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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Welcome back and good morning.
It is 8.06.
Nice to have you here up north on this Wednesday morning.
September 10th, Parker Olson is producing this shindig down in Madison Studio A2.
Meteorologist Brittany Merlo is standing by as well.
So as Earl Ingram will be talking about issues in Milwaukee and his what's going on podcast, we'll have a guest from Clean Wisconsin later this hour talking about data centers.
They are sold as job creators, they are sold as the thing that's going to change the internet with artificial intelligence or AI.
But they also suck up a lot of groundwater in a community.
And so we'll talk about concerns regarding that.
And then we'll wrap up the hour at 8.52 with a conversation with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who's working his way to lacrosse where he's making an appearance today after entering the race for Wisconsin governor.
So before we get to all that, let's see, we've got in the mailbag here.
We talked about all the many events going on around Wisconsin this weekend, and you need to get to an event.
It's going to be a gorgeous weekend.
There is no reason to be shut in this weekend.
There's got to be some place to go.
I listed several, but Tom and Hartford said, don't forget, Road America fall vintage.
noted.
We talked about this being the anniversary of the Swanson TV dinner.
Jana in Waukesha says, I loved the turkey and gravy dinner in the 90s even.
And Fresh Prince, which also had its anniversary today, is an institution as far as TV goes.
And Michael put in a comment from earlier, we were talking about casseroles and how I finally made
casserole with tater tots for the first time yesterday.
And Michael's saying I use cheddar cheese and chopped salad.
I'm sorry, cheddar cheese soup and chopped celery in my tater tot casserole.
And I add crumbled bacon.
Oh, look at this, Brittany and Parker.
They're intrigued by all this.
If you utter
the words bacon, my ears perk up.
Oh, of course.
Absolutely.
You lost me a celery.
I am not I do not like celery.
I don't know what it is about it.
But I just I just don't.
But all that bacon.
I mean, come on.
You had me a pig.
We had a a meeting.
I don't know who it was.
I don't want to out this person.
She seems like a perfectly fine person.
It's not Brittany Merleau.
But there is somebody at Civic Media who in a staff call yesterday said, I don't like the smell of bacon.
Yeah.
And you could just, I mean, you get these little emojis that you can put like thumbs up or applauding hands.
I don't know if we could see her through all the thumbs down emojis that, you know, people metaphorically want to put on there.
People saying, what kind of a monster are you?
You're not required to love bacon.
We're just not sure what's the matter.
To
say you don't love bacon at all.
To say
it's bad is wild.
Yeah.
So look, it takes all of us.
That's not just the same for the end zone, but for the kitchen as well.
It takes all of us.
Can Brett Favre get behind bacon?
Yeah, Brett Favre would call all this divisive.
But anyway, all right, so there's their ends bacon and casserole chatter for today.
Let's go to Brittany now with a quick update on the forecast.
And, you know, it's not we haven't returned to summer yet.
So don't look for it today.
But it is definitely on the way.
and is around the corner and if we could only have bacon raining from the sky, then people wouldn't be so mad, right?
Oh goodness, it's dreary.
It's a little damp out there this morning.
We have dense fog up north, a pretty big cloud sitting right on the ground for a lot of the Northwoods right now with a dense fog advisory in effect until 10 a.m.
This goes from Ashland to Eau Claire and to Hayward Superior.
Even Eagle River can barely see this morning and then we've got spotty showers working through the central parts of the state from Madison to Wausau.
Moving in towards the Fox Valley.
The only sunshine out there this morning is along Lake Michigan and that's not going to stay.
temperatures right now mid fifties to low sixties and we are looking at scattered showers, light sprinkles continuing very isolated on and off through the eastern half of the state today.
More sunshine will try to peek through those clouds farther to the west and high today will be in the upper sixties far north to low seventies far south.
So still a cooler day today.
Fog pushes back in again overnight and then tomorrow we'll see more spots of sunshine, slightly warmer.
low low to mid 70s for highs, maybe an 80 degree far south and then we're all going to start to flirt with 80 degrees for Friday.
It'll be partly sunny, a little warmer, a little bit more muggy.
Rain could roll in late Friday night into early Saturday morning and then it leaves us in the summer weather humid.
I will tell you that highs will be in the mid to low 80s, both Saturday and Sunday.
Place as far south could be nearing 90 on Saturday actually.
So a warm one expected and that holds.
Those temperatures do hold as we move into next week too.
So it's not just a short little blast.
Summer's here for a little bit, just a little bit.
What a nice little gift you've given us before you start your long weekend.
Thank you for that.
You're
welcome.
Leaving us in good hands.
Mother Nature's good hands.
Have a fun long weekend.
We will talk to you next week.
That sounds good.
Thank you.
All right.
Thanks, Brittany.
And you can always get your local forecast updates throughout the day here on your favorite civic media stations.
Let's jump right into Earl Ingram.
We're gonna, I'm gonna ask him about David Crawley, the county executive there running for governor.
But before that, we've got to talk about the police union head down there in Milwaukee, and this whole notion of, you know, whether to support the idea of Donald Trump putting troops on the streets of Milwaukee.
Earl Ingram from the What's Going On podcast.
Earl, how are you?
I'm doing fine.
How are you, Pat?
I'm good.
Thank you.
It's always a pleasure to talk to you on these Wednesday mornings.
And so let's start with what you, your conversations about, you know, Milwaukee police union support for the idea of troops, which is not necessary.
I get the impression this isn't like a pro military thing.
It's more of a, we need some kind of resources.
We'll take whatever we can get kind of thing.
And that doesn't sit well with everybody.
Well, what's happening in the city of Milwaukee and the issue with the police department is that they can't find enough people to who want to become police officers and so there's a shortage of over 200 officers in the city and I don't have to tell you what kind of a Problem that is if you're going to be 200 short in the largest city in the state of Wisconsin and
And clearly it is needed.
Police officers are needed.
There clearly are things that go on in a city like Milwaukee that you need to have law enforcement.
And the fact that we're short, many officers is becoming a major problem.
And you know, on the one hand, I'm a guy who is not calling for.
The national guard, the mayor doesn't want to see the national guard to come and counsel.
The governor doesn't want to see that.
But on the other hand, when you when you short so many officers, you, you sometimes, you know, wonder.
Right and that's what the the mayor of Washington DC said with the troops and Trump was talking about her all the arrests and crime going down and and she said well Yeah, if you gave me 500 more police officers, I could get that as well It's it's not you know, this is not an apples and oranges comparison It's really an indictment of support for our large cities in this time of you know constant austerity and hostility coming from Republicans who control the budget strings
Well, you just kind of hit the ball out of the park at the root of it is the fact that Republicans have been controlling what happens.
And there are people who are wits in and there are people who struggle economically in the wealthiest nation on earth.
Everybody's not prospering, even though the stock market is booming, that people are struggling every day to put food on the table.
And I don't have to tell you that if the option is.
me not being able to survive, you know, I'm going to do whatever it takes for me to survive.
And you got people who are in that kind of situation.
Before we go on to the podcast topics, I did want to ask, you know, the Milwaukee County Executive, David Crawley will be on the show here just over 30 minutes from now talking about his entry into the campaign for governor.
Is it something that you expected and what kind of a campaign might we expect from David Crawley?
I clearly expected it.
I know the county executive well.
I remember the first time he even entered into politics.
And I used to always say he was my favorite elected official even when he was at a fledgling elected official.
So I don't put anything past the young man.
He is certainly a very bright young man who's got a bright future in politics.
You know, governor is a stretch.
That considering there's only one black governor in the United States and there's only been four historically In this nation that it's you know Anything's possible.
Yeah
Yep.
Talking to Earl Ingram, he has the what's going on podcast, which you can get at civicmedia.us.
And you've got a couple of new episodes here.
We hinted at one last week, and I wanted to hear more from you about the whole notion of aging out of foster care.
And the kind of thing that I mean, that's that's been a thing, of course, as long as there's been foster care, but it continues to be a challenge for young people and for society overall.
As a treatment foster parent myself for the last 22 plus years.
I am cognizant of what young people are faced with.
And what I don't understand about our nation is children don't get to pick their parents.
They don't get to pick their families.
And as a society, I think the way we handle young people who again, through no fault of their own, are born into the conditions and situations that they are, that we basically turn a blind eye.
to them.
I think our nation does a disservice when it does that.
And so, you know, we want to bring attention to the fact that there are young people all over this nation who have had a tough go of it.
And when we pull the plug on them and say, hey, you're on your own, it's time for you to test your wings.
Even knowing their backgrounds, I think we set them up to wind up doing some nefarious things.
I'm not saying
that that's the case, but you certainly make it a whole lot easier if if survival is the first law of nature.
You know, we kind of leave people in bad situations.
Yeah.
And then there's one more episode.
I know that's coming up here.
It's entitled for forgetful minds need support.
And Diane Beckley Milner is your guest about how Alzheimer's impacts not only the individual, but the whole family.
The Alzheimer's a situation we went in depth.
With our timers and what most people might not know is is you know dementia and many is all of those things come under the guise of dementia and Many different issues and people are faced with and we went deep into it because Sometimes you go upstairs and you forget your keys and you go upstairs and at times that I wonder what did I come up here for and so we wanted to make it clear
that if you're forgetful on certain things, we should not automatically think that you're headed towards dementia or Alzheimer's, but that we should, if you, certain things that you see happening to you and your loved ones, you need to stay on top of it.
All right, you can learn all about this from the What's Going On with Earl Ingram podcast.
Head over to civicmedia.us and click on shows.
All the episodes are there.
Get subscribed to it wherever you listen to your podcast as well.
Listen to it on demand.
It's a it's very good listening and great information that we're getting from Earl.
I appreciate your time, Earl.
As always, thanks so much.
Hope you have a good day.
You as well.
All right, again, civicmedia.us is where you go to learn more about that.
Now coming up in our next half hour, we're going to be talking to a guest from Clean Wisconsin.
There are data centers going up in Wisconsin.
There are big data centers being proposed around Wisconsin, but at what cost?
I mean, there was a recent network news report about how after a meta data center was built in the state of Georgia, residents around there would turn on their water taps and nothing would come out.
We'll talk about that and a live interview with Milwaukee County Executive David Crawley at 852, candidate for governor.
All ahead, I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Andy Barilo from the group Clean Wisconsin will be joining us in less than 15 minutes now to talk about data centers and water usage.
Melissa Baldoff normally heard at this point for climate check.
She's off this week.
We'll see her again coming up next week here on these mornings with Pat Krightlow powered by Up North News across the Civic Media Radio Network.
We've got afternoon baseball on certain stations here.
The brewer's taking on the Texas Rangers.
pregame begins at one o'clock this afternoon on stations and Hayward Park Falls, Racine Kenosha, Oshkosh and Richland Center.
Head over to the Civic Media website to learn more.
And of course, you'll be able to hear the Green Bay Packers playing tomorrow night, hosting the Washington Commanders.
That pregame starts tomorrow at 5pm on several Civic Media radio stations.
It's also because it's a Thursday night, it's an Amazon Prime game, which means not everybody's going to be able to find it on their TV.
This would be a great chance for you to listen to Wayne and Wayne and Larry and everybody else who's on the radio call across the Packer radio network Back to the Brewers for a second a reminder that free ticket Friday rolls on and so this coming Friday day after tomorrow again You will get a chance to text in a keyword and be in the running for four great tickets to a future Brewers game.
So stick around for that
as well.
On the text line here from Jim in Brookfield, Earl should be commended for all that he has done as a foster parent and foster children programs.
He clearly is an individual who practices what he preaches.
Thank you, Earl, from Jim in Brookfield and John and Ashgosh on the text line.
Always great to hear you, Earl.
And again, we're always happy to bring him along on Wednesday mornings and share what he's got to say coming up on
his podcast and again civicmedia.us to get that.
Okay a few odds and ends before we get back to guests here to wrap up the program.
First out of Michigan a story that I'm not happy about but again this is how the wheels of justice turn.
A judge in Michigan has tossed out the criminal cases against fake electors in that state.
saying that the fake electors did not understand that they were being asked to do something illegal.
It is a real setback to prosecute allies of Donald Trump who tried to stay in power by staging essentially a coup, by trying to overturn the will of the voters, by trying to overturn an American election.
But State District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons and appointee of Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmerg said,
I don't believe that there's evidence sufficient to prove intent.
And that's really what this has come down to.
The judge says, right, wrong, or indifferent, it was these individuals and many others who sincerely believed for some reason
that there were some serious irregularities with the election or with the voting and that somehow their candidate didn't receive all the votes that was intended for them.
This is not for the court to decide whether that was true or false, but this was their belief and their actions were prompted by that belief.
I believe they were executing their constitutional right to seek redress.
Well, your honor, with all due respect, I could sincerely believe that Parker Olson was cheated by a bank.
and deserves money from the bank, and as a result, he says he's going to the bank and would I be the driver?
And then he robs the bank.
I'm the getaway driver now.
No matter how sincere my beliefs were in what I was being asked to do, I was part of a crime, part of a criminal conspiracy.
That is exactly what the fake electors were doing.
And let's be clear about something.
I was among those who at the time said, well, these fake electors say that they're doing this just in case there are irregularities, even though we all knew at the time, not one concrete piece of irregularities had been shown to exist at all.
It was all made up by Donald Trump.
And then we found out later the true nature of the conspiracy.
including a couple of lawyers with Wisconsin ties, Kenneth Chesbro and Jim Trupas were in on it.
They recruited these fake electors.
Some of them more knowledgeable about the scheme than others.
But they were all getaway drivers.
And every one of them deserves some sort of consequences for the fraud that they perpetuated.
Now, in Wisconsin's case, the criminal charges are basically forgery, a felony charge of forgery.
which sounds about right, sounds about fair.
And I hope we don't have the case of, you know, a judge somewhere in this Wisconsin matter, looking and saying the same thing like, well, they didn't have the intent to rob this bank.
Well, they took part in it anyway.
And that's, that's how these things unfold.
One other note, you have to, we have to go way back now in the time capsule.
I'm not even going to ask Parker about Oliver North and Fawn Hall and the Iran Contra scandal.
But they were two big figures in the 1980s in this scandal during the Reagan administration, the one where Oliver North helped arrange the illegal sale of US weapons to Iran, and then used that to fund a secret war in Nicaragua.
And Oliver North was kind of the ringleader and Fawn Hall was his young and attractive secretary who was shredding some of the documents.
And she got a lot of attention when she was testifying on this matter.
And there were whispers about Oliver North and Fawn Hall, but they repeatedly denied it over the years.
And now all these many years later with Oliver North in his 80s and Fawn Hall long since retired and their spouses have passed away.
They clearly have stayed connected because they just got married Oliver North Wedding Fawn Hall his secretary back in the 1980s during the Iran Contra scandal and again, they say that there was Nothing between them in all those years they each married other people life went on and then at at the funeral for one of their spouses they reconnected
So, there again, we have a massive cultural touchstone from the 1980s that Parker Olson knows nothing about.
You don't, do
you?
That's crazy.
You met your future.
Oh, at the funeral?
Oh,
like, that's the first time that's happened.
We're talking about data centers.
Data centers.
Next, this is the Civic Media radio network.
Oh.
Remember, you can sign up for our newsletters, the weekday version with its new newsletter editor, Ellie Bordeaux, who got started today, an Economal Walk native.
And of course, the version that I write, more politics based on the weekends, sign up for those at upNorthNewsWI.com and click subscribe at the banner at the top of our homepage.
All right, let's turn our attention now to data centers.
We're hearing all about artificial intelligence and the need for all of these data centers to hold that and all the other information that we're busy Googling and sending and sharing.
And data centers are basically the cloud.
The cloud is not something light and fluffy and doesn't take up a lot of space.
The cloud is is monstrous and it has a monstrous appetite for things like
water to keep things cool.
Amy Berio from Clean Wisconsin is joining us now to talk a bit more about that, not just from the standpoint of, you know, Wisconsin projects and proposals, but just the concept around the country where some communities are starting to learn the real cost of these data centers.
Amy Berio, good morning.
How are you?
I'm good.
Thank you for joining us in studio down there in Madison from Clean Wisconsin.
You can find them at cleanwisconsin.org with plenty of things that you can learn.
For example, there's a column here called AI data centers and the artificial need for dirty energy.
Amy, the upshot of all this is basically what?
Just letting the public know what all is involved with every time one of these data centers is proposed for Wisconsin?
A couple years ago, we'd never even thought about AI data centers.
And now suddenly in Wisconsin, we're juggling a number of AI data center projects.
And the thing to understand is these data centers use
a lot of energy.
So, you know, we're talking the one that is proposed in Port Washington could use as much energy once it's complete as
two million homes, and I want to apologize.
I said on Todd Alba, I'll show four million homes, and if Todd, you're listening, I apologize.
I pulled over the wrong piece of information for that, but that number is two million homes.
Wait, so it's only two million homes that this thing could power for this one proposed for Porter Washington.
For
yeah.
So the correction is noted, but it is still
an incredible number the amount of energy these types of facilities use.
So you're talking about a data center that's on almost 2,000 acres that have been primarily farmland that is going to be converted into a space with a lot of windowless buildings.
Those buildings will be full of computer servers because this AI actions take a lot of
of work from computers.
This is not a small number of tasks that are being done.
When you ask AI something, that's an enormous task.
These data centers are being built because I've heard it compared to an arms race between the major tech companies.
They want to be the big players in the AI space.
These data centers are coming in and they are a strain on resources.
energy than we've ever produced before for one single user.
This will be the biggest energy user in the history of the state once it's built.
And not only do these data centers use energy, they also use water for cooling and
Right now we don't have a lot of transparency around how much water exactly is going to be pulled from our lakes and our aquifers for these data centers.
There's not a lot of transparency about how they're going to operate, what the noise levels are going to be, how many diesel generators are going to be on site that need to be fired up to be used as backup.
and tested once a month.
So there's a lot of baggage, I guess, that comes along with these data centers that the public doesn't always know, you know, really until they're already approved.
So this is again something that
We talk about clean energy all the time, green energy, a whole new economy.
And it would be easy to lump data centers into that because, again, it doesn't look like a factory.
There isn't a pipe that sludge comes out of, for example.
But like you said, when it comes to the amount of water required, the amount of electricity required,
Is it your view that any community where this is proposed needs to treat this no differently than any other old school factory that's coming in and using your resources?
Again, this is a scale of energy use that we have never seen.
You know, having the biggest energy user in the state ever.
an energy user that, you know, when I say two million homes, we don't have a city in Wisconsin that has two million homes.
So this will be like a city in Wisconsin that doesn't have any people in it.
But it's going to be using that much energy.
And the energy utilities, we energies in this case,
You know want those data centers to come here.
They want the profits that go along with building new Energy generation to meet those needs because they make a rate of return every time they build something profit So we have to recognize that a lot of times we have energy companies like we energies or like a lion energy in the case of a Data center that is being proposed in Dane County that are actively luring
these data centers here.
And what we don't get is a lot of transparency, so we don't understand exactly how much energy is going to be used right away.
We don't understand where the water is coming from, how much water is getting used.
On the hottest days of the year, how much water is going to be needed to cool that data center when we all need those resources, when our farmers need them, our communities need them.
How much of our resources are we going to be sharing with the data centers?
And so it is a bit like any other industry that has come to
Wisconsin in the past.
But then again, it's very, very different because we just haven't encountered anything like this before.
We don't know how many new gas plants we energies is planning to build to meet the needs of this one data center.
But we do know if it does meet those needs with
gas plants, the communities where those plants are located will be harmed by air pollution.
We know that will be pushed further from reaching any kind of climate goals in Wisconsin.
So we need to take this seriously and we need to start demanding real transparency and we need to start demanding that these data centers come with a plan to meet their needs in a sustainable way.
And right now we're not seeing that.
We're talking to Amy Berrio from Clean Wisconsin about data centers and the amount of resources being needed.
And I was looking at a New York Times article from over the summer when Metta, the parent company of Facebook, broke ground on a $750 million data center about 90 minutes east of Atlanta.
the neighbors around that area suddenly noticed there was no water coming out of their taps.
And so there was all this potential for jobs, which are primarily in the construction field of building these things in the first place.
And then they're there and now that water taps are running dry by the neighbors, it reminds me of an issue that we've talked about.
from a legislative standpoint across rural Wisconsin, so-called high capacity wells
for
these mega farms.
They seek high capacity wells to irrigate all these fields, but again, at what price to the neighbor's water supply and to our aquifers overall.
And again, it's one thing to have a mega farm, but a mega data center, it appears to be no different in terms of how much water is needed to keep these servers cool.
Well, I mean, we've seen historically, and by historically, I mean in the last several years, that these AI data centers are using a tremendous amount of water for cooling.
The data centers that are being proposed in Wisconsin right now, you know, we're getting assurances that they're going to be using a new kind of cooling system that is a closed loop system.
So they're going to
withdraw some amount of water, but then recycle it to use it over and over again for cooling.
But those data centers appear to be more energy intensive than the ones that don't use the closed loop system.
And it's important for us to understand that power plants use a lot of water.
So if we're going to shift the water use from onsite to power plants in the region, we're still, again, providing our water resources to this data center.
And so when I talk about transparency, I mean on all levels, like
How much water is this data center really using, not just on site, but regionally in Wisconsin?
Because one thing I think maybe we don't always think about is we're sitting in the middle of the largest freshwater system in the world, the Great Lakes region.
And tech companies know that.
We in Wisconsin, we are lucky to have fresh water.
plentiful water, and also a lot of land that's currently being used for agriculture.
So we
are
Oh gosh, without a doubt.
It's something we've talked about for for many years that folks in say the desert southwest would love to extend a giant straw, you know, to the Midwest to water their lawns and for drinking, but instead we're now seeing the, you know, the
the sucking up of our water for something that, again, would not necessarily come to us that we would not get a direct benefit from.
So, Amy, to start to tie a bow on this, the website is cleanwisconsin.org for folks that want to learn more.
Do you have other resources or other actions that you hope that people will take when it comes to data centers being proposed?
Well right now, you know, we're hopeful that soon there's going to be some legislation that's about this transparency that I'm talking about because right now there's really nothing.
There's no legal avenue or policy avenue for a community to use when a big data center project comes to town if it gets approved by their local lawmakers.
you know, what we're calling for is transparency.
And so when, you know, we have something that's public that people can kind of throw their support behind, you know, we'll be sure to let you know right now, it's just about getting out information so people can at least be informed about what data centers are, what they can mean, and why this issue is important.
And I suppose not just for, you know, any regular folks, but I would imagine that people are on county boards, town boards, city councils, rather than waiting for some proposal to be dropped in their laps.
And now you face the pressure of making a decision.
It would be a pretty good idea if elected officials, local elected officials around the state started to bone up on this right now before, you know, before the first request come in.
Yeah, they need to start learning about what this means because once the request comes in, you know, these things
things move very fast.
And communities, you know, small communities that don't normally face this kind of pressure are facing a big time pressure because we know how much money tech companies have and how powerful they are and they're just getting more and more powerful and that's a lot to stand up to.
So yeah, people in local communities should start understanding this issue.
Yeah.
And before I let you go, obviously, this is one aspect, one issue that Clean Wisconsin is working on.
But I know everything from, you know, the Enbridge Line 5 up north and a host of other projects, the folks at Clean Wisconsin, they're not sitting around bored.
There are plenty of projects that you all are working on right now.
You know, the environment, it's a lot, it's a lot to protect.
So you mentioned Line 5, we're in the middle of a legal case against
the DNR for permits that were issued to build 41 miles of new line five section through some pristine areas of northern Wisconsin.
So that's a big focus right now.
But we work on everything from water and wetland protection to clean energy to sustainable farming.
And if it has to do with the environment, we're on it.
Amy Vario from cleanwisconsin, cleanwisconsin.org.
Amy, thank you very much.
I really appreciate having you on today.
All right.
And like I said, Amy has been on with Todd all but before and is on other shows to keep us updated on all kinds of matters that are happening in terms of protecting our natural resources.
Economic development is extremely important in the state.
No doubt about that.
But it really is a matter of research and transparency and taking that.
balanced approach so that we're not, you know, essentially eating our own seed corn when it comes to the notion of economic development.
We're looking to talk to Milwaukee County Executive David Crawley, up next candidate for governor in 2026, here in the state of Wisconsin.
Live from Lake Wissota, across the Civic Media Radio Network, I'm Pat Critewell, back in a bit.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Good afternoon baseball coming up here across Civic Media Radio Network.
One o'clock the pregame begins for the third and final game of the Brewers series in Arlington against the Texas Rangers.
Again one o'clock this afternoon then they're off tomorrow for a home series this weekend against the St.
Louis Cardinals.
Again tune in across the Civic Media Radio Network this afternoon for a little matinee baseball.
Let's turn our attention now to the race for governor and Milwaukee County executive David Crowley who is touring the state now after getting into the race as he promised he would for the Race to become the next governor of the state of Wisconsin in 2026 and David joins us live now David.
Good morning.
How are you?
I'm doing well Pat.
Thank you for having me very good.
I understand you're on the road today I think lacrosse if I heard correctly
Yes, I am in La Crosse today.
I was in Madison yesterday.
And so we already started to crisscross around the state to talk about our vision for Wisconsin.
Yeah.
Again, for folks who haven't seen it, a very, an excellent campaign launch video talking a bit about your background and why you're running for governor.
So that's a two minute video rather than a two minute answer.
Why don't you give me the short version of what you're telling folks about you?
and why you're deciding to run for governor?
Well, thank you for this opportunity.
And one I think it's important to acknowledge that Governor Evers, he's been able to meet a steady, calm strength that we've needed for the past almost decade, right?
He's led us through the pandemic.
He's protect our democracies, protect working families from a lot of the harm that has been going on across our country.
And so I spent seven years in the state capital, so I know exactly how Madison works.
I've worked with the state legislature.
And for the past five years, I have been leading the largest county in the entire state of Wisconsin.
I represent a million people, about a sixth of our entire state's population, and also manage a budget of about $1.4 billion.
And since 2020, I not only led Markey County through the pandemic, but we've tackled some of the toughest issues, things like public safety, public health.
fiscal recovery.
We've invested in small businesses.
We've created more options of affordable housing.
We've made government more accessible.
We've cut our carbon emissions in half all while being able to deliver the largest property tax cut in Milwaukee County's history.
And so I know that on day one that I'll be ready to hit the ground because I'm the only candidate in this race with legislative experience and experience running a government.
We're talking to David Crowley, the Milwaukee County Executive and Candidate for Governor.
As you know, there are folks in the race that include the Lieutenant Governor.
There's an industry executive.
There's the county executive in Washington County.
There are state legislators who think that they might be getting in as well.
So you've outlined a lot of your strengths and your background, but of course one of the
the shortcomings, if you will, is simply name recognition.
The way Wisconsin is, it's tough for a rural person to get known in Milwaukee, or a Milwaukee person to get known in the rest of the state.
Getting in the car is one of the most essential things, but tell folks what else you're doing and talking about when you go to rural Wisconsin.
I wouldn't count Eau Claire's role, but you were just in the Chippewa Valley two weeks ago, for example, to talk about affordable housing.
Oh, absolutely.
And had a chance to join Representative Jody Emerson.
Now, being able to see some of the great things that they're doing, Eau Claire was just extremely wonderful.
But it let me know that the issues that are facing Eau Claire, that are facing La Crosse, that are facing many of our communities, you know, are the same issues that we're facing in Milwaukee County.
You know, the issues that we're going to be focusing on, we've been able to balance our budget.
We've been able to expand our opioid treatment and prevention options.
And I want folks to know that these aren't Milwaukee issues.
These aren't Democratic issues or Republican issues.
These are Wisconsin issues.
And so we're going to cut through the muster.
We want folks to know that we're not going to pay attention to the division and to the distractions that people are going to throw in this race.
We're going to speak directly to the issues facing every community.
them to know that I'm going to show up for them and that I've already been doing that.
I led the charge across the state to build a coalition to make sure that every community of every size got their share back from Madison.
So they can invest in things that matter most to them.
Things like police and fire, being able to invest in transportation and housing.
And I want folks to know I'm going to continue to fight for them as the next governor of Wisconsin.
We need a governor who understands the issues at heart, but also a governor who listens.
There are so many issues that we can talk about and of course our time is limited.
So while affordable housing may not be at the top of a lot of lists, it's one that you have experienced with in Milwaukee County.
You saw what was going on in the Chippewa Valley.
We just spoke in our last hour about actually fencing off city parks in La Crosse because of the issue of un-cheltered folks.
This is a challenge everywhere.
What's been your own experience with the issue and how you might be a part of the solution?
Well, one, you know, in order to fix these issues, it's important that those who have been negatively impacted by these, by the problems in our community, that they're leading and bringing their voice to the table to be a part of the solution.
There isn't a one size fits all to the issues facing every community across this state.
And when it comes down to struggling, I know what that's like.
I was evicted three times by the time I graduated high school.
I seen my mother struggle to
you know, pay for the bills, put food on the table.
And here in Milwaukee County, you know, we have done great work with our housing first model.
We have been recognized three out of the past five years by the United States HUD that we've had the lowest unsheltered homeless count per capita than any other community our size across this entire country.
And that's because we're putting our money where our mouth is, making sure that we're making investments up front to make sure that we save a lot more money down the line.
And these are issues that's going to help every community across the state, whether we're talking about affordability.
But we also need to talk about attainable housing while we talk about affordable housing.
And attainable housing is housing that is available for everyone of all income levels.
We know that the housing stock isn't quite there for many communities.
And as Milwaukee County, we're pretty much fully built out being one of the fully incorporated communities in the entire country.
But that doesn't mean that we can't work and create creative solutions for every community across the state.
We are talking to David Crowley.
He's the county executive and a candidate for governor.
And if you want to hear more from him, he's going to be joining Todd Alba at 335 this afternoon as well.
He's got a busy day ahead of him.
David, thank you so much for your time.
We appreciate it greatly.
Safe travels.
You bet.
That's David Crawley, again, Milwaukee County executive, joining us from La Crosse, where, again, crossing the state, getting his campaign kicked off.
We'll talk more about it tomorrow here as well on these mornings with Pac Wright, low-powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Have a great Wednesday.
We'll see you back here bright and early Thursday morning, 6 a.m.
here up north.
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