You're listening to Civic Media.
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Live from the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.
Well, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.
Across
Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm Todd Alba, along with Mr. Aaron Zomer is our producer and engineer on the board.
It is Tuesday, May 6, 2025.
It is a great day to be a Wisconsinite.
Welcome to our number two of the big broadcast.
It is six minutes past the hour of three o'clock.
Glad to have you along over the airwaves all across the state of Wisconsin on the network, as well as on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twix.
That's a combination of
Twitter and ex Twix the the stream the stream always glad to see you in person You can see Zommer's eye on the stream.
Oh, let's come up with an hour number two in just a minute We're gonna have another edition of what's worse for you having to do a temperature all temperature And then at the bottom of the hour we have Matt from bricks cider and Corinne
from Corinne's little explorers from the Main Street Alliance program here in Wisconsin.
They're gonna talk about childcare, a very, very important issue for many of us, for many families all across the state.
Gonna dive into that issue, childcare on a Wisconsin level.
All right, now first of all, we're gonna do a little business on the air here because as many of you have noted and we appreciate David Newberlin,
Putting his expression out there saying he can't hear enough the program now since we changed time slots And I apologize for that Dave and I had nothing to do with it You can always find this of course on the podcast on civic media dot US You can listen to us on demand as they say But there's been a lot of changes around you like all the time changes and stuff and then I appear on Pat Crite low show on Wednesday mornings
and then he comes on our show on Wednesday afternoons.
Now, last week, I came a day early, which I think is embarrassing for all of us if we've ever been there.
But anyway, I was on early, I was on early on Tuesday last week, and then I called in on a Wednesday, I was on two days in a row.
Now, while I'm on the air here, I get a message from Crite Low, it's my calendar.
And it says canceled event title ball on Wednesday, May 14th, 2025, 745 to 8 AM.
Wait, do you say 14th?
The 14th.
That's
not tomorrow.
Oh, no, no, that's right.
It's in two weeks.
But still, I've been canceled now.
So have I done with that spot now?
Or have I done something to offend the man?
Why have I been canceled?
I think we should call him up and find out.
Well,
we certainly can.
All right, let's call Kratlow.
This is live on the air.
He has no unless he's listening, which I doubt he really he doesn't listen.
He doesn't have time to listen to this program.
He's out there cruising Lake Wissota on his on his pontoon boat.
Boy, the dial Zomers is dialing up Kratlow right now.
We'll see if we can get him on the air live.
Pat Kratlow, host of Mornings now with Pat Kratlow, his new time.
His new time is 6 a.m.
to 9 a.m.
Oh, this is fantastic.
This is this is great.
Here we go.
Does he take a nap in the afternoon?
We don't know.
He probably won't recognize the number.
This is why.
Hi, this is Pat quite well.
Leave me a message.
Thanks.
Pat, you're live on the air.
It's 10 minutes after the hour of three o'clock on Tuesday, May 6.
We're discussing now.
I've gotten a memo, an email saying that I've been canceled for the show for 745 on May 14th.
We just want to know, did I do something wrong?
Have I ticked you off?
Give us a call.
We'd love to talk to you.
855-752-4842.
And now would be a good day to stop day drinking.
Talk to you later,
Pat.
By the way,
I
looked at the Civic Media Calendar and I have found why you were canceled that day.
You
figured it out.
Yeah, he's on vacation.
Oh, he's on vacation.
And so the feeling person doesn't want me around.
Who's filling in?
Do we
know?
I don't know that yet.
No.
All right.
Well, that was fun.
I enjoyed that.
Wouldn't have been great if you would have answered, though.
Yeah, what if?
It would have.
Pat's got things to do.
He's out in the boat.
Alright, well that was fun.
11 minutes past the hour of three o'clock.
Time once again for What's Worst.
Let's go.
Time
once again for What's Worst.
No prize money to give away.
Nothing involved in terms of money or cash.
It's your chance to have your voice heard across the state of Wisconsin.
All 11 stations of the Civic Media Radio Network.
No better place to have your company
advertised on the civic media, give us a ring a link at civicmedia.us.
By the way, I hear tell now, I actually made it to one of the staff meetings this week.
And this is exciting.
We're going to start doing a Friday fiesta.
Free ticket Fridays.
Yes.
That's what it's called.
I like, I like Friday fiesta better.
Free ticket Friday.
The Friday free ticket fiesta.
That's what it is.
And we're going to be giving away.
Brewers tickets every Friday for the rest of the Brewer's season.
The Brewers play today at 6.05, broadcast time start against the Houston Astros in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Bagosh, Racine, Kenosha Park Falls, and Hayward tonight.
But starting on Friday, you can listen to Quite Low's show, assuming he's there.
And then you can listen to the Jane McNair program from nine until 11.
And then I guess,
I've heard Tom Hartman's giving away tickets.
I'm not sure how that's going to work.
And then we're giving away tickets.
And then, uh, and then, uh,
Maggie.
I think Todd's, Todd's going through it today, it seems.
Maggie, I'm sorry, Maggie.
I just, I was having one of those senior moments.
You realize I am a senior citizen now when you just, you, you know what you want to say and that it won't, it won't come out of your mouth.
And then Maggie's going to wait, give away tickets.
And here is the thing, every Friday, we're going to be asking you what each of our middle names is.
And if you could give us the middle names, you'll win free tickets.
That might not be exactly how it's gonna work.
I'll give you a hint.
Jane's middle name is not Todd, and Todd's middle name is not Jane.
No, no.
I think we do the text-to-win thing.
Yes, we'll give you a
keyword.
You two can win four tickets to be in these civic media seats.
In beautiful and fan field having a having a Miller high life or whatever your beverage of choice is All right here once again category timely timely indeed Zomers was on the DLS for a couple of days Feeling under the weather and he got slapped for that.
But anyway, he's back now We're happy to have him the category today.
He went through both of these things.
What's worse sweaty or shivering sweaty or shivering
Zomers, I'm gonna, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.
Zomers, you've gone through both of these in the last 48 hours.
Yeah, I guess technically in the last 48 hours.
Although barely at this point.
We're moving past, but yeah, sweating and shivering at the same time, not fun.
Fevers
are not a good time.
No, not a good time at all.
But the quite a lot of people they sweat easily they're easy sweaters and Then some people get cold real easy because some people say I'm like a reptile if it's cold out of cold So what's worse shivering or sweaty?
sweaty or shivering, 855-752-4842, 855-752-4842, or you can also text us on the old Civic Media app, download it today on your Apple or Android device, because you're gonna need it for the big Brewer's Ticket Fiesta Friday coming up on Friday to win that.
So get ready for that.
What's worse, sweaty or shivering?
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Let's go to the phone lines.
Back out to Richland Center, the old Driftless WRCE.
Listening is Whizzler.
Whizzler, thanks for calling.
Whizzler, sweaty or shivering?
What's worse?
I would have to say
that shivering is worse.
Why is
that?
Because...
You have no control over your feeling your whole body is got it
are you
talking
When you're ill or like or like what just naturally Naturally, you're right.
Well, yes,
I
yeah, yeah
Yep.
All right.
Appreciate it, Whistler.
Thank you so very much.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Let's go to Mount Horab and Troy.
Wait,
we're forgetting somebody.
We're gonna get to that in a second.
Okay, gotcha.
Let's go out to Troy in Mount Horab.
Troy.
Are you sure now?
Yeah, yes, we're sure, Troy.
We're coming to you.
Sweaty or shivering?
No, my
middle name is Franklin.
No, my middle name is not
Franklin.
Wouldn't that be great though?
I'll go with sweating because it's easier to fix shivering.
See, I'm with you.
I'm absolutely with you on that.
I would agree.
I can
get warmer.
I can't get cooler.
Yeah, I agree.
Thanks, Troy.
I appreciate you playing along.
Have a great day up there.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Sweaty or shivering.
Now here now.
uh, very special appearance because we called him on the air a minute ago because I got this, I got this thing.
I've been canceled and I don't think I'm important enough to be canceled.
And so we, we called a few minutes ago on Crite Low's phone and it went to his voicemail.
We left him a voicemail and here now, not only is he calling back, he's live and in person via the stream from beautiful Lake Wistoda, our very own Pat Crite Low.
Patrick, how are you?
What the hell was on my phone just now?
I'm minding my own business.
I'm actually folding some stuff to put in a suitcase because I'm off next week, which is what the memo was about.
You might even recall I talked to you about possibly guest hosting.
I'm suddenly thankful that you're not available for that next week.
I found more responsible people who don't place prank calls to people and scare the bejesus out of them that they missed their regular on-air date with you.
This is like phone terrorism over here to scare somebody going, oh my gosh, I forgot.
I got to get back in.
And then I listened to the message, something about day drinking and being canceled.
When it was nothing more than the courtesy of reminding you, you didn't have to come on my show next week because I won't be there.
I appreciate
it.
All I saw was canceled
event.
And I said Wednesday, May 14th.
Is this how you always react when somebody cancels a meeting on your Google calendar?
Do you go to DEFCON one that easily?
if a meeting's canceled, like, oh,
thank goodness.
I would like to say I did inform Todd that you are...
After we called.
Yes, after we called.
You'll be
on vacation next week.
David New Perlin says Krylo
is pissed.
I'm so puzzled.
And to make matters worse, because I was doing that in one room, I left the phone in the other room, so my watch is going off, and I'm like, where's my phone?
Where's my phone?
Where's my phone?
The one time I lose my phone is when I'm being called live on the air.
So I just thought it would be fun because we thought, well, we see what we have to do.
I figured I'm just going to click on, you know, click, come.
Why should I return your phone call when I've got the key to the front door to show up right here for you?
Exactly the point.
Exactly
the point.
Just like I will tomorrow when it is my regular time to be here.
I was just concerned that maybe I had offended you or done something wrong to be careful.
I'm concerned that you no longer read your emails thoroughly and you right away pump off before you.
Point taken, Mr.
Thomas.
Point taken.
By the way, I'm not sure if it's the afternoon son.
You look fantastic right now.
Well, it's a lot different here than at six o'clock in the morning where the sun is.
Yes, the earth is kind of round that way.
And yes, the lighting is a bit different.
L.A.
Tom says, is this Pat's impression
of Bill O'Reilly?
We'll do it live.
We love
you,
Pat.
We love you.
We're always happy to have you here.
Right back at you, buddy.
Now we're both going to calm down and you're going to get through the rest of your show somehow without me.
We'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow,
though, Pat.
Thanks.
Oh,
my guys.
Pat Crite-Lovered, buddy.
Thank you very much, Pat.
We'll see you tomorrow.
More of your phone calls always next to the All Ball Show.
So confused.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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to the shores of Lake Michigan where they're trying.
They're trying to get the boat out of the water.
Apparently Cavalier Johnson is in waiters.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson has put on waiters.
He is doing his best to push the boat.
I believe that Giannis Anticompo is out there as well, trying to, with his height, lift it up.
So they're trying to get the
boat out of
Lake Michigan.
Welcome back to the title ball show of the Civic Media Ready Network.
It is 23 now past the hour of three o'clock.
Many thanks to Pat Crite low.
What a guy he is.
I mean, played along with our, with our goofiness.
Great program.
I'll be on it tomorrow morning.
Packed right low six until nine and then quite low and trippy Olson on our program tomorrow afternoon.
We're right in the middle That's why he's armor's play who plows things things that song
that is Ed Sheeran.
Oh, yes, of course Ed Sheeran sweaty or shivering
What's worse, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
You can text us on the Civic Media app.
Let's go up, pardon me, let's go up to the Northwoods.
Ollie, listening in the Northwoods.
Ollie, thanks for holding sweaty or shivering, Ollie.
What's worse?
Oh, well, first off, I have to say I love Pat's counter attack.
Life on.
on your show.
That was awesome.
You don't,
that right?
You don't want to, you don't want to mess with Crichtlow.
He'll come after you.
Full gun.
Yeah,
apparently so.
I listened to him in the morning.
I've never seen him
after.
It's a whole new side of Crichtlow.
You're getting the afternoon version of
him.
You know, it's not quite low after dark.
It's quite low after light, you know, because he's normally
up
before the
sun.
Exactly.
So after sunlight, huh?
Exactly.
Battery packed.
Well, my, uh, what's worse is definitely being too hot.
You can always put on more clothes if you're shivering, but you, you can never take off
enough if you're hot.
At least to get away with it, right?
That's right.
Appreciate the call Ali.
Thank you so very much.
Have a great day up there in the in the north woods You too.
Bye.
Bye.
Hey, thank you eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five two four eight four two what's worse sweaty or shivering Korean who is coming up next our next segment She's already a listening in and she says that shivering is worse.
So I'm where you've had your peace I'll give you mine.
My my opinion is
that yes, shivering is worse.
Because you care to elaborate?
Well, just because, I don't know.
I'm gonna amend that.
Shivering is worse when you're sick.
I guess that's what I was thinking of.
Like when you're ill and you can't get rid of the shivers.
But I agree with Ollie in kind of normal conditions that's sweaty because, and it's not so much of getting warmer or colder.
For me, when I think of what I sweat,
It's usually like what I have good clothes on and I'm getting ready for like a presentation or or I'm doing something and you're like in clothes and now your clothes are like all sweaty and it's like you can't dry off and You go in the bedroom and stand in front of a blow dryer and try to you know dry off your armpits That's why I usually wear a white color shirt because nothing's worse than pit stains like a dark color shirt
I will forever say that being sweaty is worse because I
As another caller said in different words, you can always add more layers to warm up and stop the shivering.
You can only take off so many layers before you are committing a crime.
And even then, it's not enough sometimes.
Even then.
Even then it's not enough eight five five seven five two four eight four two Let's go out to you beautiful Merrimack I cannot think of a better place to be on a day like this than the Wisconsin River and the Merrimack family fairy Jack from Merrimack Jack.
Thanks for calling in sweaty or shivering.
What's worse?
Well, first of all, there's no way I can beat that previous five minutes
He was
on wasn't he?
Yeah
he's great yes yes
But Jack, you bring up a great point.
You bring up a great point here.
Let's talk about this for a minute, because as a climber, as a hiker, I mean, one of the worst things, and I haven't done a bunch of rock climbing, but I've done other hiking, and that's why that base layer, you want a base layer that's going to breathe and dry quickly, because nothing worse, right, Jack, than getting that base layer wet and then you're just kind of screwed SOL for the rest of the
day.
as a guy that's climbed an all-day climb at 103 degrees in the Nevada desert, I will agree with you.
Really?
Wow, you climbed up there.
That's incredible.
How was
that?
Beautiful, beautiful country.
We saw mountain sheep and big horns.
There's antelopes out there.
There's even burrows out there in the desert.
Wow, incredible.
Thanks, Jack.
As always, I appreciate your listenership.
Have a great day, my friend.
Enjoy the day.
Megan, in some prairie listening on WMDX says being sweaty is gross and feels way worse.
Shivering isn't so bad and easily remedied.
All right, there you go.
Another edition of What's Worse.
Any other things we missed there on the What's Worse?
Corey in Watertown says, based on smell alone, sweating is worse than shivering.
Well, that's true.
You don't you don't stink when you when you shiver most of the time anyway.
All right, that was fun.
Another edition of What's Worst?
Well, another edition tomorrow and the three o'clock hour.
We'll see if we get quite low and and trig me to weigh in on the What's Worst tomorrow.
I'm sure trig me will at least want to.
He's been enjoying that.
He's he's been enjoying the the What's Worst edition.
And now that now we got quite a little riled up in the afternoon, maybe maybe he'll stick around.
at least give us his opinion of what's worse as well.
Come on back, little sports and news update, agricultural update from Pam Yankee and the team.
And then we're going to come back and talk about childcare in the state of Wisconsin.
Not going to want to miss it.
You're listening to the All Ball Show and you're listening to Cross Wisconsin to the Civic Media.
Ready to
work.
Welcome back to Tahleball Show on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Glad to have you along across the state of Wisconsin from Lake Superior to Lake Michigan, Green Bay to the Mississippi River and every place in between.
A beautiful day out there in Wisconsin.
Sunshiney skies, temperatures in the 70s.
Great day to maybe throw a stake in the grill tonight.
sit out and have a beverage of your choice.
And bring on a couple of guests.
We're happy to have them here.
They're members of the Main Street Alliance Program here in the state of Wisconsin, a great small business owners program.
And joining us via StreamYard right now, we have Matt Raboyne from Mount Horrib, the owner of Brick Cider, and Corrine Hendrickson of Corrine's Little Explorers.
part of the Main Street Alliance in beautiful Nuclearis, Wisconsin, Mount Horrib, Nuclearis, two fantastic places you should all visit in Wisconsin.
Matt, let's bring you on first.
Appreciate you being here.
Tell us a little bit about Brick Cider, what people could expect when they go out there.
Hey Todd, thanks for having us on the show.
Yeah, Brick Cider, we're a hard cider company and farm to table restaurant.
And so everything we do, we source local foods, local drink, make it for the people.
And yeah, it's a great place, really part of the community.
We do a lot of events and stuff there as well.
And at the time I ate tonight, we're on the show in part, because we have an event tonight with Corrine, all about child care.
We like being engaged in the community and being...
being a voice or giving people a place to connect.
And so we like doing events like this.
And when Karine reached out, we're like, yeah, let's do it.
Why not?
I think Karine has, you know, she's like, I've heard her called the godmother of childcare in Wisconsin.
And I think it's true.
I mean, I think she's, she's really a great voice and great advocate.
And we're looking forward to learning from her tonight.
Well, what time is the event start?
And do people need to pre-register?
Can they just show up?
Oh, they can just show up.
It's at six o'clock tonight.
And yeah, it's a conversation about childcare.
I'll be there.
I'll chat a little bit.
And then we have the raging grannies are going to be there.
All
right.
They
got apparently they have a special new song that they wrote just for us, which I'm really excited to hear.
And then, yeah, and then Corine's going to speak.
And then we'll have a little discussion, community discussion, Q&A, things like that, just to, because yeah, childcare is such an important issue right now.
or lack and the lack of funding for childcare, sources of funding for childcare is such an issue right now.
So we sort of, yeah, happy to be able to help spread the word.
We appreciate small businesses like yours who, I mean, it's small business, supporting small business.
And again, if people want to come out tonight, Bricks Cider is located at 119 South Second Street in Mount Horrib.
And you can,
Go out and join some great hard-siders, some great food as well, and learn something, and maybe a little entertainment as well.
We'll come back to Matt in just a minute.
But Kareen, I want to bring you on next.
Tell us a little bit about the business, first of all.
Kareen's little explorers and beautiful new glare is there.
How long have you been in business and about how many kids or families do you service?
So I have been in business for 18 years and I have currently seven children enrolled and six families.
It's actually the most amount of families I've ever had for that number of kids because people are having fewer children.
So that's a big part of what's happening.
The birth rates are lower.
It's too expensive for childcare.
They're spreading children out further.
So I'll have.
families for longer periods because they'll wait until their oldest is four or five before they have another one.
Um, for years already, they've been talking to me about when I have the next spot so they can plan their pregnancies around that.
So this is nothing new.
Um, as far as that goes today, I'm loving this beautiful weather.
We've been outside all day.
The kids are much happier.
They took really good naps.
So, um, I actually had a little time to digest the news that I got during that time that the joint finance committee is meeting Thursday to do their very first session exact session.
And
And their omnibus actually kicks childcare counts out of it.
We've been saved the last two rounds of the budget, and this time they've already decided that childcare counts is dead.
However, we've been pushing for childcare investment.
We haven't been using the word childcare counts.
We've been using investment because we really want to tweak the program so more goes to wages because that is the ultimate issue, the inability of us to pay ourselves or our employees a livable wage.
And that's why everybody's leaving, and that's why there's no care, and that's why it's so expensive.
Corrine, I'm so thankful to have an expert like you on the program.
What are the things we like to do here?
Because what you just said...
the Joint Finance Committee on Thursday looking to kick out childcare accounts.
Put this down for folks like me that don't have kids and don't work in childcare.
Explain what that means to you as a childcare provider and what it means to families who either have or are trying to plan families and the childcare.
What does this really mean to Wisconsinites?
So what it means is that hundreds to thousands of child care small businesses will probably be closed by the end of the year.
It means our tuition rates are going to be going up 30, 40, $50 a week.
It means that there's going to be longer wait lists.
It means that the quality of care is going to go down because the people who have been in the business and understand children and child development and can mentor and support new people coming in are going to be
gone.
Is there are these monies state monies that we're going to supplement childcare to make it less costly for families or to offset and I'm kind of asking two things at once.
I apologize.
But let's just go there.
What are the monies that Joint Finance Committee is looking to take it away?
What would that normally fund right now?
So right now our state invests zero dollars in childcare of state dollars.
Everything we get is the federal government.
We are still using up the federal allocation from COVID relief.
Our governor was actually able to stave off the cliff for an extra year by reallocating funding that had come through to other departments.
So other departments gave up their money for childcare because they realized that without us, their departments won't come.
And so it was pretty easy for him to do that.
But there is no more couch cushion coins.
There's nothing left.
So our state is one of six states that doesn't invest a single penny more than we have to in order to receive hundreds of millions from the federal government.
And that covers subsidy, it covers licensing, it covers the ability for parents to find childcare, everything, like literally everything is where that money comes from.
And so we've been asking for the state to continue funding the pilot program that we basically put into place to
that investment would work because investment has increased our wages, $3 an hour.
We're up to $13 an hour, which is, you know, woohoo.
But still, it's enough that it kept us, you know, going and kept us, you know, surviving, but we're tired.
It's been five years and having this happen during Teacher Appreciation Week, Provider Appreciation Day is Friday.
And, you know, to find out that, you know, they don't think that we're worth anything is really disheartening, but it's also an opportunity for us to really
talk with our parents talk with our communities and let them know this is in as of August this is what you're looking like if they do not do something as an amendment in a future session or if they don't do something as a standalone standalone itemized appropriation bill.
We're talking to Kareen Hendrickson, who is the owner of Kareen's Little Explorers Childcare, part of the Main Street Alliance.
She is in Nuclearis, and also talking to Matt Raboyne, Mount Horrib from Brick Cider, where there is a event talking about childcare tonight at six o'clock in Mount Horrib.
I want to throw this question to both of you, Kareen first, and then to Matt.
and pick up Karina what you just said here, that the joint finance committee, of course, control of our Republicans right now, signalling that they're not going to put any more money in to take over this program because these federal monies have been supplementing it.
They're not willing to put more in.
Last time I checked, Wisconsin has about a $4 billion surplus out there.
It would seem to me a smart bet would be put some of the sum of that $4 billion with a B
into helping folks like you and families of child care.
And then Matt, I'm going to come back to you in a second, ask, as a business owner, we've talked to T.J.
Samanshin, owner of Wonder State Coffee in Varroqua and other places, who's a part of Main Street Alliance as well.
He's talked about trying to be supportive of those employees.
I want to talk about that with you, Matt, but first, Kareen.
Wouldn't that seem to be a logical place to get this money from the four part of it from the four billion dollar surplus?
Or am I just you know off off the ranch here?
Well, that would be common sense because every state that has put money into investment in making sure it goes towards wages or increasing the revenue without having to increase the revenue on parents has seen their GDP go up, has seen their sales tax go up, has seen their number of people working go up, has seen their unemployment go down.
So really, every dollar that's spent in childcare, it has been found to bring back between seven and 14.
Washington DC did a
found a 23% return on investment, which means for every dollar they're spending on increasing wages for the educators, they've gotten $23 back.
So yeah,
it makes
it doesn't make any sense that they're not doing it.
Our state loses between two and four billion already because of the lack of childcare.
And so we're what we're asking for is peanuts and it will come back tenfold.
Matt, let's pick up on that.
Have you seen it at your business, Bricksider and Mount Horrib?
So any of your employees struggle with finding or be able to pay for child care?
And as a small business owner, what would that mean to you if the state would invest in child care and make it easier for your employees to find those services?
Well, yeah, I absolutely think we need to invest in child care.
It's, you know, just as a parent, first of all,
Like a family of four, if you have two kids in childcare in Wisconsin, on average, you're going to pay $25,000 a year.
Like that's huge.
That's like, you know, we talk about saving up for college, but what about saving up for daycare?
It's a lot of money.
And, you know, we have employees who have kids in daycare and, you know, we're just we're a restaurant.
We're not paying them huge amounts of money.
There's not a lot of support out there.
Yeah, you get a little bit of some tax credits for having small children and there's a little bit of money for people who are low income, but it's not enough, not nearly enough to meet the demand that's out there.
So I don't know.
I think what we need to do is just recognize that this is an
a hugely important thing for our children at the most impressionable and vulnerable time in their lives.
We need to just own the fact that this isn't cheap.
We can't just find a cheap, easy solution.
We need to make a real investment and commit to it.
We fund our kids in K through 12, and that's a great thing, and public schools are great, and it does so much for our communities.
We do quite a bit to support the elderly, like social security, Medicare, Medicaid.
Why are we forgetting like the littlest kids and just providing almost nothing at all?
And as a business owner, it would be huge, you know, if like, I had a guy come in a few weeks ago for an interview, he brought his kid with him to the interview because he didn't have a, you know, and it's just kind of a red flag as a business owner.
Like, you know, like I felt terrible, but I was like, I can't hire this guy because he doesn't.
you know, he doesn't have a place for his kid to go.
And, you know, it's just kind of sad.
Whereas as a business owner also, you know, like one of the hardest things is people calling in sick.
And then when I have people with small children, more often than not is when they call in sick, it's because they don't have childcare for that day, you know,
somebody bailed out on them
or whatever it might have been.
So, you know, this lack of investment in childcare ripples out into the economy in so many ways.
um the and it's just kind of frankly it's just kind of stupid like of all the things to not invest in like our littlest kids right good and i mean if i've made one more point i like it's frankly the people who are pushing back against us the people in the joint finance committee like my opinion is that they're just frankly old white guys who see childcare as a woman's job and
something that is not worth paying for.
And I think we got to like get past that mentality and, you know, jump into the modern age and be realistic and honest about it and pay people.
I mean, this is like the most important job I can think of.
And we're paying the people like, what, 12 bucks an hour?
Like the same pay?
the kids serving your meal through the window at Halvors.
We're going to come back
and talk more with Matt and Corinne about childcare.
I happen to know the board of the chairman, co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, Howard Markline.
He traded his wife in for a trophy wife.
So that's kind of where he's at with women.
So we'll come back and talk more about true story, actually.
Come back and talk more about childcare, holding people accountable.
It's the All Balls Show on the Civic Media Ready Network.
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back to the title ball show on the civic media radio network where it is eight minutes now before the hour of four o'clock at the top of the hour.
ABC or CBS News pending on which of our great stations you listen to all across Wisconsin.
A sports update with Jimmy Cusco in for Mike Clemens, a weather update.
I can tell you what the weather is.
Beautiful.
That's what it is.
And then the Maggie Dawn show, the award-winning Maggie Dawn show from four until six.
And then Pete Schwabba is in with another great edition of Night Light.
Great place for you to get to tonight if you want to enjoy the weather.
A couple of great beverages and some great information.
Get yourself to beautiful Mount Horrib, Wisconsin and Bricks Cider.
They're on South Main Street, 119 South Main Street.
Great event tonight on childcare.
You also get some great hard cider, some great food at Bricks, B-R-I-X, Bricks Cider.
Zomers has the information up on the website.
We are talking to the owner of Bricks Cider, Matt Reboyan in Mount Horrib.
And also Kareen Hendrickson, who is the owner of Kareen's Little Explorers in Beautiful Nuclearis.
They are both part of Main Street Alliance here in Wisconsin.
Kareen, great event tonight.
I know people are gonna wanna come out and just have, enjoy the weather number one and some great hard cider, but I know you're gonna be there.
You're gonna be talking.
Talk to us a minute if you would please.
Here's the deal.
People have listened to this show.
I'm a former Republican and left the party in 2011.
One of the things that confounds me about my former party is the current administration DC.
They're all about having kids.
Let's have kids.
Let's have kids.
But it seems to me there's a huge disconnect of what happens after they're here.
And it seems to me that that they're not interested and particularly.
Republicans in Wisconsin on the Joint Finance Committee with this news now that you're telling this broke this afternoon that they're signaling on Thursday they're not going to make up for these deficiencies and federal funds.
This is real.
These are families that these are not people that are just laying around trying to be quote unquote lazy.
Tell us tell us a little bit about without disclosing personal information.
Who comes to you?
Who are your clients in your community and what service do you provide them?
Because it's more than childcare.
It's a partnership, isn't it?
Oh, definitely.
So the families that I have range anywhere from working retail to a surgeon to I have a farmers, I have all kinds of different people from all different walks of life have have used me in the past also.
So I've had to raise my rate significantly over the last few years just to keep up with inflation and just to try and make a little bit more money for myself because I have nothing for retirement.
And that's I need to like make more than $25,000 a year.
That's it's unconscionable.
And so what's
happened is because I've I'm ending up with the fami which are the richer fami that I have do are less di for kids either.
I've al with special needs over the to help support them and w districts and birth three to get the services they little and then a lot of kids actually don't anything else once they get t
when they're little and help them communicate and learn how to communicate.
You know, two and three-year-olds bite a lot, hit a lot, throw a lot.
If you teach them how to communicate appropriately, when they get to school, they are ready to learn.
They are ready to sit and listen.
When they're out in public with their parents, they're so much, you know, they're able to behave as expected in that.
And I partner with parents on how to raise their children.
More and more parents are coming into parenthood without experience.
They're not babysitting when they're younger.
They have smaller families.
They don't have 100 cousins like I did.
Literally, I have 100 cousins.
And so it's one of those things.
I was raised doing childcare.
They're
a lot younger
than me.
But it's one of those things that parents are coming to me and they've never held a child until their own.
And so I'm really partnering with them and doing parent coaching and childcare and education with their children and really working with them in that way.
So what you're going to lose when we leave is you're going to lose those partnerships.
You're going to lose that ability to help parents in, you know, parenthood.
And yes, there's a place for people who want to stay home.
There is a place for those.
and things like that in our society, but we have to have those connections and we have to have those services and the libraries and the museums and all those things in place so that those moms aren't isolated because isolation leads to mental health issues, leads to things that we don't want to talk about, but that exists neglect and abuse and all of that type of thing.
And so really when you're undercutting childcare, you're undercutting the entire foundation of our communities and what holds us together.
I don't know how to say that without people thinking I'm alarmist and that I'm greedy and I want to hand out, but it's the truth.
And we really need to take a step back and think about it.
And I want every single one of those joint finance committee members and every single one of those Republicans who want to vote no for childcare investment to spend a full 10 hour days with me in my program.
And then the next four hours afterwards doing all the other things that I do and then all week long.
And then you can let me know that I don't earn my $7 an hour.
Well, well said, Matt, in a minute or less.
Tell us again, this event tonight at Brick Cider.
Remind us where this is at, what's going on, but also as business people, small business owners like yourself, what can we do to be supportive?
Yeah.
So it's, uh, we're Brick Cider.
We're downtown Mount Horror Road.
We're on second street right next to the bike path.
So it's lovely day for a bike ride,
maybe
bike on down, grab yourself a drink and listen to Corrine and tell her, tell us the whole story.
Um, and yeah, you know, I'm just echoing what Corrine said.
you know, in this, this childcare, it matters for all of us.
It matters for the whole community.
Like as a small business owner, it would be wonderful to have, you know, all of my employees have great childcare.
It's so expensive.
They could do some help with it.
And, and it's not like these childcare providers are gouging us, you know, it's just an intensive, hard thing to do.
Like I remember my kids, like the childcare providers they had, they were like super human.
And,
you know, and in the end, they're barely getting paid enough
to make a living.
Corrine, can I give you the last word?
30 seconds.
What's your pitch to Wisconsinites?
How can they be supportive?
So Wisconsinites, Day Without Childcare is Monday.
I expect every one of you to call our elected representatives and tell them that you expect them to invest in child care.
So thanks.
Hey, that's great.
Thank you both.
Get to Brick Cider in Mount Horb tonight.
Kareen Hendricksson is going to be speaking there.
Thanks for everything you do, Kareen, because without people like you, we will be lost.
You're part of what makes Wisconsin great.
Matt Raboyan at Brick Cider, you're also part of what makes Wisconsin great.
We're all in this together.
Wisconsin Main Street Alliance, great projects.
Well, thank you both for being here.
We appreciate you.
Get down to Brick Sider tonight at six o'clock.
Thank you very much.
Many thanks to Pac Fritlow for coming on as well.
Aaron Zomers to all of you for listening, whatever you're fighting for, whatever you believe in, do not give up.
Keep banging your drum.
We'll see you tomorrow.
Maggie Dodd is
next.
Take care.
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