Wood County Planning and Zoning

Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Wednesday, September 25th, 2024.

Have your host James J. Mailoff with you here today at 430.

We're going to welcome our friend Lisa from the ODC.

We'll be talking with them about a bunch of great events that they have going on.

Right now we have with us in studio, Jason Groenberg, director of Wood County Planning and

zoning in our county of Wood County here and everything.

So Jason, I wanted to make sure to get your name right there.

I got a little tongue tied because I didn't ask him beforehand.

Did I get your last name right?

You're doing good.

It's Greenerberg.

Greenerberg.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate it.

We also want to send a big shout out to our friends at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media.

Big thank you to them for being here as always.

And Jason, real quick, before we get going with you, I wanted to thank our good friend Lance

Plymo.

Lance was going to be here today, was unable to be and him and his team were able to come

up with a great stand in for us.

So we appreciate that from Lance and appreciate you stepping up and coming in today with

us.

I get a busy week here because the Wisconsin County's Association had their annual conference

and right now I believe the County Operations Committee is reviewing budgets today.

So me being here got me to be called into those meetings.

I appreciate it.

Oh, we're happy to help anytime, man.

Anytime you need to get, you know what?

I got to do radio today, guys.

I'm sorry.

I got to go.

Exactly.

I appreciate it.

And honestly, this is really fun for us in the audience because we haven't had a chance

to hang out and talk with you before.

And you're able to give us some insight and talk about some things that we don't, get

a chance to very often on the air here.

So we really do appreciate the time for me today.

And I want to start off getting kind of a wood county update for the audience.

And coming up not too long from now, we are going to be featured in a couple of really

cool places, one of those Discover Wisconsin.

Our audience is very familiar with Discover Wisconsin, not only the years that they have been

entertaining us and everything, but they've joined us on these airwaves here before.

Good people over there.

We'd like to shout them out any chance we get.

And we're going to be featured on one of their shows coming up.

Yes, we are.

Yes, we are.

Actually, last, what led up to this is we did some work with them last year on some episodes

called Uniquely Wisconsin, which we'll talk about a little bit here.

But then as a follow-up to that work, they realize that wood county wanted to do some more

marketing efforts, try to get more people into wood county here.

And the reason we're trying to do that right now in wood county is we, as you're probably

aware, a lot of people are aware we have a stagnant or declining population.

And we're hoping to track some people to the county here to possibly, you know, leave

their tourism dollars here, but maybe consider making this a home.

So wood county's been investing in a lot of quality of life things and some advertising,

marketing to try and draw interest to wood county for those reasons, kind of trying

to take a proactive approach.

Plus, you know, a lot of other counties are kind of doing similar things out there.

And we don't want to get left behind with this opportunity here.

When I was first approached with the opportunity to do a Discover Wisconsin episode, you know,

I didn't really know what exactly we'd focus on.

There's a lot of different great things happening in the county here, but what would we really

focus on what would that episode look like?

And so I reached out to our Parks and Forestry Director, Chad Schooley, and asked his thoughts

about this if he thought there would be a good investment of county funds and things

like that.

And he felt it would.

I mean, we've talked a lot about Discover Wisconsin.

I think everybody knows that brand, so very, very strong brand, not just to Wisconsin,

but the whole Midwest here.

And in my conversation with Chad, he had mentioned that wood county is celebrating 90 years

of parks this coming year.

And when he mentioned that, I knew we had the foundation for our episode here, we went

forward with it.

So we brought that proposal to the county board, and they're very excited about it.

Not only is this an opportunity to make people aware of wood county for tourism opportunities,

but also a way to celebrate 90 years of beautiful parks we have here.

So we're very excited about it, and Discover Wisconsin has been great to work with.

That's really good to hear.

And thank you for the backstory on that and how this came to be.

I was curious about that part of it.

I do a lot on this topic because we, you know, for the last couple of years, I've interviewed

our mayor, whoever that might be, and I've interviewed about three different mayors now, and

not just our mayors here in Rapids, but some others.

The topic has come up a number of times about, you know, basically how many, you know,

population and how cities do.

And in this, and knowing this would come up today, I was looking into this around the country.

And I saw a mayor talking about how they are in a very desperate situation to bring

more people to their community, and how hard they're working at this.

And that was the mayor of San Francisco.

Yeah.

I mean, and that's one of the most beautiful cities in our country.

So even in San Francisco, this is an issue.

This is an issue all over, not just rural communities, but big cities, small cities.

Everybody is worried about keeping people in their community and bringing new people

in.

And how communities are approaching this is very unique.

And every community in America has something to sell.

Every community in America has something going forward or something that's great about

it.

That's one of the things we love about our country.

It's one of the, and I'm a little bit of a biased.

I'm a homer, and I'll admit that.

But I generally think, it don't mean I'm wrong.

I think that every community has something that they can hang their hat on.

And it comes to trying to compete with literally thousands and thousands of other communities

around the country and everything.

That seems a little bit like, I don't want to say daunting, but a lot to kind of like,

OK, what you got kind of moment.

I feel good about where we stand on that though.

I do too.

I do too.

And I'm approaching this from a little bit different angle too on the economic development

side.

You know, not only is our population projected to decline, our population is aging.

That's also no secret here.

Economic families are having less kids.

And so when you talk economic development and attracting new employers, a lot of times

you're looking for workforce.

If we don't have a strong workforce here, we're not going to attract new employers

to stimulate our economy here.

So that's really kind of concerning to me.

So that's why the county is really on board with the idea of maintaining our population

and growing it.

And we do have some great things to share here and, you know, really proud of that.

Absolutely.

And something that we've talked about, actually Matt and I have talked about this and we've

talked about it with some others too, you know, for those that don't know, if you want

to bring a certain business into town, a big name, a corporate brand or something and

more times than not, especially if it's a food business or a drink business or something,

they're going to see what your population is.

And they won't let you have a franchise in that city if it's a smaller population.

Yes.

Love its demographic space.

Yeah.

So as far as the economic part of this, that's a huge part of it too, as far as keeping

your population healthy and being able to bring in new businesses, which brings a new

job, et cetera, et cetera.

There's a, it's a domino kind of effect with this where it almost, it almost all begins

with population.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You make a good point there.

You know, the city government, local government, county government.

We don't plan, it's hard to plan your future budgets based on a declining population.

You really need to have some kind of growth or to have a healthy quality of life and budgeting

in the future.

The Discover Wisconsin episode that Wisconsin Rapids is going to be featured in.

Do we know when that episode is going to premiere?

So we're going to have one release this fall.

I believe it's October 19th or 20th.

And then one this coming spring, and it'll be released in the Midwest market.

So you have North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Northern Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Right on.

I believe it's supposed to hit about 220,000 viewers per episode.

And I think it's, it's a few, a few million annually that they, they draw in.

That's, I mean, those are some eyeballs that may not even know of this area.

That are going to see that and everything.

So yeah, I mean, it's just a great opportunity and a shout out to not only you and the team

and everybody that will work on that, but certainly Discover Wisconsin and them being a part

of this and coming to town and hanging out with us.

And you mentioned Jason that this started with uniquely Wisconsin.

Yes, it did.

Can you tell us a little about that?

So that's, that's a program that was started by the Wisconsin County's Association in partnership

with Discover Media Works or Discover Wisconsin.

And so what they wanted to do is highlight through shorter episodes the people and the

economy that make places in Wisconsin special, rather than, you know, having a 20 minute episode

like Discover Wisconsin.

These, these episodes are seven, eight minutes.

And we, so we signed up with them to do three episodes and being in Wood County, you have

to be aware that we have two population centers and then we have a rural population in between.

And we tried to, we tried to, you know, see some equity as far as it goes.

We want to have something in Northwood County, something southwood County and something

to cover the rural areas.

So we decided to shoot an episode in, in Northwood County at the C, C to Makerspace.

It's a Makerspace for STEM careers.

That's how is that the UW up there.

And has writer industries was kind of the spearheaded that and there's been a lot of people

that contributed to that effort up there.

But basically what they're trying to do is get kids exposed to hands-on career skills like

3D printers and things like that.

It hopes that they have, you know, create, create like a feeder for the industries up

there.

So we did one episode there.

We also did one in Power's Bluff.

It's called, it was on the Bluff to Bluff race, it's a seven mile race, it's done every

year.

So part of the story was on that and the people behind that as well as Power's Bluff

and the increase in mountain bike trails or that they've done last few years here.

Then the final episode we did was on the State Water Ski show, unlike with Zecha.

And that talked a lot about the history of the ski show in Wood County, how it started

here, as well as the families behind that and the big draw brings this area as far as

tourism dollars.

Yeah.

Great episodes.

Great episodes.

Great episodes.

And great choices, I think, too.

It's a tough task to try to find events or things that will really be a signature, really

sell this particular area.

I think you guys knocked it out the park.

I think those are all great options right there.

Yeah, I really encourage people to check on those episodes if they can.

At some point we're going to do some kind of release in the county here.

So people are exposed to those episodes, but you can't see those on Discover With Scans

and they're also how it's done on YouTube, Instagram, and I believe Facebook and things

like that.

Yeah.

So they're out there.

So even when we do these productions now, it's not just a one viewing opportunity.

They're out there for years to come.

So we should get a return on investment out of them.

Well, I mean, the praise I was looking at, too, was a return on your investment.

I think more and more people are all turning into my dad.

My father, my whole life, I don't care if it's a 25% gumball or whatever it is.

You've got your money's worth out of that.

I mean, it's always been that way, boy.

It is that.

You look at that and you're like, well, yeah, it's a return on the investment right

there.

I mean, just the amount of views that you can get out of something like that.

The fact that it stays out there nowadays, that it's such a positive tooth at that.

Maybe a couple of years from now and they get a job offer in this area and they're thinking

I'm moving here.

I wonder, well, I can actually, I can look this kind of thing up and see something like

that now.

More and more communities are probably going to be doing these kind of things.

It's good to see that we are in front of that.

We are ahead of that, you know, at least at least I don't know the proper way to say this.

I'm not a word Smith, but to me, and I don't think I'm alone in this one.

I think as citizens, one of the few things, one of the things we can ask is, are you trying?

Are you at least trying to bring people in, trying to keep people here, those things?

There is a lot to be said for effort.

And man, we've got that.

We see that our officials are trying, are working very hard at it.

Happy people are seeing that because I feel the same way too.

We have a very conservative board.

Well, even in low government too, I think, being physically conservative.

I think that's a great thing.

At the same point, they're asking the questions about the return on investment and the looking towards the future.

I think they realize too that this area, what county has gone, is going through kind of a crossroads or a transition

as far as the economy goes with paper industry and even medical in Marshfield.

So they're well aware of that.

We're, it's also, I think, noteworthy too when we're talking about this area.

We're talking about selling this area.

And it can be very low-hanging fruit to me to pick on things or to talk about the negatives or what have you.

There are, name me how many communities that you know of that have a baseball team, have a hockey team,

that have a new athletic facility, that have a water park, that I mean, I can keep going.

I haven't even gotten to the biggest water ski show in the world.

There's so many different things that this area has to sell for it that we, just on that surface alone,

I think, well, okay, I like the hand we were dealt here.

I feel pretty good about that.

There are other areas, don't even have half of that.

And some local areas around here that I visited recently that are hurting right now

and don't have even a quarter of that to sell from their area.

So I think having some perspective when it comes to this is also important going forward.

And before we go on to talking a little bit about the grant that I want to get into with you, Jason.

One note that I think that is really important about this.

You guys are doing a great job selling this area, discover Wisconsin,

all these in factors doing a great job selling it.

Nothing sells an area better than you.

You out there, you sell this area.

The way we treat people from outside, the way we treat each other, all of those things.

That's what sells this area better than anything else.

Yeah they have ambassadors for Wood County here.

So I hope when people see these videos, they forward those out to people that don't live here

so they maybe want to check out this area, give it a shot.

Yeah, we're speaking with Jason for the Wood County, Wood County Planning and Zoning Committee.

I don't know why I'm so tongue-tied with Wood County today, it's not like I don't say it every day.

Jason, I wanted to get into this grant that was tentatively approved for the 2025 season

to help fund economic development projects here in Wood County.

Can you break this down for us?

Why is this grant so vital, so important to our area?

Well, first of all, it's something that's really kind of unique.

Most counties don't do something like this.

A lot of counties have economic development corporations that kind of lead economic development.

Wood County does not, so they rely on me and some other county staff to kind of move efforts forward.

One of the person that's real integral right now is Kayla Rumbalski with Extension Office.

She's a community educator that focuses on economic development.

Wood County is kind of putting their money where the mouth is.

They want to promote economic growth here and they realize they have limited resources.

So we depend on a lot of other partnerships and people to move economic development forward.

So a few years ago, Wood County developed what we call it, it's a ready plan,

our EDI, rural economic development innovation plan.

It's basically our economic development strategy.

And there's a lot of different things we feel we need to do in their focusing on broadband,

housing, entrepreneur ecosystem, childcare, and branding, and recreational mapping,

our resource mapping, things like that.

And now the county is kind of backing up implementation of those in those areas by

providing funding to our partners out there.

So for many years, we've provided some level support to the chambers, the airports,

and other entities out there.

But now in the past few years, we've opened it up to nonprofits and local units of government

that are helping implement economic development strategies in the county.

So we had an application period this year that opened up.

I believe in May and closed in mid-June.

And we had 18 different applications that came in for those were recurring requests.

The recurring requests were from the Marshfield Airport, Alexander Field and Rapids.

And then the chambers of commerce are Wisconsin Chamber Rapids and Mackie up in Marshfield.

And then the remaining 14 were new requests that came in.

And they were kind of all over the board as far as what they were for.

Some of them were for, well, one was for like Red Sand's Beach Dredging to help with the

ski show there. We had some money put towards the boat landing and sitting in a coosa right now

because there's some conflicting or a lot of pressure on that land. Let's put it that way.

Right, right. The well set, yeah.

Yeah, another one was for what's called a welcome back grant in city of Marshfield.

Most as you might know, a lot of the businesses face central avenue there.

Yeah.

It's kind of noisy and things like that. A lot of the parking's in the back.

So what they're looking to do there is put some money towards

facade replacement or improvements to the back of the building to make it better.

That would look good.

That would look good for the customers here and attract some of the more outdoor

use to the back of the building.

Yeah.

But those are just some of the grants that were approved.

A lot of times when those grant requests come forward,

you know, the seed committee or the conservation education act on development committee

that oversees my department.

When they review those grants, they look at the return on investment to the county here,

as well as what kind of match funding is put, you know, towards the grant request.

Yeah.

And in a lot of cases, they don't fund the whole grant application.

They'll do a partial funding with the resources that we have there.

So it's been a real positive program for many years here.

There's been many, many projects that this has helped, you know, make possible.

And it looks like some of these were even had matching funds to them.

Yeah, most cases they did.

A lot of cases that it was far more than a match.

That's always a positive when it comes to this.

You know, you're kind of not only obviously for the funding and the economic part of it,

but just kind of knowing that you're not alone in this,

that something else has your back that helps out with this too.

Right.

A lot of people might ask why some of these projects are considered economic development.

You know, the real reason is we're trying to create that quality of place in Wood County.

And with that quality of place, hopefully, people look to locate here

or people that are living here now will, you know, decide to stay here long term.

Yeah, if you don't mind, Jason, not speak for you,

but I feel like you already answered that with the first 20 minutes of the conversation,

you know, what we were talking about.

This is all this all ties together at this grant,

which is going to be put to really good use because I'm looking at this list here

and we'll tell people where they can find this list as well when we get done,

but I see every all of these are needs all of this.

I don't see anything on here where I'm like, I don't know if we needed to do that.

Like number one on the list, anything involving child care, anything involving child care,

we can help child care.

Well, the child care grant was improved here,

but it was approved with County ARPA funds.

Right. Right.

So, but just, that's a good really strong point to make.

I appreciate that.

But just seeing, looking at the glancing at the list, even let alone diving into it,

every one of these things are important.

I can see a vital factor for and coming back to whole,

keeping people in your community or bringing people to your community.

Ever one of these, you can find a tie-in with that.

Right.

Nobody is moving, you mentioned jobs earlier.

One of the biggest factors that I came across in my research,

nobody's moving to areas that don't have good child care.

They're just not doing that.

And what do you want to bring into your community?

You're looking to bring in single guys like me or something like that?

No, you're looking to bring in families.

Yeah, and right now we're into here, it's considered a child care desert, so.

And this is one of those factors that, so we do, we take care of these things

and maybe we can get to that.

We can't get to this before we take care of that, you know, so many.

So this grant, I'm seeing so many different things on here as positives

and ways of us improving our community, along with, of course,

what we were talking about in the beginning here,

keeping people in the community and bringing people to the community.

Yes.

Yes.

When it comes to what you do, Jason, and as far as this grant and everything,

is there anything else that you think the audience should know about this

before we wrap up?

Got a minute or two left here.

Oh, boy, I just think this is a great program.

It's kind of gone through some growing pains in the last few years

because the multi-county has been putting towards this has grown.

But with that, it's just been outstanding.

Like I said, you won't find this in every county.

It's just a great opportunity to see some of these projects move forward.

The county really is putting, you know, money where their mouth is

when it comes to the future of the county here

and investing in an economic development.

So I give them all the credit for this because I don't make the approvals on these grant

applications.

It's the woodconey board that does that and the seed committee that does that.

So I give them the credit for what we're seeing out there in this area.

And again, I think that it's noteworthy too,

that with all the things we've talking about with Jason today,

all of this we're seeing effort.

We're seeing people working and not just throwing something at the wall

and seeing if it sticks.

There's data, there's research.

There's community interaction going on with this.

There's a lot of people coming together to make these decisions

to come up with these ways that we can improve our community.

Yeah, what they mentioned too, I, you know,

with our ECNAF built strategy, the county has,

we have different areas of focus like in housing broadband,

childcare, et cetera.

We have over a hundred people from woodconey and outside the county

and teams or task forces trying to move those efforts forward.

So we realize we have limited county resources,

you know, as far as county staff goes, we need extra help though there.

So we've been listening to a lot of other people in their help.

Like to do a shuttle to them and thank them for all the work they've done towards this.

Absolutely.

Yeah, a big thank you to them and a big thank you to you for being here today.

You did it, man. We're done.

You did. Nice work.

Jason, if people have followed questions,

one of them more about some of what we talked about today.

How can they reach you?

I'll probably just call my office.

It's a seven, one, five, four, two, one, eight, four, six, six.

We just never call ourselves, you know?

It's such a, it's, what was my number again?

I'm having a hard time thinking of my phone number right now,

but I will encourage people to go to wirapids.org and go to the city's website,

find out more information there.

And certainly reach out to the team and Jason and the team.

If you have full further questions,

and if people want to get involved with that,

now I'm development, please reach out to me.

I can find a place for you that you'd fit.

Absolutely.

Jason, we'll talk again real soon.

Thanks a lot for the time, man.

Thank you, James.

It's been a pleasure.

And a big thank you to our friends over at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media.

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Subscribe to their page.

You keep up to date with the great work that they are doing.

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