You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM 975 FM.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
During this interview, I'm talking with Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Matt Sacker on Thursday, March 19th.
Thank you for joining me, Matt, to bring a community an update from the city of Wisconsin Rapids.
You're welcome.
Thanks for having me, Melissa.
It's always great to talk with you.
So we've got a few things happening in the city.
I mean...
there's always things happening in the city but we're going to cover some of them today talking about um let's start off with the safety in our city you've got approval to hire three new firefighter paramedics for the city of wisconsin rapids
yeah we worked uh long and hard probably about a year and a half to get all these contracts together work with all the communities with the understanding that the increased money that they're uh we were asking them to pay for would go into a
cooperative where they would hire six total paramedic firefighters, three of which were already hired two years ago, and then with the additional money, three more paramedic firefighters, and put a...
a chunk of money away every year for the next 12 years to purchase a new ambulance
in the
rotation of four ambulances that we purchased.
So they all agreed to that.
So we finalized the details and got the council to approve it.
And so we start the process now of hiring three new paramedic firefighters.
And is some of the...
complexity behind this issue, the fact that there's mutual aid and a lack of resources in some of the far out rural areas?
Yeah, there's a lot of issues that go into it.
The number one driver being call volume for us.
But the problem is that the expense of everything got to the point where the outlying areas couldn't justify having their own entire department and be able to fund it.
So this was kind of a
Again, we call it a cooperative.
It was saying if all of you guys need to have two parametric firefighter two paramedics and an ambulance, but it's it's They don't all need to have their own
so
so basically they came together and they're hiring six paramedic firefighters paramedics and buying one ambulance and then asking us to house it and take care of all the
maintenance and the
side the side stuff like we just went for the wages and benefits for six paramedics and one ambulance and And we thought that was good because we as Wisconsin Rapids need to have up the size of fire department and paramedics that we have
Because the state statutes because we're over 10,000 people
so we
have the buildings we have the infrastructure We have all this things that that they can't build and if they try to build it It's just gonna cost too much so this was a happy medium But at the same time they're paying because they're about 25% of our call volume They're paying for 25% of the personnel and the ambulance and they're agreeing to share those costs and will house them Which gives them the upper hand to be here not the upper hand, but a
a fair deal because it's not that that ambulance and those six paramedics are just there for them.
They're
in
our mix.
So
if two calls come in from Santa Cusa, we're still sending two ambulances.
But at the same time, we get the benefit of if those calls aren't coming in, we have the benefit of using them in our community also.
So it's a it's a win win for them.
And it's a win win for us because our residents are not subsidizing.
the paramedics and the ambulance that are being sent out there.
They're paying their fair share for
the
whole program and everybody's happy.
I mean, nobody's happy about the money.
But it's only going to get more
over the
years.
And this system is set up that it automatically renews every year.
There's a 24 month out clause if somebody does want to make a change.
But the increase goes according to what the wages and benefits are and what the cost of the ambulance goes up.
And that'll be transparent.
We're meeting once a quarter with everybody from these areas so that we're functioning kind of as one unit.
So everybody knows what's going on and they don't have to worry about budgeting something else every year.
They're going to know.
at least a quarter ahead of time what that cost is gonna be and be prepared for it.
So is this a certain mile radius outside of the city of Wisconsin Rapids?
And I'm gonna put you on the spot.
Do you know the communities that are involved in this fair?
Right now the
communities end up being more the southern communities.
So it would be...
Village of Port Edwards, Town of Port Edwards, Saratoga, Cranmore, Ho-Chunk, and then there's a village around the Ho-Chunk Casino that we're still talking about, but it's been there for us to serve us, so
we'll work
on that.
Nacusa?
Nacusa is the other one in there.
So they're all in one group and then Birin was with us.
They decided to go with United at this time.
And United is somebody that we do have mutual aid with.
They're a private company.
We didn't, as a city, we didn't want to compete with them
because
more than we already kind of were in the end.
But the costs that we proposed are not anywhere near in the ballpark.
And that was fair enough for us to say, we're not competing with you.
If they choose us, it's because of the services and the level of services that we provide.
excuse me.
So United is there.
Gary and Sandy Johnson do a great job with it.
And we're there to help them.
They're there to help us.
But they kind of service the Northern ones now beer and had chosen to go with them.
So they service them and Grand Rapids
and
Seneca and Rudolph and Segal.
So
kind of everything up and over on the on the Northern side.
But we also have to be prepared because
we'll see what happens in the future.
We can't count anything out of the realm of possibility
if somebody
disappears.
We have to be here.
So
if we can set up a system that's fair for everybody and keeps the cost in line with what they can do and what we can provide, I think that's the best case scenario and kind of see what happens from there.
But it was something that had to be addressed.
And this is a really good program.
And I think it's going to be a model for other communities to work with versus trying to recreate a district.
because once you start doing that, then you got to start sharing the costs for everything.
And then it gets really in the weeds, especially for Wood County, because we have two larger municipalities that's not typical for most counties,
but
it does make it more difficult for us as you get further and further away.
So this really is kind of integral to Wisconsin Rapids and all the surrounding communities that are around us as one community.
And how long did this process take?
Like, how long have you been working on figuring out how this agreement would work between all of these different areas?
I think, you know, it's going on two years that I've been in.
I know this was something that we were working on.
In all reality, it started probably five years ago when I first got on council.
It was the question and before that.
But the call, the problem is for us was the call I was continuing to go up because 911 is being.
I say this, it's being, if it's misused or if it's just, it's become something that it wasn't designed to be.
It was
an
emergency call.
So if you're
in
trouble, call.
Now we're getting calls.
And again, lift assists are important because we have to get everybody off the ground and back moving around.
But if those calls are coming in at such a rate,
And we they don't get any payment for them because so it would just be a call that we're going out to and all the nursing homes were calling.
So we're working with them to train them better to lower that call volume.
And then you have a lot of people who are calling maybe to get a ride to the hospitals because they can get in quicker or you're getting calls of people who just need some help in their house.
There is a lot of reasons that our EMS was being called that wasn't emergency calls.
So we're
working on them.
But as that call volume can
continues to increase, you have to hire more people in order to otherwise people are just getting burnt out.
There's a whole lot of things that go into it, but that was one of the...
the questions.
So the call volume, we're working on decreasing and retraining the public to understand what the purpose is.
The difference between 911 and non-emergency
dispatch.
Once they call 911, it has to go out, it has to go to the to the EMS and they have to go like
by
law.
So it's, it's something that, you know, and we have the most highly trained people where, you know, like, I could go in and just how great these men and women are because they are amazing.
And
at the same time, they have the courage to be there for the fires and for these really tough calls that can come, but
they
also have the compassion to work with people that, it's like there's a lot of people that are pretty old.
We have this bell curve of the baby boom generation, biggest generation ever, and we're at the top of it right now or somewhere in there.
There's just a lot of people and they may not have kids here anymore or any support system whatsoever.
They're in this house that
They all grew a long time ago, but they're not going to leave, and they want to stay there until the end comes, which is fine.
But we have to figure out a system that works because EMS is not that system.
It
shouldn't be, and it wasn't designed for that.
I mean, you have these guys and girls that are highly trained to be doing what they're doing.
It's a mobile hospital, basically,
and it needs
to be used as such, because otherwise we're going to burn these folks out.
So yeah, it's a lot of kind of working together, retraining, re-educating people to say, OK, this is what
what that's there for, but at the same time, if we're going to get into that ballpark where we're working with people on more of us, like a health basis, like a social basis,
then that's a lot of what we're working.
Like kind of a home health care stuff.
Yeah, we're
working with the county on that.
We have a co-responder, which we could talk a lot about too, that's really helping bridge the gap between the important services that the county has and the city has, but getting the right people to the right services versus
Again,
it's calling them using
the services that are there.
So that's that could be it looks to me like that's the direction we're going in where we have a co-responder
where, you know, if the police go and they do their job, but they have to leave, you send in a co-responder to make sure that those folks that, you know, had a horrible night
have the
services or connections to the services that
they
need.
Or if there's somebody in their house that needs home, in home care, but doesn't know where to get it, that's, this is the person
that can connect them to that.
Can help you find those resources.
Great program.
Yeah.
Just a little plug.
It's called co-responder, Jen Farm Burroughs, the person right now that's in that position.
It's hired, they're hired.
by ODC, but they're funded through Legacy for three years and we're one year into that three year program right now.
And mostly they work with the police department, but right behind that is the EMS department
more so
than the fire, although it's very...
like mix the EMS and fire.
They're all the same personnel and responsibilities.
And while the program is new, I've been hearing good things about
it.
Oh, great.
And I'm glad I'm trying to get it out as much as possible.
Try to just bridge the gap of communication
and make
sure people know what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it.
And that is something that keeps coming up over and over.
Is this how difficult it is to have that communication and make sure departments are able to, you know, communicate with each other and that the public knows where and who
to call for what issues and the city website, the work that you guys did there, I think really does help find a lot of those
resources.
That's good to hear.
I appreciate that.
I think we're going to keep, you know, adding services to that to make sure everybody can get them.
It's a
huge, huge beneficial tool for communication.
Again, I give credit to you guys, you know, for the radio work that you guys do, the podcasting that's going on, that's building.
newspapers and TV like it's there it's just not you know it's not the one size fits all anymore so I respect everybody in newspaper TV radio that are still
trying to do the job to make sure we can get our education information and news as we continue to build up the platforms of the internet and the computer systems that we have
that
are part of it too now.
So
it'll
be interesting to see what comes in the next 10 years.
They want it though.
Yeah.
Well, this is a good spot for us to take a brief pause here from our sponsors.
I'm Melissa Kay talking with Mayor Madzakar and you're listening to Perspective on 13 20 a.m.
97 5 FM WFHR.
Welcome.
You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Alyssa Kaye bringing you news in our community.
I'm speaking with Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Matt Sacker and where we left off we were talking about the EMS new edition of
So firefighter paramedics and just the services that are available, ways of communicating.
Another thing to do with the budget here for the city of Wisconsin Rapids is a two and a half percent bonus for city employees.
Let's talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, so it's a little tricky.
So I kind of knew coming into, you know, my election two years ago was that we're going to go through some
sticking points here because of the mill closure and they're trying to figure out what it was worth versus what it is worth now and somewhere in between is where that number lines up as well as we had a transportation utility that we had designed to help out with some of the costs for street and
you know building new streets and street repair and all that stuff and that kind of got axed because of the state at the state level so we had to move away from that we haven't moved in to test other areas of possible revenue but at the same time most you know residents and businesses are always going to say well you know before you just start looking at trying to get more money from us
Make sure that the serve, you know, you're down as low as you can go with the services that are there the tricky part is it it's service-based.
It's not Government's tricky, right?
It's a business, but it's a business based on you know how the money comes in and and It kind of comes in automatically, but it's based on us like we we are the ones that pay it and So you got to take care of us and treat us right so we
feel
connected to it the problem is as that
that base, that levy tax base continues to decrease and we don't have the other revenues, it's gonna be a continual conversation of how do we meet the budget.
And this year, moving from 25 into 26, we ran into a $850,000 shortfall.
And in that came temporarily saying, all right, in order for us to make this budget work, there's...
all the departments went back to the drawing board and came back with lower budgets for the next year, which I appreciated greatly.
They did it of their own accord.
So thank you to the department heads, but still in order to meet a $450,000 shortfall after that.
We met it by saying there's three positions that were open that we put a hiring freeze on and we did not fill those positions And they're still out there and then the other one was not giving a cost of living increase
to
the non-represented Workers, which is always tricky too because you have the the union firefighters paramedics and the police officers which is
is good for them in that sense because they're able to negotiate on
a
higher level but it's not the sticking part that comes in is then you also have to take care of the rest of the employees.
Now the unions are locked in for three years and we don't have enough money to give a cost of living increase to the rest of the employees so
that's
going to cause some hardship.
What we chose to do after the budget came in, we were able to solidify these contracts and kind of figure out better where the revenues were coming in and what that looked like.
And so we were able to say, let's do a 2.5% bonus this year.
And so we're working through that and what that looks like.
But again, it's tricky because that's a bonus.
It's not a cost to living increase that goes right on top of the salary or wages
that people are
making already.
So then in 2007, it's going to revert back to 2005.
wages so then we're kind of falling behind though we are very competitive I mean they are very good jobs and
they pay
very well and they get good in benefits but at the same time you know people are used to you know having that job and getting that increase
not a decrease because next year it's gonna feel like a decrease if it can't if you can't find space in the budget to include that
Right.
So, so yeah, it's never fun.
And certainly, you know, it's, it's, it's the hard part about any business or government is like, you have to be prepared to shrink, hopefully do it, you know, without letting people go because nobody wants to do that.
That's
the
worst case scenario.
That's why we chose to just freeze at a certain point until we could figure out what was going on instead of bringing people on and then saying, you know, sorry.
So we didn't have to do that.
And hopefully we don't have to, but it's going to come down to
finding new revenues or continuing to decrease the cost of the government, the municipal government.
But again, the cost comes, the main part is people
and
the people provide services for police, we're fire, EMS, we're making the streets work.
And I know that's a frustrating point for everybody.
I won't go into that right now, but they are, we are investing a lot in the streets and we're working through a 15, 20 year plan
that
makes sure all the streets are kept up on.
Outside of that, it's some administration that plays into it, the library that people love the library.
the zoos out there.
These are all things that make us such an awesome community.
We
have people moving into the community all the time, people that grew up here and are moving back, new families that are coming in.
So we have a lot of great things going for us, new businesses coming in.
We got a lot of entrepreneurial programs that are starting at the grassroots and moving up through the school systems and the technical school and mid-state technical college.
All great things are happening, but again, it's going to be some pain over the next 10 years in order to readjust accordingly.
Well, and hopefully some new industry is going to be coming in soon over at the Craft Mail site.
Um, I haven't, I haven't really heard anything about that.
And we haven't talked about that either.
Is there, are there any updates on that area?
Uh, just going through real quick, Sonoko bought the base mill so that they're increasing employees there and bringing in new machines and, and bringing in new, uh, like, uh, I guess sub renters, you know, people that are coming in and
working
their own businesses there.
Billarood is in the converting mill and they're staying there and they're increasing between them.
They have about a hundred, uh, three hundred and fifteen employees.
Okay.
The craft mill is in its final stages.
The buildings are down.
They just got to clean up the rubble, getting the rebar out of the cement, which is not the most fun part of the job,
but that's what's got to
get done and finish that up.
And that's where the power is and the people to be able to build buildings there.
Hopefully, mostly manufacturing, most likely will be some data centers that are coming in.
We want jobs.
We are talking at the council level about just tweaking and putting an ordinance in place to define what a data center is.
So we have a good idea.
where they fit in and how we you know where we fit in.
We don't want to wait until after they come in and then start putting in ordinances because then we can get ourselves
in trouble
and it's just not good for business.
So we are kind of finalizing some of that stuff just to make sure we're all on the same page but we do want that.
We do want Quebco Consolidated Water and Power to be a strong company.
They're the ones that provide power to all the mill that's their space.
They run the five dams from Dubai all the way down to Rapids so
Good company, we want them to be strong.
We want everybody else in the area to be strong.
But enough manufacturing companies will in that area would also obviously help with employment situations.
And just to clarify, the city doesn't own that.
The city owns none of this.
But there's very little, like you said, by putting ordinances in places.
Is that the only way you have any bit of control over what happens there?
Uh, yep, for the most part, uh, put in ordinance, just it's really like zoning code, like defining what it is.
It's not like the city doesn't and shouldn't have, even though I know there's lots of, you know, stories out there about, you know, this and that and who let what business is in.
But ultimately, the only time the city gets involved is when they want to open up a building.
We need to make sure it's safe for public use,
whether it's
industrial, manufacturing, residential, commercial.
Um, and that just fits into the code, like this building is going to be used for manufacturing.
And it fits into the, this book of code and, and, and the map of it that we voted in in 2018 before
I ever got on the council.
And that's
where people, you know, get frustrated because it's, it's kind of controlling the future of the city versus what happened in the past is every, you know, whatever.
To me, it was a little bit like whatever happened happened.
They must have had planners because the streets are pretty straight and square
when it comes to blocks and all that.
So something was
happening.
But there wasn't.
And I don't know.
In all honesty, as just a resident and a business owner, I like the diversity of a restaurant here.
The bar restaurants opened up in the middle of neighborhoods because we didn't have cars at the time.
We were in a different boat.
Now the concept is we need to have commercial lanes like Grand Avenue and A Street.
You know, but then that's all you have there and then you struggle to make them look nice and so then you vote in a Book of code that says you got to have more plants and trees and that just makes more people angry because now you're trying to control every little move So we've done a good job taking some of that code Kyle Kearns I give him credit because I I put some pressure on to say we need to get rid of some of this or we can vote out the whole book and vote in a new one That's
less
restrictive We've we chose at that time to kind of focus on individual
code sections
in there
and try to scale
them down and make it a little bit easier.
Revamping that a little.
The existing codes.
I mean, it's tricky when you voted in.
Nobody, you know, you got to be a pretty, you know.
motivated person to read the entire book
and
then understand what it actually means
in practice.
That's the trick.
Yeah.
Because now what happens is somebody comes to this city and says, I want to do this.
And they're like, okay, well, this is the code that matches that.
And you don't match up with the code.
And now you're
asking for a zoning change or a thing.
Yeah.
So it just causes
a lot of heartache.
Whereas ultimately you want to be a community that says, yeah, let's get busy and let's make things happen.
But you got to do it safe.
Right.
That is true.
Well, one other thing and a more fun topic we should talk about in our last minute here is the 4th of July celebration.
More is happening in the front
there.
Yeah.
I've been talking a lot about this.
We just got it past council just to give them the preliminaries of what's going on.
It's not hugely different like we've had the 4th of July downtown for...
as long as I can remember, I've been here 20 years, but it's kind of taken on different shapes.
And since COVID, I think it slowed down up till that point and then kind of died for a while.
Last year was the first year I said we should get a band again.
And I don't necessarily know if it's like the city's responsibility, but I think if we can be the spark that ignites
this
future thing.
So we
went, Emily Kent again, did a great job bringing people together from the community, talking through the website, through our social media, communicating, getting ideas.
We ended up, you know, let's get a name for it so we know what it is, ended up being Rapids River Fest Freedom, or Rapids Riverside Freedom Festival.
Okay,
that's
nice.
Most likely it'll kind of boil down to Freedom Fest.
Sure.
Freedom Fest, Rapids Riverside Freedom Fest, so.
It's exciting and
that
can be something that's the catalyst for the future.
We're
working with friends of music, friends of rapids music and they put the bands on so we'll have a band from about noon till nine o'clock.
At nine
o'clock we'll do the transition, have some music playing and then do the national anthem which leads right into the fireworks.
There'll be a kid zone down in the parking lot by the movie theater.
We're going to spread out the vendors a little bit more to get people walking from east side to west side have more things.
going on, have some hopefully some things, there's going to be some crafts going on in there.
And I've heard, you know, talk about yoga in the park, and we got bingo going up at the Centralia Center.
I know we're working on some kid teenager activities, dunk tank stuff like that.
So anything that we can do to bring people down for more of the day, and get them excited about being there and just
so if you want the teenagers to do the dunk tank thing, who do you think is the best, we got to get
I
think Melissa K would
be a great one.
You want to put me in the dunk deck?
You know what?
I've done that before.
I'm not opposed to it.
But I think we should get the Lincoln High School principal in there.
Would
you sit
in there, man?
I will.
I'm on the docket right
now.
Are you really?
That's great.
What about Sheriff Becker?
Yeah, I think they're
asking
him.
So what we did is we had some kids from the high school participate in the conversation with the committees and that was there.
They came up with a list of names.
out now to the principals and vice principals
and everybody in
the mayor and sheriff and police chief.
We'll see.
We'll see
how it says yes.
I did do one
like two years ago, but it was like somewhere like more into the fall and
was so cold.
Did they didn't heat the tank up for you?
It was fun, but it was horrible.
Fun but horrible.
I think we need that on a t-shirt, Matt.
Fun but horrible.
But this year it'll be for the July.
So of course the hardest part.
about setting stuff like this up is is it going to be 110 degrees or is it going to be raining right you know all
day so
you don't know so you kind of wish for the best the bands will be playing regardless and the fireworks will be the next day after the fifth of july if
there's a rain day if
there's a rain day so for it for one day but we wouldn't do the
festivities the next day so yeah it would be a little bit weird but
the fireworks will go on as long as there's not lightning and
You
know,
thunder, I guess they kind of go hand in hand, but
if it's
just raining, they will
bring your umbrella.
Yeah.
Maybe we did that, I think two years ago.
We should get clear umbrellas.
Then you could watch the fireworks through the
umbrella.
But it's not going to rain.
I don't know where we've been talking to.
Yeah, Farmer's Market's going to be down there during the 4th of July since it
falls on that day.
So that's exciting.
I think if we can get set what we have set, and then we can kind of build from there to make it more.
And if it can be anything the community wants it to be, it shouldn't be a city thing overall.
But at the same time, everything needs a leader.
So right now.
You've got to start somewhere.
Emily Cant is the leader on this.
Jake Klingsforth is the park.
and Rec Directory is going to be there just to make sure things are connected.
And if anything needs to happen, you can make it happen.
Wonderful.
So I
appreciate him putting that extra time.
We did just get the OK to put together a sponsorship program from the council.
Well, we already had it put together.
They approved it.
So I'm going to be reaching out to businesses and families and
all that to see if
we can't get some money behind it.
Right now, the city sponsors about $25,000 with fireworks, which is our money in the end.
It's
a lot, but the price of the fireworks went up 20%.
So
we either pay 20%
more or get 20% less.
It's less
fireworks.
But I can't keep taking it out of a budget that's already, you know.
fighting
to survive.
So I'll be coming out to people.
Again, I feel like it's my responsibility to kind of go out and try to build this community thing.
I like it.
I like asking people for these things because it's really about community.
Right.
And investing in the community.
So I look forward to talking to everybody about that.
We'll see what happens.
Well, that's a good place for us to wrap up.
I'm Melissa Kay speaking with Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Matt Zacker.
Thank you for talking with me today, Matt.
Thanks, Melissa.
Appreciate it.
And thank you to listeners joining us for new
in our community on Perspective 1320 a.m.
97 5 fm WFHR
