Welcome, everybody to Midday magazine for this Wednesday, August 28th, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here in part two today.
We're going to speak with our good friends from the ODC.
We have Anne, Lisa, and Samantha joining us looking forward to that's going to be a great
conversation.
Right now we have with us in studio, Lance Plymo Wood County Board Chairman, Lance Good
to see you.
Good morning, James.
Glad to be here as always.
Appreciate the time, Lance.
And always appreciate our good friends from Wisconsin Rapids Community and Media.
We say a big shout out to them and appreciation to them.
Do yourself a favor.
Go to your search bar, type end your YouTube page, Wisconsin Rapids Community and Media,
and subscribe to the great work that they are doing over there.
Lance, what's on your mind today?
What do you want to talk about?
Well, we can talk about anything.
But first of all, you know, who knows to those guys that film this stuff?
Because, you know, I get comments all the time says, why isn't that on?
So every time we have the opportunity to get in front of the public, you know, through
the service they provide, it's outstanding, and it is greatly appreciated.
And people watch, obviously, because I get asked why wasn't that, or is it, or is it
going to be?
So anyway, again, thank you very much on the outside.
Just to piggyback on that, we do really encourage people, you and I, all the time when we get
together.
If you are curious about meetings or board meetings or some of the committees that are
going on, you've got a great resource to catch up on these things through Wisconsin
Rapids Community and Media that cover this stuff and make it so that if you can't be at
a meeting or something like that, be sure to go to their page and check out these things
that they're recording.
So, you are always able to keep up to date and be in the know when it comes to your community.
Yeah, I'm surprised how often I get asked.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, I'm sorry.
It's a good job.
So, yeah.
It's a compliment to these guys.
It's kind of from Joe Red over here.
It's a fun time of the year.
You know, summer is kind of winding down.
School is going to be starting here shortly.
I'm sorry to say that to all those of you who have to go back to school here shortly.
You apologize.
I was always wondering.
Oh, summer is over.
Nonetheless.
You know, still like going on and you know, one of the interesting things is, you know,
Wood County has a jewel of a park system.
We have incredible facilities and Discover Wisconsin's got a film crew in the county this
week going into next week, filming some of those, you know, attributes that we have.
And those will be featured, you know, statewide and some of the other media markets that carry
the Discover Wisconsin show and Discover Media work.
So that's fantastic.
And you know, and one of the things they're doing right now is they're up at Power's Bluff.
And those of you who have not had the opportunity to look at what we've done up there with
some of the mountain bike trails, some are very difficult, some are very easy.
I had somebody who's spent a lot of time up there recently.
They said it's one of the nicest facilities they've ever been to.
And then they said as they came down, somebody said, well, have you tried the trails over
here?
He said, I didn't even know there were any over there.
So I guess my point is it's a large facility.
It accommodates those of all ability levels.
It's something that was asked for by the community for years and it's there now.
So go take advantage of it.
Our campgrounds are open.
You know, we've had a really good year in that respect and I certainly encourage our
local residents to get out and use those.
And when you're out there, you know, you have a chance to mingle with those people who
are in from outside the county and you are our best ambassadors, you know, as we move
forward.
You know, we just look at those recreational opportunities as a springboard to business
development, to people, you know, in migration and some of those things that happened because
of the other things we have, you know, good transportation, good education, obviously
recreation, safety and some of those others.
So it's just one of those times a year where we're transitioning yet what was it?
95?
Two days ago today.
I think the high 70 hard to kind of wrap your arms around what we're going to have tomorrow.
But it's an enjoyable time of the year.
We look back a little bit at a very successful summer, but we look forward to, you know,
what we have going into the fall, which for us as a county, that's budget season.
Yeah.
And I hate that season.
You know, if you said to me, what's your least favorite thing to do?
Yeah, it's budget.
Not a lot of fun.
Our finance department, the CPAs out there, man, they're smiling.
They love this.
You know, it's like audit time and you see that glow on their face and I'm going on,
not another audit.
But things are going well there.
You know, we look like we're going to be in pretty good shape.
You know, you took before I, we sat down today and said, is there anything going on?
Jail's coming close to completion.
You know, we're looking at a completion data and construction near the end of October.
Occupancy in that will be roughly January.
That's the time you go through all the certifications with all the other, you know, Department of
Corrections and all those others that have to certify.
For occupancy, but I'm thinking, you know, probably end of October, early November, the
sheriff could probably speak this better.
We will probably do some open house type situations where the public can see that many of the
private groups that that otherwise would use some of the facilities there have already
toured that and seen most of it.
But on budget, on time, which is two things you don't always hear together.
Exactly.
And then it's the daily, you know, you just keep working forward.
You deal with the, the emergent situation of the day and then you go from there.
Lance, you just hit on a million things in five minutes.
Yeah, it's trying to get you so confused.
You didn't know where to ask me top questions.
That's a great.
Did we get there?
That's a really good technique.
Very smart.
So I want to go back to a couple of things and first off with the park system and with people
using the parks and I love the word that you use there and ambassador that so many of
our citizens are that I thought about this when Mayor Zachary was in with us last and
talking with Matt on offer a little bit about how important it is to him and bringing in
new businesses and we got talking about that.
How we really encourage citizens to, you know, be good to people and treating out of town
as well and some of these things.
We got talking about it and then this was around the time we had the water ski show
tournament in town and him and I were talking about how when we were young how that was such
a weekend where, you know, you batten down the hatches and you just didn't know what was
going to go on in their area and some of those things when I was young when I first moved
here.
But how much that changed over the last 10, 15 years or whatever and now that's something
that's a weekend that you're a little surprised if anything, you know, goes haywire or anything
like that.
The community has really responded well to these things.
When it comes to bringing in new citizens, when it comes to keeping citizens in town,
so much of this is important to be able to do that and those are key factors in order
to bring a business into town.
There are many franchises that won't come to a town if your population is a certain size,
some of those things.
So this stuff, not only well worded lands, but I think it's a very good point to bring
up and remind people whenever we have a chance, hey, we are ambassadors to other people.
If you want people to stay in the community, come to the community, this is an important
thing to be able to do.
You know, all those positive communications, those touches really lend a development in
the area.
And we just had, I did one of the things I forgot to mention.
We just had a bond rating call, you know, Wood County financials in excellent shape.
We use very little of our borrowing capacity and that's noted by Moody's when we have
those calls.
And somebody said to me, you know, what, what large development has occurred in the community
recently?
And I said, I'm not sure it's a large development, you know, as singularly, but I said,
you look at some of the national chains that have decided to, you know, open shop here,
you know, whether the, and I don't want to leave anybody out and I will, but, you know,
you just look over, you know, the old shop co building where, you know, you have harbor
freight and five below and marshals and, and noodles and, you know, a number of those
have come in recently.
And that's a commitment to the area.
And some, obviously, some of it is based purely on population.
I mean, they need to have the number of people, the demographics to be able to make a business
work.
Another part of that is just a community that rallies polls behind you and is conducive
to business development and then a safe place to be.
I mean, you can have all the, the people, the population in the world, but let's face
in the last couple of years, there were places where, and again, I'm a big mouth, I'll
get in trouble, but there are places you would not have wanted to locate in, you know,
Minneapolis and St. Louis, and Baltimore and other places because of some of the safety
issues.
And those businesses take that into consideration.
You can see that as they've closed large numbers of operations in those places, not only
because their patrons don't feel safe, but the employees don't feel safe.
So, you know, we need to leverage that.
We need to use that to our advantage and it actually, it starts with every one of the
individuals out there.
And really, this is something that doesn't take a lot of heavy lifting.
You just got to be a good person.
How about we nice?
Yeah, pretty easy.
That's all you got to do.
That's all you got to do.
At the same time, enjoying our parks and enjoying our systems as you can, that goes a long
way.
A lot farther than I think a lot of us even realize sometimes.
You mentioned budget season.
Anything big on the docket when it comes to that, you touch on it a little bit, but as far
as things that we as citizens, we community members should be looking out for, maybe keeping
an eye on the committee or different committees because of or.
Yeah, we, you know, we didn't have anything unusual this year, you know, over the last
probably seven to ten years, we've worked really hard on upgrading the County Highway
System.
And I think we've done a remarkable job of that.
They use, it's a system.
It's a pacer rating, which is how the way they rate the pavement and the substructure
and that stuff.
And we've increased that tremendously over the last seven to ten years.
It's been, that's been incredible.
We'll finish the jail.
You know, that was part of that long-term effort as we looked at finances going forward.
There's not a lot of other big issues up at our Northwood County Health Annex, which
Northwood for those of you who don't know the newer, longer name, you know, there's
always issues when you have buildings that were built in the, you know, 50, 60, 70s, where
there are mechanical issues you need to deal with.
And some of those are multi-million dollar issues.
For instance, we have a heating system in the courthouse that needs to be replaced.
And you think, well, how expensive can that be?
Well, I'll tell you about 3.5 million.
And when you have a building that was built in 1956, and you have the original heating
system in there.
And it was, you know, steam or hot water, and you need to do a conversion, because that
didn't play well the air conditioning and some of those other things at the time.
It's a monumental effort.
But we factor that in.
We don't see any real big changes, and even with the construction of the jail, you're
going to start to see the county mill rate coming down again in the next couple of years
as the way this was planned financially.
So everything's on target there.
I don't expect any major changes.
There's not going to be the sky is falling or we've got a problem.
I think we've been we're in pretty good shape there.
You just mentioned some pretty big projects, and I'm sitting listening to thinking about
some of the bigger construction projects that happened this summer.
Certainly, what went on over by Winterfield, and the work done by there all the way
extending to Macmillan, that's a road that as long as I've lived out here has probably
needed some work.
And it's just a whole, it's a new day over there, the way that is, and the way that's
set up.
They did an amazing job over there with that work.
Big projects like that, I imagine that we're already planning or our Kyle and some of
the team over there are working on big projects coming up.
Are there anything that you and the board have your eye on going forward?
Well, right now the county has a few of those county highway projects going on.
And I was just kind of chuckling when you said that because I had somebody the other day
saying to me, well great, they finished that project over there by East junior high.
Right after the rafter season was over.
And I want to make clear to my go, unlike other states that are in the sunbelt, there's
a construction window in Wisconsin that has to work with consideration to snow and cold
and other things that can't happen.
So when you hear people say everything's under construction at once, that's because we
have about a five or six month window to actually get it done.
So if it's going to happen.
Was this person from the Midwest?
Is this person ever limited?
I think they were just a big baseball fan.
Yeah.
And they probably had to walk a little farther.
I should mention really quick, John Fountain, GM for the rafters, was actually here the
other day dropping off some equipment and we got a chance to talk and everything.
And I did kind of pick his brain a little bit like, hey, how do they go this summer and
everything?
They're fine.
They were completely fine.
Their attendance was fantastic.
They did really well over there.
They actually talked quite highly of the construction workers and working alongside with them.
The way the community was so interacting with the rafters and talking with them.
And working with them on this project, on this situation.
And the way he was putting it was, we got to put up for one summer and we get 20 summers
of great road.
Yeah.
Well, the irony of this, it always drives me crazy.
I just laugh about it.
Usually, the person who's telling me they had to walk two extra blacks is telling me at
the health club on the treadmill or the elliptical or it's the person who's out at lunch walking
around the black.
And I'm going, you could have just walked the extra two blacks to the event.
It wasn't that far.
But it's always ironic in that respect.
But the road projects have been huge.
Some of the park's projects obviously from a county standpoint are great.
And then, the other one that I want to give really kudos to, and again, it's inner
operation in that interoperability.
We had a situation about a week ago, a week and a half ago in town with a pleased chase.
It ended up, you know, in Wisconsin, Rampons.
But you know, we had, I don't know, four or five departments involved.
The safety of the community was at, you know, the forefront of their decisions all the
way around.
And the job that they did in keeping the community safe is amazing.
But that goes to where I say, you know, we're the county.
I always kid on my town village, city friends.
I say, you know, some you live in a town, some live in a village, some live in the city
but all you live in a county.
But at the end of the day, that's my little jab at it when we're talking.
But at the end of the day, we all work together to provide a better environment for those
people who live in the county.
And the cooperation through that process was incredible.
And although, you know, outcomes are different than sometimes you'd like to have, the community
was kept safe.
And it was kept safe because of that communication.
So sometimes when we're, you know, you're spending money and say, why does a sheriff's
department or why does any department need a particular piece of equipment?
There's typically a reason we just don't say, oh, we want to buy a drone just because
we think it would be cool to fly it.
There are reasons we need things like that.
And when that opportunity or when that situation arises, you better have it at your fingertips.
So those are all budget considerations every year.
Some are big, some are smaller.
But at the end of the day, it still has to all fit in that puzzle because we can't print
money like the federal government.
The catch of some of these things too, especially when it comes to different things on
our police force or that, these are items that are similar to insurance or a break glass
in case of need it.
You hope you don't need them, but you're darn sure want your community to have them if
need be.
So some of that stuff, I think that there can be pushback sometimes on these things when
we don't take the time to understand why we have these things.
I don't think anybody is going around saying, you know what, we need more tanks.
We don't have enough tanks here in Rapids.
They're not necessarily saying that, but why do we need a tank?
Or why do we need a bulletproof vest?
Why do we need an extra canine unit, some of those things?
If you ask those questions, you get the answers, you find out a little bit more.
Not enough people seem to, and a lot of people like to bark and ask the question, but don't
take the time to find out the answers of where these things and what the necessity of
them.
As I have had opportunity over the years to sit down with some of the national security
agencies or the FBI people at some of the national conferences, they always say, you think
you're prepared for that emergency or that situation until it actually happens.
And then you realize how unprepared you are.
And so what we do is, you know, we try to be, in effect, overprepared.
There will always be a breaking point and a point at which we didn't perceive that
to be a problem or we didn't anticipate.
But we do our best to eliminate those situations, those opportunities.
That's why we do training.
But all those things cost dollars.
And you know, most of the people go, why did you spend that until you had a positive result
with your family?
Why did I need an ambulance that fast?
Why did I need a police officer at my house within two minutes?
Jeez, the fire department got here in a hurry.
You know, at one time somebody asked me, years and years ago, and again, this is more of
a city issue, but they said, you know, why do you have a fire department?
I need side of town.
There's a railroad track in the middle is a really good reason.
And we don't have a lot of control over when those go through.
But those are the kind of situations you just don't think of.
If you're maybe just the general person out there, you know, in the community saying,
why are they spending money on that?
Or there's duplication?
There's, there's typically a reason.
Those get debated.
And sometimes heatedly, as to why we need to worry about spending.
But, you know, we have levy limits in control on the amount of spend we have.
You know, 80% of our budget is dictated by state and federal mandates.
There's a very small percentage of that that's, you know, for us to use locally on local
projects or those things that we need.
And those get debated at length.
You know, how do we best spend the money?
Are there anything on the debate table right now that you guys are going over that is
whether it's a hot testing subject or not is here or there.
Anything that you guys are looking at is this is something we need to, this is one of our,
our needs are focused right now.
You know, there's nothing real pressing like that, but you know, that's, you know, Kudos
to our committee.
You know, again, I have the opportunity to travel on the state, go to other county board
meetings.
We have a county board where every member doesn't agree on every issue.
But most of the issues are hashed out at the committee meetings where are the committee
chairs and the committees allow input from both the public.
There are committee members and certainly other county board members.
So when you see issues come to our county board and most of those almost without exception
pass, you know, 19, 0, 18, 1, there's a reason for that.
And so, you know, I think there's, there's a little bit of, if you want to call cooperation,
there's certainly compromise.
And we don't end up in the weeds as some county boards do because it's thoroughly discussed
before it gets there.
And rarely does it get there with a lot of contentious issues, typically resolved ahead
of time.
And right now, if you said to me on the horizon, what do I see as a big issue out there
from a dollar standpoint, there really isn't one.
You know, we deal with, you know, wages are always a huge issue because retention is typically
more economically beneficial to county than recruitment.
Recruitment is expensive.
You hate to see people jump for similar jobs in an adjoining county or municipality,
you know, because of the wage.
So you go, you know, how do we put a package together to keep those most experienced
employees with us, provide the best service?
It's, it's recruiting 101, you know, coach fickle over in Madison right now.
He's trying to get Florida kids.
He's trying to get California kids, but he is not losing Wisconsin kids.
It's a, you have to have that pipeline.
If you can't bring in your own kids, other kids in other states see this and the way it
bleeds into the issue.
It's a very similar thing.
And it's something that we again, as a citizens, as community members, can be a part of
and help out with as well by being good citizens, bringing a full circle here right back to
the beginning of the interview.
Yes, James, our economic development community, just to mention, met several times.
They had about $317,000 recently to distribute throughout the community for projects that
they thought would benefit.
Not only the county, but in some cases, the community directly.
And they really did their due diligence.
They did an excellent job.
But every one of those dollars is allocated in hopes that it will, you know, benefit the
communities a whole.
And, you know, I represent part of the town of Grand Rapids and part of the city.
I've represented those areas for years, and I couldn't tell you exactly where that line
is.
You know, it's not a straight line.
You know, it zigzags black to black.
But although there's jurisdictions in which we operate, we really operate as a community.
You know, and so the lines become blurred, you know, what's good for Wisconsin Rapids is
typically good for Grand Rapids in Acusa and Bearing and the county.
So, you know, you try to work with those leaders with their boards in the community.
You just have a better place for everybody to live.
Yeah.
Speaking with Lance Plymouth, Wood County Board Chairman, and we'll do what to remind
everybody, of course, Labor Day coming up right around the corner.
The courthouse will be closed on Labor Day.
Remind everybody about that.
And certainly want to make sure that you know about all these committees coming up.
You can find out about that by going to woodcountywi.gov, keep up the date and all the different
meetings and committees that are going on.
Maybe be a part of them.
We encourage you to reach out and be a part of these boards, a part of these committees,
get involved there, everybody.
Yeah.
I encourage you to go to the website because there's links to everything, and sometimes
I'm amazed.
I go there and I go, you know, I'll call our county clerk who, trying to if you're listening
is one of the best in the state, but, you know, I get out there and I'll go, can we
get this?
And he goes, it's already there.
Good.
Right.
Trent's awesome.
Yeah.
Shout out to Trent.
Shout out to you, Lance.
Great show today.
Thanks for the time.
Thanks, James.
People want to find out more.
Maybe have some follow-up questions for you or anything.
Send them to the website or want to give you a name.
Send them to me.
Send them to me.
My name, address, phone number.
You know, phone number.
All that is in our directory.
Again, that website.
woodcountywi.gov.
And we say a big thank you to our friends over at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media.
Keep up the great work, you guys.
Go to your YouTube search bar, type in Wisconsin Rapids Community Media and keep up the
date on the things they are doing.
We'll be happy back with more right here at 975 FM 1320 AM WFHR, locally grown radio.
