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Hello and welcome, welcome back to Mid-Morning on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host, your pal, your buddy.
We are happy that you are sharing time with us today.
This fine, fine morning.
I'm coming to you live.
from Racine at radio park along with my good buddy Calvin Butenhof on the ones and twos.
If you want to be part of this conversation, you can do that by calling 855-752-4842-855-75 civic.
You can leave a comment on the live stream, Facebook, YouTube, or the platform we still call Twitter.
I will address those comments as they come in and love to have you as part of this conversation.
Still got lots of great show ahead of you.
We got ourselves at 10 35.
We have
Audio Sorbet where we're going to be taking a look at a story out of car and driver magazine.
You know, me, Greg Bach, when you think Greg Bach, you think car and driver magazine, definitely, but a new car is coming out.
That's going to be bringing back some old physical features from, you know, what we missed from yesteryear.
That sounded very old when I said that, but it's true.
And I want to know from you.
In the modern convenience world we live in, what are those things that you miss?
Are they tactile buttons?
Are they a button to push?
Are they a string to pull?
Do you have an old time toilet in the Godfather?
I don't know, but tell me what you miss that modern technology has shifted away from.
Love to have that conversation with you at 1035.
And then of course, closing the show out as always.
We got what this shouldn't be a thing today is the private menu edition.
It involves tick tock and a guy who doesn't know when suing in public makes you look like a fool, but that's more for later.
Right now we're going to be having a very important topic on a talk on a topic regarding what.
the things that are affecting Wisconsinites.
And to do that, we are going to be welcoming to the show, Mark Somerhauser.
Mark Somerhauser is the communication director and policy researcher at the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Good morning, Mark.
Thank you so much for being here.
We appreciate your time.
Yeah, great.
Good to be with you.
Great.
Excellent.
Now, really quick, tell us what the Wisconsin Policy Forum does.
What is your chief goal at the organization?
Yeah, so the forum is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization.
We're an independent public policy research organization.
We have offices in Milwaukee and Madison.
And what we do is primarily is to produce research on public policy issues that are affecting state and local government here in Wisconsin.
So we're
not really focused on things that are happening in Washington DC or at the national level.
Only to the extent that they affect state and local decision making and public policy here in Wisconsin.
And so we put out reports, typically roughly once a week or so that look at some of these issues that affect state and local governments and school districts as well here in our state.
And then, you know, lastly, what we also do is public events where we sometimes we'll talk about some of these issues and we'll often host state and local policymakers and other stakeholders at those events.
That's kind of it in a nutshell.
All right.
And I want to reiterate something you said at the top of your answer, which was Wisconsin Policy Forum is a nonpartisan, non-profit.
And we've had you on the show before.
We've used your materials.
This is data-driven information that is gathered by you through research, and it doesn't seek to promote or it just seeks to inform.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean our organization our nonprofit organization is supported by hundreds of members throughout the state that paid annual dues Some of them are corporate members.
Some of them are local governments and individuals and frankly, they have a range of views Yeah, you know across the partisan spectrum And so we you know the fact that we are nonpartisan that we don't advocate for particular policy positions is very central to our mission.
We are trying to
provide context and sort of illuminate some of the debates that are occurring around these issues.
And you said you put out, you know.
about a report a week.
That's a lot of reports, but this is your top five findings for 2025.
You know, before we get into the five, what goes into the process of picking these top fives?
Is it like a, is it, is it something you all come together and vote on?
Is it something that's based on the views?
How do you find your, the moments that really are worth reviewing here in the beginning of the new year?
Yeah.
So it's always a challenge every year, every December when we kind of do our top five.
And we typically, you know, because again, we have roughly 50 or so reports to choose from.
So whittling that down to five is always a challenge.
Typically what we'll do is we'll have our staff kind of weigh in and put together a sort of a list of maybe 10 or so to kind of little down to 10 or so.
And then myself and the former president of Jason Stein and some other folks will kind of further prune that down to the top five.
But we can talk a little bit about some of those findings, if you like.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's kick it off with number one.
I'm just going to read the title and then I'll let you go from there.
It says, number one, Milwaukee leaders can look to high performing schools in their city and around the country as a roadmap for improvement.
Yeah, and I should clarify that our top five are just kind of listed in the order that they were released.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm in radio.
If I should know, I've been like, number five, you know, like, but yeah, it's, but this was the first one listed.
It's, it's, it's yeah, we'll go for it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this one came out in March of, of 2025.
So this was the second in a, in a two part series that we did, uh, that looked at sort of the, the education case or 12 education sector.
in Milwaukee and in the Milwaukee area.
And when I say the education sector, we're talking about public schools, but we're also looking at charter and private choice schools.
And the first installment in 2024, the year prior, kind of looked at outcomes and found that even as families in Milwaukee were seeing more and more options for education for their children,
the sort of educational outcomes for the average child in Milwaukee really had not improved and in some respects had had had worsened after the COVID-19 pandemic.
So obviously that was really concerning.
With our second report, the one that we released last year, we wanted to look at what are some examples of some schools that are really doing things right and are seeing some really encouraging outcomes, both schools in Milwaukee, but also schools in other cities nationally that are really seeing
impressive outcomes.
And what we found was that there are a number of schools that are really achieving positive outcomes for students in Milwaukee across sectors.
There are examples of other cities that are having success, serving similar student populations to the one that we see here in Milwaukee.
And then kind of based on that, we
We went through and we identified some focus areas for potential action across Milwaukee school sectors for school leaders to consider.
And this is something we talked about yesterday is that when we talk about education, it can become so political so quickly.
And then the basis of the conversation can get lost.
We talked about the fact that based on the report cards, and I'm sure you all saw this, is that schools in Wisconsin are doing better than people understand.
And in that
in those in that good performance.
As you're putting it here, there are lessons to be learned.
And I think that's an important part of that discussion when we're talking about the future of our school for kids.
We're talking to Mark Somerhauser, who is the communication director and policy researcher, and a policy researcher at the Wisconsin Policy Forum, discussing their top five findings of 2025.
Let's go to number two.
This one's titled the value of goods imported to Wisconsin has increased significantly.
Yeah, so we wanted to take a look at You know issues around trade in Wisconsin exports and imports in 2025 we actually did two separate reports one looking at our export sector one looking imports Obviously there was a lot of news around trade in 2025 new federal tariffs being implemented and and others being kind of discussed and and and so that was really dominating news and so
We wanted to look at but again a lot of that news was kind of through a national lens So we we felt like there was would be some interest among our members and okay How does this stuff affect Wisconsin specifically?
And one of the most striking things that we did identify in that in the course of that research Wisconsin consumers and businesses purchased almost 39 billion dollars worth of imported goods in 2024
Since 2016, which was kind of the window of data that we had access to, even after you adjust for inflation during that period, from 2016 through 2024, the most recent year for which we had data, even when you adjust for inflation, the value of imports coming to our state has grown 32%.
So we really are, even when you factor in inflation, we're importing a lot more goods into our state than we were just eight years ago.
And, you know, we kind of ran through some of the, some of the, you know, categories that dominate this machinery.
Each one, businesses or manufacturers import a lot of very expensive machinery into our state, but pharmaceuticals and vehicles also are some of the top, you know, areas of imports that we're bringing into our state.
And those are often things that individuals, individual consumers are buying.
So, you know,
I think looking forward on that piece, it will be very interesting once we get our 2025 data.
That's something we're very interested to see what that looks like.
We should have that data hopefully fairly soon.
And obviously with all of the tariffs that were being implemented, that could enact some significant changes to our exports and imports.
for 2025 and beyond, so we'll be interested to see what that data shows
us.
Mark, I'd be interested in having you back to discuss that data once you have it, because that's something that I saw in that section, the number two section.
the imports in 2024.
And my question was, well, okay, what's it going to look like in 2025?
But
that's
for another time.
In the few minutes we have left in this part of the segment, we're going to come back with Mark Sommerhauser, who is from the Wisconsin policy form.
I want to go to number four, which is gross property taxes levies across Wisconsin school districts in 2025 are increasing by the largest amount in three decades.
Got a couple of minutes to go and we'll come back and discuss it more.
But that was the one that popped up and that said, like, oh, okay.
because this is something I personally voted for.
So let's talk about that for a moment.
Sounds great.
Yeah, so what we found is that when we look at gross K through 12 school property taxes, which is all the levies collected by all the school districts across the state of Wisconsin for 2025 for the tax bills that just went out here last month, those increased 7.8%.
That was the largest increase in more than 30 years.
And we can talk a little bit, maybe when you come back, because our report kind of goes into some of the reasons why those school levies increased by that magnitude.
But it definitely is an increase that's been getting a lot of attention.
And that report has been getting a lot of attention from us as well.
And so in today's show notes, I just want to remind everybody that in the show notes, you go to civicmedia.us slash shows.
We're still posting under the matineeir on air page.
But it is mid mornings with civic media.
You can find this.
report the top five findings of the Wisconsin policy form in there.
You can check it out because it is important to know we're going to discuss this, uh, this one here, the gross property tax levies, uh, when we come back from the other side of the break and really quick, something too.
I just wanted to mention really, uh, the number of five that gave me, uh, happiness because I'm, I'm a former apprentice.
I'm a person who loves tech schools that we, we have record level participation in apprenticeships, but they're still opportunity to grow and the amount of
jobs out there that people can learn in Wisconsin.
I mean, the amount of jobs are amazing.
Yeah, for sure.
So that was a report that again was the second in a series that we've put out.
And you're correct that we are seeing record numbers of registered apprentices in Wisconsin.
So that that sort of workforce pipeline is very robust in a number of areas.
But as we talk about in the report, you know, there are some.
professions that really have large numbers of apprentices, especially what we think of as some of the blue collar types of professions such as electricians, carpenters, construction labors.
Those have really strong apprenticeship pipelines.
They're producing a lot of workers, but there's opportunities to grow.
those, especially in other professions and in certain parts of the state.
I would tell people who are maybe interested in getting the apprenticeships, take a look at this, look at the jobs available and the medium pay.
It's very interesting.
And these are, as we've said before, quality jobs.
They are here in America, here in Wisconsin.
worthy of your attention.
But more with Mark Somerhauser, who is the Communications Director and Policy Researcher at the Wisconsin Policy Forum, talking about their top five findings of 2025.
You're listening to MidMornings on Civic Media.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
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Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
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Hello, welcome back to Mid-Morning on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host, your buddy, your pal.
We are coming to you live from Radio Park here in Racine.
along with kelvin butenhof on the ones and twos the board lord kelvin ater sweet kelby i think there's one more but we need new nicknames for kelvin in 2026 you can be part of the conversation eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic is the number you can also drop a comment on the live stream we are on facebook youtube and the platform that we still call twitter coming up after the 10 30 news we've got audio sorbet
What are the creature comforts that you miss that technology has technologized?
That's not a word, but I just made it up.
An article at a car and driver magazine shows that a new car from a very, very famous brand is gonna be reintroducing some of the things we had when we were younger.
But we wanna know from you, what are the things that you miss that technology has quote made more convenient, but maybe not more fun.
So yeah, get in touch with us, drop a comment.
Leave a text.
We'd love to hear from you.
And then this shouldn't be a thing.
Private menu addition to close out the show.
We really appreciate you spending your time with us right now.
We appreciate the time of Mark Somerhauser, who is the communications director and Paul and a policy researcher at the Wisconsin policy form.
We are discussing the Wisconsin policy forums, new
a new article here released on their website.
They're top five findings of 2025 going over some of these things.
And we touched on it briefly in the previous segment, but I want to go back to it, Mark.
And I'm going to reread it again for them to hear.
This is number four on the list.
And this is not a, as Mark said, this is not as an order of importance or popularity.
It's just.
how they were released, but this is number four, and this is what it says.
Gross property taxes levies across Wisconsin school districts in 2025 are increasing by the largest amount.
Listen to this in three decades.
Mark, speak more on this, could you?
Absolutely.
So a lot of your listeners may be aware if they own a home or if they own property, they pay a property tax bill every year.
those property taxes go to fund their local units of government.
So their school district, their city or village or town, their county, their technical college.
And, you know, if you think of your property tax bill sort of like a pie, you know, each of those local units of government has a slice of that pie.
The biggest slice is going to your school district.
So school districts, LAVI almost have about 45% of all the property taxes collected in the state go to our school districts.
And so when the school district
uh, uh, you know, tax levy goes up or down by a significant amount.
That's going to have an outside effect on the overall property tax bill.
So every year around this time in December, we take a look at, uh, kind of what the data show for all of the, uh, gross property tax levies collected by school districts, counties, technical colleges.
The one piece that we are missing is the municipalities, the cities, villages and towns, because they approve their budgets just a little bit later in the calendar year.
And so that data does not come in until a little bit later.
But we have about two thirds to three fourths of the, of the levees already adopted by this point in the cycle.
And so we can, that gives us a pretty good sense of what property tax bills are going to do for that year.
And yeah, what we found is just looking at the school district piece of this, the levees went up 7.8%.
on the tax bills that were just sent out last month, that was the largest increase since 1992.
And there are multiple things that kind of go into this.
Obviously, this is something that while individual property tax bills will vary from one part of the state to another, from one school district to another, a lot of your listeners are going to see larger increases in their recent tax bill than they have seen.
And this is, in most cases, going to be the primary reason why the school district will have the increase.
And we have seen decisions made at the state level by elected officials of both parties that have contributed to this increase.
The other piece that we've seen is, which a lot of your listeners may be familiar with, is we've seen a record number of school districts going to referendum, asking their voters to increase their property tax levy above what state law would otherwise permit them to do.
And so that's the other factor that's
you know, attributable to kind of local policymakers and to voters.
But, you know, the cumulative effect of all this is some larger increases that we've seen in, you know, quite a few years to these school tax levies.
And this is something too, you know, if you're a renter, this affects you as well because when that, when your landlord gets that property bill tax, that will be factored into any rent increases.
So this really affects all of us and I am a homeowner.
Thank goodness.
I'm very appreciative of that.
And my, since I've only had my home for three years and the tax bill has never gone up like.
50 bucks, 100 bucks.
It's always been a significant amount.
And I feel like this, what you're talking about really is reflected in my personal property or my property tax bill for myself.
And I'm sure people are sharing in that shock and possible pain.
Before we get out of here, we only have about a minute and a half left, Mark.
What are you guys looking at in the new year?
What are you working on that we can talk about coming up?
Cause we'd love to have you back.
Absolutely.
So we have a lot of different projects in the works here for 2026.
I will just put in a quick plug for the report that we actually just put out this morning.
And it looks at a topic that we know is getting a lot of interest.
You have probably talked about it a little bit on your show, which is the data center.
I was going to say that.
I was going to say, let me guess, data centers.
Yeah, so we definitely do kind of pay attention to the policy discussion and we've noticed that this is a really hot topic in a lot of parts of the state.
And so what this report that we just put out this morning does is kind of look at how all these data centers that are, some of them have already been built, some of them are proposed and being debated right now, but those are going to have a significant effect on our utilities, particularly our electricity and our water usage.
here in Wisconsin, so we're kind of taking a look at, you know, how these data centers are going to affect energy, how they're going to affect water usage, and as well as, you know, in some parts of the state, these data centers are going to be really significant users of those utilities.
They're going to require upgrades to our utility systems.
And it's obviously going to be important to ensure that those costs are fairly distributed.
Well, Mark, I guess that means you're just going to have to come back next week and the week after that, because I want to keep talking about these topics, data centers.
Oh my gosh, we talk about them so much now.
And that's important conversation to have.
And it's really great to have you on the show today.
Mark, I really appreciate your time.
Mark Sommerhauser is the communications director and policy and a policy researcher at the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
All this will be in the show notes for you.
Mark, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Okay.
Thank you, Greg.
Take care.
All right.
When we come back, Audio Sorbet, what do you miss that technology has technologized?
More show ahead on Civic Media.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
Hello.
Welcome back.
You are listening to Mid-Morning on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your pal, your Mr. Roboto.
And you are listening to us live on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You are listening to us live from Radio Park in Racine.
If you want to be part of this conversation, I think you're going to really like this one.
It's 855-752-4842.
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subscribe to civicmediatoday.substack.com and one more local news source that is in your life.
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This is a part of the show that we call audio sorbet.
This is where we take a moment to step back talking a lot about important news earlier in the day, but this is the moment where we're going to refresh, re, whatever, recollect.
I don't know, Calvin.
It's, it's, it's been, it's been, it's been a long, it's been a long, but good morning, but we want you to be part of the conversation.
So here's what's going on.
A car and driver magazine came out with an article a couple of days ago and the headline says VW's New Year's resolution is to bring back physical buttons.
Basically, you know, I have a newer ish and very new to me car.
I bought it last year and it's got the touchscreen.
It's got all the things there and and the folks and Volkswagen is making a drastic change to its interior or to some of its interiors and electric cars and they plan to unveil a new
generation of their cockpit with refreshed IDs and more buttons, more physical buttons.
So that's what we want to know from you.
What are the things in our 2025, 2026 lives that we have now that have changed because of technology that you miss?
Are they physical buttons in the car?
Are they, you know, talking to Tucker, our senior producer before that, you know, he was mentioning that nowadays coffee machines have gone from very simple.
Put the coffee and you press the button to now you have to have an MIT career to operate these things.
So what do you miss?
What's out there that you'd love to see come back?
Or what are the things that you still use today that you're like, I'm not upgrading.
I've got this thing.
I love cassette tapes and a boom box.
What are the things out there that you really, really enjoy?
Again, 855-752-484-2855.
75 Civic is the number Kelvin.
You are still our resident young person.
I feel like in a couple years we're gonna have to find a new one because you're gonna be our resident Not old not even middle-aged, but just you just your finger won't be on the pulse anymore because you won't be in your 20s, but you still got a couple years Is there anything for you that you remember from being?
Much younger that you miss or is it just sort of like this is just how my life's been and I it's fine or things that your parents talk about that you hear them say
I will say this isn't so much... something I... because I currently possess one.
Okay.
I think... I don't like Bluetooth in cars.
Okay.
I think... let me plug my phone in.
Okay.
Alright.
So I appreciate an aux port, an auxiliary port
in
my car and would... hesitate to buy a new one that's Bluetooth only.
Well, you probably won't have a choice at a certain point.
Just because it's now, I mean, I remember, I remember when I was just a youngster, Calvin, when the CD player in a car was an upgraded luxury.
Nowadays you can't even get a CD player.
In fact, some people shop for CD players in their car because they want to still listen to their CDs.
And those people are my nephew.
Who's 20?
Yeah.
I mean, I get that.
I would agree with that to a certain point.
If phones still had.
multiple ports for charging and playing at the same time.
But once they put it all to one area, I was like, I want to charge my phone, but I can't play my phone.
So for me, I like the Bluetooth, but I understand where you're coming from on that one.
That makes sense.
I get that.
Yeah.
I, I have don't typically need to charge my phone while I'm driving.
I don't go that far of places.
And I don't know.
I just find Bluetooth.
It's inconsistent.
And like,
It's been around for what, probably 15, 20 years now almost at this point, Bluetooth technology.
And I don't think it's improved.
I don't think it really needs, I don't know what it needs to improve.
I feel like it does, it's stated job is to say, Hey, plug us into this or do this thing and it will play.
I mean, I understand the strength of the Bluetooth and whether or not it cuts out.
That's a conversation.
I mean, I'm not a long conversation really when it comes down to it, but I understand your, your hesitation towards that.
Yeah.
I get that.
I get that.
Okay.
So, so it's not so much old school, just like maybe five years ago, technology for you.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Well, we got people who've been contacting us on the text line and the live stream, Jim from Appleton listening on WISS.
He says, things I miss on modern cars.
I actually love this.
Believe it or not, I miss hand crank windows.
They gave me better control.
I don't understand it.
I also think it's funny when you like, I feel like hand crank windows have been gone for so long yet when someone wants to do the motion of roll down the window, they still do the hand crank motion and people get it.
They're like, oh, okay, cool.
Cause you can do this.
You can do this motion when you push your hand down.
That just looks.
Weird so yeah that that while hand crank windows might be gone the motion as a way of requests still exists So that's very cool.
All right.
Thank you so much Jim from Appleton Jenny on the live stream says Says I missed the casual hang with friends and family no expectations no plans and chilling out doing whatever
We want and nothing at all in the comfort doing nothing at all in the comfort of our own home She goes on to say phone tech kind of killed it silence was expected and comfortable We couldn't reach anyone 24-7 so people were more present as compared to perpetually unavailable now homes were social spaces and She wraps it up with I continue to keep casual hangouts alive, but the efforts isn't really shared I get that too
I understand that completely.
There is a thing, you know, of going out to dinner or going to someone's house and people are on their phones.
And I am very guilty of going on my phone at like, if I go to my mother-in-law's house, if there's, if we're just watching TV, I'm like, I don't really care about the show and I'll go on my phone instead of just turning off the TV and talking, I get that.
And I feel like as, and I don't know, Jenny, how you feel about this or Calvin, you might be seeing as you're getting older is that
you know, when we were younger back in our day or just not even when you were a kid, it's easier to just be like, Hey, do you want to hang out?
Hey, do you want to get like when you're really little, you want to go play?
When your teens want to hang out and hanging out could be anything.
It could be going to the movies.
It could be doing nothing and sitting around, but there was that immediacy of socialization.
Whereas at my age, now I literally had to plan a day hangout with one of my best friends a month in advance.
because life just gets life in.
There's things happening, kids, events, commitments, and just not also overbooking yourself.
So there's something about that social hang too is of a, you almost have to, if you want to socially hang out, you have to put together a Google spreadsheet on people's availabilities and you might say like, I'll just stay home.
It's fine.
And then you come together and you send your phones.
So I'm turning into an old man and Jenny responds with, yeah, exactly this.
I did this well into my early 30s and now folks for many reasons just don't.
I thought Jenny was in her early 30s.
I thought she was in her 20s.
That's not a statement.
She just looks like a wonderful skincare routine.
But yeah, I think that's just something that happens.
As we get older, we need to plan more.
And I also plan in no time as far as like, I'm going to say, I don't want to hang out with anybody and just stay at home and relax with my wife and my dog.
But we're talking about the things that technology has technologized.
Not a word.
that you may miss.
This all comes by way of a article in Car and Driver Magazine where VW in their new electric car line is going to introduce some old school feel, physical buttons back into the cars.
And we want to know what are the things that you miss from maybe the old school world, things that like in an era and pursuit of convenience, it's made it less convenient or just made it harder to operate.
Andrew from Maine says,
The hand crank motion is similar in nature as the save 5.5 floppy disk icon.
Yeah, exactly.
There's still the old school floppy disk on the computer desktop to show that this is where you save, even though we haven't used those in so, so long.
Liz, that's Andrew listening on WAUK.
Thank you so much.
Miss your comments, my friend.
Glad you're around listening.
Liz from Sockville.
listening on WA UK says, seeing live music, getting outside for entertainment instead of on the phone.
I totally agree.
I was having a conversation two days ago about this.
I am going to go see an artist named Stephen Wilson, Jr.
in Madison in April.
And I don't go to concerts very often anymore, Calvin.
I don't know if you go to concerts.
Do you go to concerts at all?
No.
Okay.
All right.
I don't go to concerts that often.
Not mainly because of the crowds.
I'm not a huge fan of crowds, but also like if they're going to a concert, I want to be able to sit because I'm old and my legs hurt.
But also you can't get away from it.
Concerts nowadays are just very, very expensive, very expensive.
And they're not going to get cheaper.
And artists that you love that are world famous, it's going to be more and more difficult to afford them.
And so it's just a thing of, I don't really want to go see this artist because I don't have $1,500 in my pocket right now to pay.
I was shocked and surprised that the tickets I bought were 75 bucks.
I was shocked and surprised by that $75 tickets.
I was like, Oh, under $100.
Thank goodness.
But that's something, you know, I missed that.
I miss going online and paying 20 bucks for a ticket and $5 service fee.
I'm going to go see a really well-known band for 25 bucks.
Back then it seemed expensive, but that's another thing too.
that we can talk about as I get older and older and older, apparently.
Let's see here.
There we go.
PJ on the live stream says, I am also Gen X and I enjoy all the new tech and cars.
It makes it a lot easier for me to operate a car safe.
But there you go.
I love that.
I love that.
I love that.
PJ is also going to go see nine inch nails in February in Milwaukee.
You can say hi to my friend, Caitlin.
She definitely will be there.
miss rdt says i missed those small windows in the front of the cars cranked open you didn't need air conditioning as much absolutely nowadays if we did that air conditioning i wouldn't even take cars because i need that but that's for another conversation we're gonna actually i see comments coming through i'll read some more as we come back but we're going to continue and round out the show what this shouldn't be a thing today it's the private menu edition
Do not go anywhere.
You are listening to Mid Mornings on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
You can always get in touch with us, 855-752-484-2855, 75 Civic, or on the live stream as I'm seeing them as well.
Anytime you'd like, love to hear from you.
Stay tuned, stay close.
Hello, welcome back to mid mornings on civic media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host.
I am your fearless leader.
I am the guy who is going to get you through until 11am along with Calvin B on the boards.
We are here for you.
We're having great conversations all morning long.
Appreciate you being part of that conversation.
You can always
get in touch with us eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic.
Uh, you can also leave a comment on the live stream.
Uh, we are on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter.
Uh, we had a great conversation in the last segment, uh, regarding technology, making certain things of yesterday or go away.
And what do we miss?
And we were been hearing from a lot of you on this.
There was an article in Car and Driver Magazine about the new VW electric cars, and they were talking about, you know, the...
the introduction of physical buttons into the car.
And we've been hearing from you.
And honestly, like we might get to this shouldn't be a thing.
I am not sure at this moment, cause we got a lot of people texting in and I want to get to those.
I want to hear from you.
And we were talking about the fact that, you know, one of the things that live concerts is something that people don't go to.
I've mentioned the fact that we, you know, tickets are very, very expensive.
And Jenny was at live concerts and this economy.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a big.
big expense.
And I want to pair that up with a comment, a text from Rick and Macquan who's listening says, the real reason we don't go to concerts is because the musicians we like are all 80 years old now.
There's an argument for that too.
I mean, some of them should have retired a while ago.
They've got plenty of money.
I would say some of the newer artists I want to see are also just very expensive.
I would totally go see Taylor Swift Beyonce.
Sabrina Carpenter, they are massive entertainers, but their tickets are massively expensive.
So
Maybe I'll save up some money.
I'll see one of them before 2050.
That'll be really, really fun.
A lot of other people coming in on the, on the text line here, David in Richland Center listening at W R C E says floor dimmers and floor vents in vehicles.
Oh my gosh.
I haven't thought about those in a while.
Sue and Franklin on WAUK.
We just saw son, son, sung blue yesterday.
That's about the, the couple here in Wisconsin who were the Neil Diamond cover group.
So good.
So good.
I like what you did there, Sue.
Made us think all about live music available in Milwaukee in the summer.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, it's still, still very available.
Summer Fest still very affordable and can see so much music for that ticket.
But yeah, I get that.
Tyler in Wisconsin Rapids says the old chrome bumpers where you could bump with and not totally your car.
I completely agree with that.
Nowadays you can't bump into a bumper without someone getting upset.
And I'm like, that's why it's there.
It's called a bumper.
And then
Brett in Brown Deer says, I miss working on cars.
And I really miss the way older cars made you feel the road.
It was more fun now.
It's more, it was more fun.
Now it's like driving a video game.
I totally get that as well.
I understand that completely.
And yeah, so I really appreciate you all reaching out.
And Andrew from Maine listening at WAUK says, does it count that I miss the laugh of a specific elder millennial retired radio host?
It hasn't been replaced by any technology.
At least I believe Greg is real.
I am real.
I am not about, I promise you that much.
That I know of it just missed.
We miss Jane as well.
I wonder if she would allow her laugh to be recorded to use as a sound drop after a really good joke.
And we will work on that, Andrew.
We will go into the archives, we will comb through the records, or we will have AI create it.
Either way, I think that's a great idea to have Jane's laugh as part of maybe our hot button series, just so we know when something's really, really funny.
Don't you agree, Calvin?
I completely agree.
I dropped the ball a little bit on having it, but I will make sure it is prepared in the future.
Okay.
We actually do have that.
We, we prepared this last year.
We're like, let's just have that on file.
No worries.
It's, there's always stuff going on.
So no worries, Calvin.
No worries at all.
We just, uh, yeah, we will have that as part of a series of fun hot buttons and ready to go sound effects here on the show.
Don't really have time to get into it today.
So I'm going to tell you what, we're just going to round out the show.
by, by thanking everybody and kind of giving a really quick review of what we talked about in our thoughts, but tomorrow we'll come back with this shouldn't be a thing that will be the private dining edition.
Earlier in the show today, we were talking about topics that really affect Wisconsinites.
We're talking about childcare funding.
We're talking about clean drinking water and our environment.
And I think it's important for people to keep that in mind when we're talking about who is running for reelection or for election here in Wisconsin because
As we see bills coming down the pike in the short legislative year in Madison, we want to make sure they reflect the will of the people, the voice of the people.
And some of those I personally believe you can go back and listen.
If you didn't hear it are not as important or life-changing as say, making sure mothers can get new mothers can get Medicaid access a year out, which is something we still don't do in this day, making sure we keep our drinking water clean.
Funding our education properly, those are the things that really should be talked about in the halls of power right now, not whether or not, I don't know, organ harvesting should or should not be covered by medical insurance, it's not.
But those are the conversations we're gonna keep on having in the new year.
And I also wanna thank Mark Sommerhauser from the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
He is the communications director and a researcher there to talk about their top five.
Findings of 2025 and all of this stuff, all of these mentions, all of these reference materials will be in the show notes today for you to look at.
I really, really suggest you take a look, especially when it comes to the materials on what our elect officials are doing in Madison because it is an election year.
It is time to get up and start getting ourselves.
acquainted with who's running, what are they running on, and do those policy points reflect you as a citizen, you as a community member, and you for the future you want to see for Wisconsin.
So myvote.wi.gov is where you want to go to find out more information on who represents you, and we'll keep talking about that in 2026.
But I want to thank Calvin, Tucker, Traffic, Engineers, Without You, none of this happens.
I'm talking into a microphone that doesn't work.
We want to thank all the listeners, the viewers,
People who come commented called We could not do this without you without you.
We don't exist So thank you so much and don't go anywhere because after the 11 o'clock news Tom Hartman's gonna be on from 11 to 2 but there's still great programming here You are listening in mid mornings on civic media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host I'll see you tomorrow stay tuned stay informed stay close
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