Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Matt Zacher April ‘25

Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Wednesday April 16th, 2025.

Have your host James J. Mailoff here in part two today.

We're going to speak with our friend Jacob Wagner,

a couple of health strategists with Wood County Health Department.

Right now we have in studio.

Our good friend Wisconsin Rabbits Mayor Matt Zacker.

Matt Goodesia, thanks for being here.

Morning James, thanks for having me again.

Want to thank our good friends over at Wisconsin

Rabbits Community Media as well.

Be sure to do yourself favorite get to YouTube,

subscribe to their page and keep up to date

and all the great work they are doing.

More on that a little bit later.

Matt, how's it been going lately?

Have you been since the last time we talked?

Yeah, everything's going well.

We just went through the change over in Aldermenna, lead into that.

So we had last week we had the final meeting to kind of conclude business

with the committees and all that.

And then yesterday we had a reorganization

where we bring in a new Aldermen Mike Tim.

It's coming on for Patrick Delaney and then we kind of reshuffle

the committee's kind of state similar.

But you know, brought in the new, the new guy

and one of the Aldermenna has to go into two committees

just because we need nine seats.

So that worked out well.

Got everything set up and then we actually tried something new

where we always kind of want to have an orientation

with the Aldermen and just kind of get their feet wet.

And a lot of times there's a lot of things we don't know.

Even after four years I'm still learning the ins and outs

of what we could be doing and we're not aware of,

you know, how to do that.

So it was good to be able to get some of that insight

and just do some of the basic,

you don't get involved in a new organization.

And I think it was good because it's not easy

to get everybody together at one time.

So we did it all at one time after the meeting

and it worked out well.

Really good to hear.

Very good to hear.

It helps everything move a little bit smoother

and everything and wishing them well.

Thank you to the previous, you know,

Aldermen, of course, and certainly

wishing a well to the new run.

And that's going to be interesting to see.

Appreciate everybody that runs for council,

boards, commissions, anybody that can do anything

to help their community.

Please, you know, we put it out on the website.

James puts it on the air for us.

We want volunteers.

Otherwise, it's just the people that I know

that I can call that, you know,

are willing to fill the seats.

But we should have more people involved

in different opinions, different viewpoints.

So one of the things that has come up

since the last time we hung out was the board

approving the mayor term extension

and going from two to three years.

And this will take place after your current run.

So the next mayor, this will be the way you're going forward.

Something we've talked about a bit

so we don't have to dive too deeply into it

because I think we feel like we've covered it pretty well.

But I feel like this is, to me,

this is where I was leaning.

So I, of course, think that it's a good idea.

But I do think that even just talking to people

about this in the community,

I haven't heard any push the other direction.

So it really feels like not only did the decision

get made that the community believes

in but that people listening to the community.

Yeah, I think it was a happy medium

four years might, you know, four years would have worked

but it might have been a little long, three years.

It definitely gets you a chance to get your feet wet

and be able to accomplish something

if you are, you know, a one-hit wonder, you know,

and maybe it will, we'll see.

But so at the end of this year,

it'll be my two-year term and then whoever gets elected

for the next term will have a three-year term.

And I think that works out well.

And for the people that say, well,

if we don't like you, we can get ready a faster.

Hopefully we have a decent slate of people running for mayor

and all the men that we don't have to worry too much about that.

But I understand their point three years is a happy medium.

And I hear you.

So there was one person that I did talk to now that you say that.

It did brought up almost the same exact sentence you just said there a lot.

And to that, and to anybody thinking or feeling that,

I only encourage you to try to reset the way you look at politics.

True.

Because if you walk into this, that negative,

like walking into it, that feeling immediately,

well, what if I don't like the person or what are we doing here?

I mean, I understand.

I mean, we've all voted in elections,

where you're, as my grandfather used to put it,

the lesser of two evils.

I understand that.

And that's just politics and everything.

But especially when we're talking on a local level here,

you know, what are we doing?

Walking into it with your fist,

if you walk around with your fist clenched all day,

you're going to get in a fight.

Yeah.

And if you walk into every situation,

expecting the negative,

that is more than likely what is going to happen.

And I'm saying this is somebody who did this for the majority of my life.

I've relearned a lot of this and everything.

I'm not pointing fingers or anything.

But it seems like such a negative approach to go into it with.

I don't disagree with the point of,

hey, if we don't like something,

we should be able to change it.

That's democracy.

All in favor of that, love democracy.

I don't know if that's controversial,

but love democracy.

But I do think that if you walk into these things,

that negative, that doesn't really accomplish that a lot.

Yeah, I think this is a good,

I talked with the Aldermen yesterday a little bit and just said,

look, we all have our opinions.

Like we, and that's what this is all about.

We're elected to represent the people in the community.

We're going to have different opinions.

And we should be able to express them freely.

But we're not going to agree with everybody all the time.

There's eight people.

They're going to vote sometimes in the mayor will break it.

Typically not.

But just respect the vote as the vote.

And you don't, you know,

if we start calling each other names

and we start putting on this anger,

all we're doing is carrying on what's happening

at a national level, sometimes at a state level,

where it's so far removed from us and out of our control.

Like right now, we need all the positive energy.

People come into the table to say,

we are here to build Wisconsin Rapids.

We're not waiting for the government to fix our problems.

We're not waiting for a big corporation to come in and save us.

It's we the people who actually run this.

And yeah, we're another thing we're going to touch on.

Like I hear what people are saying in terms of the frustration they feel

when we ended up after 150 years with a lot of red tape,

a lot of ordinances, zoning codes that are kind of,

you know, bringing people down.

I guess is the best way to put it.

And I got, you know, Kyle Currence

from the community development department

on the same page with me to say,

let's get rid of this stuff.

Let's go through it.

Like he is a really smart guy.

He knows what he's doing.

Ultimately, when he got hired, he said,

I'm here to enforce your rules,

the rules of the community.

These are the rules that all their men before me,

long before me put on,

and they voted them in year after year.

So now we're going through them and voting,

like, bringing to the table and saying,

we can vote this stuff out or we can take this red tape off.

We can remove it and get out of it.

Get it out of the way.

And that's what we're doing.

And we've done a, excuse me,

a couple of decent slates already.

We have another one on the docket to be able to remove that.

And we're going to keep going

and we're going to keep whittling away at it

so that people can get stuff done faster

and get their dreams accomplished quicker.

Yeah, the creation of the clarity in the code

and trying to remove some of the restrictions,

some of the red tape is something

that I read an article from the David Lee Tribune.

Kyle talked about this a little bit.

And so this is something that actually

haven't dealt with a lot.

Except for when I was living in California.

And my friend, his neighbors,

was trying to get some solar paneling up.

And they had been trying to get it up for 15 years.

It could not have been done.

Yeah, it's just this little stretch,

not even that big of a piece or anything like that,

but there's so much red tape out there

that they're trying to get things done.

And, you know, on a local level here,

I've heard some frustrations with some of that,

but I also think that there's an understanding

in the local level in the community wise,

too, of some grace to this and understanding that,

you know, there are a lot of laws.

There are a lot of things that are on the books

that may be applied 20 years ago that might not now.

And there isn't necessarily somebody

who just goes through all of this every time.

The events, that's all these things.

This is just kind of how laws and life works sometimes.

A mild radio partner carol,

and I used to have a segment where we talked about laws

that, you know, in Arizona,

you can't ride a horseback on a Sunday.

Backwards and all these things,

like that's obviously isn't necessary anymore,

but it's still in the books because nobody's going around

to take the time to take it out of there and stuff it.

There's the other side, too, like,

you know, being in business and want it,

you know, you live by like, make a decision pretty quick.

Let's all get together, talk about it, make a decision.

Knowing that if it's not exactly the right decision,

we adjust accordingly, we keep going,

but we're able to be very nimble.

And I think, ultimately, that's what I want.

But at the same time, if we don't have a set of

standards for where the city is going to go from here,

then it's kind of willy-nilly, free-for-all,

and I don't think we necessarily want that either.

So we're just trying to clean up things

and be able to have an organized city

so that when people come and want to invest in our city,

whether it's with jobs or buying houses or businesses,

whatever, they see that we take pride in our city.

Granted, there's lots of, say, other issues that are out there

when you got people that they're on a different level

in terms of the messy yards and maybe a hoarding situation.

And again, I'm not in a position to put myself in their shoes

to understand, but at the same time,

those are one-offs that we have to deal with,

ultimately, as a group of citizens in a city and a community.

We do have to abide by a certain set of rules.

We're working really hard to get rid of as many of those as possible

and make it as easy to get through as possible

and make the most sense.

Do you need to keep them somewhat in check,

obviously, for certain reasons

that I think are common knowledge out there.

One of them being my father would put an ice rink

right in the back yard if he could.

We can't let that happen.

I don't even know if the neighbor's like hockey.

I'm not sure if that'd be a good idea.

We're speaking with Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Zachar

along with our friends from Wisconsin Rapids Community Media.

And speaking of taking in the community feedback

and how important that is for your administration

and Kyle and so many of the people in the team over there,

we just wrapped up the communication survey

and wanted to talk about the results of that with you.

Yeah, it worked very well.

We started this, you know,

hard to believe I've been here a year already

and how many things have happened in that time and flown by

and as fast as things move,

also trying to get things done fully

is there's just so many people,

so many people involved in the conversation.

So we started a communication survey.

We took it to the department heads quite a while ago.

From there, we took it to the rest,

sorry, to the employees of the business

and then with all of that feedback,

we took it to the council

and said we want mission vision values.

We want to know where we're going

and then we all agreed, okay,

now it's time to take it to the residents

and this is kind of what we came up with as a vision.

What are the residents want?

So we sent that out.

Joe and Emily did a great job blanketing the city

as best we could.

We got about 500 responses to it,

which is an excellent variety of, you know,

people's voices and to be heard.

So we're able to take that and really move forward with

and we'll be coming out with the results of it

and kind of having, you know,

the mission vision values and what that is.

You know, and it's not too far off key,

you know, infrastructure is always going to be a big one,

making sure that the services are there,

the streets are taken care of better than, you know,

there's lots of bigger stories or, you know,

to see why some of the streets are the way they are

and I'd love to be able to talk more about that

or have Paul come on and talk more about

why they are the way they are.

And then the big one is transparency

and that's been my thing since the beginning

as I want everybody to have as much information as possible.

I think you can tell that when I talk to you on the radio.

Yes.

I want the information out

and to be able to educate everybody

so that we're all on the same page.

We're all talking the same story

and we're trusting each other.

We're building trust in that everybody's doing the best

they can to make this all work.

So those being some of the bigger things

moving forward with that,

we're going to get that mission vision values out there

and then be able to use that as the guide

to where we're going

and get more community involvement

as we bring this website online

sometime later this year.

Not committing to any dates at this time

because there's going to be a lot of work

that still has to go into it

but that's going to be more of a tool

so we can talk to each other

and we can get more input.

When citizens have ideas,

it's not just coming to the mayor

and saying, hey, I got an idea

and then it falls, you know, it falls away.

Like we should have a slate of community ideas

that are out there and vet them

and see if they're possible or not

how much they cost and all that stuff

and I think that would be a great way

to move forward with the community

and we're working hard on that.

You can go to them.

Excuse me, you can go to www.rapids.org

to see the results if you'd like.

You know, I'm just looking at some of them

and was going over them when they were released.

Was there anything that stood out to you

that was interesting to you

or that you maybe was surprising even to you

as far as the results go?

Or just in general,

just happy to collect the information.

I think that when it comes to this much information,

it's a little hard for any one thing

to stand out sometimes.

It's more so just taking it all in.

Yeah, yeah.

Again, I go back to, I guess,

the thing that I think is most important

and that I was happy that a lot of people

are talking about is the transparency.

This is the money that's coming in.

This is what the money's being used for.

If there's not this abundance of money out here

that's, you know, being used in furiously,

there's not a group of people that get hoard this

and make all these decisions on their own.

Like everything is as much as we can out in the open.

Yesterday we had that orientation with the aldermen.

We talked a lot about open meetings laws

and I know this has been some controversy in the past.

You have to be really careful

because if I meet up with an aldermen,

whether they're a friend of mine from years and years ago

and we have a very quick conversation

about maybe something that involves something to do

with the city and somebody else is listening

and they're saying, hey, you just conducted city business

and I'm like, oh, I thought maybe I was just having

a conversation with a friend about like the bigger picture

of what's going on.

Lessons learn, don't do it.

Be transparent, you gotta do it on the camera

so everybody can see it at the same time.

You have to publish the meeting dates.

You know, don't be trying to collect votes

after hours and do all that stuff.

Bring it, talking in front of the camera,

get the information you need and make your vote

to decide where the vote goes after that

and make it happen.

You can get and you can see the complete results

at wirapids.org encourage you to do that, everybody.

One of the also mentioned,

you recently had the proclamation of No Mo May,

we're continuing to do that in this community.

That's something I know just hearing from our listeners

over the last couple of years,

how much they appreciate they enjoy.

Certainly wanted to touch on that.

Yeah, I think that it was one of those things

that was there before I got on.

As aldermen, I voted to go through.

It seemed like a worthwhile program

to see where I go.

I know there's some controversy with it

in terms of people abusing it

and not necessarily doing it for the right reasons.

And then as soon as May is over,

we gotta get our foot grass cut.

It's somehow a foot tall now.

Last year was an anomaly because we had so much rain

and it just got crazy.

I guess I encourage people probably to maybe keep track

of it and not let it get out of hand.

If you know it's gonna be a problem,

it doesn't necessarily mean you have to let it grow forever.

It can be longer than typical

or let it grow for a little while.

I don't know.

There's so many different avenues to it.

Some people talk about wildflower gardens

because that would be great for the pollen

and the bees more so than necessarily the grass.

But then I learned that bees like to hang out

in the grass and the longer the grass than they're there.

So there's a lot of things that I really have never given

any thought to in my time.

I'm a host to what that is.

Yeah.

And I'm spoiled in this chair.

I get to talk to a lot of people.

UW Extension comes in every week

and I've talked to a lot of their people about this

and learned a science of it and a lot of that

and the importance of it.

And it's something my dad is a big fan of.

And it's wild to me to say that

because my father loves his lawn.

But he loves doing this.

I real quick though, I do gotta say

to the pushback on this one.

I remember being a kid and hearing that there were two states

that didn't wanna take Martin Luther King's birthday off.

We're not gonna allow this and everything.

I just remember thinking that how much do you have to hate

somebody to not take a day off of work?

And all you were asking people is

you don't gotta mow your lawn for a month,

even a couple of weeks, you know?

Like that's all we're asking is not to do something.

And how much do you have to push back on things

just to not do something?

It seems a little silly to me in some ways.

Now again, I'm not gonna tell anybody what to do with the lawn

and I'm not trying to make anybody feel guilty

one way or the other or anything.

But I do hope you can sit there

and look in the mirror and ask yourself,

what am I really fighting against here?

What am I really?

Because honestly, this comes back to something

we talked about a little bit earlier too.

I feel like as a society and I'm no different

than anybody.

When I say society, I'm a part of that too, everybody.

So I'm not talking down to anyone.

We gotta get better about choosing our battles wisely.

Not everything is worth getting bent out to shape about.

Not everything is worth leaving comments about

or barking about or getting bent out.

If you get mad about everything,

then what happens when something really bad does happen?

And we should be getting up or worse about.

If we get mad about every single thing

and everything's at a 10,

what happens when something is actually a 10?

We don't meet the moment.

We're not hitting the mark there.

I will take it a step further if you please.

Please.

So if you take it a step further and say,

what is it that's got people riled up one way or the other?

Like there's people that grow up in households

that are very free and the rules are,

not really rules, they're just there.

And then there's people that grow up in households

that are very strict by the rules.

And as they grow up into a world that can,

as it's scary parts and it's, you find your way

to deal with the life that you've been dealt.

And you usually do it within the confines

of how your parents brought you up.

And so ultimately when you're talking about one side

or the other, they're both so ingrained

and so set in their ways that, yeah,

that's where the battle comes in.

That's right now where you have this.

I mean, we set up in our country a two-party system,

which I think is like, it's kind of crazy.

Imagine trying to sit on a stool with two legs.

And so it's, but in the end it is what it is.

Social media then gives us the platform

for everybody to share their crazy

or share their insight or share their whatever.

But ultimately, when I see that the representative

democracy in action, it comes down to how people

were the family they were born into,

how they were raised, where they went to school,

what jobs they got, like what friends they surround with.

And that is what sets their life ingrained

in that little bubble and there they live.

So that's why we are fighting each other

because we have such a platform to do it on now.

And yeah, instead of kind of all just kind of getting along

and doing our life and moving the way it,

it's like all out there now.

Yeah, yeah, which is the new frontier.

Yeah, it is, yeah.

And I think about that with our kids.

Like, yes, we were teenagers once,

but we weren't teenagers in this landscape.

No, not at all.

And I give these kids credit for what they're going through

with the demeanor that they're doing it with.

And yeah, there's lots of pitfalls

and lots of, you know, snares out there,

but they're figuring out how to do it

and I give them all credit for it.

It's a great note, I appreciate that.

I would like to note that whenever we can

about the our generations.

One of the note as well,

some new work that you guys are doing

with Wisconsin Rebs Community Media, you and your team.

You have the new video series that has been showing up

on there.

I want to encourage people to check out

and make sure that they know about it.

Yeah, yeah, Joe and Taylor, I do a great job.

They started off early on.

Sometimes I have ideas and my idea in the beginning was

we got to build communication.

There's everything I just said earlier,

like getting this information to the community

so that they feel that they're part of their government.

It's not a separate entity and they're doing

whatever they want to do.

So they heard me and they, you know,

we were able to figure out how to, you know,

get what the resources necessary in order to build

a new studio and get some tables where we can sit.

Kind of like we're doing here and talking, you know,

across the table, asking questions,

getting to know each other and then with that,

providing more information for the community

to understand, but also letting them know

that we're just people.

We're just like them and, you know,

and the more people, so the more people

we can get in these podcasts,

or starting with department heads

so that they can be introduced to the people

and have them giving reports every week

or every two weeks on where the streets are at

and what the construction projects are

because they affect everybody.

Also, community development and what we're trying to work on

and how that's all going.

And then bringing it into work

and getting the chamber involved with businesses

that are working hard to build our economy.

Hopefully someday getting James from WFHR on there

so we can have a conversation, you know,

even though we do it already,

it'd be fun to do it from the other side.

So yeah, it's been going really good.

And Joe and Taylor are definitely well equipped for this

and they have the capacity and the bandwidth

like with their intelligence to be able to build this

and really take it on and build a vision

and help the community in every way possible.

I think the world of those guys

and the doing the work of 30 people over there,

don't tell them I said that.

I mean, it gets to us at night.

We appreciate their friends over there

and the work being done over there.

And I appreciate, again, going back to transparency

and how important that is to you.

It's shown in the work here.

None of the people we've just mentioned, Joe,

Taylor, you have a lot of free time

or a lot of ability to add new projects

on the fact that you guys have done that

shows the commitment to the community

and that transparency.

I really do appreciate that.

Get to YouTube, type in your search bar

where Wisconsin Rappets Community Media

and subscribe to their page.

And be listening next month for another chance to

here, Matt and I talk, I appreciate you, Matt.

Thank you so much for the time.

Thank you, James.

Have a good day.

www.rapets.org is the city's website

where you can find most of the information we talked about today.

We'll be back with more midday magazine

right here at WFHR.