You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kaye, bringing you news in our community.
During this interview, I'm talking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Plymouth on Thursday, July 23rd.
Thank you for joining me, Lance, to bring the community an update from Wood County.
Always a pleasure, Melissa.
Love being here.
We'll try to give you some perspective of what's going on.
Nice little play on words there.
If you could, let's start with that.
Give us some perspective on what the boards do over the summer.
It's interesting.
We don't have a summer vacation.
Everything continues to move forward.
Summers are generally budget time.
It seems like you just get through the previous year and you start again, but we start with that capital improvement plan, where we're going to spend money on those big projects.
Then we start getting into the operational aspect of it.
Where can we spend money within those departments?
To meet the constraints that we have and oftentimes it's it's a place where the board It can be a little contentious with department heads who obviously and I mean in a nice way, but obviously need money to run their departments and County board members sometimes have to say that's great We'd love to do that, but there's not adequate funding to make that happen.
So when I say contentious, I don't really mean we're at each other's roads, but
There's a need and a want and then there's limited funds, right?
So we start through the operational aspect of that and then we kind of fine-tune that through August by September We're pretty well set as to where we're going in that respect October last minute
touches to that because the budget has to actually be published end of October and then the second week of November that budget is passed for the 2027 year.
So it seems like it's a never-ending battle.
I mean you literally just finished one and the audits and you start the next but this is a time of year where we're really pulling all that information together and what are healthcare costs going to be?
What are operational costs?
How much is going to cost to build a mile of highway?
All of those things start to come together.
Well and I'm looking back at passport minutes.
There are
During your May the minutes that were approved in June from May There there's funds that are moved around kind of at the end of the budget season here But that's is that normal is that unexpected like how does that happen?
No, it's absolutely normal and it's a reconciliation process You know department had departments have to stay within budgets and sometimes
I'm going to oversimplify this to make a point, but sometimes you find out you don't need more pencils, but you could use more paper clips.
OK.
And so you're not spending more money, but you're allocating it to different programs within that department where need arose.
or oftentimes when we get to the end of the year like this, and it seems somewhat silly, but we actually have to have a resolution to accept money that comes in the way of grants, whether that be from the state or federal government, before we can even take the money and then use it for the program in which it's supposed to be allocated for.
Now, I think it would seem that to the normal human being.
If somebody wants to give you money, you say, thank you very much, and you move on your way.
But it's not that simple.
You actually have to vote.
to accept and then you know some of those monies are moved around I mean you might have in the health department for instance you might have a healthy smiles program or something that you're funding and there's excess dollars there that you can move into another program if a federal government person's listening to me and that's not legal I wasn't using that as a legal example that that is nothing more than an example of how money sometimes gets transferred between you know different items within a budget
well because specifically here like the aging and disability resource center budget
for additional expenditures that were not anticipated.
That was $33,642 in ARPA funds that were moved around.
Yeah, they moved them around.
And, you know, by the way, that's, and that was ADRC money.
And, you know, the ADRC is one of the best things I think that we ever did years ago, you know, and we did a consortium, put that together.
We, for the most part, until last year, had no increase in that budget over, you know, more than a decade.
And then in the last two years, we've had about
combined about a 15% increase in that budget.
But that's 15% over 10 years.
And that's remarkable to provide those meals on wheels, programs, congregate meals, and all the other things that they do.
But you're right.
And sometimes it's a matter of we'll move money into a program because we've freed up money, let's say, on the human.
on the personnel side.
You know, we didn't fill a position or something went away somewhere and we allocate it in a different direction.
But it always has to stay within those constraints that are passed on November, whatever that is this year.
It's never 11th.
It's always around that.
A county board meeting cannot occur on Veterans Day.
But it's usually
early November.
It's right around that time.
Um, and then some of the other, like for Wood County land and water conservation budget, that was another one where monies were moved, um, to help cover other expenditures.
I'm not exactly sure which one we're relating to with that.
Um, you're right.
I mean, if we have a program,
it was the NEPCO Lake grant monies.
Yeah.
And there's, there's a lot of those that it has to fit within a framework.
I mean, you can't take, you know, money to build.
a boat ramp and use it in human services, something to that respect.
But yeah, there's those programs within those departments that we allocate money back and forth between to make sure that we fall under the original total amount allocated for that
department.
And here's one other one that I was interested in.
It's going to cost a little bit more money to get married in the county.
The marriage license and domestic partnership insurance fees and January 1st of 2027 will increase.
slightly
it is and you know that was brought forth by the county clerk and you know we try to make that budget neutral uh where they don't lose any money by providing those but it's not you know a profit center so to speak and
You know, we have one of the best county clerks in the state.
I'd say that in front of every other county clerk when I meet with them.
Trent Minor does an incredible job.
I
enjoy reading his
reports.
Yeah, along with his staff.
I mean, they're remarkable.
They provide guidance to a lot of the other offices around the state.
And every now and then, some of those fees have to be raised just to meet the, you know, the cost to provide.
Let's touch briefly on the Edgewater Haven, the community.
Oh, help me what this
is.
The CBRF?
Yes.
Conversion.
I don't have a lot to update on this month.
Hopefully in the next month or two, we will.
We're in the process of moving forward with some of the bids, some of the final design, is that keeps moving forward.
When we get that, there will actually be a debate on the county board floor is.
Should we do the project?
Is it something we can financially handle?
My guess is we can and it's kind of one of those if you spend some money now You save a whole bunch of money over the next number of years and the financial Modeling on this shows you know savings into the hundreds of thousands of dollars as we move forward especially through the next you know decade But that's anybody
that hasn't doesn't know what we're talking about This is the conversion of one wing to a more
of a community based residential facility which
looks nursing home
Yeah, it looks a little bit more like apartments.
A little bit more independent living.
We see that the direction demographically.
That's what the county is going to need.
And so we're working through, like I said, the design process, the bid process.
And then when we get those numbers, then there will be the discussion as to is this a project that we should move forward to?
You always hope it's going to be done last month.
Seems like it's always next month or the month after, but you know, we're trying to dot the I's cross the T's make sure we don't miss anything.
And in the meantime, you're still paying that bed tax.
You know, I'm getting started on that one, you know.
I know how to get you fired up.
Well, the state and the federal government, you know, has told us through all the studies that, you know, again, we have an aging population.
Demographically, we're going to need nursing home beds.
And we should have those.
I'll call it ready to
go.
But they tax us for them, even if we're not using them yet, just having them ready for those future needs.
So yeah, that one drives me nuts, but we've dealt with that for years and years.
I'm not sure what the thought process was behind that originally when that was decided it was going to occur.
It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially when you see the need for certain is happening.
I mean, we have an aging population in the state of Wisconsin and the projections are almost
It's staggering how many additional beds you're going to need moving forward.
Well, and we do know that Wood County is a county in Wisconsin that has an aging population, one of the oldest populations in the state, for my understanding.
Yeah, it is.
And you're going to have to... And that's one thing when we discuss businesses coming to town.
You know, you're going to have to provide opportunity for young educated people.
I mean, the most important thing for us to do is keep those, you know, not only retain but attract, you know, young talent to our area.
Have them want to raise their family here.
And, you know, we have tremendous parks and recreation opportunities.
Public safety is fantastic.
You know, we have a great not only our local police department our sheriff's departments I mean you feel safe walking the streets in our area But you have to have industry to support that and then on top of that to bring industry you have to have housing for those people to move into so You know as we move forward and Melissa you and I've talked about this I mean those those big issues are you know business development obviously at the top of that But you need adequate housing that has to increase we need child care
So you can take care of that and bring that second spouse into the workforce if they desire.
And so those are problems not that just we face in Central Wisconsin, but nationwide.
I just returned from the National Association of Counties annual conference.
Those are the topics.
Everybody's facing the same issues.
Well,
if anybody has an idea on how to solve those, give me a call.
Please reach out.
Well, let's take a brief pause here to hear from our sponsors.
I'm Melissa Kay talking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Blimmel, and you are listening to Perspective on 1320 AM, 97.5 FM WFHR.
Welcome.
You're listening to Perspective on WFHR, 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kaye bringing you news in our community.
I'm speaking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Plimal and where we left off we were talking about some of the frustrations that we have with funds and appropriations and things of that nature.
Now let's talk just a little bit about...
One topic that I found interesting in the health and human services June meeting I mean there's a lot of there's a lot in there to dig into with health and human services, but this particular thing was a the place of wood County place of last drink report and this has to do with the Voluntarily tracks where a person had their last drink before being picked up for a DUI and this was an educational
Opportunity to it to help establishments as a for former bar owner yourself.
This is something that you have probably dealt with and We know Wisconsin drinking culture is world-renowned.
Let's just say
It certainly is
You know, they usually preclude us from any statistics or contests because we're at the high end of that.
You're from Wisconsin?
No,
you cannot join our beer drinking contest.
Yeah, it's an interesting report.
And I think it's a valuable report because, you know, and I'll put on that other hat because, you know, I owned restaurants, bars and other stuff.
Big part of my life.
And the one thing you don't want to do is lose a patron for life if they go out, you know.
Die in a fatal car accident or a passenger and you don't want to lose them for a period of time if they're incarcerated or otherwise precluded So you want to make sure there aren't people out there?
You know overindulging and driving under the influence that being said they can track It's a voluntary program obviously the person doesn't have to answer but oftentimes we find out you know where the where those points of concern are You know if we hear that
Generally, people being arrested for OWI are coming from same locations or same spots.
We don't go in and do anything other than to counsel, to talk to, to try to train the people.
Provide some education.
Provide some education so they can spot some of those issues.
Now, the interesting part of that, and I think the report is generally accurate.
I'm not sure that everybody who gets arrested under those circumstances actually tells the truth.
That's the other part of it.
But it's an educational tool.
I think it's a valuable tool.
And so we track that.
And like I said, it's something where then they go in and they say, hey, how can we help?
Is there a way we can help mitigate this?
So yeah, it was an interesting part.
I had not seen that one from our county before.
I've seen it statewide.
And it is interesting.
Last beverage you consumed, you know at a license establishment.
Was it at a picnic?
Was it at somebody's house?
You know all of the above so Interesting statistics and it's something we're gonna follow up on you continue to take a look at
well, and I I've joked about being Wisconsin and obviously this is a very serious issue because lives are at stake and and people abuse alcohol in ways that
does damage themselves and others around them.
So it is a very serious issue.
It is.
And we do, you know, in this state, you know, not only reputationally, but it does consume more alcohol typically than many of the other states, you know, on a per capita basis.
Not all states, believe it or not, but, you know, it's kind of ingrained in the culture.
And we do.
And I think part of that was for many, many years, we produced
a lot of the fermented beverages sold in the country.
But it's something that we've really seen a reduction though in accidents, both injury, fatal, as a result of sometimes stiffer laws, better enforcement.
But I think a lot of it's better education.
I see a lot of the younger people out there that consume either less or don't consume any intoxicating beverages.
drink responsibly I guess would be you know my charge to people out there and don't get behind the wheel if there's any question the results are not not only can be yeah from a fatality from an injury standpoint but even from an economic standpoint if nothing else happens you know to you and your careers and everything else
yes indeed
Another thing I wanted to touch on was the citizens water group had a section in their meeting notes about they addressed hyperscale data centers and talked about the demands for water electricity and
The topics discussed included public health concerns, nitric oxide, PFAS, traffic congestion, road damage, the length of the build, and decommissioning of a potential AI data center.
Let's just dive into that a little bit because it is a big topic, not only here in Wisconsin, all over Wisconsin, but nationwide.
Yeah, nationwide, it's huge.
And I just, like I mentioned, came back from a conference where this was discussed at length.
And I would tell you, here's the general take from this.
AI and data centers are coming.
period.
And if you don't participate, you're going to be left behind on a global basis.
It's going to happen.
It's a $1.7 trillion industry in the United States right now.
It provided $360 billion of tax revenue last year to different municipalities, and it employs 5.5 million people.
That's the plus side.
They found that much of the information coming forward, talking about the dangers for data centers, 80 to 90% of that is actually generated out of China and the Soviet Union, and then repeated on Facebook, Twitter, you name it, TikTok.
But most of that's being generated from foreign entities who prefer to have that technology at their fingertips rather than the United States.
Now that being said,
There's some pretty good guidance as to what you need to do if you're going to have a data center in your area.
And those things you touched on are extremely important.
But if you control noise, light pollution, you handle the water issues, and let's say you're Wisconsin Rapids, for instance, and you have Quipco, which provided power to the paper company, that no longer provides power to the paper company and you have the dams, you're not taking power out of the grid.
You're using self-generated power.
So some of the new technologies are, you know, some of these data centers, the equipment is submersible.
There's no noise.
The water is recycled, you know, reused.
It's a closed loop system.
Light has to be directed in certain areas.
Noise mitigated.
And then the big question or the big concern for a lot of Wisconsin is the use of highly productive farmland.
And so.
Sighting is important.
Where are you going to put it?
And then if you meet those other qualifications, it's kind of hard to say, and I know how a lot of people that will sit on the other side, I'm saying, get your facts, though, and look at it.
But if all those other things are there, how is that different than any other business?
If they're not adding to the electrical cost, if they're not straining the grid, if they're not using, consuming or polluting water, if there's not noise and they provide jobs, that's certainly there.
On the construction end, I've heard that too in other communities where some of the large, the Lighthouse Project in Port Washington, a lot of construction workers on site and a lot of trucks.
But no matter what business you build, whatever it is, I don't care what you're building,
there's gonna be a period of construction, whether that be if you're gonna rebuild a paper mill, which that's not gonna happen.
But even if you're building a Monards, a Home Depot, a Lowe's, a Walmart, the Amazon distribution centers, out of Cottage Grove, yeah, any of those.
So I guess my guidance would be there's a lot of information out there that's factual, not provided by Facebook or TikTok.
Charlie Barron's one of my favorite comedians.
I listened to him all day long.
But some of the information provided there, I would say, was not relevant to current conditions and current concerns.
Just dive deep, get the information.
And I will, a lot of praise to the mayor in the city.
I mean, they're doing listening sessions.
They're being transparent.
You want to make sure that developers are reputable person and that you have, you know, methods and things in place.
To preclude any of those bad things happening and if they met all of those parameters, it's like any other business.
What are your rules?
How you do it and and do it, right?
Well, and one of the other concerns and I was just talking with one of my fellow colleagues down in the bearable Eric or Richland Center area where the the power lines the transmission lines are threatening family farms
like the corridors that they're going to have to put these transmission lines in through are either going to take out generational businesses or family homes.
And this is just happening.
Like very recently, where they're having these conversations, there's not a whole lot of input coming back from the power company, answering any questions.
How can people combat that if they're not getting answers from?
Well, I think
electrical
companies.
Yeah, I mean transparency was number one on the list if I had my phone in my pocket I pull out the list that I just wrote down when I was out down in New Orleans, but You're right a lot of those corridors already exist But if it's a new one and I have a very good friend that lives in the Port Washington area He has a very large farm the transmission lines are coming through.
I don't think he even necessarily had a problem if it came through Somewhere on the farm, but it's coming through like
Within a hundred feet of his house, and he has 900 acres and you know and those
lines aren't quiet
No, they at times they are not because I've worked in areas where they I used to work at the national accelerator laboratory down in Batavia, Illinois There can be some you know noise from those If there was more transparency or the ability worth those coming say could we relocate that over a little bit You know that's certainly there, but I think
you have to weigh the economic benefit, the ability to be competitive in the world, and you know it's common.
And I used the example the other day, and I'm not saying they're looking at it, but if you as a community, and I'm not a mayor, I don't have any input on this, but if you don't do this in your community, and they do it right down the river at the next place, and all of a sudden their tax base
becomes incredible.
They stabilize property tax rates.
They reduce those.
They bring young talent into the area.
But those data centers only employ 15 to 20 people.
Well, they're employing right now nationwide, 5.5 million.
Now part of that's construction.
But that's what's employed maybe on site to run the data center.
But you still need plumbers, electricians, construction people, all the ancillary businesses.
They have to build
the pumps and all the other stuff that goes with it.
So I think the mayor made the point one day, 20 jobs is better than zero jobs, but you have to figure out the things like how are you going to handle
at what it costs
and how are you going to handle the guarantees with if you had to decommission.
And you hope they're cooperative with you in that respect.
When I said responsible developers, you know, what do we have in place when
I'll give you an example.
Baraboo's a great example.
When Walmart just decided to close their building and build a different one down the street.
Did you have any plans with Walmart as to how they were going to decommission the building, so to speak?
Well, how many empty Walmart buildings do we have around the country?
Yeah.
Because they've started building Super Walmart.
Yes, since they started building.
So the rules have to be similar or it gets litigated and you lose.
So I think you have to take the time.
to research everything, make sure you dot the I's, cross the T's, come up with really good community development agreements or joint developer agreements where you say, hey, we need ABC and D before you even start.
That's probably the way to approach this.
I had one conference, and I'm not pro or anti data set.
I'm just going to tell you it's going to happen in the United States.
Now, would it be better if it happened not in my backyard?
Very possibly.
But if we don't build data centers, we're going to fall behind in everything.
Medical technology, communication, and the ability to move forward in the world.
Because it's common.
When you see some of the technology out there that I see at these national conferences, it's just mind blowing.
I mean, we're doing cancer research at a exponential factor faster than we were before.
I mean, they can run millions.
of scenarios and the time it used to take to run 10.
So you're going to see cancer treatments.
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw treatment for ALS and some of the other diseases that have been extremely difficult because of the fact that we can do this.
That's
a whole
other conversation we should have
at some point, Lance.
And I'd much rather have the United States at the forefront of that than those adversaries we have around the world and control that.
That knowledge
okay, but what even American-based corporations don't always have the the public's best interest at heart
Absolutely and American corporations are typically you know, this is a capital are typically owned by Americans Stockholders you if you have a 401k if you have an IRA if yet you probably have money invested in some of these companies And you know you can vote with your money and you can vote with your feet, but
They are powerful, and that's why I said you have to sit down ahead of time and talk about how this is going to work.
Well, and here in Wisconsin Rapids, those conversations are happening.
They happen on every Wednesday.
The
local leaders are making themselves available, so reach out to your older persons, reach out to the mayor.
He's always available.
Can people reach out to you?
Absolutely, and I think the other thing that people have to realize is there's some things that the city, the mayor, doesn't have control of.
And they do their best to work within those confines.
In other words, you can't stop the sale of a private business to another private individual.
You can certainly talk about what's going to happen with it after that occurs and how that's going to happen.
But there's some things where it could be mayors, it could be state legislator, it could be county board people.
You kind of get chastised and, you know...
Torn apart based on things that you have zero control over Because the state and federally regulated
but the city is having their planning commission meeting I believe it's on the first Monday of August so that is an opportunity for residents to come and make their voices heard Respectfully, please.
Yeah, I have these
conversations.
I've been duck, you know, the mayor's listening session.
I thought everybody was Consider it, you know, at least the one I want to well behaved
The city, the mayor in this case, the city council is not trying to be adversarial.
Well, we all live in this community.
They all live in this community.
They want to listen.
And they weigh all those things.
Like I said, I have people that go build whatever they don't care.
And I had one person in regard to a data center.
They had a sign in their yard.
And I just kind of tongue in cheek said, why don't our data center?
And they go, I don't even know what one is.
Somebody gave me a sign.
I mean, so you really got to.
get involved.
You can't be at either end of that.
So as we move forward, you know, we'll see where this goes.
Yeah.
Well, we could talk about this for days, Lance, but now as we got to sign off, I'm Melissa Kay speaking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Plimal.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Lance.
Thanks, Melissa.
Appreciate it.
And thank you to listeners joining us for news in our community.
On perspective, 1320 AM, 97.5 FM WFHR.
You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kaye, bringing you news in our community.
During this interview, I'm talking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Plymouth on Thursday, July 23rd.
Thank you for joining me, Lance, to bring the community an update from Wood County.
Always a pleasure, Melissa.
Love being here.
We'll try to give you some perspective of what's going on.
Nice little play on words there.
If you could, let's start with that.
Give us some perspective on what the boards do over the summer.
It's interesting.
We don't have a summer vacation.
Everything continues to move forward.
Summers are generally budget time.
It seems like you just get through the previous year and you start again, but we start with that capital improvement plan, where we're going to spend money on those big projects.
Then we start getting into the operational aspect of it.
Where can we spend money within those departments?
To meet the constraints that we have and oftentimes it's it's a place where the board It can be a little contentious with department heads who obviously and I mean in a nice way, but obviously need money to run their departments and County board members sometimes have to say that's great We'd love to do that, but there's not adequate funding to make that happen.
So when I say contentious, I don't really mean we're at each other's roads, but
There's a need and a want and then there's limited funds, right?
So we start through the operational aspect of that and then we kind of fine-tune that through August by September We're pretty well set as to where we're going in that respect October last minute
touches to that because the budget has to actually be published end of October and then the second week of November that budget is passed for the 2027 year.
So it seems like it's a never-ending battle.
I mean you literally just finished one and the audits and you start the next but this is a time of year where we're really pulling all that information together and what are healthcare costs going to be?
What are operational costs?
How much is going to cost to build a mile of highway?
All of those things start to come together.
Well and I'm looking back at passport minutes.
There are
During your May the minutes that were approved in June from May There there's funds that are moved around kind of at the end of the budget season here But that's is that normal is that unexpected like how does that happen?
No, it's absolutely normal and it's a reconciliation process You know department had departments have to stay within budgets and sometimes
I'm going to oversimplify this to make a point, but sometimes you find out you don't need more pencils, but you could use more paper clips.
OK.
And so you're not spending more money, but you're allocating it to different programs within that department where need arose.
or oftentimes when we get to the end of the year like this, and it seems somewhat silly, but we actually have to have a resolution to accept money that comes in the way of grants, whether that be from the state or federal government, before we can even take the money and then use it for the program in which it's supposed to be allocated for.
Now, I think it would seem that to the normal human being.
If somebody wants to give you money, you say, thank you very much, and you move on your way.
But it's not that simple.
You actually have to vote.
to accept and then you know some of those monies are moved around I mean you might have in the health department for instance you might have a healthy smiles program or something that you're funding and there's excess dollars there that you can move into another program if a federal government person's listening to me and that's not legal I wasn't using that as a legal example that that is nothing more than an example of how money sometimes gets transferred between you know different items within a budget
well because specifically here like the aging and disability resource center budget
for additional expenditures that were not anticipated.
That was $33,642 in ARPA funds that were moved around.
Yeah, they moved them around.
And, you know, by the way, that's, and that was ADRC money.
And, you know, the ADRC is one of the best things I think that we ever did years ago, you know, and we did a consortium, put that together.
We, for the most part, until last year, had no increase in that budget over, you know, more than a decade.
And then in the last two years, we've had about
combined about a 15% increase in that budget.
But that's 15% over 10 years.
And that's remarkable to provide those meals on wheels, programs, congregate meals, and all the other things that they do.
But you're right.
And sometimes it's a matter of we'll move money into a program because we've freed up money, let's say, on the human.
on the personnel side.
You know, we didn't fill a position or something went away somewhere and we allocate it in a different direction.
But it always has to stay within those constraints that are passed on November, whatever that is this year.
It's never 11th.
It's always around that.
A county board meeting cannot occur on Veterans Day.
But it's usually
early November.
It's right around that time.
Um, and then some of the other, like for Wood County land and water conservation budget, that was another one where monies were moved, um, to help cover other expenditures.
I'm not exactly sure which one we're relating to with that.
Um, you're right.
I mean, if we have a program,
it was the NEPCO Lake grant monies.
Yeah.
And there's, there's a lot of those that it has to fit within a framework.
I mean, you can't take, you know, money to build.
a boat ramp and use it in human services, something to that respect.
But yeah, there's those programs within those departments that we allocate money back and forth between to make sure that we fall under the original total amount allocated for that
department.
And here's one other one that I was interested in.
It's going to cost a little bit more money to get married in the county.
The marriage license and domestic partnership insurance fees and January 1st of 2027 will increase.
slightly
it is and you know that was brought forth by the county clerk and you know we try to make that budget neutral uh where they don't lose any money by providing those but it's not you know a profit center so to speak and
You know, we have one of the best county clerks in the state.
I'd say that in front of every other county clerk when I meet with them.
Trent Minor does an incredible job.
I
enjoy reading his
reports.
Yeah, along with his staff.
I mean, they're remarkable.
They provide guidance to a lot of the other offices around the state.
And every now and then, some of those fees have to be raised just to meet the, you know, the cost to provide.
Let's touch briefly on the Edgewater Haven, the community.
Oh, help me what this
is.
The CBRF?
Yes.
Conversion.
I don't have a lot to update on this month.
Hopefully in the next month or two, we will.
We're in the process of moving forward with some of the bids, some of the final design, is that keeps moving forward.
When we get that, there will actually be a debate on the county board floor is.
Should we do the project?
Is it something we can financially handle?
My guess is we can and it's kind of one of those if you spend some money now You save a whole bunch of money over the next number of years and the financial Modeling on this shows you know savings into the hundreds of thousands of dollars as we move forward especially through the next you know decade But that's anybody
that hasn't doesn't know what we're talking about This is the conversion of one wing to a more
of a community based residential facility which
looks nursing home
Yeah, it looks a little bit more like apartments.
A little bit more independent living.
We see that the direction demographically.
That's what the county is going to need.
And so we're working through, like I said, the design process, the bid process.
And then when we get those numbers, then there will be the discussion as to is this a project that we should move forward to?
You always hope it's going to be done last month.
Seems like it's always next month or the month after, but you know, we're trying to dot the I's cross the T's make sure we don't miss anything.
And in the meantime, you're still paying that bed tax.
You know, I'm getting started on that one, you know.
I know how to get you fired up.
Well, the state and the federal government, you know, has told us through all the studies that, you know, again, we have an aging population.
Demographically, we're going to need nursing home beds.
And we should have those.
I'll call it ready to
go.
But they tax us for them, even if we're not using them yet, just having them ready for those future needs.
So yeah, that one drives me nuts, but we've dealt with that for years and years.
I'm not sure what the thought process was behind that originally when that was decided it was going to occur.
It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially when you see the need for certain is happening.
I mean, we have an aging population in the state of Wisconsin and the projections are almost
It's staggering how many additional beds you're going to need moving forward.
Well, and we do know that Wood County is a county in Wisconsin that has an aging population, one of the oldest populations in the state, for my understanding.
Yeah, it is.
And you're going to have to... And that's one thing when we discuss businesses coming to town.
You know, you're going to have to provide opportunity for young educated people.
I mean, the most important thing for us to do is keep those, you know, not only retain but attract, you know, young talent to our area.
Have them want to raise their family here.
And, you know, we have tremendous parks and recreation opportunities.
Public safety is fantastic.
You know, we have a great not only our local police department our sheriff's departments I mean you feel safe walking the streets in our area But you have to have industry to support that and then on top of that to bring industry you have to have housing for those people to move into so You know as we move forward and Melissa you and I've talked about this I mean those those big issues are you know business development obviously at the top of that But you need adequate housing that has to increase we need child care
So you can take care of that and bring that second spouse into the workforce if they desire.
And so those are problems not that just we face in Central Wisconsin, but nationwide.
I just returned from the National Association of Counties annual conference.
Those are the topics.
Everybody's facing the same issues.
Well,
if anybody has an idea on how to solve those, give me a call.
Please reach out.
Well, let's take a brief pause here to hear from our sponsors.
I'm Melissa Kay talking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Blimmel, and you are listening to Perspective on 1320 AM, 97.5 FM WFHR.
Welcome.
You're listening to Perspective on WFHR, 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kaye bringing you news in our community.
I'm speaking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Plimal and where we left off we were talking about some of the frustrations that we have with funds and appropriations and things of that nature.
Now let's talk just a little bit about...
One topic that I found interesting in the health and human services June meeting I mean there's a lot of there's a lot in there to dig into with health and human services, but this particular thing was a the place of wood County place of last drink report and this has to do with the Voluntarily tracks where a person had their last drink before being picked up for a DUI and this was an educational
Opportunity to it to help establishments as a for former bar owner yourself.
This is something that you have probably dealt with and We know Wisconsin drinking culture is world-renowned.
Let's just say
It certainly is
You know, they usually preclude us from any statistics or contests because we're at the high end of that.
You're from Wisconsin?
No,
you cannot join our beer drinking contest.
Yeah, it's an interesting report.
And I think it's a valuable report because, you know, and I'll put on that other hat because, you know, I owned restaurants, bars and other stuff.
Big part of my life.
And the one thing you don't want to do is lose a patron for life if they go out, you know.
Die in a fatal car accident or a passenger and you don't want to lose them for a period of time if they're incarcerated or otherwise precluded So you want to make sure there aren't people out there?
You know overindulging and driving under the influence that being said they can track It's a voluntary program obviously the person doesn't have to answer but oftentimes we find out you know where the where those points of concern are You know if we hear that
Generally, people being arrested for OWI are coming from same locations or same spots.
We don't go in and do anything other than to counsel, to talk to, to try to train the people.
Provide some education.
Provide some education so they can spot some of those issues.
Now, the interesting part of that, and I think the report is generally accurate.
I'm not sure that everybody who gets arrested under those circumstances actually tells the truth.
That's the other part of it.
But it's an educational tool.
I think it's a valuable tool.
And so we track that.
And like I said, it's something where then they go in and they say, hey, how can we help?
Is there a way we can help mitigate this?
So yeah, it was an interesting part.
I had not seen that one from our county before.
I've seen it statewide.
And it is interesting.
Last beverage you consumed, you know at a license establishment.
Was it at a picnic?
Was it at somebody's house?
You know all of the above so Interesting statistics and it's something we're gonna follow up on you continue to take a look at
well, and I I've joked about being Wisconsin and obviously this is a very serious issue because lives are at stake and and people abuse alcohol in ways that
does damage themselves and others around them.
So it is a very serious issue.
It is.
And we do, you know, in this state, you know, not only reputationally, but it does consume more alcohol typically than many of the other states, you know, on a per capita basis.
Not all states, believe it or not, but, you know, it's kind of ingrained in the culture.
And we do.
And I think part of that was for many, many years, we produced
a lot of the fermented beverages sold in the country.
But it's something that we've really seen a reduction though in accidents, both injury, fatal, as a result of sometimes stiffer laws, better enforcement.
But I think a lot of it's better education.
I see a lot of the younger people out there that consume either less or don't consume any intoxicating beverages.
drink responsibly I guess would be you know my charge to people out there and don't get behind the wheel if there's any question the results are not not only can be yeah from a fatality from an injury standpoint but even from an economic standpoint if nothing else happens you know to you and your careers and everything else
yes indeed
Another thing I wanted to touch on was the citizens water group had a section in their meeting notes about they addressed hyperscale data centers and talked about the demands for water electricity and
The topics discussed included public health concerns, nitric oxide, PFAS, traffic congestion, road damage, the length of the build, and decommissioning of a potential AI data center.
Let's just dive into that a little bit because it is a big topic, not only here in Wisconsin, all over Wisconsin, but nationwide.
Yeah, nationwide, it's huge.
And I just, like I mentioned, came back from a conference where this was discussed at length.
And I would tell you, here's the general take from this.
AI and data centers are coming.
period.
And if you don't participate, you're going to be left behind on a global basis.
It's going to happen.
It's a $1.7 trillion industry in the United States right now.
It provided $360 billion of tax revenue last year to different municipalities, and it employs 5.5 million people.
That's the plus side.
They found that much of the information coming forward, talking about the dangers for data centers, 80 to 90% of that is actually generated out of China and the Soviet Union, and then repeated on Facebook, Twitter, you name it, TikTok.
But most of that's being generated from foreign entities who prefer to have that technology at their fingertips rather than the United States.
Now that being said,
There's some pretty good guidance as to what you need to do if you're going to have a data center in your area.
And those things you touched on are extremely important.
But if you control noise, light pollution, you handle the water issues, and let's say you're Wisconsin Rapids, for instance, and you have Quipco, which provided power to the paper company, that no longer provides power to the paper company and you have the dams, you're not taking power out of the grid.
You're using self-generated power.
So some of the new technologies are, you know, some of these data centers, the equipment is submersible.
There's no noise.
The water is recycled, you know, reused.
It's a closed loop system.
Light has to be directed in certain areas.
Noise mitigated.
And then the big question or the big concern for a lot of Wisconsin is the use of highly productive farmland.
And so.
Sighting is important.
Where are you going to put it?
And then if you meet those other qualifications, it's kind of hard to say, and I know how a lot of people that will sit on the other side, I'm saying, get your facts, though, and look at it.
But if all those other things are there, how is that different than any other business?
If they're not adding to the electrical cost, if they're not straining the grid, if they're not using, consuming or polluting water, if there's not noise and they provide jobs, that's certainly there.
On the construction end, I've heard that too in other communities where some of the large, the Lighthouse Project in Port Washington, a lot of construction workers on site and a lot of trucks.
But no matter what business you build, whatever it is, I don't care what you're building,
there's gonna be a period of construction, whether that be if you're gonna rebuild a paper mill, which that's not gonna happen.
But even if you're building a Monards, a Home Depot, a Lowe's, a Walmart, the Amazon distribution centers, out of Cottage Grove, yeah, any of those.
So I guess my guidance would be there's a lot of information out there that's factual, not provided by Facebook or TikTok.
Charlie Barron's one of my favorite comedians.
I listened to him all day long.
But some of the information provided there, I would say, was not relevant to current conditions and current concerns.
Just dive deep, get the information.
And I will, a lot of praise to the mayor in the city.
I mean, they're doing listening sessions.
They're being transparent.
You want to make sure that developers are reputable person and that you have, you know, methods and things in place.
To preclude any of those bad things happening and if they met all of those parameters, it's like any other business.
What are your rules?
How you do it and and do it, right?
Well, and one of the other concerns and I was just talking with one of my fellow colleagues down in the bearable Eric or Richland Center area where the the power lines the transmission lines are threatening family farms
like the corridors that they're going to have to put these transmission lines in through are either going to take out generational businesses or family homes.
And this is just happening.
Like very recently, where they're having these conversations, there's not a whole lot of input coming back from the power company, answering any questions.
How can people combat that if they're not getting answers from?
Well, I think
electrical
companies.
Yeah, I mean transparency was number one on the list if I had my phone in my pocket I pull out the list that I just wrote down when I was out down in New Orleans, but You're right a lot of those corridors already exist But if it's a new one and I have a very good friend that lives in the Port Washington area He has a very large farm the transmission lines are coming through.
I don't think he even necessarily had a problem if it came through Somewhere on the farm, but it's coming through like
Within a hundred feet of his house, and he has 900 acres and you know and those
lines aren't quiet
No, they at times they are not because I've worked in areas where they I used to work at the national accelerator laboratory down in Batavia, Illinois There can be some you know noise from those If there was more transparency or the ability worth those coming say could we relocate that over a little bit You know that's certainly there, but I think
you have to weigh the economic benefit, the ability to be competitive in the world, and you know it's common.
And I used the example the other day, and I'm not saying they're looking at it, but if you as a community, and I'm not a mayor, I don't have any input on this, but if you don't do this in your community, and they do it right down the river at the next place, and all of a sudden their tax base
becomes incredible.
They stabilize property tax rates.
They reduce those.
They bring young talent into the area.
But those data centers only employ 15 to 20 people.
Well, they're employing right now nationwide, 5.5 million.
Now part of that's construction.
But that's what's employed maybe on site to run the data center.
But you still need plumbers, electricians, construction people, all the ancillary businesses.
They have to build
the pumps and all the other stuff that goes with it.
So I think the mayor made the point one day, 20 jobs is better than zero jobs, but you have to figure out the things like how are you going to handle
at what it costs
and how are you going to handle the guarantees with if you had to decommission.
And you hope they're cooperative with you in that respect.
When I said responsible developers, you know, what do we have in place when
I'll give you an example.
Baraboo's a great example.
When Walmart just decided to close their building and build a different one down the street.
Did you have any plans with Walmart as to how they were going to decommission the building, so to speak?
Well, how many empty Walmart buildings do we have around the country?
Yeah.
Because they've started building Super Walmart.
Yes, since they started building.
So the rules have to be similar or it gets litigated and you lose.
So I think you have to take the time.
to research everything, make sure you dot the I's, cross the T's, come up with really good community development agreements or joint developer agreements where you say, hey, we need ABC and D before you even start.
That's probably the way to approach this.
I had one conference, and I'm not pro or anti data set.
I'm just going to tell you it's going to happen in the United States.
Now, would it be better if it happened not in my backyard?
Very possibly.
But if we don't build data centers, we're going to fall behind in everything.
Medical technology, communication, and the ability to move forward in the world.
Because it's common.
When you see some of the technology out there that I see at these national conferences, it's just mind blowing.
I mean, we're doing cancer research at a exponential factor faster than we were before.
I mean, they can run millions.
of scenarios and the time it used to take to run 10.
So you're going to see cancer treatments.
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw treatment for ALS and some of the other diseases that have been extremely difficult because of the fact that we can do this.
That's
a whole
other conversation we should have
at some point, Lance.
And I'd much rather have the United States at the forefront of that than those adversaries we have around the world and control that.
That knowledge
okay, but what even American-based corporations don't always have the the public's best interest at heart
Absolutely and American corporations are typically you know, this is a capital are typically owned by Americans Stockholders you if you have a 401k if you have an IRA if yet you probably have money invested in some of these companies And you know you can vote with your money and you can vote with your feet, but
They are powerful, and that's why I said you have to sit down ahead of time and talk about how this is going to work.
Well, and here in Wisconsin Rapids, those conversations are happening.
They happen on every Wednesday.
The
local leaders are making themselves available, so reach out to your older persons, reach out to the mayor.
He's always available.
Can people reach out to you?
Absolutely, and I think the other thing that people have to realize is there's some things that the city, the mayor, doesn't have control of.
And they do their best to work within those confines.
In other words, you can't stop the sale of a private business to another private individual.
You can certainly talk about what's going to happen with it after that occurs and how that's going to happen.
But there's some things where it could be mayors, it could be state legislator, it could be county board people.
You kind of get chastised and, you know...
Torn apart based on things that you have zero control over Because the state and federally regulated
but the city is having their planning commission meeting I believe it's on the first Monday of August so that is an opportunity for residents to come and make their voices heard Respectfully, please.
Yeah, I have these
conversations.
I've been duck, you know, the mayor's listening session.
I thought everybody was Consider it, you know, at least the one I want to well behaved
The city, the mayor in this case, the city council is not trying to be adversarial.
Well, we all live in this community.
They all live in this community.
They want to listen.
And they weigh all those things.
Like I said, I have people that go build whatever they don't care.
And I had one person in regard to a data center.
They had a sign in their yard.
And I just kind of tongue in cheek said, why don't our data center?
And they go, I don't even know what one is.
Somebody gave me a sign.
I mean, so you really got to.
get involved.
You can't be at either end of that.
So as we move forward, you know, we'll see where this goes.
Yeah.
Well, we could talk about this for days, Lance, but now as we got to sign off, I'm Melissa Kay speaking with Wood County Board Chair Lance Plimal.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Lance.
Thanks, Melissa.
Appreciate it.
And thank you to listeners joining us for news in our community.
On perspective, 1320 AM, 97.5 FM WFHR.
