Hello World, welcome to WFHR's Rapid Support for this Wednesday, October 22, 2025, shows
proudly brought to you by Crock Acceptic, a big thank you to them and thank you for joining
us as we have got our good friend Lance Pumblin, Wood County Board Chairman, Lance Good
to see you. Thanks for being here. Thanks James and welcome world. We're getting out
there, huh? Yes, yeah. Streaming is a wild thing, man. It's a wild thing. We also want
to send a gigantic shout out to our friends at Wisconsin Rapids Community Media. Be sure
to go over to YouTube, type in your search bar, their initials or their name and subscribe
to their page. Keep up to date. I'm a great work they are doing over there. Our city has
made that much better because of the work being done by our good friends over at Wisconsin
Rapids Community Media. Shout out to them. Lance, how have you been? I've been good. Other
than today where the weather's not exactly cooperating, you know, I got up this morning
and said, with the wind chill, it felt like 29. I'm going Saturday, my kids were out
of water skiing, actually. Oh, really? Today, I'm getting ready to, you know, brush off
the snow skis and other winter sports activities. With that, we, we, you know, here in Wisconsin,
the season changes every couple hours. It feels like, but we've got certainly, you know,
a change happening here and with that, we've got other, you know, meetings that weren't
around last season. Now they're coming back around now, a budget that we have to talk
about. Got a couple of things we want to get to. I wanted to start with, as you're mentioning
these, you know, the changes we have some changes. The Segway was for, you know, where
are we going with the parks? So go ahead and talk. You know, James is really good at this.
You know, one of the questions that I get asked off and, you know, it's what happened
with our parks. Why are our campgrounds closed? October 31st with a couple of exceptions.
Sarah Park closed already a couple of weeks ago as we were doing, you know, annual maintenance
there getting ready for winter. In Dexter, we stay open and that campground through hunting
season. So anybody's out there, you know, at those wildlife refuges are hunting in that
area. That those, that campground stays open through the first of December. So that's
always a great opportunity. What's coming up though, obviously is the winter sports season.
And the lower parking lot now for Powers Bluff off a county end, that will be open all
winter. That access is the lower one that cross country ski trails. The mountain bike trails
will stay open as long as you deem you can use those. Even with snow, do it every want.
And then the, the hill itself, the winter sports area always dependent on snow. So those
are the biggest we get us out a lot and you can check that. You can call the number of
the parks department and there's a list of things you can press one, four, two, four to find
out what's open or you can access it through the parks website there. Obviously with all
the different campgrounds, we have different rules, different things, some are open longer
than others and something to keep in mind with those and taking our parks, get some camping
in, take advantage of these wonderful areas we have around here and find out more wood
county wi.gov, wood county wi.gov. You can find that and much more information over there
over there. Yeah, great attendance this year. I mean, we had a really good season camping.
The weather was cooperative. It isn't so cooperative here for the last week. We used
up all the good weather. Maybe we'll get there. But it's great to hear that certainly
it's a huge part of our economy, how those do. And I wouldn't, I didn't know if you would
say they're a bellweather, but they're a good sign of our economy in this area and
how they were doing when we see these well used. Yeah, you know, not just the, the use
of the area is huge. And the economic impact is really hard to wrap your, you know, head
around our arms around because, you know, obviously they buy gas. They use restaurants.
Some of them stay in hotels. They buy merchandise. So, I mean, it's a really big part of what
we do. And then the other part is those people who see the area oftentimes, you know, migrate
into this area eventually with housing or the business or future career plans. So, those
are all real plus. Adding Sarah Park this year was hugely advantageous to us. And as we
continue the upgrades there, you know, over the years that park probably suffered from
some neglect after consolidated left. And as the employees recreation area, we're in
the process of revamp and everything out there. And tennis has been great this year.
When it comes to that kind of late addition of Sierra Park and everything, which is a
welcome one, it's awesome to see I've heard nothing but positives about it both from the
community and from people like talking with you and Marin, our Marin, all that. But I'm
curious. It was kind of something that I don't know how were you guys able to really plan
for this because it felt like it was something that kind of came out of nowhere almost.
Yeah, it did. That's real perceptive. It really was. It was kind of dropped in our lap.
I mean, it was something we always said would be really nice to have something on the river
like Sarah Park. And then when they came to us and said, there's no way to continually
fund that because, you know, the consolidated, you know, recreation area, consolidated
employees recreation area. There was no more consolidated paper company or any of the iterations
that followed. And there were some qualifications that needed to be met in regard to access.
So, you know, they came to us and it really, this all transpired in about a month.
And then we were pushing up against Memorial Day and our Parks Department, that crew,
really did a unbelievable effort, you know, to get that ready, get that open, meet everything
we needed to do. And then attendance was really good. And this year, as we come into this next
year, I assume that reservations are going to be exceptional, you know, like I said, with
the river access. But that was, you know, real kudos in the parks, finance, everybody else that
put this together, really short notice. Yeah. Honestly, when it was going on, I remember talking
with the mayor about it and saying, you know, we're really hopeful we can open it up before
Memorial and all those. And then to see it happen was just incredible. Like I want to second what
you said there because I am blown away just thinking about it, how they pulled that off.
And to your point, we saw some good attendance this year. Now that not just our community knows
a little bit more about it, you can plan a little more for it and understanding next year
and going forward, how much it might be used. And that's, that's a positive.
You know, when you think a lot of these camping reservations, I made a year ahead of time,
basically. Yeah. And that park did not exist as a county park at that point in time. And,
you know, as you move forward, obviously that got filled in to some extent on the back side. Some
of those people were patrons of that park for many years. Yeah. That said, it will announce a
county park. We can go, but kind of a funny story. So I'm driving over there the other day down
the highway. It wasn't just the other day. It's probably a month ago. And I go flying by the
entrance. And I know where it is. And I, one of the comments that I had made in a conversation with
our parks manager, we need a little better signage as you're coming up on the entrance. Because I,
like, I flew past and go, uh-oh. And I know where I'm going. I wasn't on a trailer or anything.
So yeah, we anticipate that's going to be a really highly utilized park going forward,
which all of those campgrounds and those opportunities really get us to closer to revenue neutral
on our parks. When you use a word there that I was just about to go to a closer. And for me,
I love these things that bring us ice communities closer together. That brings
Nikusa close to the rapids. It brings port closer to, you know, Steven's point, whatever it might be.
And I feel like this here park thing is one of those good kind of like in-between places of a lot
of our cities in this area that brings us more together. Yeah. You and I have talked about that
for years. You know, we're not, most people don't know where the county borders are. They certainly
don't know where the municipal borders are. But we are a community. And I always say, you know,
where do you draw the line between, not that we're trying to, but even between Wisconsin
Rapids and Steven's point, you know, where does Clover fit into that? It's really not in point.
It's a long way here, you know, and even those local businesses benefit greatly both directions,
whether you're coming down the river, you know, I'm not trying to do commercial plugs,
but you know, you do have opportunities to come down. You know, we have people from here that go
that direction up, you know, to Rusty's or club force. We have people that come from that direction
down to Anchor Bay. Those are hugely beneficial to our area. And the more that we can provide,
the more likely our drive is a community, not just a county, not a city, not a town or village.
Well said. And you can mention any businesses, just give me a cut. Just give me a Joe a cut,
that's all. You can mention the business. See what they're, see what they're willing to do.
Right. Right. We're speaking with Woodcutty Board Chair, but let's
flimma right now. In Lance, certainly one of the bigger things on the docket for you and the team
on our board was the budget. And we're going to be releasing some numbers on that tomorrow.
It sounds like tomorrow. The budget has to be published tomorrow. It's always interesting. It's my,
frankly, it's my least favorite time of the year. I kind of like to look at the big picture I
operational. And then you get down to how do you make it all work? And what, you know, how do
the nuts and bolts all come together to make this happen? And this year, just to give you some
perspective, the county budget this year is $157 million. This sounds funny. Give or take a couple
hundred thousand. But, you know, as we fine-tune some, but, you know, it takes a lot of a couple
hundred thousand to make even a small percentage change in that hundred fifty seven million.
So we got a hundred fifty seven million dollar budget. Of that, what's pretty interesting,
only only 35 million of that roughly is property tax. So you got a hundred and fifty seven
million dollar budget. A lot of that is passed through money from federal and state agencies and
or governments. You got $35 million of property tax revenue. If you subtract that difference,
the 35 is about what we have to use on what you would call local programs, law enforcement,
highway department, things like that. The other stuff is generally already, you know,
allocated for programs that we are required or mandated to provide. So although it's a big number,
the percentage that we can actually use is fairly small. I think the most significant part for
the taxpayer, you know, we saw we just put up a hundred million dollar jail. It's not quite
that much, but that's a that's a round number again. Despite that, our tax rate this year is going
from the mill rate was four sixty five last year. It's four thirty nine this year. So, you know,
that's kind of kudos to our department heads, to those employees, to people, for instance,
in the parks department who get parks open in a hurry. We're not bringing in a lot of independent
contractors to do work we do. And yet we're cognizant of the fact that it impacts people's
lives. I mean, it's property tax, which is probably the most aggressive tax there is, but it is
what it is. And that concerns us. And I had somebody the other day, a very intelligent person,
can you say, well, why does the county borrow any money every year when they do a big project
like this? Why don't you just say for it? You know, build up a reserve fund and do it. And the
attitude I can tell you this going back my thirty years is I don't want to take money out of your
pocket and keep it in our account until we need it. We'll ask for it if we actually need it.
And it reminds me of kind of income tax when I hear people oftentimes, I'm going to get in trouble
with even my own relatives for saying this, but they go, oh, I got a giant tax refund at the end
of the years and that great. I'm going, why would you let the government use your money for anywhere
from, you know, one to twelve months when if you put it in the bank, it might even have kicked
you off another couple two, three hundred, maybe thousands of dollars if you're high income and
why? Well, I get it all at once. I go, I get that and you may be less inclined to spend it.
If you get it, you know, if you see the bigger chunk, but the philosophy from the county's been
until we need it, we're not going to ask you for it. Are there projects or are there things that
you think are going to affect that coming up or going in the future? Obviously, you know,
inflation's gone through the roof on especially building materials and roads. I mean,
things that we used to do for, you know, a half a million dollars, let's say a mile is now a
million dollars a mile. You see the price of anybody's put in a driveway recently, knows what that
is. Gas prices are coming down. That's going to help us. But any construction we do right now,
we have a real major project going on replacement of pipes up at our northward county annex and that
was Norwood for those who wonder what the northward county annex was. That's a four million dollar
project and you go, well, why would you do that? Well, there's the possibility of contamination due
to the old piping in their health departments and others said, this has to be government raised,
this has to be done. It wasn't done for 50 years. You know, because typically, you know, most people,
it might be a good idea to replace the battery in your car after four years, but who really replaces
it until you kind of doesn't start that morning. Right. And that's, I think it's been the attitude a
lot of times. We're doing a fairly big project or we'll be doing a fairly big project right down
the road here from your station at Edgewater, the nursing home. And we're doing that to facilitate
more revenue. So we have less impact to the taxpayer as we go forward. There's an initial impact.
But if we look at over 10 years, it's beneficial. The jail was as well. I mean, that was a huge
upfront cost. But in the long run, it's going to save us about $30 million over 20 years
as opposed to keeping the old jail. Whether we're talking about the city or we're talking about
any old business, you have to spend money to make money. That's business 101. And when you're
talking about the businesses, a city's business, a city's economics or city making money or anything
like that, everything you've mentioned there and everything I've seen since I've lived in this
area has really tried to do that if not done it. The jail is a perfect example of this. Yes,
you're paying this up front. But the long-term effects, the 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 year effects of this,
you're making money. You're saving your community money.
And we're not spending as much. You know, and you've seen the change in the landscape
downtown. I mean, it's phenomenal. When you look at what just came down, you know, we had an old
annex building there that we owned that was not able to be occupied due to contamination,
mold, other things over the years. Those are really old buildings. And you saw us take down
some other buildings as we're reconfiguring parking down there. Part of that was really cooperative
effort working with the city and saying, how do we make the downtown more attractive to both
attract people, to retain those that we have down there, and then make it a more
genial gathering spot. You know, you look at some of these other communities and the
opportunities they have downtown to bring people in. And between the county's efforts and the
city's efforts, I think in the long run, you're going to see a much more user-friendly
attractive downtown. Our community is adapting better than most. And I've got friends around the
country. And whether I'm talking in California or Florida or a couple of my friends in the Illinois
area, they're in areas where they're not seeing this. Take, for example, what you're talking about
with the downtown. The downtown used to have maybe 10, 12 bars down there. People aren't going to
bars as much as they used to. They haven't been for over a decade. For us to keep doing that,
it would be a death kiss to our community. It would not be able to survive on bars and industry
like that. Now, that industry still has a place. It certainly does. And we still need that. But
that's where business comes into play. Business figures out who's going to survive and who
isn't. Community constituents, people do. When we look at that downtown area, I'm encouraged by
that. I'm encouraged by the community, this city seeing, okay, we can't continue to rely on this
to make money any more than we can the paper industry. We have to adapt. We have to find other
ways to make revenue. We have to find other things we can do. In other ways, we can cost and save
money. Maybe having the new jail. That helps save some money here and there in the future.
Some of the water park, the beautiful new field over there by Lincoln. There's a handful of things
we've seen in the last 10 years or so that this community is doing to address that. To, hey,
the paper industry is leaving. We don't have it as much as we used to. So instead of just having
a community that throws its hands up in the air, we got people like, no, we're going to adapt.
We're going to find a way to counter that. You have to adjust. Some of those recreation after
you mentioned the BMX opportunities. The skate park. I can have in the rafters in town. All of those
things help. You take that downtown area, though, and preservation is important if you have an
old historic building. I think over the years that probably didn't happen as much as it should have
in every community. But when you look at some of the the hodgepodge of, and mess we had in that
downtown area that has now been eliminated, it's leveled. I mean, when you stand in the corridor,
it's on you look out and you look across at the River Black building, which is really attractive.
And you see the river frontage. You look at, you know, people might think it's a,
I've had people tell me it's a waste of money to like the bridges. I think they look fantastic
when you come in town. And I can't tell you how many people I've had in here to conventions
in other places. They say, that is, they remember that. They go, that is really interesting when
I get down there. You know, they change colors, obviously, seasonally. It's interesting. And
you're going to see some build out down there. That's going to make it, that's going to make
accessibility to the courthouse better. It's a much more attractive look. And because of that,
you're going to see other businesses that will locate into that area and thrive.
The, the attractiveness of your home is part of what brings you to want to buy it.
Pervapiliam. It matters. And it's the same thing with the city. It's the same thing with the town.
You, you need to look attractive to people that you want to live here, stay here or at least
to come back here or move here or something like that. The, the, the adage of scared money don't
make money. They, they kind of think, well, if you sit there, that, well, that's going to cost
too much. Or, oh, we can't do this. That's wasted money. None of this, it is all adds up to bringing
more people to the community or keeping people in the community. Because as much as every town in
America, and I mean, every town from the biggest city to the smallest, their biggest priority
is bringing new people in. In rural areas, it's keeping people just as much as it is bringing
people in. And those kind of things attract or keep people in the area. One of the toughest things
for me, you know, I came from an entrepreneurial background, small business owner. The hardest
thing for a small business owner is to realize when you've knocked your head against the wall,
you've worked as hard as you can. You can't add any more value. And that particular business
still doesn't make money. And you say, I've got to exit that strategy and move to something else.
And when that happens, it might mean taking a little bit of a hit on the front end with the
anticipation if I invest those dollars, whether that be $10, hundreds of thousands or millions,
in something else that's going to be profitable going forward. And obviously everything changes.
You know, I forget sometimes how old I am. You know, I look around and you know, I made a comment
somebody I the other day said, you know, dial phones and payphones and they go, what are you talking
about? I happen to see a movie the other day of the payphone and I realized I wasn't watching a
new movie probably. But all of those kind of things. I mean, that that occurred and happened,
I still think it's a new car if it's from the 90s. You know, Frank, you know, I'm going to push
in 2030 pretty soon. I hear you. You know, it's a whole different ballgame. It's a whole different
way to do in business. It's in it. You need to adapt and you need to change. That was your point
with the paper industry. You know, we've got some real solid companies. You're making a product
that the consumer wants. But we also had a company that was making a product that was going by the
wayside to some extent. And you know, originally when the first mill closeness area imported,
it was, you know, people were scared. I mean, some people, you know, panic, some stuck their
head in the sand go, you know, oh, me, you know, my, what am I going to do? What was me? But we've
really progressed in how we're going to handle that. And we've adapted. And you know, with the
last mill closure we had, we basically saw those people find other employment in town. Some were
tired. Some opened their own businesses. But it wasn't the shock. And the adaptation of the
things that you talked about that doesn't happen in other communities happens here. One of the things
that I really, I, I paid a lot of attention to as a, when I was younger and I've seen more and
more about it as I got older in West Virginia in the coal industry. And how hard they were hit by
that by that. It just seemed like an overnight thing that they found out, oh, wait, nobody's using
coal anymore. But instead of just kind of like throwing their hands up in the air or complaining
or anything like that, look at the industry life in West Virginia, just the state let alone in
certain pocket communities and everything is particularly ones that had coal mines in them.
And how well they've adapted, how quickly they rebounded, how so many people in the workforce
that worked in coal for 20 years immediately went back to school and learned tech or learned
something else. Like this can be done if West Virginia can do it. Any community in the world can
do it. It's, I think it's important to note these things because we're all adapting and it shows
the strength of a community. It's also something I think that we, not to say that this is a major
part of it, but take some pride in that. We're always looking for people to take pride in their zip code,
take pride and where you're from. Here's something that you can hang your hat on. Your community is
answering the bell. Your community is working is trying. Are there things that could be improved
absolutely in every community in the world? But it's important to focus on the things that, hey,
men, it could be a lot worse. We've got some positives here. Yeah, you know, it's a resilience.
And it isn't just, I mean, look what happened to Jamesville when GM left. Or, you know, the
Racine Kenosha area, you know, a Chrysler over the years. I mean, they went through a period where
you know, everything had to be revitalized. I mean, there was a downturn. But if you go down in
those areas now, you know, you look at some of the stuff that's happened in those areas. You go,
wow. Yeah. And that's because people at some point said, you know, got to kind of pull myself up
and bootstraps and get at it. And I don't know if that's just a Midwest, I guess West Virginia doesn't
kind of Midwest, but I mean, it's a resilience of people that are faced with challenge. And that's
important. And I have seen that here. You know, the ability to adapt, the ability to move forward.
And then we're a friendly community. That doesn't hurt. That doesn't hurt. Before we let you go, Lance,
I did want to mention that there is a number of important meetings coming up for people. If you are
curious about them, I encourage you to go to woodcountywi.gov or you go to the city's website,
WisconsinRapids.gov. You go to either one of those and you're going to be able to see some of
those meetings that are coming up and important ones that you want to be a part of. I know that
there was a common council meeting yesterday and some more recent ones that have happened. Anything
noteworthy, you think, Lance? No, but not in particular. But what is noteworthy is all the work
really happens at the committee level. And typically that happens over the course of a couple of months,
discussion occurs. People have different thoughts. They go back. It comes back on a committee agenda.
People say, how come the county board meeting doesn't last five hours? It's because generally all
that discussion has occurred. All those supervisors have heard all of that information. It doesn't
typically get to the board floor with a lot of debate. And that's because usually by that time,
all the questions have been answered. So my take would be if you're really interested in an issue,
whether it directly involves you or not, the committee's meetings are where that happens.
And so I encourage people to look at the schedule to take a peek. And if you really have a concern
with something, that's the place it really gets on. Once it gets to the county board, obviously we
have public comment and other things. But generally speaking, most people have probably
pretty well decided where they stand on any issue. Again, I encourage you to bookmark,
check out the website'swoodcountywi.gov and go to the city's website, WisconsinRapids.gov,
their new website, WisconsinRapids.gov. Lance always appreciate the time and the conversation.
If people have follow up questions, one of the more, how could they get in touch with you?
All of my information is on the Wood County website. My phone number is in the book. You can get a
whole of me any number of ways, but all the information that you can call the courthouse. Somebody
will get a hold of you. And one of the things I pride myself on, James, is getting back to people
right away. I can't say I'm school. I can't believe you call me back. I not only called you back.
You only called me five minutes ago. But if you do that, when you ask me to respond,
I just laugh all the time. They call my home phone. I don't have caller ID. They don't leave a number.
They don't leave a name. They don't have an address or an email. And I can't get a whole of them.
So if you really want a response, please leave me some information. Thanks.
Appreciate you, Lance. And thanks for the time, of course. And real quick, before I let you guys go,
I did want to take the opportunity to mention once more that the WisconsinRapids Family Center has
domestic violence awareness vigil going on tomorrow at McMillan Library at six o'clock in the
evening. You see me in purple here, my socks, everything. It is to support to the domestic violence
awareness month. And that's why you see a lot of purple in the community. It's something we
are talking about the bridge lights and those being purple. Another one of those things that
that that that's money well spent that that these kind of things and showing that we are a friendly
community to this topic. And we are on the right side of history. Yeah, interesting project,
where I was in Tampa, they had that night and said years ago, that looks cool. Now we have it.
It's awesome, it's awesome. Family CTR, you can go to find out more of the Family Center has
your back, everybody. And of course encourage you to go to YouTube, type in your search bar,
WisconsinRapids Community Media, subscribe to their page and keep up with great work that they
are doing over there. Appreciate both of you guys. Thanks for the time. And thank you for joining us
for another edition of WFHR's Rapids Report.
