all sincerity and very gently says, thank you, grandpa.
And then he
started to tell the kids around there that he helped plan the playground.
But things weren't even anchored yet.
The swing sets weren't up.
But watching the number of kids, the laughing, smiling faces.
With no electricity in sight.
And the parents there watching and I was walking up to parents and saying,
What do you think?
And they had smiles.
This is great.
This is wonderful.
Thank you.
And it was just a great feeling to
see that.
It was an episode of The Simpsons.
And all the electricity was out in Springfield.
And the kids had, they couldn't watch TV.
They couldn't do their electricity.
And all of a sudden, you see an aerial view of Springfield and kids started coming out of homes.
They started playing baseball.
They started going on swings.
They started doing hopscotch games outside, even Bart.
Yeah, everybody, the whole the whole town, they did an area of view of it.
You see them all coming out of their homes and everything.
But we get before we run out of time here, I got to ask you in the news this morning, OK, we heard there's some kind of an agreement with five K events and the city to continue running Festival Hall, Rotary Park and Memorial Hall.
Right.
What do we know about that?
Well, my.
the whole thing was a cluster and it should have never got to the point it did.
I don't understand why this contract negotiation did not begin before the expiration of it.
I don't think it was healthy that it played out in social media the way it did, but I guess if anything it moved the needle.
the other aspect of it was, you know, it's kind of thrown in the city council's lap.
We're at an impasse.
What do you guys want to do about it?
But wait a minute, you are not authorized to negotiate contracts.
So we had this big meeting and it stalled again.
But it appears that 5k in the city Subsequently worked behind the scenes to hammer out an agreement that apparently is mutually beneficial for both parties and So I'm hoping that we can put this behind us They're gonna get a little extra in the subsidy and I'll point out
They're hired as a management company to manage the facilities.
They are given an allotment of money for maintenance, so nothing is coming out of 5K's pocket.
5K gets a management fee to run the facility.
The expenses for the facility come out of the revenue generated by the facility.
In the event that there's a shortfall and there has been a shortfall for as long as I've Been around and I got on the council for the first time in 2001 and immediately was chairing a special ad hoc committee to look at the expenses at The festival site and how we can generate some additional income So we've always lost money there so the subsidy
is to offset those losses.
The city increased that amount.
Ideally, it'd be wonderful if 5K or whatever management company was in there was able to generate enough income to break even, but it's very difficult to do.
And so we accept that.
But that's part of, you know, part of where it was.
I just went to the farmer's market there last weekend.
I haven't made it down there yet and I need to.
Here's my only beef is not with the farmer's market.
It's with this parking by credit card at Festival Park, Rotary Park.
You gotta pay, you gotta put your credit card on your phone and pay.
That's how you park.
And so I park.
I do that all the time wherever I go now.
I will not give.
a third party person, my credit card.
Well, I don't know who these people are.
So bring some cash and go to the parking ramp.
It's like two bucks.
Well, I went down the block and I found a parking meter.
Put the money in and it didn't register.
We did it.
We put about a buck in there and didn't register.
And you can't even see it.
It's so dirty on those parking meters.
It can't even.
And it didn't register.
There's a parking ramp.
So we were already there and we were to put money in the meter.
So I took a video of my wife putting the money in the meter.
and we'll see you guys.
But this parking bike credit card, I know times are changing.
Those meters don't accept pennies anymore.
Or foreign currency.
I saw these, this couple, they were a little younger than I am, but they were older couple.
I put a Canadian nickel in there, it should count for something.
I saw this older couple trying to figure out on their phone how to do it.
They were standing in front of the sign.
Both of them couldn't figure out how to get this parking space with their credit card.
Big mistake.
I know times are changing.
I know that's the direction they're going in.
But I use it all over.
We were at the we were in
the Dells.
A couple of weeks ago, coming back from up north.
And we were up north.
You know, what up north is
anywhere
north of Milwaukee.
But we were up north near Hayward.
So we stopped at the Dells and I use the app to pay for parking.
And it's very convenient.
Yeah, I pay a little surcharge, but
I don't carry
a little bit.
I have 20 cents or something.
I don't carry cash anymore.
You know, in the old days, someone come up to you and say, you got a couple of bucks.
I'm hungry.
I need something.
Sorry, I don't carry cash anymore.
So give me your credit card.
You have no problem with that.
Yeah, yeah.
Here's the debit card.
Go for it.
A little punch on it.
You know what?
Do you remember when the meters took pennies?
Yeah, I do.
I
mean, it wasn't that
long ago.
I don't feel comfortable giving a third party my credit card.
Because I don't know where they go with this.
I don't know if it goes to the Philippines.
I don't know if it goes to Antarctica.
I don't know where it goes.
Nigeria, a little cafe.
So I use gift cards if I can't find.
But I don't feel comfortable with it.
And that's just me, you know, whether I'm old school.
Yep, you are.
Thanks.
You're old.
Thanks for working on the.
Yeah, right.
Let's do your
70s now, aren't
you?
Let's see whose
hair is
white.
Hey, just no, no, no.
This is what happened.
I've been frosting my hair
for the last 20
years because I was working with all these older women that looked down on me for
my
youth and inexperience.
So I started frosting my hair so I would look more mature.
And I'll tell you, it's really a pain touching up those roots every two to three
weeks.
Well, you got
the
baby face and the gray hair.
So I'm looking to, I'm looking to maybe let it go back to its natural color.
My dad barely has any gray hair and the guy's 80 years
old.
Yeah.
My mother was 92.
She didn't have any gray hair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She just didn't run to my family and my father's side of the family.
But my dad had an uncle, I guess, that had snow white hair in his, I don't know, 40s or something.
Thanks for.
pushing Lakeview Park.
That's really nice.
It's really a nice setup.
I look at it when I so which one have you been on so far?
All of them?
No, I haven't.
I'm waiting to lose some more weight.
I had created a little I didn't share it publicly, but an AI picture of the mayor coming down the side.
I saw that.
I saw that.
Thanks for coming in.
All right.
I love it when you come in and you always do a good job.
Thanks for being my older man.
