Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report for this Wednesday, October 15th, 2025.
Show is proudly brought to by Crockett Sceptic.
Have your host James here.
We're joined right now, but Wisconsin's Rapids City Mayor, Matt Zacker, Matt Goodsia.
Good to see you James.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for being here.
Appreciate you.
I want to send a gigantic shout out to our great friends at Wisconsin Rapids Community
Media.
Appreciate the team over there and the amazing work that they're doing.
Do yourself a favor, go over to YouTube, subscribe to their page, just type into that search
bar.
Wisconsin Rapids Community Media.
Keep up the date on everything going on in this area.
Matt, I wanted to actually start off with, you know, usually ask how you're doing, what
you've been up to and everything.
Well, I actually know a little bit of what you've been up to.
I saw you at our play on Golden Pond.
I wanted to thank you for coming down for that.
Do you enjoy yourself?
Good show.
Yeah.
Thanks for the plug.
I was going to throw it in there for you.
Yeah.
It was great, Jenny, and I were able to get down there and watch the show.
It was a great show, great entertainment, great actors, great producer and director to
make it all happen.
I appreciate the fact that you're willing to, you know, find time to do that with raising
a family and the work and everything you do.
So, yeah, I think it was a great way to be there and be a part of it and support.
Really appreciated you being down there and, you know, when it comes to being at events
like that, I know that for you, part of it is just enjoying the events, enjoying being
a part of those things.
But, you know, when you started running for office and did win, I know that it was something
that was important to you, connecting with the community, being a part of the community,
being seen by the community.
You know, you've had some time in this position now and everything.
You still feel that just as strongly about that?
Yeah, I think that it's very important and I know there's differing views on it.
Again, we're a part of the community, regardless.
You know, every now and again, it's nice.
I hate to say it, but every now and again, it's nice just to get out of town and get a dinner
somewhere else and just take a break because it is kind of 24 or 7.
And it can be a lot of times, but I think people are very respectful and usually I, you
know, they can, I think it works out just fine.
But I think it's great to be out there and just get people get to know me.
I think they appreciate the city wanting to be there and be a part of what they're doing.
And I see the need after COVID to rebuild the volunteer structures that are out there,
or organizations that are out there to get more of these things going with the younger
generations.
You know, it's kind of interesting to see how everything was built.
And then it was coming, you know, as like a generational shift, new guy had taken over,
but COVID really did do it, put a dang in like that, put a gap in that chain of consistency.
And so we're kind of having to rebuild, restart from that ground up again, and I see people
doing it.
And it's great to be there to just say a great job.
And thanks for the work you're doing and keep it up.
You mentioned COVID and it's a segue for me.
I can't help, but another thing that we saw during that and after that was the rise in
domestic violence numbers.
And a topic that's certainly important to me and one that, as I've mentioned before,
I'm on the board at the family center.
I don't make any bones about that.
How important it is to me.
One of the things that I appreciate so much, and especially about this area, and I would
say the last handful of mayors that we've had that I've seen, I've seen at a family
center events and different things is supporting it.
And certainly a month like this, where it's domestic violence awareness month, the month
of October.
And you're going to see a lot of purple.
This is the one time where Wisconsinites are okay with wearing purple.
It's pretty much it, end of list, but it's all right, and it works for this month.
And I know that the city is doing a couple of things to help promote this, help bring
awareness to the month.
You guys, the city lights are, the bridge lights are going to be purple.
Yeah, the bridge lights are been purple for the week.
Yeah.
I'm not sure exactly how long they'll be on that, you know, in that color.
I think it's important for the city to, you know, just again, be a part of the conversation
and say, we're all, we all live, if it's not in this community, it's in a community.
We all live in a house.
We all have our family, whatever that looks like.
You know, Jenny and I aren't not susceptible to having our, you know, knock down drag
out, you know, arguments.
But in the end, I always say we're a product of our upbringing, right?
Like we learned our good and bad habits from our parents and the community environment
that we grew up in.
So a lot of times, you know, you don't even know necessarily your fighting habits and
your good and bad habits until you get into those situations where your, you know, emotions
are up and you're, you know, you start saying things, you wish you never would have said
and all that, but there's got to be a line.
And we all know that that line is there.
So you have to assume that a lot of those people that are in the position grew up with it
in one way or another, but we have to be able to break the chain at some point in time.
Everybody has a choice and we have to be able to, you know, support those people that
are being abused and also understand that those people that are causing the abuse have
been abused at some point in their life.
Not that we condone it, but the fact that we can understand that there's a reason that
it's there, but absolutely not.
We put our foot down and say it's not okay to hurt another person just because of our
own insecurities and emotions.
So I think it's important for us to keep the topic on the front burner.
It shouldn't just be, you know, one part of the year, it should be every day as much as
we can.
And when it comes to making a real change, this is how it's done.
It isn't an overnight thing.
There is no magic bullet for it.
It takes time and it takes, you know, community takes people working and it takes time.
It takes a bit.
One of the things that I've been encouraged by when it comes to this subject is for one,
that we're talking about it, like just general that we're talking about it.
I mean, this was a topic that wasn't that long ago when we were kids, you would say
in a hushed voice or you, it was some polite to talk about.
We don't care about that anymore.
Like now it's, the topic's too important.
It's too big to not talk about.
You mentioned, you know, how do we, how do we end these, how do we bring these numbers
down and especially when it comes to next generations and stuff?
Well, it's all about how we handle ourselves as adults.
And certainly, you know, parents, guardians, how they do with kids, but just as importantly,
how we do as just adults in general, kids don't just selectively listen to one adult
or this adult.
They're hearing all of us.
Right.
And the way that you talk about these things, the way that you joke about these things,
the way that you handle these things, it's not only important for kids, but we know
by the numbers, there's plenty of people out there dealing with this subject that you
have no idea they are.
So when you're talking about this and I'm just going to go ahead and focus on guys for
a second because we're a little notorious for this.
We've all been in a locker room.
We know how guys can talk sometimes.
You might be having that conversation and thinking you're just joking with your buddies,
but there is somebody in that room statistically that is dealing with domestic violence.
And yes, that does include men.
And they hear you joking about it.
They're going to be less likely to come forward, less likely to say something.
We as a society got to be better.
You know, there's a time and place for jokes and I am all for, I grew up on Don Reckles,
man.
I grew up on George Carlin.
I love insult comedy, but there's a time and place for it and this subject is not necessarily
that.
And especially this month where we're able to bring attention to it, bring awareness
to it and appreciate the city's effort along with just this community's effort behind
it.
I think the trickiest part is the fact that we're, I don't know if I don't think America
was always this way or the world, but we're very isolated.
And I think things happen in our own little bubbles in our homes and nobody else is really
there.
Accountability is not there.
And that's part of the issue, but there's not an easy solution there either because
we're, you know, you don't necessarily want to get super involved in everybody's life
to the point where the neck gets kind of alluded.
But at the same time, if the, if the signs are there, things should be said, and it should
be said to everybody that's involved so that, you know, we can bring it out, especially
to the kids that are kind of the, they're the innocent survivors of it all, but at the
same time, they're going to grow up into adults.
And if there is no other path for them, most likely they're going to end up going down
the same road.
Keep in mind, if you or somebody you know is struggling or dealing with this or you just
want to know more, find out more at familyctr.org, familyctr.org, shout out to our Wisconsin
rabbits family center.
It is also a pedestrian safety month, perfect time of the year to do this with our kids
being back in school and stuff and what the, having to keep an eye out for some of that,
but also Wisconsin's white cane laws brought up with this.
This requires drivers to stop at least 10 feet from pedestrians using a white cane on
service on, with, or service animal, reinforcing the need for driver or weariness.
There's never a bad time for this, you know, to bring awareness, no matter what the
topic is or what we're talking about.
But this was another one important enough to where you made another proclamation on this
one.
Yeah.
And I think it goes a long ways and every aspect like you're saying, you know, it's not
too often that you're going to see somebody with a cane walking, but certainly be aware
of it.
But ultimately be aware of people and I do see, you know, I'm happy to see, especially,
you know, what the school is in the drop-offs and people are stopping and being cautious,
letting people, pedestrians walk through, I do see a lot of that I think we need to work
on where people are trying to get to that, you know, through that red light at the end
when it's way past the yellow light.
That can be really dangerous and I just encourage everybody to slow down, including myself.
You know, we all get in the mindset where we got to get to the next place, we got the
next meeting to get to take that moment because that moment could actually save somebody's
life, including your own.
So in all aspects, just slow down, be more patient, you know, we have one life to live.
We got to, you know, make the most of it and keep it as long as we can, so.
Being an aware driver is best for you and the other drivers and I actually feel like
you might enjoy your driving a little bit more too by doing that.
So it was the Darwin way.
It was the Darwin way.
You should enjoy the Darwin way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Between, so.
Rapids Community Media and Matt wanted to get a little bit of a construction update.
I know that here on the west side of town, we've been seeing a lot of work being done.
And in fact, over by my folks house, I've mentioned this to you before, there's a back-to-back
streets kind of being worked on right now, a lot of workers, a lot of construction going
on in the city.
How is that going?
Things on time, especially as we're getting closer to colder weather here, as somebody
who used to work that this job and everything, I know what it's like to us, it gets colder
out there.
We on time, how is it going?
Yeah.
I think everybody's doing their, doing a great job.
Again, these are great people that we have.
I mean, we have a construction company at our fingertips as well as an engineering company
to help them guide them when they need to in terms of what they're doing.
They're doing a great job.
There's a lot of things like this is the kind of time of the season where the major projects
have are coming to an end and then they start working on all these smaller things that
we can fit in before the snow flies or the ground freezes.
And we are looking more and more at that.
Like, how can we help?
How can we help development?
How can we help?
Because we have the resources to do it.
So I think it's very important to understand what we're doing and why we're doing it.
And again, the crew is great and they're hard working and smart people.
Very fortunate to have at our disposal.
So we're fortunate there.
We did do a lot of communicating this last month on the state highways.
We did a program with the municipal, Wisconsin municipal league, league municipalities.
Thank you.
Wisconsin league municipalities.
Couldn't think of it either.
Yeah.
And they do a great job bringing together communities.
They came out to our community and said, hey, let's talk about your connecting highways,
which are the state highways that run through our city, which is 54, 13, 73 and 34.
I just learned a lot about them and where they come from, where they go to.
But the fact that obviously A street and part of the expressway on the west side here
is what people complain about the most.
We get money to keep them going.
We do such a great job keeping them going that the state puts them out further and further
because they're able to be navigated comfortably, somewhat comfortably yet.
I mean, out by tractor supply, we know it's a mass and we're still working on a maybe
a better solution as to how to smooth it out a little bit.
But in the fact that it's there and it's protected for another couple of years, 2028 is when
they look to tear that up and redo that and then 32 is where they come halfway back to
the expressway or the intersection on the expressway there.
So that's all going to be redone by 32.
But again, we have to get to 32 in order to get to that point.
Not an easy thing though to navigate with the state and having everybody involved in that.
We've talked about this actually with Mayor Blazer quite a bit and everything and Shane
was very, you know, not only let us look behind the curtain a lot of this stuff, but to
be honest, I'm sure he would admit this too.
He was honest with about it would be off air quality.
It was frustrating working with the state and this because there's, oh, hey, we want
to get this done.
We are so close to getting this done, but then there's new people in office or there's
another regime coming in.
Some of these factors that just can throw that off.
I think it's really important for people to keep that in mind when we're talking about
this stuff and when we bark, to be honest, I mean, you know, I don't think anybody is saying,
hey, we don't, if you got a complaint or you got something to say, we want to hear it,
but it's understanding the right places to go with those barking and everything.
I talk about this with Lance Plymmel a lot will have people complain to him about something
and he's like, well, I'm not in charge of that.
Complaining is fine.
That's being an American.
Just go to the right sources for it and everything and that's, you know, a little bit more,
worrisome to me than almost the complaint of, you know, so many people nowadays don't even
seem to know the three branches of government and what they do and what they're in charge of, right?
I feel like that kind of thing is as much, just as important as what your complaints might be.
Yeah, you open up a couple of different cans of worms there, but the big part I think is,
yeah, I just understanding that the state controls it and the state is a bigger bureaucracy
than the city is and that the county is and they have a process that they go through.
We are encouraging them to be able to change their statutes or their rules within the DOT to say,
you know what, Wisconsin Rapids could actually do what we're proposing to do the project.
They could do it at probably a third of the price that we're going to be end up doing this at.
But in the end, their hands are tied.
Keep in mind, these are all great people that work for the DOT in this region and they're
doing what they can with the rules and regulations that they have on them.
So it's not like you can point your finger at one person and say it's your fault or one group,
it's not. It's the fact that we continue to exist within governmental entities that are run by
bureaucracies and the red tape that we've put in place over the years, 150 years, you know,
that's what we're fighting. So in essence, we're fighting ourselves.
It takes a group to get anything done and it takes a group oftentimes as well to,
you know, sometimes it's not necessarily getting things done. It's a group of, it's always
more than one factor. I think about this in sports all the time when no one, you know,
people look at one play and think that ruin the game. Like no, no, there's a billion things that
happen. That's just the one you're focusing on. I do want to mention this. Sheriff Becker was
in the last month and we were touching on this or earlier this month and we touched on this
a little bit that the TV show cops is filming here in Wisconsin Rapids and I just wanted to bring
it up and mention it in part because it's kind of interesting for the community. I know they were
interested. I know you probably didn't have a lot of chance to interact with them or anything
like that, but it brings up something that I think in this area that we don't get a chance to touch
on very often. You know, Central Wisconsin in general, but specifically Rapids and Rapids are area
here. There is some notoriety here. There are some things here that bring people here and when we
talked about this new jail and I've been doing this job long enough to know when this was very far
fetched, it was almost science fiction to think we'd have a new jail to the point where it started
to look like really possible and all the sudden we're putting shovels in the ground to where we
are now, where we actually have this new jail and where they film cops. These are the kind of things
that we don't think about with this jail. When we were first trying to get people to, hey,
this is important. We can't kick the can any longer. We need to build this thing and finally get
into a point where we do. I think it's important for people to keep in mind going forward when we're
talking about building this or we want to bring this company to town or something along these lines.
There's the stuff we see and then there's the things that we have no idea what that we could
get out of this. We could turn this into. You see this all the time in sports. They build a new
stadium and yes, the local sports team plays there, but they also have concerts there. They have
those things. We're seeing it with either 2,000 county state field that we have here. The
new-ish field that we have over by Lincoln and everything. We've been able to host tournaments
there and everything. Yes, it's just a new jail. What does that mean? Well, it means a lot of
different things and it helps our economy in a lot of different ways that I don't think we always
see. I just think it's good to keep that in mind going forward here when it comes to these things.
Yeah, you kind of brought to my thought process something that's come to my attention a few times
recently and that's some, again, don't want to go too far in the internet, but at the same time,
the internet, a lot of people are looking at it. I mean, it is a new source now, whether it's true
or not true, what you see, but there has been some videos going around about Wisconsin,
particular about Wisconsin Rapids. I wouldn't mind just bringing them up right now and just saying,
there's a lot of people that can say negative things about any community and this has to
revolve around that we've been known as the drug capital and the crime capital. I'm like,
people calling me and complaining about that, I'd say, first of all, look around. This is an
amazing community and if this stuff is happening, that means we're doing it in such a way that
it's not affecting you. Yeah, there's a few neighborhoods that we know are a struggle because
of low income and these are the choices and we got to protect the kids that are there and
make sure that we have at least addressing it and having a way out. But at the same time,
don't believe everything you hear. Look at your community. If you see people on the internet
talking bad about Wisconsin Rapids, that live here and saying it's dying, stand up to them.
Like it all comes down to what we believe is real and we believe what I want to believe and what
I see every day is new people moving in, mothers walking their babies around the river, everybody
having a good time talking. We're not, you know, yeah, there's sirens out there because we got to
take care of business. But it's same that's not overrunning our community and we have a great
community with a great group of people in it and we should be proud of that and it's only going to
get better if we envision it getting better and then work every day to make it better. And again,
you can't tell people not to naysay because it's America. It's a free country and everybody's
got to get their clicks one way or the other. But, you know, that's not necessarily the truth
and you can fight it by using your voice in the right way. I've been looking up to do this job
for a while. I've talked to listeners for many years and I've heard compliments, heard complaints,
I've heard all kinds of things about this city. And I say the same thing to them that I'll say right
now, what are you doing about it? Because it's one thing to bark. And again, that is your right,
you have every ability to. But how are you impacting things? How are you making things better? Because
if you're just a dog bark and well, we got a lot of dogs doing that already. Like what we don't have
is a lot of people putting things into action, making this area safer, making this area feel better
and stuff. And there's things that you can do to do that that are very simple and day-to-day life
that don't even take you to getting out of your house almost. It's just being aware and being
in tune with your community. And I have to say this too because this is something that I deal
with from my hometown and from where I'm from. And anytime you see Chicago in the news,
you hear about it talked about like it's a third world country or it's a war zone or something like
that. There are certain neighborhoods in Chicago and we're talking places that you probably wouldn't
go anyway, that yes can be quite dangerous. But that city could not be, they've worked so hard
to make that city safer. They've worked so hard to make that city, hey, we're a tourist destination,
hey, we're Chicago, we're the center of the whole country here and everything. And it bothers me,
it bothers me quite a bit when I hear people say this and I know I'm doing this show in Wisconsin
and nobody cares what a fib says. But what you're talking about is something that happens just
the same thing there. And to think of anybody missing out on some of the culture and the beauty of
that city, just because of a fear that isn't even genuine, it reminds me of what you're saying about
our area here. And something that for me, because when I was a kid, I was in Nuckelhead, I own that,
I admit it, I'm not proud of it, but I was. And I did not appreciate this area. I didn't understand
what it was giving to me and my family because when I was a kid, it was almost a war zone in Chicago,
it's gotten much better. When it comes to being out here, I can't help but see the positives in
this area. I can't help but see that the, yeah, I'm not blind. I see where we could improve here.
We could do a little bit more work here. But that doesn't mean that the whole thing is a, like,
man, live in some cities. Come spend a weekend with me in some cities in this country and see how
rough it is, see how bad it is. And we don't even have to leave the state. There's some cities that we
could go to that are a lot worse off than ours. If you have complaints, if you have issues,
that's cool. Just what are you doing about them? Are you putting anything in any action behind
them? I think that goes a long way with it. I didn't want to keep you too long today, sir, but I
did want to get into a EMS update. I want to talk about that a little bit with you before we left.
Yeah, I appreciate the time on this. And again, it would take a lot longer than I probably have at
this point, but I can give a synopsis of just, you know, what we've been working on over the last
year and a half since I got in here. We knew right away that when we took on the contracted areas,
the other communities that are part of our community, in my opinion. So it's worth having the
conversations with them and trying to build the trust and just be able to have conversations
because the EMS issue is for all of us and it's only going to grow bigger. The issue being, you know,
we have like 5,000 calls a year right now and about 25% of those are from the contracted areas.
And it is tricky because United Ambulances out there and they're a private company and I don't
think it's fair for a government entity necessarily to compete against a private company, but at the
same time, we've been approached and we've taken on contracts somewhere before I got on board,
somewhere right after I got on board. In the end, we are where we are right now. We have come to
kind of a consensus and saying to build a district where that's kind of we went worked with the
state level to talk about an EMS district. And if we went that big, the price of that for the
smaller communities would be outside of their reach. And we as Wisconsin Rapids being over 10,000
people, we have certain stretch to our limits or mandates that we have to abide by. So there's
things we have to have with the fire department, which then becomes the EMS department.
Long story short, what we're kind of looking at right now and have reached out to all the
leadership and I've met with most of the boards myself and Chief Ben Goudreau from the fire
department. And we're talking about saying, okay, if you're 25% of the call volume, would you
consider funding one of the four ambulances that we run and the six fire paramedics that run it
and that breaks down to a certain price and that divided by per capita comes to a fair price.
Right now, I don't necessarily want to go into pricing. That's not necessarily what it's about.
But ultimately, it's a way forward for a long time, you know, 20 years down the road, which is
what everybody wants is to know like security wise. What's what are we looking at? What's it coming
from? And we're taking a step further to say, you actually know what you're paying for. It's
just not an arbitrary number. Yes, it's bigger than it has been in the past, but this is how it
would increase. This is what we're looking at. And we're doing it as a community kind of a cooperative.
And it kind of puts us out of the running with the private entities. So if people are choosing to
kind of work more towards a cooperative, they are choosing more money and it kind of puts it
more in a fair fight situation. And again, if it came right down to it and everybody the council
said, you know what, let's relinquish the contracts and not serve those areas anymore.
You know, that would be a decision that they'd make as a group, but that's not the decision as a whole
that we made. So we're moving forward in the best way possible. A lot of positive feedback.
Probably the biggest thing is just being transparent and them knowing that we're having everybody's
having to say at the table versus just saying, you know, the big city of Wisconsin rap, it makes all
the decisions and we just kind of get the get the shaft on it. So I think it's working out really
well. And I think we're on track to really figure out something for the long haul for the 911
services that everybody needs. We'll probably touch on this again when you come back next month and
everything and look forward to hearing about that and appreciate the update and always appreciate
the time. Matt, if people have follow questions, they want to know more reach out to you. What's the
best way to do that? There's email on the website. Go ahead. I encourage everybody to visit the website
at www.rapids.gov. Also, my email is there. My cell phone number is 715-529-25. If you need to
get hold of me directly or you can call the mayor's office, I'll get back in touch with you or if
Emily can help in any way she will. So yeah, don't hesitate to reach out and, well, you know,
do everything we can to make sure we take care of business. Be sure to bookmark that new webpage
everybody, www.rapids.gov. Big thank you for the time again, sir. Appreciate it. Yeah, if I have one
second, I just want to acknowledge WRCM. Joe's stepping in doing a great job. We did lose Taylor
to a new position. He wanted to move back with his family as he's starting his own family, so
I just wanted to thank him for all the work that he's done. And thank Joe for stepping in and
taking care of a lot of the things as we kind of try to restructure and find out what direction
we're going in the future. But WRCM is a great tool for the community, for marketing and
communicating. So we appreciate all the work that Joe's doing here to keep us up to speed. So thank
you for that. Taylor was great working with Wishing him the best and everything very happy for him.
We appreciate Joe endlessly and certainly the work over there by WRCM's
Rabbits Community Media. Keep up the date, the good work that they are doing. Go to YouTube,
subscribe to their page, keep up the date and everything. And certainly keep a lookout for
more great things from them and more great things from the Rabbits Report. Thanks for listening,
everybody.
