Wisconsin from Civic Media.
This is Up North News Radio.
Now live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitlo.
Hey, good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio, unabashedly Wisconsin brought to you by Currier Newsroom and carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network at 7 0 6 on a Thursday morning, February 20th.
Nice to have you along.
Coming up at the bottom of the hour, we will talk to two members of the Wisconsin Legislature's Black Caucus, Representative Sequana Taylor and State Senator Dora Drake about Black History Month.
A little Black History was made just yet.
Clean one without all of the fighting that has accompanied the resolution for the past seven years of Republican obstruction.
So we'll get into that coming up a little bit after 730.
We'll talk to Luke Mathers just near the end of the hour here, and that will include talking about the economic impact of Top Chef Wisconsin.
It's still being felt to this day.
We'll offer a dramatic interpretation of the Facebook comment section coming up in moments, followed by up-to-date news reporter Selena Heller talking about the real impact on Wisconsin farm families
from what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing, taking a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel to the federal budget.
But before all of that, we have meteorologist Brittany Merleau joining us as well to talk about the light at the end of the tunnel, the dark, cold tunnel.
It's coming with a wintry mix, just to annoy Greg, but it's the warmth that's coming, Brittany.
Good morning.
Good morning.
It really is.
I'm so excited.
Today's the day you can actually, like, probably get outside to enjoy some of the snowfall that we got because we're finally all going to be above zero, feeling above zero, no more wind chills to battle, nothing like that.
In fact, high temperatures today across the entire state will make it to the low 20s.
It's going to be a sunny, beautiful, calm day out there.
And we're going to put that on repeat for tomorrow too, another day with low 20s, ton of sunshine.
And then as we go into the weekend, we get even warmer.
We're looking at highs reaching the upper 20s on Saturday, partly sunny skies.
Then we'll become partly cloudy on Sunday.
Highs climb to the upper 30s.
So
this is
the first day above freezing.
Some little bit of melting of snow will start on Sunday.
And then we're also looking at a winter mix headed our way.
It looks like the northeastern part of the state is more snow.
And then the southeastern part of the state.
looks more of an icy, rainy type headed our way.
And of course, that continues into Monday, where we are still looking at light scattered wintery mix throughout the state because high temperatures are going to be hitting 40 to 45 degrees.
This is Monday.
Yeah, I checked.
It's not going to break any records.
We got into the 50s and 60s once before on that day, but still.
very nice and mild.
It will be continuing to melt more and more snow and pretty much when you have temperatures in the forties, it's going to take about a half an inch of snow away a day.
So we're going to put forties on repeat for Tuesday and into Wednesday as well with more chances of a wind remix moving in on Wednesday too.
So it's going to be a darker dreary or kind of warmth because it will create some fog as that snow is melting.
It will bring chances of rain and snow in there and more clouds out there too.
But hey.
40s compared to negative 40s?
Yeah, I mean, everything's 15 to 20 degrees warmer than yesterday morning at this time, which is nice.
You're not the only one who is watching the record highs.
Roger from Stevens Point puts on Facebook that a year ago today, Ironwood, Michigan had 50 degrees, even as Hurley, Wisconsin not far away had a snowfall deficit of 85 inches.
Last winter was just weird and sad for folks up north.
It was.
What a difference here.
Also, on the text line from Dave in New Berlin, good morning, Miss Brittany, looking lovely as usual.
From Rob and Tigerton, good morning.
It's partly cloudy and nine above with a windshield of four below.
There is a little bit of a breeze out there.
He says, later today, I get to go to a public information meeting at the Chano County Courthouse on a proposal adding a $20 wheel tax to improve Chano County roads.
I have to be involved.
He says yesterday he went to Chano and the sun has heat on these cold weather days that you don't have to use the heater like you would in December and January.
That February and March are the time for ice storms in Wisconsin and he hates ice storms.
I can get on board with that.
Me too.
This is the
worst.
This is the
worst.
That's
all good.
Oh, we
found
something Brittany doesn't like.
Yay!
True.
We did.
Finally.
Oh, God.
Yeah, I thought she was going to be positive about everything.
Okay.
Not that.
Love it.
Thank you, Brittany, very much.
Appreciate it.
Have a good day.
You can sign up for our daily newsletter.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Sign up there.
Christina Laurie puts it together.
A lot of stories as we
Tried to bring an extra attention to the battle against cancer this month and she notes in today's newsletter that there are more than 100 cancer-focused charities
just in Wisconsin.
And so it can be hard to decide where to give your money, but she has looked into it and she offers up three Wisconsin based charities that immediately will put your dollars to work.
She has another article about screening for various types of cancers as well.
And then she talks a bit about some local teams that you can support in 2025, not just like the Badgers and Packers, but for example, Madison is going to be home to Wisconsin's first professional women's soccer team sometime in 2025.
So you can catch all that and much more over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Check out the articles, sign up for the newsletter there as well.
If I could, Greg, ask for just a little bit of a little chamber music, please.
But of course, my
pleasure.
Let's class up the joint a bit here.
No, wait, who's who here?
And now I present Pat Chrysler.
Welcome.
Good morning, everybody.
Welcome to Dramatic Interpretations of the Facebook Comment Section.
to you by Mega Mark, who really had a lot to say during our segment with Joseph Peckie in our last hour.
So we include comments like, I mean, it first starts off easy enough, talking about the state budget surplus.
Any budget that doesn't return the four billion in overtaxing to the folks who earned it is a failure.
Followed by, Evers has no new ideas.
He simply plagiarizes Trump.
followed by typical liberal thinks he's better than the good folks in Arkansas.
All right, I'll stop on that one, Mark.
Okay, it's not that we think we're better than the good folks in Arkansas, given that Arkansas and Wisconsin are the only two states that have not increased Medicaid coverage for new moms for a year after giving their baby.
Did the orchestra not want to hear the rest of that answer?
They really fired it up there.
They're all mega.
Let's bring that orchestra down a little bit.
It's not that we think we're better than the folks in Arkansas, but for those of us who want to expand health care coverage for new moms,
It makes us smarter than the people in Arkansas.
I'll be just fine with that.
Followed by, yeah, I told you he's on a tear.
Crite Low has no issues with the billionaires Reid Hoffman, Pritzker, and Soros funding Crackpot Crawford.
That, of course, would be Susan Crawford, who's running for state supreme court.
And that's not exactly true.
We've spoken out many a time about how there's too much money in politics, how we definitely need to put some limits on that.
We talked just the other day about the Buckley v. Vallejo decision of 1976 and how it equates money with free speech and how.
that really shouldn't be the case.
Millionaires and billionaires shouldn't get more free speech than what we have.
Am I happy nonetheless that while some billionaires like Elon Musk contribute to causes on the right and others contribute to causes on the left?
Yeah, yep, that's that's kind of how this works.
I don't know where the next couple of ones came from.
But you can tell the interview is really going on somewhere with Joseph Pecky because all we get on this one is
Wrong, quite low.
It happened in Sun Prairie.
I don't know the context of that, so I'm sorry.
And then finally, Liars.
And that ends today's dramatic reading of the Facebook comment section.
Thank you.
The orchestra has left now.
They're just like I yelled at them.
They're not coming back.
Thank you.
Thank you.
we're back to beauty and the beast all of a sudden.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Well, I have, I have, I have a dramatic interpretation of what of the last message that Mark sent us.
Tony puts on Ashland.
I think you need more underlying anger to really nail the character.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, if you really want to do this, we could do a dramatic reading sometime.
I'm happy to participate in that.
It was just, there were so many
that
at some point you go, I can't, you know, the only way to respond is en masse.
Well, the, I just have one question from Mark is that, is that anytime they want to bring up George Soros or Jamie Pritzker, who's a new guy on the block for this, now you should just be Soros.
Yeah.
Okay.
They don't get to, you don't want them, then you don't get to have Musk, you don't get to have the E-Lines, you don't get to have Hendrix, you don't get to have any of those other ones either.
Nobody gets them.
Are you okay with that?
If you're okay with that, fine.
If not, then stop talking about the few liberal billionaires out there.
And that actually gets me to a point that I'm making for this weekend's newsletter.
We do a new weekend newsletter about politics.
And we asked a question about what should the legislature do with the $4 billion surplus.
And we gave people four options, ABCD with the one being kind of what Mark said is that
all the surplus should go back to taxpayers and don't use any of it for services.
And the option for D is all of it should go for services, education and everything, and none of it for tax cuts, and then varying degrees in the middle.
And the question that I wrote about last night for the newsletter is, the people who answered A and the people who answered D, could you still get them in a room together and say, here's $4 billion.
Split this up in a way that makes it a win-win.
And Selena, you and I have covered enough politicians over the years and we've talked to enough real people that despite what comes out as a lot of sarcasm from me and everything else, I still believe that if you grab some regular folks from column A and some regular folks from column D who answered that question and you said, you get to be a legislator for a day.
You don't have to, it doesn't have to be your whole life, but we're going to make you a legislator for a day.
And can you split up this $4 billion and create a win-win for the most people?
I still believe most people would take that test seriously and do it rather than pout and storm out of the room if they didn't get everything they wanted.
So, you know, previously I've been in economic development with the city of Eau Claire and we held such exercises, little workshops just like that, you know, what to do with the city budget.
And we did that.
And it was really interesting because people did just get in a room and say, here's this pile of money, what do you do with it?
And they were, we all got into little groups and we did just that.
And then a representative from each group got up and wrote on the board what, you know, they thought it was really interesting.
And they all work together.
That's right.
I forgot that you had done that for the city.
And again, for all the talk about politics and the negative sides of it, there are times that our faith has restored watching people who are actually service driven and in this for a right reason.
And not just getting angry in the comment section.
Selena has more about the impact on Wisconsin farmers of the Trump cuts next.
This is Up North News Radio.
John Giles of the Jay Giles band turned 79 years old today and catch our history lesson every morning at 6 50 on up north news radio I don't think I could do justice to what we talked about during the break about AMS our videos ASMR ASMR.
I don't know whatever it is Okay smart guy, what does it stand for?
Something something meridian response.
I Could I was I just yeah autonomous sensory meridian response.
It could be crackpot
It's not, I mean, it's, it's whatever, but I like it.
No, I think it's a perfectly fine thing.
I just, I didn't know if we could pull it off on live radio to talk about something that's really quiet.
Cause it's just going to frustrate us.
We're going to get a silence notification
from the engineers like, why
aren't you
talking?
I'm totally talking right now.
We are talking.
I told you so.
Started with Selena and Emery likes to watch the unboxing of toys ones.
There's unboxing toys videos.
They've run a muck on YouTube.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
And these kids, you know, their, their parents are making huge bucks doing this.
Yeah.
explore.
explore it some other time.
We want to get into a story that Celine's been working on for Up North News.
And that is about, you know, we've heard about
you know, so many people losing their jobs, the layoffs, the National Park Service, there's going to be long lines at National Parks.
There's people that are supposed to guard the nuclear weapons stockpile.
There's all kinds of folks that are having real impacts.
But it's not just federal workers.
It's folks who have any kinds of dealings with the federal government where decisions were made and contracts were signed.
And now,
Donald Trump is going in and breaking these contracts and Selena you've you found one One one of many farmers out there who's really gonna feel the pinch from this.
Pape family pastures in Pestigo with his wife, Erin, also.
And they have used equip contracts a lot of times over the last few years to grow their farm.
And the equip contracts are environmental quality incentives program.
And it's part of the natural resources conservation services program, which is under the USDA.
And so farmers have been using these contracts for years.
He signed one last spring that is
not getting fulfilled right now.
Well, let's give a listen to the report you put together about this that you can catch on Up North News' social media feeds.
They replied back that they owed me about $30,000, but then there was some very disconcerting language.
We're unable to
to pay on this contract at this time and don't know when funds will be made available because it was contracted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Any further practice implementation is at my own discretion.
$30,000 might not be a lot of money to some people, but it's a lot to me.
It's a lot to my business and I need that money to operate.
I was counting on that money to be able to operate my farm this year.
If I don't get paid,
that 30 grand, I gotta go borrow that money.
And in return, we're taking worn out crop land that's been highly eroded, causing water quality impacts, and we're putting in a permanent perennial grass.
I think it's a win-win program.
Papes says the freeze is adding more economic uncertainty for farmers also being hit with the end of USAID, which will cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in income, plus farmers could bear the brunt of retaliation from tariffs affecting fertile
are pricing and availability right away, all rippling through the rest of the rural economy.
The federal government is just being hit with a sledgehammer right now and programs are just being smashed and departments being closed, you know, at the drop of a hat.
It's way too chaotic.
It's making it very difficult to react to.
I'm a pretty conservative guy, a long-standing Christian and very, very conservative moral.
you know, in social values, you could say.
But at the end of the day, I understand that competency in government is a good thing.
Well, it's supposed to be competency in government.
And that leads us before we hear from Julie Beaumont at the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
People, and we talked about this the other day with Hans Breitmoser, people were jumping to conclusions that Aaron Pape being unhappy about this must mean, you know, that, you know, he voted one way or he voted the other, but his politics aren't something that come into play here.
yeah, thinking that well, he's a farmer, so he must have voted for Trump.
A
people going, Oh, farmers deserve this.
No, plenty of farmers who voted for Trump for various reasons.
Again, expected a more, my word, competent approach to reigning in federal spending.
So you also talked to Julie Beaumar, the executive director of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
I did and she said, you know, she was talking about all of these issues that farmers are having and all of these things that are just kind of blowing up in everybody's faces and a lot of things affecting the farmers.
But also her organization is being affected too because funds are being frozen at the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
Let's give a listen to Julie.
I think everybody has been dazed in terms of the amount of impact that has occurred in the last few weeks.
And then really just trying to figure out the right strategy.
Nonprofits too are wildly affected.
As one person put it to me, the nonprofit world is blown up at this point.
And we also are experiencing that as a farm organization where we have five
five grants that have federal money coming to them either through partners or through the state and those are frozen right now.
We have accounts receivable growing daily on those and we have not been reimbursed for previous quarterly invoices.
Which gets to the point of again, these were contracts.
So what you think when somebody signs a contract, they're going to live up to it and then maybe not renew the contract.
Right.
Right.
see through the commitment, which has always been my problem with these debates about debt ceilings.
They're phony debates because you've already committed to spending the money.
So pay the bill and one more quick thing on a much lighter note.
But when you mentioned Aaron Pape and his wife, Aaron, it's A-A-R-O-N and E-R-I-N.
And it's one of those many, many times where you know a boy meets girl,
boy and girl fall in love and the girl goes, really, we're going to be Aaron and Aaron.
You don't know.
It's like a pat and pat, for example.
But they are good folks, good farmers.
We really appreciate them sharing time.
Selena, thank you very much.
I appreciate
so much.
I just want to say on my own here and not rope Selena into this, that mega mark is back.
and says on Facebook, his, the farmer, his business model is predicated on a government grant.
This is not typical.
Nice try.
Okay, first off, Mark, yeah, it is.
The farming system is very complex that way, where there's a lot of payments to grow crops, to not grow crops, and to do a bunch of other things that help feed the world and also protect the environment.
And also, please, Mark, try DKF.
We will come back and talk to two members of the Legislative Black Caucus about the Legislative Black Caucus about Black History Month.
That's coming up next.
I should get the calf too.
You're up north.
Singer Rihanna is 37 years old today.
Part of today's history lesson.
The Badger Men's basketball team will be playing on Saturday against Oregon.
Coverage starts at 10 a.m.
on stations across the Civic Media Radio Network and on the Civic Media app.
and the Badger Men's Hockey team will play Notre Dame on Friday and Saturday.
Coverage begins at 7 p.m.
on Civic Media Station WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids and the Civic Media app as well.
And then the the Bucks are playing tonight and I believe they are are they hosting the Clippers?
Yes, they are hosting the LA Clippers.
Let's get into a discussion about Black History Month and
little bit of I guess black history that you could say was made in the Wisconsin Assembly when It just has become like this annual thing where legislative Republicans are looking for any reason to push back on essentially a clean resolution noting black history month wanting to
essentially micromanage, you know, which historical figures are called out on that resolution.
It's a theme you hear from me a lot about Republicans wanting to micromanage what other people do.
which is ironic given how much we hear about big government from these folks.
But regardless, after seven years of false starts, a resolution did pass the assembly yesterday, and we are very happy to be joined by two members of the Legislative Black Caucus, Senator Dora Drake and Representative Sequana Taylor.
Ladies, good morning.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Good morning.
Nice to talk to both of you here.
Representative Taylor.
Let me start with you because as we talked during the break, I mean, this was, it's hard to say who all gets all the credit.
And I don't want to dwell on it, but the fact that a black history resolution couldn't pass for years was just the height of silly season for state politics.
And now it did.
Is that, is that credit to any particular people or they just got tired of fighting about it?
I mean, I want to credit.
Maybe several people.
For one, I want to credit the chair of the Black Caucus, which is Senator Dore Drake.
I'm the vice chair in a lot of the heavy lifting on the assembly side was due to representative Kailin Haywood, which is the minority assistant leader.
I don't necessarily know if they got tired of fighting because I felt like initially maybe there was maybe minimum pushback or some pushback, but
it actually passed yesterday.
And no one on the other side stood up, you know, to say any words about why it shouldn't pass or who should be on there at that point.
And so it was really great to see something that is definitely nonpartisan, right, but should be bipartisan with everybody, be able to be celebrated.
And as I said on the floor yesterday that
Black history is an annual.
It's a lifetime commitment to the individuals that came before us that fought for this nation and built and shaped this nation, the progress of this nation.
So definitely the Black Caucus and Hall, but a lot to representative Haywood, who carry a lot of the heavy hope.
heavy low ensuring that it got onto the floor yesterday.
And Senator, a similar question to you.
And again, addressing, I thought you all expressed it so well, when the people are like, oh, well, we shouldn't even be talking about race, we should all be, you know, together.
And you guys did a great job of saying, look, there are many ways where we are together, but there are also many ways where we celebrate the cultures where we where we've all come from.
Exactly.
And that has always been the focal point of what we stand for as a caucus.
You know, we are committed to the improvement of African Americans and members of the African diaspora through our whole state.
And so when it comes to the Black History Resolution Month, it's not saying that other cultures shouldn't be celebrated.
It's saying that we are beautiful in our own cultures, in our own unique ways, and those differences should be celebrated.
you know, and so in terms of the success of getting through the assembly floor, we are excited that it got passed.
And I know that we're waiting for the Senate to come back in session so we can do the same thing.
Absolutely.
And I sense things will be a lot smoother this time around.
And I'm not just wishing for that as a former senator, but I feel I feel pretty good about that.
In terms of, you know,
moving from history to the present tense.
And again, sometimes it feels like we're threading a needle here and I'm so glad to have you both talk about this point.
Because one of the earliest stories, series of stories we did at Up North News five years ago was about systemic racism in Wisconsin and explaining what systemic or institutional racism is.
And again, maybe there's something in the term, it gets this knee jerk reaction like, you know, oh, we're not racist.
it's not that you're calling somebody racist, you're saying the institutions, it was a three-part series, one on education, one on healthcare, one on criminal justice.
So when we talk about the challenges that are still out there, when you see that much disparity between races, that tells you that there is something that needs to be studied and improved on, and yet, Representative Taylor, we still see some kind of a pushback.
Yeah, it is.
And once again, you said it, correct.
Like, we're not stating that everyone is racist, right?
And we're just saying because of systematic things that have been put in place for years, we have to acknowledge the barriers.
We have to acknowledge the challenges.
And we also have to acknowledge that things need to change.
And I often tell people,
We don't like to talk about the elephant in the room because of fear that we'll offend someone.
And I've said on tons of national seats and I often say, let's talk about the elephant in the room.
If somehow someone gets offended, let's clear it up, let's get over it and let's get to work.
Because by us not talking about it, not addressing it, it continues to linger and happen.
And I think it's often said like education is the most powerful tool to change the world.
I take that to be with knowledge too.
we identify it, then we can find a solution to it.
But as long as we don't identify it and keep it in the background, we're letting the problem continue to escalate and none of us would like to do that.
I
often
tell people like who wants to live in a world where people are not being treated unfairly and as Dr. Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere.
It's injustice everywhere.
And sometimes in certain groups, there is a larger problem.
I think, for example, another example was when there was talk about forming a task force about missing and murdered Indigenous women.
And one particular Republican lawmaker held it up saying, well, why don't we talk about missing and murdered women of all types?
Well, again, because there's something there that needs to be explored.
And yet, Senator Drake, we're now at a point where
wanting to give that extra attention to a particular group and try to fix an injustice is now, especially over the past five weeks, is being specifically targeted and people being fired and money being frozen.
And what's that gonna do to these ongoing problems?
Well, it's just going to exacerbate them.
And so that's why we are so concerned as a caucus on what it means to not just advocate for these issues, but what it means to actually uplift and support those, whether it's through policy, whether it's through funding, whether it's supporting our partners and community workers who are doing that work.
You know, you mentioned the missing addition, missing.
um task force for african-america women and children and that was something that Rep Stubbs and Senator Johnson have been adamant about is because we have them for indigenous women which as a caucus we absolutely agree that that should be there but there is a separate sect of women black women and children that are not listened to that are ignored and that have trauma that have lost lives and so the work that we do to address and fight systemic racism goes
to address housing, health care, education, being involved in the criminal justice system, all those things matter.
And so we are excited, obviously, that we are passing the Black History Month resolution, but now is the time to really work on the policies that we fight for.
And so we're great, you know, that it passed, but now it's time for us to still continue to push the needle and say, we got this done.
Now let's get legislation done to uplift and support funding for all these programs that are at risk of losing if the federal government doesn't step in and we do our part as state leaders.
You jumped right into the pivot that I wanted to make in terms of policy and and having you know not just being reactive to things but being
proactive.
So Senator, I'll start with you this time in terms of policy, whether it was things you heard from the governor's budget address or other priorities of the Black Caucus.
What are the things that you would like to see happen during this session?
Well, you know, the governor stated that this year is the year of the kid.
And we have witnessed the need for that.
You know, something that stood out to me wasn't just the funding for our public schools, but really addressing the issue of lead.
The, you know, we
that's a continuous issue.
And we're thankful that we got funding from the Biden administration to address that, but it's still not addressing the whole issue.
So to see that specifically in the proposed budget was absolutely something that's amazing.
In terms of other priorities, we know that there are some issues with having access to housing for people to become homeowners, but also what it means to address black unemployment.
This year, sitting for Black History Month across the whole nation is African-Americans in labor.
And in Wisconsin, we still have the lowest rate of unemployment.
And so we know that there are job opportunities, but is it going to be paying you well enough?
Are your rights protected?
Are the union paying jobs that you are have access to?
And so those are some of the things that we'll be pushing for.
And I know Rob Taylor is really passionate about maternal health care as am I.
postpartum is something that we are excited to push through and hopefully that we don't let one legislator stop the progress of that this
year.
I mean, we can't talk about that enough on this program of how one assembly speaker is blocking something with 90 plus cosponsors to increase affordable, stable health care coverage for new moms across Wisconsin, but especially in an area where black maternal mortality is unnecessarily sky high.
So
So you want to say more about that, Representative Taylor, or any other priorities in this session that you want to fight for?
Yeah, well, as a educator, I used to say past educator wants to educate or always educator to see the special ed reimbursement at 60%.
To see the monies for a local government, you know, as someone who spent time on local government in schools, right?
The mental health piece was so stagnant given the things that happen within our communities, especially communities of color that needed in a lot of what Senator Drake already mentioned.
I was excited about this budget, but I know the real work begins and giving the past budget years, how we've seen them take out some of the great things that the governor has put into this budget and rip it right out of the budget.
And so if we're going to talk about how do we have a best constant that moves forward, then we need to move forward with some things that were really great.
As I said before, listening to the things about the school being public schools.
I just looked at the other side and it was kind of sadding to see that no one was clapping especially when we talk about the year of the kid whether you say kid whether you say child I'll call them babies but at the end of the day all of us want all of the children of Wisconsin to be successful and so we should all be applauding when we talk about it's the year of the kid because if they're going to be our future we need to presently pour into them and if we're not doing that then we are a disservice.
We got a couple minutes left, so I'm going to ask this one last question to both of you and Representative Taylor, start with you in terms of your impressions as a new legislator.
I know you've served and continue to serve on the Milwaukee County Board, but what do you think of life so far in the Assembly?
I often tell people the analogy of a faucet of running water.
Right?
Like, since day one, it's been going with visits, emails, calls.
I'm really looking forward to working with everyone, even people on the other side.
It is definitely a difference from local government, finding that balance of what works, what doesn't work, and how do we really get down to having work done.
I'm honored to be here.
I truly think the people of the Levin District.
And like I said before, I'm ready to get to work.
And Senator Drake, I'll frame it the same way that I do to other folks, because I tease my big brother, Senator Jeff Smith.
Moving from the assembly to the Senate, I said the former Senator, isn't it so much cooler up there?
Isn't it just nice to
be?
You know, it is.
So
that's called that's called Senateude, by the way, for folks.
Well you know you know it all seems a different pace but I'm absolutely loving it.
You know the you know the flow work is just different but we're getting so many calls about different issues different stakeholders that want to engage in a new way and I actually want to take this time to ensure that I let folks know that we have a Black advocacy day that's happened every year that was formally led by my predecessor Senator Lena Taylor now judge but there's so much more interest in figuring out two-year point Pat about what it means
next steps.
And so I want to invite everybody in the state to come to Black Advocacy Day on Thursday, February 27.
It's going to be an amazing time, and it's going to be an opportunity to network, to build, and to learn more about how you can get involved in the civic process.
That is wonderful.
Thank you for mentioning that.
Senator Dora Drake and Representative Sequana Taylor.
It's so great to talk to both of you.
Thank you so much for all you do, and thanks for taking time with us this morning.
Thank you for that.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Have a wonderful day.
And when we come back, we're going to talk to Luke Mathers, our big fan of Top Chef Wisconsin about the ongoing economic impact of that series.
That's coming up after this.
You're up north.
What are we doing?
Playing Steely Dan for the arrival of Luke Mathers.
One more birthday.
The late Walter Becker from Steely Dan was born on this day.
And we play this one because singing in the background of Peg is Michael McDonald.
We have actually isolated his vocal track on this.
Give a listen how Michael McDonald sings in the background on
this.
I just wanted to hear your very, very high.
The things we do to entertain Luke Mathers when he comes to visit us because he's kind enough to come in so early in the day.
It's not enough for him to be handsome and capable.
He works for us.
He works hard, including talking to us about the economic impact of top chef.
Mr. Mathers, how are you?
I'm doing well, Mr. Crilo.
Glad to see you.
It wasn't that a great week away on the beach together.
I mean, uh, no, no, no, wait, uh, no, I was, I was definitely in the national parks.
Oh, definitely.
Oh, definitely.
No one else.
No one would have
cared if you guys took a couple's vacation.
Oh, oh, one person on this call would have very much cared,
correct.
Two, maybe three.
Are you talking about me?
I took my vacation.
I went to Memphis.
I saw some great music and ate food.
If you saw
Pat and I frolicking on the beach with Pina Coladas.
I think you would have a little bit of FOMO.
Come on, Greg.
Let's be honest about it.
No?
No.
No.
No.
Well, we could post the pictures to Pat, though.
We could post the pictures to Instagram.
Hey, Luke.
Luke.
Matt, there's us.
You know, I know you're handsome and capable and you are technically and actually my boss, but don't start.
Don't start things you can't finish.
Don't write things you can't cash.
The imagery of the three of us frolicking in the ocean along the beach, it screams the Zoolander scene with the gasoline fight is basically how dumb we would look doing this.
That sounds about right.
Yes.
Mr. Mathers, top chef, still.
bringing in dividends to Wisconsin.
Something like it took more than a million dollars to land top chef through marketing and sponsorship and things like that.
But a recent study shared by Visit Milwaukee estimates that top chef viewers
contributed more than a million and a half dollars in revenue at Milwaukee area hotels during the time that they were shooting.
But then you still have, you know, tourists that are coming in, they're coming into Dan Jacobs restaurant and others that are there.
It just goes to show you that you never know where the next piece of economic development is going to come from, including a really good reality show.
Yeah.
And it's going to be an investment that hopefully continues to
pay dividends for not only the city of Milwaukee, but the state of Wisconsin as a whole.
We got to watch that fantastic season last year.
The new one is going to be kicking off.
So there's going to be a lot of people rewatching if they didn't watch it live last year as it was going on across the state of Wisconsin.
Top Chef season 21 is going to be starting, I want to say in March, but I could be wrong.
It might be April, but it's right around the corner.
And a lot of folks like to rewatch the previous season or
Seasons leading up to the new ones and so this is gonna be something that exists forever and and folks are gonna be continuing to find it is going to continue to hopefully pay dividends for for Wisconsin and Milwaukee and Yeah, it's very exciting to see what's happened so far since the conclusion of the season and and it's great to see that we we can have Our our name out there as a culinary destination for folks that want to travel and experience not just cheese
curds and beer,
but there's more.
Yeah.
The architecture that comes with Frank Lloyd Wright, all of the other aspects that were highlighted during the season to really showcase Wisconsin.
It's really great that we were able to have that across our state last year.
And Chef Dan Jacobs is using that soapbox that he's been given and continues to use it.
I saw an email from him through the Main Street Alliance and asking people to rally around with him to small
business day of action at the state capital so that they can work on some of their high priorities that small businesses want.
They want support for childcare funding to bring down costs and to not lose workers.
They want expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage that we just talked about in the last segment.
Paid family medical leave, better access to capital.
These are all things that if you're a chef like him, if you're a restaurant owner or anything,
The last thing I'm sure that chef ever thought of is that he was going to be like a lobbyist with a lowercase hell, a lobbyist, you know, at the state capital, but you see a real opportunity there to rally people to some good causes.
Yeah.
It is amazing to see when folks have a platform like that that are not just trying to cash in the celebrity status, the fame that comes from being a runner up on top chef just for themselves.
There's plenty of folks that go on and they continue to do the competitive food circuit.
There's plenty of shows that they can go compete on to try to win money and more fame.
to see Chef Dan Jacobs being using his platform for advocacy and to try to better not just the...
the small, like the restaurant owner business in Milwaukee and continue to develop the food scene.
But for all small businesses across the state of Wisconsin, it's a really tremendous thing to see.
And it's going to be exciting to be able to hopefully speak a little bit more with the folks over at Main Street Alliance about that day of advocacy that's coming up later, I believe, middle of next month.
And so very exciting to see folks like that use their platform to advance things that would
benefit all of us.
Would you then say that you agree with Tony writing on YouTube that those chef testings really bring in the bucks?
Well, I didn't think the Milwaukee Bucks did any crossover.
No, no.
The chef testings was purely for Greg here.
And now we've lost them for the rest of the show.
Hate you all.
Hey, that was Tony.
Come
on.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Yeah, but it was months
and months of chef
testing from you, sir.
Captain starting fights on the secret show and on the actual show.
All right.
You kids, you kids take it elsewhere.
Thank you, Mr. Mathers.
Have a great day.
Always a pleasure.
Mr. Bach is back in two hours with Matt Naranair.
Is Jane back or is she still on jury duty?
Jane will be back this morning joining us with Ben Wickler, 10-20, Alex Lawson at 10-30, and sports and weather in the second hour as well as this shouldn't be a thing.
This shouldn't be a thing.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it very much.
And tomorrow, Keva Keel from Courier Newsroom and Casey Harrison of our sister publication, The Nevadon, located in Nevada.
How do you like that?
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
Thanks for tuning in.
Have a great Thursday.
See you tomorrow morning.
