Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this December 27th, 2023.
Have your host, James J. Mailov here at 330.
We're going to welcome in Callie Johnson and Lisa Rose,
part of their PR team over at the ODC, looking forward to talking with them.
Right now we have our good friend Woodconey board chairman Lance Plymo with us.
Lance, good to see you.
Good morning, James.
Good to be here on a bright sun shiny, highly unusual day here.
Recently, yeah, we should mark this on the calendar.
We got sunshine in late December here.
It's a noteworthy thing.
Appreciate that, Lance.
I'm mentioning that because I want to talk weather with you.
Actually, that's where I wanted to start things off.
We actually were talking a little bit just now in our pregame that the weather
conditions, while maybe not great for some activities, outdoor activities.
Budget wise has been helping us a bit.
Is that the case?
Yeah, you know, I don't think people often realize the scope of county
government, but how that intertwines with not only all levels of government,
but everything that goes on out there in the private economy.
So, you know, everybody's looked out the window.
It obviously rained on Christmas.
It hasn't exactly been the greatest combination of weather events for winter sports
activities, you know, in a snowmobile.
If you want to go skiing, you know, even Granite Peak was closed here recently.
It impacts the economy greatly.
And, you know, so goes the county to some extent as goes the economy,
because sales tax funds a lot of what we do.
So some of those places, hotels, ski areas, those retailers who sell snowmobiles
or other winter sports activities have been certainly hampered this winter.
As well as our winter sports operations, whether that be up at Powers Bluff
and the two pills up there, whether it be our cross-country ski trails,
those types of operations.
So we get hit there, you know, the economy gets hit, but by the same token,
we're not plowing a lot of snow and we're not spreading a lot of salt.
So there's, you know, there's that part of it.
It also reduces accidents, you know,
some of the emergency response and some of the other things that counties are
responsible for and that we pay for.
So it's, to some extent, it's a double-edged sword.
If you said to me, what's the biggest impact of the county when we have
whether like, it's probably our forestry operations.
So much of the timber that's harvested in our county comes from areas that are a
little more wet, where they need frozen conditions to get in.
And that can contribute anywhere, you know, up to half a million dollars a year
to our budgets.
That's hindered greatly when we don't have frozen ground conditions.
So good and bad, right, right.
And I don't know if it, if the two even each other out or not.
That's a, that's a pretty hard to think to figure out, especially when we're
not talking complete data here.
One of the interesting things that I found in the last couple of months,
Lance, even going back to last year, I remember this, how they're dealing with
this up north, where they're so dependent on this and the weather and how
their some businesses are kind of countering and trying to find ways around it
to work with the weather.
But I mean, that's just that with so many problems that you face in government
or in situations like this, it can be a situation where we, we make a law
or we do this and we can fix it.
There's no fixing mother nature.
There's, there's certainly environmental stuff, but that's a whole other
conversation.
Yeah.
And we were, you know, hand in glove with the private sector.
You know, one of my goals always with government is to get out of the way.
So the private sector can thrive.
Sure.
That being said, some of those businesses up there are totally dependent on
snowfall, winter activity.
You know, if you have a, whether it be a hotel or a restaurant by our
long, those snowmobile trails, I mean, those aren't even open.
And frankly, you know, looking at the weather forecast, there's not a really
good chance any of those get open by mid January, even with the, you know,
in the best case.
So, you know, tremendously hindered.
And then when those don't succeed and, you know, the following years, you
have less places that are open, less places to go, that tends to, uh,
tend to less travel into those areas because there's less opportunities.
So, yeah, we're fully aware of that.
And at the same time, you know, they work around, you know, specifically to a
business. I mean, a lot of the ones that sell downhill skiing across,
we also sell, you know, other silent sport, the bicycle is another thing.
So hopefully that offsets some of it.
Uh, you know, your question on direct relation, you know, as a county, we
probably save a little bit of money when the weather's good.
Um, we also have less, you know, injury, less police response, things like
that that we have to deal with with the accents.
Uh, but when you look at how it impacts the entire economy, the entire
region, yeah, it's difficult.
And the further north I get, you know, once you get north, let's say highway
64, you totally dependent on winter.
And it's been a tough winter, you know, yeah, yeah.
Uh, and here's hoping, um, not only that they, those ideas, the
counter, this weather work, but that we do get some snow suit that we do get,
I get some of this weather that we need for, for so many of our businesses
and our entertainment out here.
Well, it's a little depressing, you know, when you're listening to Christmas
music, you know, those songs that have the snow falling or the white
Christmas, and you're looking out the window and it's 54 and raining.
Yeah.
A little bit.
Uh, you're so right about that too.
I heard white Christmas.
Uh, I think Christmas Eve, uh, it was, it was playing on the radio.
It was just, it felt like it was taunting me.
It felt a little bit of that.
Um, Lance, I want to talk a little bit about the past year and the things
that the board, the things that Wood County have accomplished, the things
that we can hang our hat on.
Um, I say something like that to you.
And it's tough to ask you, Hey, what are we doing last year in January?
I'm not asking specifics necessarily, but off the top of your head,
are there some things that you immediately think of with that question?
I think the first thing that I look at is, um, the cooperation, the
cohesiveness of our board in general.
Um, we'll have, you know, disagreements on issues, uh, but
once those are settled, if a resolution comes forward to the board or, you
know, in ordinance passes, you typically have full board support.
And that's unusual to some extent.
As I travel around the country, I hear, uh, different representatives,
they're in shock when they hear that I say I talk to the sheriff or spoke to
my legislator or that the board is generally an agreement or we talk to
each other and don't, you know, see, I think one of the greatest accomplishments
is the fact that, uh, we have a really good board in Wood County.
Uh, we work well, not only, uh, internally, but we work well with all our
partners, you know, the city's towns, villages out there.
I think that's overall when you look at everything, that's probably one of
the greatest accomplishments.
And then as you look forward, you know, what are the big things that have
happened this year?
Well, one is obviously building a huge addition to the courthouse, you know,
a jail to replace the one that's, you know, is built part of it in the 50s
and, uh, just obsolete and it's a huge project.
And, uh, although we had some supply chain issues early and you had
inflation, uh, you know, inflationary pressures that caused some huge
increases in cost, uh, since that's, uh, you know, kind of been absorbed into
the process, we're on schedule, we're on budget, things are moving along.
And the funny part is when I have counter parts in from other counties,
as they've looked at their needs, as they go forward and we were one of the
first to take the leap of going, I can't believe you're building a jail for only
any tongue and cheek when I say, for a hundred million dollars,
uh, because they're looking at 200, 200, 250 right now because they didn't get
ahead of it.
And we were lucky enough, uh, to bond that project, the vast majority at,
you know, 2% roughly, uh, the blended rate comes in at about three as we
finished up the financing at the end of it.
So the jail was huge, um, kind of statewide and globally,
the shared revenue package that the counties, uh, pushed for forever, uh,
and finally came to fruition where we're going to get a portion of the state
sales tax, uh, which allows us to, you know, in some ways deal with those
inflationary pressures and increased costs as they go along.
Cause I guess I said county government's huge and when you, uh, I say the
scope of its huge, when you look at the fact that, you know, you run the
jails and you have the courts up there and, you know, you have child
protective services and you have the veterans programs and you run the
treasurer's office, register of deeds, clerk of course, it's a big operation.
And there was no way to fund the increases in cost there.
Uh, all you have to do is go fill up your gas tank, you know, and you see
what that is or you get your heating bill.
Uh, that's not exactly a lot of fun right now, electric.
So, uh, shared revenue, a huge part of these successes, share that was
something that every county was involved in, uh, as we, as we work together
with the legislature to get that done.
Um, and then, you know, recreationally, you know, I look at some of the things,
you know, some of the progress we made up at powers, blow off with the new
mountain biking facility up there, the improvements to some of the parks.
Uh, those have been fantastic.
Uh, as we move forward, our health department, as we dealt, you know, as we
tailed out, uh, some of the, you know, COVID restrictions that were there.
Uh, and we look forward to how we are going to spend some of our, our
money, you know, our recovery money, which we have spent very little of.
We took a wait and see attitude and what would happen with broadband and roads,
uh, funding for highways, that type of issues.
Uh, we still have a fairly significant war chest as we move forward.
Where we're looking at federally qualified health centers, uh, which would
handle a big part of the problem that we have with some of the issues in this
area for medical care, um, childcare, big issue.
Uh, we're looking at allocating a lot of dollars to that issue.
And then the other one and, uh, they're dealing with some of the municipalities
right now.
I know Nikus asked some stuff on the table as well, uh, housing, housing is a
major problem right now.
So as we move forward, those are, let's not call them problems.
Let's call them opportunities, uh, as we look in that direction, those are
things we're looking to accomplish as we go forward, but it's things that
we worked on for the last year and tried to prioritize as we move forward.
Cause although we are reactionary, uh, you know, there's emergencies that occur.
Hopefully not today, but more stays, uh, you still have to prepare for the future.
I want to get into 2024 as a separate thing.
I'd like to actually go back a little bit and talk about 2023 and some of the
things we've accomplished here and take a, this isn't about taking a victory lap.
This is more about, uh, not only taking all this in, but we don't, we don't count
the wins enough in life.
And, uh, I don't think there's a bigger issue in America than childcare.
I firmly believe that because it detached, it is so attached to so many other
problems and issues and situations.
So certainly in Wisconsin, that's something that we need to get hammered out.
And we definitely need our, uh, politicians to start caring more and more about
that and working harder and harder on that.
I know because I talked to Testin and Krug about this once a month and neither
of them in that, not just them, but nobody has an answer necessarily for this.
I think that housing is the other big one.
I think that is right there.
I couldn't agree with you more about that lance.
But, um, I, I don't want to focus on the jail for a second for one because it's
been such a long process longer than I've lived here.
They've been talking about building that new jail.
And in 2023, it finally happened, shovels went into the ground.
Even with the holdups, like you mentioned, we are still on pace here.
We're still on budget.
That's a win.
We should all be celebrating in this community, and especially if you look at
what's going on in Steven's point, um, I, my daughter lives there.
I've got friends and point.
I've thought of moving there at times in my life.
I love point.
I don't want anything to get this twisted with that.
But you look at the, the issues that they are having, the miscommunication or
whatever it is between mayor and board or people and board and mayor, all of these
things, it doesn't seem like they can get anything done almost, uh, whether it's
a new jail or it's a highway or any of these things are trying to do over there.
So I don't think you have to look very far to see a comparison of how we're
doing things and how things are going here compared to that.
And I'm not at all talking badly about point.
I'm just saying perspective code goes a long way.
Yeah.
Well, you know, whether it's cooperation or communication, you know, when those
things break down, you don't make a lot of progress.
And that's one of the things I touched on real early.
You know, we have those conversations, uh, with the other local leaders.
You know, we try to make sure that those building blocks are in place.
So when we need to move the needle on something fairly large, you know, you're
not walking in the office and saying, I need it has, there has to be a
relationship where, uh, all of those partners know that if there's an
ask, it's probably very, very important, uh, as we move forward.
You know, one of the, it, I don't want to call it a big win, but you know, just
as a cooperative type, uh, situation, uh, the city came to us at the county
and you had a foundry that burnt down in Wisconsin, rampage years ago.
And it's been there for years.
It's been an eye sore and nothing's occurred there.
Uh, we ended up taking that in a tax deed situation and the city said we have
a use for it.
So I said, you know what, we're going to give it to you, uh, basically do
something with it, build some tax base, build some high, likely housing.
I don't know for sure.
Nothing's been determined, but, uh, based on the, um, availability, the
desirability and how quickly the other housing units that were built right
there went, um, I'm guessing that that might be a future use.
So yeah, that's huge.
Uh, in fact, I had somebody, some friends in Portage County, uh, they were
actually over here to tour our, our new courtroom.
That was another one.
You know, we have a fourth branch of our circuit courts, uh, with Judge
Gebert up there, um, they came over, they toured, some of those officials also
toured our new jail facilities getting built and they said, how do you
ever get this done?
Can we borrow your committee for a year?
I said, well, I might be able to lend them to you, but you don't get them.
Uh, but yeah, you know, those are the things and, uh, whether it be, you
know, uh, Scott Krueger, Pat Teston, you know, those people in the legislature
that we work with from this area specifically, uh, they're always there.
They're always willing to listen.
Now does that mean every time on every single issue, we're going to be in
total agreement.
The answer is, no, and more often than that, though, I think all levels of
government, we're in agreement on what needs to be done.
Sometimes there's a difference of opinion on how we get there, uh, and
frankly, you know, the money that was rolled out, uh, through ARPA, uh, is
kind of a, a windfall to some extent.
It's money that we would have never had.
We want to spend it wisely.
And at the end of the day, we want to spend it on things where, uh,
I'll come legacy projects where some, it, uh, none of ours has been used
operationally, and it's not going to be, um, I want to be able to say we, we
did this, we built that, um, I don't mean you're going to put a plaque on it
with somebody's name on it, but at the end of the day, somebody's going to
look back 20 years from now and go, yeah, that's what they did with that.
Uh, they didn't waste it.
So those are the things we talked about a little bit, uh, as we go for it,
but that's the past year we've been dealing with those issues and how do we
make that better as we move forward?
It's so hard sometimes to try to plan and look for the next year when you
are still, you know, working on so many projects from the previous year.
And that's everybody, uh, whether it's in your personal life, uh, your, your,
your bot, your job, your business, or local government, uh, it can be a
difficult thing.
So as you're looking at 2024, you mentioned the war chest that we have, uh,
uh, things like that, um, what are some of the, the headlines you think
going into 2024 as far as needs or things that we are going to be
trying to accomplish here in Wood County?
Well, you know, you touched out the, the most emergent thing, uh, from my
perspective is probably the childcare issue because, uh, the entire economy
evolves somewhat or, or revolves around that.
The evolves from that to, but certainly revolves around that, uh, that
second income doesn't occur if parents don't have the ability to have
childcare, get that person out.
If they don't have the second income, you don't have housing affordability,
uh, all of those things kind of tie together.
Uh, and then there's the point, too, is with, and I don't mean just childcare,
good childcare, uh, where those young people are not only safe and cared for,
but educated, uh, so when they get into the school system, you know,
they're, they're ready to go.
I mean, that's going to be a huge issue.
Um, how do we continue to, um, you know, provide infrastructure?
You know, whether they have to improve our roads to make it conducive,
do businesses come into the area?
Cause at the end of the day, uh, it's all about, to some extent,
demographics, you know, we can't have that, you know,
you've heard, referred to maintain the brain drain or, you know,
that movement of our young, you know, educated professionals out of the area.
How do we, how do we keep them here?
How do we bring them back?
How do we provide not only that initial education, but those lifelong experiences
through our, uh, you know, two year campuses up in Marshfield or, uh, our technical
colleges. You know, it's, I used to, example the other day and it was repeated in
another meeting.
I was at, I said, I don't want to just teach somebody to weld, for
instance, at the tech school, I want to teach them to own the business, uh,
and to run it.
They have a hundred people working for them.
So as we move forward, it's, it's so interrelated.
You know, it's, I always use the example, you know, you pull on this end of
the string, the other end, it kind of comes along.
But it's more like pulling on a spider web.
You pull on something on this end, it shakes everything and you move forward.
And it is like households.
Um, I, I know, or I'm pretty sure I have my wife probably listened into this
show this morning.
You know, it starts, starts in your household, um, in the same thing that you
look at from a budget perspective, when you're at home, you deal with in government.
Um, it doesn't make sense to, uh, buy a new couch or carpeting if the roof
sleek.
So there's some things that you have to take care of that are emergent as you move
forward.
And if I think if more government officials, um, took that same perspective
into the, into the boardroom, that, you know, what would I do?
What's best for a family to some extent or a unit is probably also best for
community, which is probably best for the whole county and the state and the federal
government as well.
Speaking with Wood County board chairman Lance Plymouth and, uh, when I
remind everybody that the board, they, uh, Wood County board meetings are
usually online.
You can catch them at our friends at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media's website
on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to their page.
I bring this up in part, Lance, because when I was talking to people about
2023 and things that they were proud of locally, uh, locals, people that, uh,
are proud of our board or proud of some of the accomplishments our board has
made or our, our, our local government has done one of the first things that
comes across that I hear from people, maybe they don't say it this way,
but overall transparency, uh, they, they really appreciate that.
Not every county has that.
I think, uh, we're a little spoiled in that regard.
And thankfully, uh, so, uh, that, that is something that I think when we
talk about things, um, communication and how important that is, the
transparency of that and being in people understanding what's happening in
these board meetings, even if they can't go there, goes a long way.
If you don't notice what we're doing, we're probably doing a pretty good job.
Right.
Right.
Because we're, because we're being transparent, you know, you're being reactive
to the people in the community, uh, what they see and what they want.
You, you've heard me say this on your show a hundred times.
You know, there's, and our county where there's 19 people, there's 75,000
people out there in the community.
If you don't think there's, you know, 74,900 and, you know, 81 other good
ideas out there, um, that's probably not, you know, the way it goes.
And, and we solicit those thoughts in those ideas.
And then, uh, if we're not in your way, if we're cooperative and if we're
transparent, you know, I always talk about that.
You know, be, be cooperative, be community, be transparent.
Uh, you tend to get along, you get more done.
Yeah.
Um, when we're talking about 2024 or any year going forward to, um, I'm not
doing my job if I don't bring up the mill.
And if I also don't bring up that we, we know the mill is an issue and our,
our people in positions know the mill is an issue.
Uh, if there is news to break, we will break it.
We will tell you we're in such a standstill with this situation right now.
One of the things that I'm curious about Lance, especially doing my homework and
seeing similar things going on in rural communities, one of the ways that they
get things done is often bringing the masses in, bring a, bring national
attention to a story or trying to get in local news to talk about a story more
often to put public pressure on a company.
It oftentimes seems as the only card to play.
Are we at that spot with this?
We probably, we probably need to be, you know, the interesting part about this is
when we talk to the mill, which was integral to the, you know, economy,
and certainly was constant rampant.
Um, I can tell you in my conversations with other government leaders is we
don't always know what's going on or we find out almost after the fact.
Um, no matter how hard we try to open those channels and have that communication.
Um, there are some, you know, pieces that I understand the background are,
are currently moving.
That's something might occur and, you know, it's not going to be a paper making
facility to the best of my knowledge as we move forward.
Uh, but there is some movement and yet nobody will tell me exactly what that is.
And part of that's intellectual property.
Obviously they, you know, they don't want to, you know, show their hand.
Yeah, show their hand, let that out there.
Um, you know, at the same time we deal with some of this, the same situations with
the huge medical community.
We have up in Marshfield, which is one of the leading medical providers in the country,
but has faced some real financial challenges this year.
So we deal with that, um, you know, and then everything in between.
But, you know, when you look, you know, generally in the past,
you got the medical community up in Marshfield as a huge employer,
you look at, uh, you know, the paper industry down here.
And although we have a couple of meals right here that are going great guns
and doing a tremendous job, uh, we have a lot of building, a lot of space
and a lot of our commerce tied up in that, you know,
I could name 100, the old consolidated meal, you know, store ends all verse.
So I always said, the best job in Wisconsin Rapids in the last 20 years was being a signmaker.
Because every, because every time there's a change in ownership,
they change all of the signs.
Uh, well said, well said, you know, and it's kind of amazing.
I had the ability or the opportunity, not ability, I guess, uh,
to tour some of those facilities recently, as they're looking at some,
you know, hopefully some change and some use of that facility.
But it almost looks like, you know, these old movies where you see something
happened in a community and everybody just walked out and locked the doors.
Yeah.
I mean, the computers are there, all the papers, the pencils, the,
I mean, everything that would be there, the day you operated the business
is still sitting right there, except there's nobody there.
Yeah.
And it's, yeah, it's kind of eerie.
It is, yeah.
You go over the viadoc and you take it a little, and it's just,
because I got a point at least two times a month, three times a month,
and going over that thing, and it just, it's, it's,
it's not so much an eye-sort of me as it is that what you're saying there.
Yeah.
And I know our, you know, our current mayor, um,
soon to be outgoing mayor, uh, you know, Shane Blazer is now saying,
it's worked on this tirelessly.
And I'm sure our new mayor will probably,
this will probably be the number one issue ahead of them,
because again, impacts tax revenue, that tax base,
if it doesn't impact, if it isn't allocated to a business,
it, it's, it ends up being a burden to the homeowner.
Yeah.
Um, because you still have to run the county, the business,
and the dollars to run that have to come from somewhere.
And since we don't make widgets, you know,
it comes from property tax, we much rather lay off some of that,
some of that, you know, to the business community,
not just the homeowner.
It's wrapping up, uh, and looking, uh,
and looking forward to talking to you again next year and everything lands.
I always like to mention to people that we are,
look, always looking for good board members,
whether it is a part of the Wood County Board,
or any local business or nonprofit in your area,
they are always looking for good board members.
Be a part of these things.
You, you, you don't want to be, nobody makes a play on the sidelines.
You got to get in the game, you got it, you got thoughts,
you got feelings, put them to work, make use of them.
Yeah, well, I mean, without, you know,
government does a lot of things.
Uh, there's a lot of the programs that we run,
but without the charitable fraternal,
you know, organizations out there that, uh,
you especially notice them around the holiday time,
you know, whether it be those that are, you know,
food dependent on those or, or some of the other, uh,
services they provide, they are integral to what we do.
So step up and then there are opportunities, you know,
if you don't want to be an elected official to a,
there's a, there's a lot of appointments that I make every year
to different boards, uh, that I think a lot of people in this community
might be more than willing to serve on and would find
they make a difference in their own community.
Wood County Board Chairman Lance Plymmel,
joining us thanks again for the time,
Lance, the people have followed questions.
You want to know more?
Uh, how can they get in touch with you?
Well, my number and my email are both on the website.
Feel free to give me a call.
Hey, by the way, if you give me a call,
leave your name and number because I do not have call or ID.
Um, and it's always a guess when they say,
Hey, call me.
Yeah, I'm going, I don't have a name or a number.
Oh, yeah,
struggle in there with that.
I appreciate your Lance, the website,
woodcountywi.gov, woodcountywi.gov.
Uh, happy new year to you and yours.
We'll talk again real soon.
Thanks, James, I really appreciate the opportunity.
We'll be back with more Midday Magazine coming up right here
on WFHR. We are locally grown radio.
