Mayor of Green Bay on the City, Community & What’s Ahead (Hour 1)

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From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.

It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.

You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.

It's news and culture without the noise.

Yeah, come on!

Here's Pete Schwabba.

Dude.

And Greg Bach.

Dude!

Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.

Happy Monday, everybody.

Boy, it is great to be back on the air after an event-filled weekend.

We are broadcasting live.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

I am Pete Schwabba, coming to you live from northeast Wisconsin.

Greg is just down the coast in Radio Park in Racine, doing some very cool yoga moves.

Maybe Greg is out there.

I'm dancing.

I'm dancing.

Ooh, is this sprocket?

It's sprockets when we dance.

I'm

spinky.

Oh, wow.

That was a nice trip down memory lane.

I forgot about this.

They were supposed to make a movie of that.

Then it didn't happen.

And then the

courts got

involved.

I don't think I could sit through a movie of that.

No, that would be brutal.

Not every popular SNL character from the late 80s

or

90s needed to be a movie.

Exactly.

Church lady, I'm fine.

Five minutes, great.

I don't

see

the church lady

for

two hours.

Dom Lee is holding down the fort in Madison.

We are the Outer Hay Triangle.

Hey, buddy, how are you?

I'm doing pretty good.

And you move too.

You're in the process of

moving.

Yeah, it's been, I didn't realize how tedious it is.

It's, I've started last.

Have you never moved before?

I've moved a lot, but usually it's with someone else.

This is, I'm moving by myself.

So it's kind of like, it's just, it seems like there's more to it and there

is.

You didn't pay anybody's to come over and help you for a few hours?

Just on the day.

Just on the day, which will be in a few days, but.

Well, heartfelt thanks for not asking us to help Tom.

That goes a lot.

Do

you

guys want to help?

I appreciate

that.

No.

You

know, darn the luck.

If I lived in Madison, buddy, I'd so be there right now.

Oh,

if I lived in Madison, I still wouldn't do it.

It's not a good job.

I'm just lying to you trying to be friendly.

Greg is blatantly

saying you're on your own, kid.

I'm being honest, like a real man.

I'm

not

soft like previous generations.

I'm done moving.

I'm done helping my friends.

I'll give them 40 bucks, hire movers like an adult.

If my wife and I ever have to move again, I'm just going to burn down my house.

We'll start over again.

That was just a joke insurance companies.

That was for comedic effect.

But yeah, I hate, hate.

I will save up money now.

even if we move in 20 years to hire not just movers, but people to come into my home and pack for me because I it is such an anxiety written, written thing

for me.

I just hate, hate, hate moving.

I've done the, uh, the thing where they come in and pack for you and it's a little unnerving.

I mean, I am with you though, Greg.

I have no desire.

You know, when we refinanced at COVID, I know I'm never going to beat the interest.

We're pretty much trapped in the house.

We're going to be in.

What was your interest rate?

What do you get?

What do you get?

What do you get right now?

Is that like I can say that online, right?

Of course you can.

What is that?

I think 2.75 or something.

Those are national numbers.

Like you can take

it all you

want.

We can hack him now.

No,

that's

amazing.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

We're sitting at 5.3.

I'm waiting for the day someday when the interest rates go down.

I don't know if they ever will again, but we're fine.

We're

right.

I remember like my parents and my wife's mom and dad talking about when they bought their first house was like 19% or something like that.

My mom said the same thing.

7,000 bucks, but still, you know, it's probably a rub.

Anyway, but hey, you had a big day.

Greg, I saw your internet photos.

Let me clarify that.

you went to the brewer game with your, your mom with Jackie and your wife, Bridget and Dennis and had a great time.

It looked like

we had a blast.

It was an, it was a, so we went on Saturday.

We didn't go on Sunday.

Uh, we went on the Saturday game.

It was an evening game playing the Yankees and we've swept the series, which was wonderful.

It was a nail biter because the second pitch, Paul Goldschmidt hits a home run and it stayed at one zero for a while.

And then it was.

going back and forth, and then we were tied, and then we weren't, and we wanted extra innings.

And then here comes William Contreras with a pop fly ball to let Ren Gifo, after Ren Gifo ever getting beamed in the head with a ball.

He hits he hits the the walk off run to get the to win.

They tied then they got the win the only so and that was a great was the best big best brewers game ever been to my life and I've been to a lot of in fact I went to one great one last year with our buddy Dan Schaefer where William Contreras hit the game winning home run.

That was awesome.

But this was even because this was extra innings and it was

just I

mean screaming and yelling and high fiving.

I will say this though.

I still do not like the

extra innings put a runner on second base at the top of the inning for each team.

I think that's little league stuff.

I think that's not fair.

I think that's dumb.

I don't like it at all just because you want the game to go quicker that you're giving a team an event.

No, no, thank you.

That's

interesting because I'm all for I love the pitch clock.

I love the clock to is made baseball so and I haven't watched much as in a in the last like 20 years, but I do love baseball.

But part of the reason is the games took too damn long and I agree with you to the point where I don't mind them.

I like the idea of keeping things moving, but man, there is nothing like an 18 inning extra inning game that goes till four in the morning.

It's like the best thing ever.

And there's always people who are just like, stay until the end.

Yeah.

Don't deprive us of that.

I mean, keep the pitch count.

But exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So buddy.

And then we went to go see on Sunday for Mother's Day.

We took my mom, my mother-in-law, me, my wife, and Dennis.

We all went to see Cabaret at UW Parkside.

Beautiful performance.

Oh, nice.

Dark.

Dark play, very dark play, very dark play,

hard,

hard to clap at the end of either one of those acts, but you do.

Cause it was a beautiful performance, but it's very, very, very dark.

So, but it was a good weekend.

Like I said, before we got in the air, before I knew it, it was Sunday.

It was seven PM and I was ready to get ready for bed.

That's, that's awesome.

I'm just going to tell you guys something quick.

I'll go into my weekend after maybe in the start of the second hour, because I've got a couple of gripes as you know me, but, um,

I'm going into the story yesterday.

This guy is walking right towards me.

Okay.

And he makes me get out of the way.

I'm on the right.

And he makes me leave.

And then he gives me one of the, you can't see me in radio world, but he goes, and I say, excuse me, he says nothing.

It's my world, Pete.

Get out of my way.

You run into people like this.

Yeah, I do.

And then I back up and I run into again and say, get on my way.

Do you really do that,

Greg?

You're a big dude, but you seem pretty,

pretty true.

No, I just, I just, I just silently judge him in my head and just think, well, that's the life they've chosen to lead.

And

see, I have to make a comment.

And I know one of these days I'm going to say something to the wrong person, but I said, Oh, excuse me.

Did you hear

me?

Like that guy just keeps walking, but it's like, come on.

You live in a

society, buddy.

Terrible.

His society.

is apparently I'm a guest in his society.

Okay, so we've got Nightlight Movie Club this week, folks.

Thursday night, second hour, it's gonna be awesome.

David Zucker of the famous Zucker Brothers, Jerry and David Zucker, Jim Abraham's created some of the best comedies of our time.

We had David on, he left us a funny message, and we're gonna talk about airplane in the second hour Thursday night.

Get going, watch airplane, be part of the fun on Thursday night, and now I think we need to get to our question of the night, guys.

We have to.

Let's

talk about the question.

OK, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

OK, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

It is National Twilight Zone Day.

We all remember that TV show, or we've heard of it if we don't remember it.

I didn't really ever watch it.

It was a little before my

time.

You're looking at Dom's face right now?

Look at Dom's face right now.

That's a face of what are you talking about?

Oh, come on, Dom.

You've heard

of

it at

least.

I've heard.

I've watched a few, few episodes.

Yes, I have.

Oh, you have?

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

Big twilight.

Well, tonight's question of the night is, what is your own personal twilight zone?

That's where everything's a mess.

Nothing makes sense.

Share with us tonight, folks.

What is your own personal twilight zone?

8557-524-842-8557-5 Civic.

You can also text us on the Civic Media app.

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Or drop us a stream comment.

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Let us know and be part of the fun.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Um, I don't know.

We have very little time before I do a break.

I know we act a lot.

And listen, we had a great

weekend.

We had to catch up.

I mean, that's the thing too is like, I like, I like, I like having this moment to catch up with you guys and talk about the day and, uh, and figure, find out what other person has wronged Pete.

Uh, in our first story tonight, Greg, I'll tell you who.

Let's do this.

I'll tease it.

We'll come back and talk about it because I

saw

this article in the Wisconsin Examiner great publication.

Yes, and it was the gist of it was that this administration President Trump and his cabinet and the people that are his handlers or whoever you want to refer to them as in their quest for power over elections as midterms approach

A lot of their stuff is falling short.

So says the Wisconsin Examiner.

They are leaving out gerrymandering.

But let's talk about that when we come back, Greg, because they have been shut down quite a bit.

And I didn't even know that because I'm focused on gerrymandering.

We'll talk about that.

That's our big story.

And I don't know.

We'll have some more fun.

This is Nightlight

with Pete Chwabba and Greg Bach.

I want to.

Yeah.

Oh, Greg, it's good.

Listen, dude, put

your feet up.

It's going to be fun.

This is Nightlight.

This is the

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Welcome back to Nightlight folks.

Happy Monday.

We are back in the air.

All is right with the world.

Dom worked through some serious physical problems over the weekend.

Greg had a great time with the family.

I had a wonderful Mother's Day.

Details to follow but we are in the middle of talking about oh our question night to by the way is it's national Twilight Zone day So our question is what is your own personal Twilight Zone?

I'm very excited to

share my answer now number two Greg.

I Feel like this was question was designed for your answer Just cuz I'm

crabby come on We were in the middle talking about this Wisconsin examiner article about how

President Trump's most of his efforts anyway have been shunned or whatever in terms of controlling the election the midterms are just about six months away and supposedly the Republicans are gonna lose big if you listen to prognosticators but this article in the examiner said that he has been turned away for the most part now they did not factor in gerrymandering which is huge and I feel like still we're so far out Greg anything can happen

Oh, absolutely.

And this, I won't lie after the whole Supreme court case came down.

It's kind of, it was punching me in the gut quite a bit.

I mean, I feel like I've been, I feel like I've been getting punched in the gut since he came down that goal and escalator back in 2015.

But, but like, this is a really good story.

We will have it in the, in the show notes.

And it's a very long one.

We won't have time to get completely into it.

But, you know, it's just, it kind of gives you a, it gives you an idea of where we

are at right now through all the noise there's tons of noise in the news there's great stories and they shouldn't be ignored but with something like this is a good piece of truth that gets you to the heart of what's going on in the fact that and I love I love this part here excuse me uh where they talked about like the what do they say that the today the system is holding but under strain analysis said at Thursday uh

They likened America's election to a resilient patient with a strong immune system, yet the Trump administration, rather than boosting the body's immunity, acts like a virus.

America's election system immune, America's election systems immune system.

terrible speaking, is not breaking, but it is actively fighting against the virus of democratic backsliding.

And that's what I got to keep remembering is that it's not it's the people and the people show up when they try to hamper your vote.

People show up in 2020 when the when the GOP took all of the polling places in Milwaukee County and limited down to five people came out and voted in record numbers.

When you try to take away people's ability to vote, they show up.

That gets him to wake up.

And Trump even said on true social America's elections are rigged, stolen, and a laughing stock all over the world.

We are either going to fix them or we won't have a country any longer.

You're the president.

So if they're rigged and fixed, what happened there?

I

don't

understand that.

And it's like, if they're rigged and fixed, first of all, you got voted down by every court after the 2020 election.

And now you're employing gerrymandering.

So who's really trying to rig elections here?

It's ridiculous, Greg.

somebody once said, and I can't remember who it was, is like, is like, if you look at it right now, the people, whoever is trying to change the voting, change the rules to make voting more difficult are the ones who are afraid

and the

ones who should be blamed.

And there's in this story too, you see states that are taking, they're taking, creating safeguards, essentially, whether it's

furthering the amount of feet that people can be at polling places.

It's usually about 100, but now they want them in, and I think it was in Maryland, I believe it was.

It's 250.

Another state said there absolutely can be no military presence whatsoever near a polling place.

So there are, there are states that are preparing for these things already.

And just in the story too, it talks about the fact the SAVE Act failed in the Senate 48 to 50, but that doesn't stop the bad John Kennedy from trying to push it because again,

why do you want to change the rules?

And they will say to you, well, we want to ensure the safety of elections.

They're safe.

Right.

They're safe.

Exactly.

The amount of actual fraud in elections is like 0.000 something percent.

You're absolutely right about that.

Here's another story I saw.

Well, his father questioned Jimmy Hoffa at the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management.

I'm talking about, of course, Robert Kennedy Sr.

And his son is continuing the courageous work by trying to keep Jell-O out of hospitals after people have surgery.

What do you think about that, Greg?

This is Washington Post.

I think that Robert F. Kennedy is a completely bored individual.

I mean, true.

I mean, it's true.

I think that this is a...

It's important to talk about it because from the point of view of the medical community, it seems like the government's trying to take over what they can and can do.

And their job in the hospitals, doctors, nurses, administrators, their job is to provide the best care, find the best care.

It's cost of it.

health care covers.

That's a separate conversation.

When we talk about being in the hospital, we should trust those who work there.

Robert F candy coming in and say, don't serve Jell-O or don't serve Ensure.

I'm not going to take any advice from a guy who barbecued goat and dogs.

And I'm not going to I'm not going to take I'm not going to take advice from a guy who pushes raw milk.

And I'm not going to take advice from a guy

who apparently found a dead whale on a beach, cut off its head and with a chainsaw and drove it home with his children.

I don't trust that man.

I don't care what cabinet secretary position he holds.

Look, the guy's got his quirks, Greg.

I agree with you.

This is so insane.

Make

America healthy again.

You sound like a guy who's trying to like, yeah, he's got some quirks.

Just go on a date with him.

Have a cup of coffee.

He's cool to get to know him.

Yes, he's leathery.

He's

very leathery.

I'm not trying to get you to date Robert Kennedy.

I will say, make America healthy again.

I'm kind of with him on the jello.

That's fine.

Get something healthier.

But don't take away people's health care if you want America to be healthier.

Well, that's a big deal.

Well, the thing is too is their whole thing was like, we don't want to get involved in health care.

We don't want to have our finger in the pot of health care.

We don't want government run health care, but you're telling them what to do.

And also, Jell-O is the lowest of the worries.

No one went in for cancer treatment and came out with diabetes because of hospital Jell-O, all right?

So let's focus on what's important.

OK, fair point.

Another article, maybe we'll get to this later.

And I'm going to want to check in with you on this Dom.

Gen Z, who do they want to emulate the most?

That's coming up later in the show.

You might be surprised at the answer.

Maybe we'll ask Dom this question first, but we've got a lot of show to get to here, folks.

After the news, Green Bay Mayor Eric Enric will be here.

He was

a

lot of fun to talk to and a really good guy.

Uh, so check that out.

You don't want to miss this interview.

And then coming up in hour number two, the comedian, Madison based, uh, from the late show with David Letterman, Mr. Johnny bean or very, very funny guy.

He will be here in hour number two.

Our question of the night is what is your own personal Twilight zone?

Let us know folks, be part of the show.

We are coming right back.

This is nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the civic media.

Thanks so much for having me.

Well, it's our pleasure.

Let's talk about, this was kind of fun.

When I got hired at Civic Media, I drove down to Green Bay and I met one of the local residents who was so proud that Green Bay had just been voted the number one city to live in, in a city that size, like it was 100, 150,000, whatever it was, a huge honor.

And factor in the weather, which is pretty terrible.

And Green Bay still took that title.

So very impressive.

How much of that can you take credit for?

Why do you think Green Bay is a great place to live?

It's certainly not all of it.

That's for sure.

No, it's a team effort.

And I think it's a reflection too of not just the city of Green Bay, but also the metro region as a whole.

And that was back in, I think 2023, when we were given that designation from US News and World Report.

And a lot of it just comes down to livability, relative

low cost of living.

Everything's going up these days.

And we're certainly not immune to that.

But when you compare us to some other metros, our cost of housing and sort of other things is a little bit lower.

We have a great group of health systems within Northeast Wisconsin.

And so that was another thing where I think we scored pretty highly.

And then also, I think one of the newer categories

for US News and World Report was related to natural disasters and how likely or unlikely you are to face some of those challenges.

And so, you know, in that respect, we're also in a pretty good spot, you know, not in tornado alley and not in some of those other areas of the country that are more vulnerable to changing climate and rising seawaters and all those sorts of things.

So, yeah, a variety of reasons.

Of course,

you know, low crime here within the city and the metro region.

So public safety is really strong around here.

And yeah, it's a great place to live.

You know, I'm obviously biased being the mayor here, but born and raised and, you know, went away for a little bit to go to school down in Madison and came back to raise the family.

And we love it here.

And I think we're not unique in that.

But more importantly you got your graduate degree from the University of Milwaukee University of Wisconsin Milwaukee go Panthers, but the real question I want to talk about You just mentioned it and I want to talk about this because I find you know Local government positions are some of the most thankful jobs saying thankless jobs in the world You are on the streets every day people can go to your house if they want, but you are you're a Green Bay resident you are Wisconsin native

what brought you to this place where you said, I want to be a person of the people.

I want to be, you know, I want to represent the people, whether we're talking about your time in the state house or as the mayor, what is the story that brought you to a life of politics?

Yeah, that's a great question.

It's sometimes difficult to figure out exactly, you know, why you end up where you end up.

But I think a big part of the reason for me,

My dad was trained as a social worker, worked in the healthcare administration for a lot of his career.

My mom was a nurse.

My wife's a teacher.

My late mother-in-law was a teacher.

One of my sisters works at a technical college here in the area.

So just service-oriented people, a kind of a service ethic is what I was raised with.

And so that's how I view

elected office is just an extension of of service and

Um, got my, my first taste of it when I was going to school down in Madison and working, um, started working in the state capital for Senator Hansen and, uh, and really enjoyed that work.

Both the, the constituent service element of it and also some of the policy development, you know, working on the, the state budget when he was serving on the joint finance committee.

Um, also worked for, uh, fast forward a little bit a few years after that worked for Congressman Kagan, who is a congressman here in Northeast Wisconsin for

for a couple of terms you know you mentioned that graduate degree so I got a graduate degree in a master's library science from Milwaukee and so worked as a librarian here locally at the at the Brown County library for for a bit was thinking that was kind of the second career potentially then act 10 came down at the state level I was working you know as I said

for the Brown County Library, my wife is a school teacher.

And that sort of got me stuck back into the political environment.

So ran for state assembly back in 2012.

Really enjoyed that and developed a lot of good relationships and friendships and enjoyed the sort of collegial atmosphere of working in a legislature.

But

Um, as you can imagine, I was serving the minority party, um, during that stretch.

And, you know, it was a challenge to get things done in Madison when you're, when you're coming at it.

Uh, one of 99 in the minority party got to work with the Senate and the governor and just realized that.

the most effective way to serve my community and get some stuff done more rapidly was to shift to a more local office and so ran for mayor at that point back in 2019 and then was re-elected in 2023.

Like you said, it can be a challenge.

There's a lot going on at the local level in a city of over 100,000 people.

Our budget's $143.9 million every year.

We've got our big public safety departments like fire and police, Department of Public Works, parks, everything that people know or associate with cities.

So it's a challenge at times, but I can't think of a more rewarding area of public service than being a mayor working at the local level because nothing's theoretical.

A great idea isn't going to get

a pothole filled, exactly, right?

I mean, you got to figure out how to get stuff done and do it pretty rapidly.

And so I enjoy just the tangible nature of it and enjoy the constant feedback loop that we get from our community.

Don't always appreciate some of the more negative comments, but I think it keeps us all honest.

And there's no separation between the local government and the people.

It's an immediate

you know kind of kind of thing and just had a city council meeting here recently and and always just enjoy you know people coming out to our meetings and offering their input and giving us feedback on different policies and developments so um yeah so that's the that's the long story not that short but that's that's what I got here.

Pardon me, our mayor, our guest is the 42nd mayor of Green Bay, Mr. Eric Gennrich.

He joins us.

He was elected in 2019, reelected in 2023.

He joins us now over the stream from beautiful Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I wanna give you a shout out into your wife.

My wife is also a teacher.

Dave Hansen is a teacher.

He's been up to Marinette many times and had him

over.

Great guy.

And so it's teacher appreciation week.

So a shout out to all the teachers.

Yeah, well said.

I gotta appreciate my wife.

Thanks for the reminder on

that.

Is there a mayor's week?

That's what I want to know.

And you probably wouldn't get the shout-outs that a teacher gets.

No, I don't know that we'd get a week.

Maybe there's a day.

I haven't looked that up.

It's called Election Day when you win.

That's it.

That's the only time.

Right, exactly.

So it's interesting.

I want to piggyback on what Greg said.

Can you compare and contrast a little bit?

State government is more polarized.

You were in the state assembly.

It must be great because one of the things I like about living in a small town is they need water for the pool.

They need someone to finance, keep the ice frozen at the hockey rink.

It's not like this ideological battle that we have at the national level.

What are your biggest challenges?

Even though you might not have to deal with state government as much or like you used to where people cross the aisle, what are your biggest challenges as mayor and getting things done in Green Bay?

Yeah, I mean, I think the challenges that we have are probably pretty similar to what others are facing across Wisconsin and in other parts of the country.

Housing is a big one for us.

I mentioned that our cost of housing relative to other areas of the country is still pretty affordable, but it's tough, especially for young people, maybe buying a first home.

And so one thing that we're really focused on,

every day, if not multiple times a day, I have meetings about housing.

And so we've been really, you know, set on doing everything that we can to develop both single family housing, multifamily, affordable, you know, we just have needs all across the income spectrum from

very low income to high income.

And so we've been pretty creative recently on the housing front.

Our council adopted, I think it was around 90 plus different zoning reforms within the city's code to make it easier for people to construct homes on narrower lot sizes, lower lot widths.

So going down from 75 feet to 60 feet.

We've made it easier for people to set up what are known as accessory dwelling units, or more informally known as granny flats, like a smaller structure on a current parcel.

We established a community land trust along with NeighborWorks Green Bay recently.

I feel like that for us is going to be another nice tool to have in the toolbox.

just kind of throwing everything against the wall and seeing what will stick because it is such a crisis for a lot of people figuring out how to come up with housing costs.

Another thing not uncommon infrastructure.

So Green Bay is one of the oldest communities in the state of Wisconsin.

We're also somewhat geographically dispersed, you know, 107,000 people, but roughly the same size as city of San Francisco.

half the, or Manhattan I think is half the size geographically is the city of Green Bay.

So as a result, there's a lot more cost per capita for our residents.

It's a lot to bear.

And like I said, we've got old infrastructure.

So just figuring out financially, how much we can push forward with some of our bonding to take care of our road needs and some of the other infrastructure beneath our streets is a challenge.

And so that's where

the state government really comes in, or in my opinion, needs to come in in an even bigger way.

We've seen some progress in that regard, not this session, but the past legislative session.

There were some changes made to shared revenue, which is the biggest aid payment that goes to local government in the state of Wisconsin.

We essentially send our sales tax revenue down to Madison.

They send it back to us.

And not to the amount that that we would really appreciate but we've made some progress in that regard and and so we're gonna keep advocating You know, we also were a high property tax state Here in, Wisconsin as I think all of us can probably attest and and so we're looking for different ways to raise revenue at the local level to Counties can have a sales tax municipalities cannot That's something that governor evers has included in some of his budgets and

and unfortunately not been approved by the legislature, but hoping for some more change here in years to come.

That's a great answer.

And that is the voice of Mayor Eric Enric.

He is the 42nd mayor of Green Bay joining us over the stream.

We are going to take a very short break and we'll come back and ask the mayor a couple more questions.

We've got a few more minutes.

Greg, how are you doing?

You okay?

I'm feeling great.

Okay.

Well, actually, you know, I actually, but I have some thoughts on other things has nothing to do with Green Bay.

But I, you know, I think Tron legacy was a much better.

I have to get off the air.

Sorry.

Nevermind.

All right.

We'll discuss that too.

Maybe not when the mayor's here.

That was a great answer.

All right.

We're coming right back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,

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the whole song played down.

Welcome back to Nightlight.

I'm Pete Schwabba, coming to you live from Christmas City, USA.

Greg Bach, my co-host, is just down the coast in Racine, and Dom is in Madison.

We are the Yatterhey Triangle, and it is our pleasure to have on the show tonight Mayor Genrich from Green Bay, Wisconsin.

He was elected in 2019, re-elected in 2023.

He is the 42nd mayor of this juggernaut of a town, Green Bay.

They were voted the number one town to live in.

just about three years ago, so that was exciting.

Mayor, you know, we just have limited time left, but of course I want to ask you about the benefits of the Packers, but we know that what an asset they are to the community.

Can you talk a little bit about my background is the arts.

Green Bay has a thriving arts community.

I don't think many people are as aware of as they should be.

What is your take?

Is it a good place culturally?

It is, absolutely.

We've got a lot going on here.

We have a public arts commission at the City of Green Bay.

It's an official commission that we have here at the local level.

Got a fantastic public arts coordinator.

And we've had a couple now, but Eric is doing a tremendous job for us.

We just designated our first poet laureate.

our inaugural poet laureate here within the city of Green Bay, Miriam Brabham, who is incredibly talented and we've been able to feature her at a council meeting and a few poetry readings.

Some amazing muralists in town as well, one of our business improvement districts on Broadway, especially, is kind of known for the number and painted there.

So the Weidner Center, a great institution on the UWGB.

campus for live performances.

The Widener Philharmonic is really an amazing group and they're going to be playing at our 4th of July celebration.

We're obviously all celebrating 250 years and so we're trying to go a little bit bigger and better this year and so one of those new elements is going to be the Widener Philharmonic, playing some patriotic tunes for everybody.

So yeah, everybody knows the Packers, everybody loves the Packers, myself included, but there's a lot else going on here in town and we've got, I think, a pretty vibrant

live music scene.

We have a new venue that we're hoping to be opening up here in the late summer, early fall, right downtown in our old showroom Schumacher historic building right downtown Green Bay.

And so yeah, there's a lot going on and never a shortage of things to do.

I would just say real quickly, Greg, two treasures Green Bay has that I would strongly encourage people to visit are the Meyer Theater and

Absolute

Gem.

And the National Railroad Museum is fantastic.

It's just an absolute treasure.

So I totally agree with you,

Mayor.

Yeah, I would second both of those.

I would also say the National Railroad Museum, you know, some people might say, hey, that's that's in the village of Ashwabana.

But in reality, it's in a Green Bay City Park.

that is surrounded by the village of Ashwabdan.

So we get to still, yeah, we still get to claim it.

You know, they'd pay us $1 a year to be there.

And if you haven't been there recently, they got some state funding, but a big capital campaign made possible of major renovation and expansion.

So it's a beautiful new space that really does justice to the fact that it's on the Fox River.

And so it's, yeah, recommend everybody check that out.

I really would love to get phone calls from people in Ashwabana.

I'm just very angry with what you

just said

because there's nothing better than municipal squabbling.

I love that so much.

Absolutely.

Mayor, I used to work for a local mayor of Racine back in the day.

And one of the things that's a crown jewel of Racine and Milwaukee, Kenosha and Green Bay is Lake Michigan.

And you mentioned the Fox River as well.

As mayor, you know, what do you see your job as a steward for Lake Michigan, protecting it, promoting it, but just making sure that it's there for people to enjoy?

Yeah, no, that's a great question.

I mean, I think we've been engaged here in Green Bay in a lot of places, but here in Green Bay specifically and kind of a multi-decade

effort to reorient ourselves back towards our national resources and you know give them the appreciation that they really deserve the Fox River and the Bay of Green Bay in particular.

Major

you know, Fox River cleanup that took place beginning in the early 2000s and completing, you know, just within the last few years.

As a result of a ton of local advocacy on the part of local environmentalists and others, US Fish and Wildlife and DNR employees, you know, we now have one of the best walleye fisheries in the world.

A lot of people don't know that the Fox River, where the Fox hits the Bay of Green Bay, it's the largest freshwater estuary in the entire world.

And so, like I said, kind of a multi-ecker decade effort to really reestablish a meaningful relationship with the Fox River and with the Bay.

And so we've seen a lot of positive developments with our public spaces, a couple of our parks, Lake Park, the shipyard here in downtown Green Bay, newly established.

park in shipyard itself and then some new improvements over at liked with a new pavilion and a beer garden, ultimately a ban shell to be created and better access to the Fox River.

Also our amusement park is right on the shores of Lake Michigan or the Bay of Green Bay.

And so we have been successful in pulling down some federal dollars to build what we hope will be a really sizable as large as maybe 400 foot pier out into the Bay of Green Bay.

Again, giving people better access to the water, being able to appreciate some of the water foul that have returned like the Pelicans, which is a pretty cool site for those of us who lived here for a long time and hadn't seen that in a while.

Were you talking about Bay Beach?

I was.

Yes.

Is that technically Green Bay?

Oh, absolutely.

It's owned by the city of Green Bay.

One of the, you know, just handful of municipal amusement parks in the country.

So a great place for families in particular.

I joke that, you know, some people say the happiest place on earth is that swamp down in Florida.

No, it's in, it's in Green Bay, right?

Especially for that budget conscious family.

So you can come up here and be hard pressed to spend 20 bucks with a family of four riding or zipping, pipping and all the other rides there.

It's a great place.

I miss going down there every day to do this show because I got very familiar with the downtown district in Washington and all the great places to eat It's a really just a terrific town.

Keep up the great work mayor and come back anytime.

We would come back during football season and we can we can make some wagers or something That would be fun.

Oh, yeah, I was right

legal wagers.

Yes

Yeah, we can go do some crangle or something

Oh, that's perfect.

That's awesome.

I like

that.

That is Mayor Eric Enric, the 42nd Mayor of Green Bay.

Great talking you, Mayor.

Have a great night.

Keep up the great work, and we'll talk again soon, I hope.

Appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me.

All right.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bakken.

We are coming right back after the news to answer your texts.

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