Welcome everyone to Midday magazine for this November 22nd 2023.
Have your host James J. Mailoff in part two at 330 going to talk with
Kate Norby director of development with the ODC looking forward to that.
Right now our good friend Lance Plima woodconey board chairman joining us
right now. Lance good to see you happy Thanksgiving.
Well it's good to see you as well James and happy Thanksgiving giving to
everybody out there. It's always a pleasure to come in and
have what I call the quickest you know like half hour
applies by it's good to hear we do want to send a shout out to Wisconsin
rabbits community media usually in here to record with us
unable to be here but they will probably grab the audio from this so we
appreciate the gang be sure to go to youtube type in your search bar
Wisconsin rabbits community media subscribe to their page keep up to date
with all the great things that they are doing and they don't know to miss
I mean you and I are looking really dizzy. I got a rare cut yesterday put
on a sport coat you know and I don't wear my Versace very often but I
decided today and sure enough they're not in to see it well you guys will
just have to take our word for it. You're like a pretty class.
You yourself a man. Lance let's let's start with um actually
what something you were talking about you we were talking about in our
pregame here you got out of the office today because um not a bad thing you
love being at the office but kind of nice because things are a little bit
busy over there people getting ready for the parade. Yeah you know on uh
from a community standpoint you know and I encourage everybody in the community
to be involved in something. Yeah that's one of the problems I think we have
a little bit generationally there's a there's a time here where people
are joining organizations they weren't becoming involved whatever it is your
choice of things to do um and that's what makes communities
vibrant and so you know our office uh tonight has a pretty big presence
they've been working on for a long time uh in our rekindled the spirit
Christmas parade. That's what we still call it. Yeah you know so they're
putting the final touches on a float tonight but you know that goes with um
it's just Thanksgiving I mean it's the time of year where you you kind of
reflect you spend time with family um I know you've you know we were just
talking about going on there you've had some personal family loss here
recently uh but you know you look back and uh you know one of the
challenges that I find every year is um everyone
wants any child in this country or our community to have a positive outcome
and uh you know what I'm thankful for unlucky for is you know I was never
cold because I was never hungry um I was never unloved uh and so you know
I'm my parents to thank for that and you know there's some kids a day that
don't have that opportunity so one of the things we do in government is
try to make sure that we have those safety nets now that doesn't excuse
there's a responsibility for parents certainly to do certain things
for their children as they grow up to make them you know have a chance to be
successful adults in happy lives not excusing bad behavior I'm sure but
but occasionally their circumstances were uh
where government actually steps in and so you know the thing that we deal with
probably the biggest thing all you do is the budget you know we just finish that
and we start again in a couple of months uh looking at next year because
everyone although everybody says it it's not always about the money
I got news for you yeah it's a some extent it's always about the money
that doesn't mean compromise morals or other stuff but at the end of the day
if I don't have the funds to do it I can't do it we don't get to print money uh
Don Allmire had a great quote uh the answer to all your questions is money
like it always comes down to that whether we like it or not it's just a fact of reality
yeah I have to be able to support it and so you know we just finished the wood
county budget and I thought it was interesting because you know if you drive
downtown Wisconsin right but java is to see the construction of a
a rather large facility it's the new jail you know the other one was 70
years old uh and there were some reasons other we didn't just want a new jail
yeah I mean there were things you know when doors don't open
and and you have problems like that and you don't have this bill just safety issues
not only for the people that are incarcerated but for staff
right you know as well and for their well-being so uh we're in that process but
the interesting part of that was uh the tax rate the mill rate for would count
the wood county part of your tax bill right um is actually down this year um
from five dollars and thirteen cents was the mill rate last year and that's
mill rate means per thousand to uh four sixty eight this year so you know
fairly significant and so what that means is the average
home in wood county has a value of about a hundred and thirty seven thousand
I would argue that that numbers accurate I think it's actually higher but that's
the department of revenue assessments so basically if I took that average
last year you paid a property tax to the county of six hundred and eighty seven
dollars based on that value this year it would be six hundred and forty four
so there's a slight decrease uh do we know why there's the decrease because
there was an increase in equalized value trust county um counties actually
governments are limited by net new construction you know we've lagged the
state um we've had net new construction in each of the last four
years under one percent i mean really there's really not a lot of net new
construction but there was a revaluation of some of the properties um which
brings down that mill rate a lot of people don't understand i mean you can
assess property low in tax at a high rate or assess property very high in
tax at a lower rate uh but the end of the day uh
we're pretty steady and that's been the goal from the county's perspective is
is smooth that don't have any of those huge
increases uh by the same token would be nice if you had a huge decrease but
you sure realistically you're not going to see that if
gas is more expensive oil is more expensive paving is more expensive uh
i don't care what it you know as you've gone to buy your things giving dinner
that you're going to provide and you go to the store and you go oh wow you
know a case and just look at the other things things i buy i don't grocery shop
often but you know went into buy a a case of
i probably shouldn't identify a certain carbonated um beverage yes
and it was non-alcoholic but you know a year ago you could buy those on sale for
you know nine dollars he does nine cents you know it's fourteen dollars when i
went in the other day the uh that's just one example
so everything's more expensive well i will say also we did a report on the
morning show this morning about uh the uh and average things giving is
about two dollars cheaper this year than it was in years past but to your point
with certain like the gas prices are uh a good 15 20 cents lower than it was
last year some of these things but a lot of that is being corrected because of
the pandemic uh i i think that prices what might be cheaper last year or
this year than it was last year right so it's kind of balancing out a
little bit so that that just uh and that not at all uh
nitpicking your point trying to add to your point yeah absolutely you know
and that is funny when you use statistics i mean i laugh when they say you
know the price of gas is down it is from last year but it's up by
fifty to sixty cents over right the time prior to the pandemic and some of
those increased uh problems we had there and supply chain issues you know
as we build this new jail i mean there's things that we ordered you know
prior to the start of this that we're not going to have for another year
what's curious about this you know so as you you try to stay on schedule
and i'm budgeted by the way both of those right now i'm not i'm not
backing on plastic you're out of wood uh but both of those right now
are working out in that direction that being said you know if you build this
great jail and everything set and you don't have the electronics to open
doors doesn't help a lot yeah so uh you know we're on top of that every day we're
trying to do substitutions or necessary but um people are doing what they
had at home yeah you know you order a refrigerator you're
you're building a new house and you find out it's been backorded for eight
months yeah it's kind of expensive you know it every day
right when uh come back to the budget a little bit with the lands uh
where there's some other highlights from the budget that you saw um
you know the the biggest change that we probably had is is
and you've heard this on the news is the shared revenue uh
changed that is that came down from the state legislature and there was a
realization if i go back you know 2030 years the state basically
covered first of all let me even digress further county government is an
administrative arm of state government in other words
they pontificate they pass legislation we deliver the service there's no
Wisconsin state highway department for instance counties do that um
so at one point the state funded about 70 percent
of what counties did and over the last several decades it went down to about
17 percent funding for the state and you come up with the money so you know
you can say at the state level we didn't increase your taxes no you made us do
uh and then you limited what we could do by uh the net new construction
the levy limits that were based on that this year the legislature really
stepped up and they said you know we can't continue down this road it's impossible
so there's a new shared revenue package which basically gives the county
20 percent of the revenue they garnered through you know different taxation so
it's a game changer it's a game changer so for wood county that's about
1.1 million dollars of additional dollars
you know going into the coffers and uh you know that's really important
the other part of this and we've you know kind of kept our powder dry so to speak
is uh we had about 14 million dollars of arpa funds
and we've expended roughly two million dollars at that now there's some people
burned through all that a long time ago and there might have been a pressing
need you know if you have uh led pipes and waters coming into
the process you might have to replace that but um we've basically waited to see
what other federal dollars came down in highway funding and broadband
expansion some of those things so we still have that money available so there
was a I'll call it an insurance policy going to the share I knew if if for some
reason we couldn't handle some of the capital improvements that we had to do
there was some money there that I could have offset some of that yeah yeah we
didn't however uh and we still have those dollars available to look at what we
would call legacy projects so but it's nice going in knowing there's a bank
account right right so you know the things that we're looking at in the
county going forward is you know child care is still a number one issue um
you know I always laugh when I ask people you know well what would you do if
you were sitting in my chair to go economic development I go could you be
more specific what does that mean I said more jobs I said well
we actually have more jobs than we have people right now right so how do we
get more people here what affordable housing so and and child care so child
cares at the top of the list affordable housing and that might mean
installing infrastructure so builders can build and then we recoup some of that
on the back end there's the early qualified health program we're looking at
or or health clinics which would provide health care to some of those
people that might not have the means otherwise do that which offsets other
human service costs down the road so you know there are some plans out there
and then there's some things that you've seen that I'd say the general public that
just uses our parks might see yeah to build out of the mountain bike trails at
powers block that was a project we've been working on for years we were
able to fund the rest of that so yeah it's a never-ending never always changing
yeah uh game but that's what makes it fun um we're speaking with Lance
pulling a little one county board chairman and uh more about the the wood
county board and a little bit Lance uh but you were you brought up child care
and uh I want to I want to stay on that for a second because we had
senator testin on with us last Friday and I as tent we talked a little
bit about child care and we were him and I were talking and I I felt very
strongly about this I think going forward in this just looking at Wisconsin
the biggest issue of our state which is very hard to say there's issues every
state has and every issue every issue is important to a different person
but as far as an issue that affects everybody
child care is the biggest one to me and getting that figured out getting that
solved in this state is crucial to not only the future of this state
but the future of our counties our cities our communities
everything comes back to this everything comes back to child care you can
talk about anything you want and I can tie it back to child care
and I know you could too we know how important this is um
we know that we we you know like as I said I talked to senator testin about this
I talked to represent of crew about it we know our that medicine is hearing us uh
believe I believe that they're hitting us about this is there anything we're
trying to do on a local level or can do on a local level regarding this
yes I mean there's many contributing factors to you know why that's a problem
but it certainly is and you know you've seen the number of
two income families increase just to make ends meet now we can talk about why
that you know it has occurred maybe happened
but that's a fact and and child care needs to be available
and affordable child care and safe child care so when we looked at this from
a county's perspective you know uh we looked at it
you know maybe with a more narrow vision of how do we supply child care
to our employees to allow them or or to make wood county
an employer of preference somewhere that employees and
very many of those are skilled and very specific areas for on state want to
come and work for wood county and while doing that we realized
I don't think it was a brand new realization but there's a child care issue
far outside just the county buildings sure uh you know so how can we make that
happen and then you know working with you know
Senator Tesson representative Kruggen and Rosar and Vandermeer
and Jane and all the other ones in the area I mean there's a realization
that we need to provide and not just available
and not just less expensive but safe you know you want to know when you drop
your child off for the day uh and when you go to pick them up that they
that they've had a good day and it's going to be beneficial to everybody
so there's a cost to that now I think what they're dealing with in the
legislature right now when you're sitting on a projected
budget surplus of pick your number seven billion seven plus
how might we use some of that money to make
child care more affordable in Wisconsin and make Wisconsin a place where people
want to relocate demographically because we're not seeing a growing
population here as you're seen in some of the other states it maybe have
you know maybe a more favorable climate to some I want to springboard off that
lands because that's part of where I was going I don't want to cut you off
that's the last thing I want to do but I do want to get in that that's where I
wanted to go with this conversation because again one of the most
consistent conversations I have had with Senator test into
congressman kind any representative I've talked to over the years on this
station uh it's this it's bringing population keeping the
population we have and bringing new people into the state
and I've heard a billion ideas to do this lowering taxes having no
taxes a flat tax blah blah blah all this stuff
I'll tell you how you get this I'll tell you how you keep people in this
state I'll tell you how you bring new people in
take care of child care imagine that
you are the one state that's actually doing this right in this whole union
that we have this beautiful country that we have
Wisconsin is actually doing child care right if they could do that if they
could figure that out that's going to bring people in that's going
I'm not saying these other factors aren't going to play their part but the
biggest thing you could figure out as far as keeping people in state or
bringing new people in is child care nobody's got this figured out nobody's
been able to and I'm not saying that I got the answers
but I do know that there are answers we can figure this out we put our heads
together we can make this work and there and there's not going to be
you know a magic bullet no um that solves it all once but we can certainly
make incremental changes where we move that direction and
you know along with that we look at you know more affordable housing you know
we've had uh different municipalities that are
you know a versus I'll come tiny homes are smaller
uh and I don't know that and you can plan those developments with those
you know 700 square foot homes which are by the way way bigger than the
apartments in Manhattan right that they're paying four or five thousand
dollars for rent um where where you do you know those plant unit
developments where you have you know winding streets and streetlights and
very attractive homes uh which makes it affordable you add in child care to
that and now you're like said we have jobs but we have to attract workforce
and you know if I look at wood county you know we've had a declining
population over the last 10 years uh so has generally
most of central Wisconsin and and northern Wisconsin has been devastated
you know and there's a lot of reasons for that you know part of it is
availability of services you know and what contributes to that and by the way
I use it but you know online shopping if you don't need to go to the
you know mom and pop store down the road uh and you order it somewhere else
there's less need there and uh and people tend to migrate towards
you know larger cities and although Milwaukee is a medium-sized city
it's still not you know and by the way this is not a promotion to go anywhere else
but you know you know you got young people that sometimes want to be in
yeah you know by the way there's a lot of crime there don't go
uh but you know the land is you know the New York the Dallas you know I could
I could name a whole bunch of them one of the things you just touched on the
small house the smaller houses and that and adding to that one of the things
that they tried to do in California was not do that
they are currently for those that don't know dealing with the biggest homeless
situation they have ever faced in California and that's saying something
I've spent a lot of time out there I got a lot of friends and family out there
and I've got friends right now that are are uh literally a hair away from being
homeless and some that know have family that are but they're working
these are people these aren't not your typical
or not typical but what you might think of of a person who is unhoused
it's a person that image is not what it used to be
there's so many more people now in that situation
that are hard workers that are actually to have a job
but they they either can't afford the home that they have
or things changed for them having smaller houses having something like that
is not only a key to like maybe bringing more people in or keeping people here
but it's a way of maybe countering that because
this problem that they've got out there it's it could happen here it can happen
at any state well you have to look at every option you know and that's certainly
smaller homes more affordable is one you know you go back
generationally and and generations of families basically live together
you know I look at at some of the places where you know my family grew up and
you know uh great grandma and grandpa lived on the top floor
grandma and grandpa lived on the second floor the kids lived on the for or vice
first I could never figure out in my situation why the grand
grandparents lived on the top yeah yeah that those stairs were pretty rough but
but it but it happened um and you look at some of the
municipalities that are either reluctant or averse or don't allow for
instance mother and lost suites to be added to homes um where generationally
makes it much more affordable I mean if my mom and dad have the ability to kick
in you know an extra five or six seven hundred dollars a month that they
would you know where they would have been spent in two or three thousand on
rent um to help offset the home payments uh and you have a
situation then where you maybe have built in child care
you have somebody to watch the home and you're gone and you know there's a lot
there's a lot of evidence here and there's a lot of ways to look at it
and sometimes you have to take the blinders off and say all right well you know
what are we doing wrong uh what can we do better and you know that's the only problem that I have
with you know I'll call partisan politics I mean we all have our views but at the end of the day
sometimes you have to you know march to the party line or you're in trouble because you don't
get the next appointment or you don't get to participate I get that part but the beauty of
local politics is it's non-partisan not I can tell you that everybody has some bent
but when it comes to the end of the day and we're looking at issues
nobody's saying to a party line yeah um it's you know what can we do best for the citizens
that we are most closely associated they're my neighbors I I see them at the grocery store I see
them at the you know different organizations around town uh yeah you want to do it's best for them
regardless of you know D.R. or I have to you're right right we had uh uh uh mayor blazer in
last last week or I think the week before and um it was right after a board meeting about the ATV
law that they were there were possibly it was going to be passed it wasn't and I know that Shane
was a little animated about that and we don't see Shane passionate like that very often with certain
topics but his frustration it was seemed to be uh in talking to him and in hearing some of his
quotes on it the idea of that this resistance of change and the idea of that now I'm not speaking
speaking specifically about this particular thing but as far as change goes in this area we have a
a a a difficult thing and a difficult thing to work out here and to find a balance of we have
an older population that has a way of liking things and doing things in that we want to take care
of that's a core group of people you also have younger people around here and and and people with
newer ideas and things that want and want things differently and you want to keep that younger
population here it's very important to be able to do that but you've also got a lot of people in
charge that have an older way of looking at things finding this balance right now Lance
in wood county and specifically in Wisconsin rapids really that's a big key of going forward here
yeah let's go to you know ATVs you TV's right away I mean for years I was an advocate of we need
to open up wood county we're missing out on tourism dollars we're missing out on recreation
we're missing out on ways of life that a younger generation is adapted to and it was extremely
frustrating for me out on the city council's view on the UTV ATV issue you know I hear you know
it goes back and people who've known me a long time have heard me say this it goes back to
probably you know the early 1900s they go you know those damn horse those carriages are going to
ruin America we don't have a horse and buggy anymore yeah and I heard that and I've read that
you know the old books kind of the same thing with you know UTVs this is not somebody you know
on the your version of the old you know scramble or something right in the town looking we're talking
20 to 45 thousand dollar UTVs I can tell you that are way better shape yeah with all the amenities
that cars in somebody saying you know I don't have to have another car I can run two miles
over to Walmart and load the back of it up and come home at a much more affordable price much
more economically much better mile you know all of those things wrapped in and when I have cities
like the Wisconsin tells I can ride my UTV in those kinds and tells I can tell you that communities
that have not adapted to this way have suffered you know Readsburg is a great example you know you
can get to the perimeter of Readsburg years ago in Saw County but you couldn't get into Readsburg and
they said that's not helping us right so they get to the hotels they get to the trails you know
that they come in it's something like you said we need to adapt we need to look at it you know
and then I get these you know it says right on it you know this vehicle not you know intended for
road use well maybe in their original configuration but they put highway tires on them they have
turn signals right to me that was a bad decision and and this is going to sound terrible and I'm
probably going to tee off some people out there listening but there's nothing as an elected
official you need to listen to your neighbors and you have to talk to me have to be accessible
the reason I'm not nuts about referendums is I typically have a lot more information than the
typical voter who goes up polls in other words the the the referendum might just say something I'll
use one with our county board we want to cut the size of the county board in half thereby reducing
the cost by 50 percent doesn't reduce the cost by one penny I have twice as many I have half as
many people doing twice as many jobs which means I have less people interested in taking on the
position and then when I have to appoint people the different commissions and uh and committees
across the state I'm out of bodies because those young people we're talking about they have jobs
they have children in sports and music and everything else and and time is their most valuable
yeah so sometimes with all the information we get we have to tell the public why we're doing
this we have to be accessible we have to have public meetings but sometimes as an elected official
you have to step up and say I got all the information I talk to every other community if there's
a situation like UTVs or ATVs breaking the law then write them a ticket or arrest them uh well
let's let's address the bad behavior but that's one where a really good example something pretty simple
where you need to adapt or you're going to be left out and left behind yeah it's just that simple
and that's pretty easy one it's uh and this is a big topic to bring up with a minute left but it's
very similar to me to the uh marijuana in this state and what you're going to do with that you've
got every state around here and almost every state in the union legalizing this on a medical level
helping their ag industry helping their farmers um if Wisconsin continues to be behind on that
they're going to get left behind on that uh that's that's commerce that's money that's stuff that's
being set on left on the side there uh you can you can have all the standings and all the
the moral compass that you want on certain topics but society is continuing to move in a certain
direction and if you're not moving with society you're going to get left behind time only goes one
direction uh there's a lot of things like that uh that we can get into the next time we get
hangout lands yeah i think you'll see the medical marijuana issue pass i think so too i just you know
what i'm saying though yeah but no you're right but it's taking years uh it's it'll be interesting
to see with our community and the the rest of the communities here in such a Wisconsin how we
grow and adapt together hopefully young old coming together we're better together we're stronger
and smarter together lance and people have follow questions one of the more about some of what we
talked about today how can they get hold of you yeah you can find pretty easy to find uh i'm in
the phone book i'm on the web if you if i always hate repeating websites because nobody has a
pen and write stuff yeah if he happened to use a search engine google's private reference and
your type in wood county was constant you're going to find the entire board of supervisors including
all my contact information as well as others i mean the representative you probably see if the
grocery store in your neighborhood at the other events uh feel free to reach out and call us
always appreciate hanging out with your lance uh wishing you and yours a very happy thanksgiving
same to you james appreciate the opportunity we'll take a break and we'll come back with more
on midday magazine here at wfhr
