Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Wednesday September 18th, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mailoff here. In part two, today we're going to talk to our friend
Kristi from the Hanna Center. They got a bunch of great events coming up. We're looking
forward to talking with her. Right now we have a couple of great friends in studio with us.
One Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Madsacker. Mad, good to see you.
Oh, thanks for having me again, James. That was good to have you with us.
And of course, our friends Joe and the gang over at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media. We say a big
shout out to them. Like and subscribe to their page. Go to YouTube and keep up the date and all
the great things they are doing there and all over Facebook and other social media.
Keep up the date and support the work that they are doing. Mad, how are you doing? How are things going?
Everything's going well. Again, still in probably the honeymoon phase, but getting to know people real
well and just keeping my feet set and learning what I need to do so I can move forward in the best
interest of the city. So learning fast though. Learning fast. It's interesting. I guess, you know,
if you went back in the history of Wisconsin Rapids Mayor's, you're going to see a number of times
these things happening, but whether it is where Shane Blazer walking into a big thing with the
pandemic and some of those. And for yourself coming in with the, I would say that we are certainly
doing better, but still have the remnants of that still going on in our community. And then
something that is gigantic in this community, the mill and what was going to happen with that
and where direction that's going, you come walk in and boom, there's that who's waiting for you.
I'm sure imagine every mayor has their, you know, big albatrosses or things that they have to
tackle. But, you know, for our last couple of mayors, I think it's been pretty impressive to see
what has been going on. And currently what was going on with the mill, I've heard a lot of positive
feedback from our community, some of our business leaders. When it comes to the mill, what is the
most recent update on that as far as the past couple of weeks and what's been going on with it?
Yeah, so just to kind of touch on what you first started with there, there's a lot of things that
happen that the mayor has really no control over. And, and so Shane walking in when he did at that
time, pandemic, who did guests? Yeah. And then, and then the mill shutting down almost because of
the slowdown in the world, you know, nobody would have guessed that even though to some degree,
things were changing over the last, you know, decade with the mill. Then for me to be able to come
in at a time when the mill was then sold to CRG with the understanding that they were going to
figure out what they needed to do to redevelop it into what we're calling now an industrial park.
And so in the end, you know, people are saying, you know, great job to me. And I say, you know,
what this has to do with so many moving pieces that I am just a part of. And my goal in the end is
to just make sure that every bridge is built in order to make sure that that because in the end,
it's a contract and everybody has to sign it in order to move forward. So whatever would come up,
you know, I've kind of said it before, like it was kind of like poetry and motion in a way because
there are so many voices, so many big interests and be able to keep narrowing it down, narrowing it
down until boom, everybody sign the paper and move forward. And they allowed us some concessions as a
city to have some safeguards. If if MRD was Jerry, the owner, Adam Milwaukee, great company.
They have a great history on what they've done. So we expect great things for them. CRG has a great
history of what they've done. They brought on Glenn Gilbert to be the goal between, you know,
it was Sushil, Kyle Kerns. Everybody that was just a part of this in order to make it all happen.
And then you get the bond companies, the insurance companies and it was just amazing to see. And in
the end, it's a happy sad ending. A happy part is we're moving forward as a community. We're going
to be able to have this land back. The sad part to it is people put their life and blood, sweat,
and tears into building that craft mill. And for that, like I have sympathy, you know, or even
empathy in the sense of I've built a business granted it has no scale in terms of what we're talking
about here. And if you walk through what they built, it's just phenomenal. The amount of money
and ingenuity and know how to go into building that for those folks that are in the community now
or not in the community that were a part of that process. You know, my heart does go out to them.
And I appreciate, I say thank you to them for everything they did do to bring for that 100-year
period. And all the generations that went into that is just phenomenal. And the simple fact that
that could be built. And within a few decades, it everything changes. Nobody would have guessed that.
Nobody would have guessed that. So again, happy sad. Happy that we can move on. And that people
are giving me the leeway to bring that news to the community and be excited about the future of
that land and the industry that's going to be coming. Once that is down and completely removed,
we'll have about 230 acres of industrial sites to build on. We have the electricity waiting
for these new industries to build in. They'll bring employment as much as we can get,
you know, they'll bring new employment opportunities. And then the schools, you know, MSTC will be,
you know, finding out how to help educate people to fill those positions. So it's kind of,
you know, it's a win-win all the way around. And we just have to stay positive and think about
the great things to come because that in the end is life. Nothing ever stays the same forever.
And we are very ingenuative and creative and resilient. And we move forward.
And wins the last project from bigger small that got done with negativity.
Like, when wins the last time you saw something accomplished with people being negative.
You know, yeah, it doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen. As far as your point with positivity and
having a good spirit about this or anything that we're talking about today or anything going
on its society and period, like I really challenged people to ask yourselves, wins the last time
something was accomplished with people being negative, with people being, you know, that naysayers
or anything like that. Nothing gets done that way. Well, and as much as I talked about, like,
coming in in my head, I'm like, I want to do what I can to build bridges for everyone. But
I'm only human. And that negativity just beats the energy out of you to the point where you
become ineffective. And I feel for the people who live in the negative world and my assumption
is they were kind of brought up that way. And then the things that they've, you know,
have happened in their life have kind of built that. And again, for one of those people
want to reach out and talk, I'm more than happy to have a conversation. But I'm not going to let
that negative side of life bring us down. And it's something we battle all the time. If you want
to call it a spiritual realm or whatever, it's always good versus evil, happy versus sad, the world
of relativity, you know, it is what it is. But you can't, you can't live in that world if you want
to progress. It's a great point to bring up too. And especially in a political season like this,
where the person that goes into the job and is a reacting kind of thing and certainly with some
ideas, but there is only so much that you can control and so much you can do. And there are so
many things that happen out of your control. I think it's really important to note that we,
we almost associate politicians with events and certain things. And there is only so much that
can be controlled in certain ways. And it's, it's a good thing to note about that too. And as far as
the, the mill goes in the cleanup of that, some of the work being done there, you mentioned the
amount of space there that's going to be available for businesses. Do we have already something
established to take over that space? Are there businesses reaching out already currently trying to
like, Hey, what's going on over there? It looks like a nice spot over there. Anything like that going on.
Yeah. So these are, this is some of the stuff I've learned in the last four or five months since I
been in office now. So again, I, I, I, I, I, I, I know there's a lot of people that got frustrated
with the community development department, i.e. Kyle Kerns and the inspectors that are there.
In the end, what we're asking them to do is, it's a really tough job. We're saying help our community
grow, help our economy grow. But then at the same time, tell everybody what they can and can't do
in order to make that happen. And so, some way, somehow, I'd like to figure out if I can
separate those two. But ultimately, that's the job of the government. We've been elected over
the years to make votes and people have voted in these new codes, these new zoning things in order
to beautify like everybody complains about how bad A street is. But the only way you can change A
street is to set up a new zoning code in order to say we're going to beautify as people are building
new. Dranted, you know, I know the frustration is coffee shops and car washes. But at the same time,
if they can get market share, they wouldn't be investing their money if they couldn't. And they're
putting in green space and making it look nice. It is what it is as long as they follow the paperwork
or, you know, the rules that are there. So, if we want A street to look better, which we all do,
I know that, then it has to start one property at a time as they redevelop it. And that's where
those zoning regulations come in and people can get real frustrated and say, you can't tell me what
to do. You're just the government and we're like, yeah, but we all agreed to follow these rules
that we've kind of agreed to when we move into the city because that's the city that has the
rule. So, again, I reach out to those people as much as I can and say, hey, as Matt Zach or business
owner, resident, how can I help you? I just want to help because I like ideas. I like to help people
come up with stuff. I realize as soon as I didn't realize this, but I do now. As soon as you become
mayor and take on that title, it does change the way people see you and view you. Not you personally,
but the role itself becomes very much, it's a respect thing, but also I'm going to the top
to hit the punching bag because I can't get anything else done any other way. And again, I respect
that, but at the same time, I can't put the city in the chaos, like given everybody their own rules,
you know, their own rules and doing whatever they want. And I'm going to lose the faith of the city
itself and the residents and businesses pretty quick if I do that. So, it is moving along well and
to answer your question on the mill itself. People are talking that gets marketed from our community
to the state level, region level, state level, to the country level, to the world level when it comes
to this sizeable development, everybody knows. And it comes down that not there's not that many
businesses that have the kind of money that can invest in this kind of an area. And those are the
folks that are looking and yes, there's there. Those are all the things that I have to say up. I'm
limited in what I can say about it until stuff kind of comes to fruition. But yes, it's very
exciting about what's coming. The 16 building and machine are always going to be a little bit
of an outlier. But I'm excited about those things too and the conversations that are happening
around that at this time. To your point of the land and moving into a community and some of those
things, we learned this at a young age, this land is your land, this land is my land, it's all of
ours. Like we share it together and everything. It's not just a one one size fits all kind of
thing. Speaking with Wisconsin rabbits, Mayor Matt Sacker and Matt, I wanted to talk a little bit
about the railroad relocation and some of that going on right now, one of the bigger topics in
our community. Yeah, so right now this is kind of made its way over the last month and a half
into the council in order to get their input and ultimately their agreement to move forward
on certain things. And what this was is a federal program for rail rail relocations.
And so I saw it and just kind of came across. I was never an email guy, but all of a sudden I got
hundreds of emails every day coming through. So I saw this one, passed it on to the folks that
know more than I know in the city about about what the salt and tails. We started putting the pieces
together, ultimately what it came down to at first was grade separation on Grand Avenue.
We kind of came to the conclusion pretty quick that if we do that, we can never move that rail.
And to me that rail has been I'm kind of saying right now it's got like a stranglehold on that
west side. And I think we need to get that off of their the ability to develop and investments
and stuff like that. And and so what happened then is we switched gears, talked to the grant
rating company and said we want to write a grant for relocating this track, but we need more time
to do it. They said let's write a grant for the planning phase of it. So the planning is just
that it's planning. So in order to get that done, Joe Ike's dead worked on that with the planning
group heirs and my task was to reach out to everybody that would that would be touched by this
and attempt to get them to give us a letter of support to say yes we agree and you know my
selling point was one we're not asking for money and two we're not asking for commitment.
What we're asking for is a conversation to just see what the possibilities are because in reality
that track that goes around there it has one spur on it from Port Edward's all the way to
the track back by Durabute lane back there. It has one spur and that is for general chemical or
chemical trade. I've been working with those guys. They're all are interested in understanding
what's possible. So I'm still in conversation with them, but again we have a chemical factory
that is right on the edge of a residential facility. We're working with chemical cars coming
through and affecting thousands of people every day from Port Edward's all the way up here through
through our side Grand Avenue and even High Street. So so right now we're we have two letters of
support. We are deadline is it's kind of like Thursday afternoon is when we're getting it in. We
have a little bit of leeway but we'll see what happens. We're waiting on two more letters to see if I
can get them if not we're still submitting it and we're looking at taking this entire track out here
if at all possible. That's 10 road crossings that we would change which is one that would come
through if things work out this way some other land that county may own and we'll be having those
conversations. And again this has all been talked about through you know the city council meetings.
So it's all kind of public information as we go along and since I've been here it's been in
the conversation ever since. So if we can make this happen it's going to do amazing things for
the community on the west side and the emergency services and the people that live there. So
two quick questions one you kind of answered this a little bit but so when you we're asking for those
letters from businesses are just trying to get the conversation going at the ball rolling.
You said you've gotten two you have you heard back or are you getting positive feedback from those
businesses about this project or the idea. Let me clarify that. So we got them the letters of support
from multiple county organizations. We got the Wisconsin DOT letter of support. We got I'm still
working on CN Railroad but they're the conversations are really positive. And again we have time for
that. Port Edwards and their school district village of have sent them in. Sonica sent them in
Wisconsin Rapids obviously a sentiment. Erko worldwide has sent theirs in because they'll
be affected by this to some degree. So we're really working with CN Railroad and come trade at this
time. And again the conversations are good it's just a matter of they're big companies so you
know you got to get somebody to say yeah get somebody on the phone can be difficult these days.
But at the same time I you know pleasantly persistent way of mode of operation. Hopefully
it's chipping away and we'll be able to get those down because it's a huge project that I think
everybody buys into. You're the third mayor I've had the honor to be able to interview and talk
to and get to know and everything and every if there is a consistency it is that is the train system
and what what we do about that and what we're going to go with that. This is as far as I've ever
heard this topic get though. I've never heard us get to this stage where we're actually talking about
doing something really like it's there's plenty of times where we've talked about the trains but
it always comes down to the same thing and the same answer. This is the first time I've ever actually
heard like this is a this is a big step. Well again I don't I don't take this isn't about me
this is about everybody else that can have to get involved in order to make it happen. But I guess
I have learned over life and I've gone through this and they all cycles depending on where he
are in life you know like more of like us is can we do it all together and group or whatever you
want to call that specialism you know it's but then people get scared just capitalism private
sector public sector and I look at it now and say if if if somebody doesn't take the ball
and and run if nobody's leading if one person isn't leading then really nobody's leading that's
what I've come to in life. Even if it's a group effort somebody still got to keep keep pushing
keep pushing keep pushing so so if I serve anything here it's just that purpose of just being
annoying enough to keep everybody going but not so annoying that they tell me to go away so
it's a good it's a good balance it's a good place to be with that. We only have a handful of minutes
left so some of the bigger things I want to get into next time that we get a chance to talk and
we've got some time with some of those topics so as far as right now I know that you're coming
into this well or into today coming out of a number of midi committees and meetings that we've
had in the last couple of days any headlines from the latest committees that we've had stand out to
you or anything anything at all no no no no no all right I know everybody's everybody's got
stuff going and you know there's actually some interesting stuff going on right now about it
do we do we have the council get more involved in some of the committee stuff and again I can go
either way on stuff I respect the fact that there's so many people in our community and I
appreciate the fact that people are stepping up left and right to fill the commissions and
and the councils that are there and in the boards because it's not easy and you're taking time
out of your personal life and that is more and more of a struggle these days but people are stepping
up and I only have a few positions that I still have to get filled I granted it's a it's a revolving
door all the time but I guess I would like to take a moment to say thank you to everybody that is
committing their time volunteering their time to be a part of the decision-making process and
everything we do in the community to make it a thriving happy community and and for those who are
on the fence or don't know anything about it reach out to me or the city and anybody and talk
about you know what the possibilities are because if we don't do it nobody else is going to do it
for us and then things start to fall apart and we don't want that we like our community strong and
healthy I don't know if that was a good question or not but I love the reaction I got from
like I get that reaction very often I'll take it I'll take it and Matt we do want to give people
a bit of a construction update on that and everything touch on that a little bit before wrap up
yeah I just want to I know it was a point of frustration for a lot of folks that Lincoln Street
project that we had in in the works it it took a little longer there's a lot of again a lot of
pieces that weren't foreseen as that project was coming together but it did come together for
from from chestnut all the way down to to grand and it the road is beautiful so it came out right
we did have to stay closed all the way up the quick trip for a while because there was some
stuff that wasn't done right and if we let it stay that way it would have deteriorated the
road really quick so we had to go ahead and wait and get that fixed and now that's up to speed
and it's wide open everybody's happy again again thank you for your patience on that
everything else is up to speed right now and and they're making progress on some smaller projects
that we're hoping to get to so we look forward to great roads and again everybody bear with us on
the state roads like a street you know that's something that's out there and we all know we all hate
it and we're working with the city every day to try to you know put some pressure on to get it done
as soon as possible so big thank you to all of our construction workers out there and everybody
that's been slowing down and keeping safe and making sure that they can do their job and
continue to do that as we wrap up orange cone season here and everything yeah kind of and
and it's strong sir if people have follow up questions one of them more about some what we
talked about today how can they get in touch with you I got my numbers the easiest one I remember
seven one five three two one zero seven two seven you can call me at the office anytime they'll
get you in touch with me I'll come visit you or you're at I'm out in the community more than
I'm sitting around waiting for things to happen I think that's important for me to be a part so
if you need me let me know and find out more at W.I. Rapids.org W.I. Rapids.org be sure to follow
them on social media as well be sure to follow our friends at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media's
YouTube page it's great way to keep up to date and everything going on in our community
follow them on social media as well a big shout out to them and a big thank you to you sir thank
you much for thank you very much for joining us we'll talk next month thanks James
appreciate the time have a good week you too we'll have more midday magazine coming up for
you right here at 97 5 FM 13 20 AM WF HR locally grown radio
