We begin our week on the morning show and talking about the city of Richland center with mayor Karen Tipley.
Good morning.
How are you Karen?
Good morning Phil.
I'm doing great.
Thanks for taking the time to discuss the people's business today.
Well, you're always welcome.
Thank you.
And let's start off by saying, I mean, I don't know, madam mayor, can you make a proclamation like Brewer day and city of Richland center or something like that or
what?
I'd love to.
Uh, what, uh, what a phenomenal series.
That was just so much fun.
So exciting.
I was, uh,
Of course, 82, I was right there, too.
So there's something to be said of being of this age.
And I had the opportunity to witness both.
So in 82, my husband went to a game.
I mean, they weren't $3,000 a ticket, but we had two little kids and just bought a house.
So we could still only afford for one of us to go.
So he went, and it was just great to be there.
before all of that.
And then I had the privilege of going to what they call the fan appreciation day that they had at the stadium.
So I still have pictures of all the players on the, on the cars as they were coming in and Robin Yacht coming up on this, on his dirt bike, you know, so that was cool.
Yeah.
I was wondering if Robin Yacht was going to ride in on a dirt bike when they had the celebration the other day.
I didn't hear if he did or not, but that would have been awesome.
That would have
been cool.
Yeah.
Very cool.
Well, some things to celebrate here in the city.
It looks like the Highway 14 project is nearing an end.
It is.
Isn't it wonderful?
Looks great.
Also feels great riding down the road.
And I believe they're finishing right on time.
So that's another positive for that project.
I guess I'll just remind everybody that once the road is open, it's going to be a little bit different because you won't have that median in the middle.
for turning lanes and such, so don't jump in that lane too soon before your turn, and I'm sure there'll be some markings and whatnot, but, and also remember that 40 miles per hour means 40 miles per hour.
I'm a race fan, so, you know, Drake strips and whatnot are fun, but...
not on highway 14.
So
that's a good point because I think it's going to be easy to do.
It's going to be so smooth.
Yes, exactly.
I live on hazel time.
So I certainly recall when that.
Uh, street was redone.
It became a bit of that when it was nice and smooth, but I think it's calmed down a bit.
I've said for a long time though, we're going to really celebrate when that's done and the election is over tomorrow as well.
We're going to celebrate that.
We will.
Um, I bet you will be relieved not to have all of the commercials making time for the commercials in your schedule.
That's probably a bit of a challenge, but yes, um, it will be election day tomorrow.
Yes.
So get out and vote.
Polls open at seven.
Yes.
They open at seven and, um,
Richland Center residents will vote at the community center.
Polls close at eight.
Our clerk, Amanda Keller, will have staff there.
They've been trained.
I just ask once again to be respectful of the people who are helping you to make your voice heard.
What about Story Field update on that, if you would?
Sure.
Story Field is looking great.
I usually take a ride by both of the buildings.
that we have going on, developments that we have going on.
And so the first building is complete and I believe there's going to be, that one is going to be occupied sometime in November.
So we want to have a ribbon cutting and we will do so sometime in the near future to celebrate the fact that the first one's done and all the others are in some stage of progress, the one next to it.
is getting pretty close too.
So yeah, it's exciting.
That is.
And then I would guess, you know, winter coming on, but they'll try to work as long as they can.
Correct.
All of the concrete has been poured.
So, you know, once they get things buttoned up, you know, there'll be nice days when they can certainly, you know, work indoors and whatnot.
So.
And what about panorama estates?
Update on that if you
would.
Yeah, panorama is looking great too.
The walls are up.
And so they're making progress daily.
Once again, I take a ride by there once a week just to kind of check it out and take a photo or two.
So everything I've heard is going right on schedule.
We'll do a ribbon cutting for them as well, if they would like, when they're closer.
There will be three buildings there eventually then?
Well, that has always been the plan.
So right now the...
The pre-development or the development agreement I should say is the second building is Scheduled to you know to finish and my understanding is once that building is 50% occupied or at least you know
That it's been spoken for then the bank will consider the financing for the third so we're just it's a little bit of wait and see but you know everything Going is planned.
That's what we can look forward to
we always talk about net new construction But you're getting some of that
done.
Yes, we are and and it feels really good You know the the shared the shared revenue formula is based on that net new construction and last year
Based on those figures we were allowed to increase our levy only by three thousand three hundred dollars From my understanding through our budget meetings administrator old font mentioned that So I think it runs like a year in arrears, you know, so so next year we will have $20,000 increase just based on that new construction now in order to keep you know up with inflation and keep up with everything that new construction would have to be you know
in the millions every year, but as far as projects completed.
So that's kind of hard to fathom here in Richland Center, as well as many rural areas in Wisconsin.
But maybe they can work on a few formulas and whatnot in the state, and we can try and keep up.
I'm guessing some of those communities closer to Madison can actually see that, that amount every year.
Yep, correct.
Yeah, the way it's going.
Well, let's talk about some meetings coming up, public safety today if I'm not mistaken.
Yes.
Today at 5.30, they will have a couple items on their agenda.
One is they're going to kind of take a look at how the
enforcement of city ordinances and how the, just try to simplify the administration of how the, you know, how the cash and everything is handled.
So that'll be on the agenda.
And then we also have an ordinance for heavy vehicles in residential districts.
So that ordinance is in place, but they're going to take another look at it and probably tighten that up a little bit.
Because we have had some complaints of folks who have semi-trucks or dump trucks that are, you know, parked on city streets, started at 3.30 in the morning or parked in their yard.
That's, you know, kind of takes away the pleasure of, you know, of your home and that type of thing.
So they're going to look at that.
So those two things interest you.
In fact, I did have a community member talk to me about the truck issue just over this weekend.
So.
If you have an interest in that, um, yeah, please stop by that meeting.
Um, the budget certainly is in the, in the news and a hot topic.
I believe that's come up for review tomorrow night.
Is that right?
Correct.
Um, so budget starts at 530 tomorrow and then we'll of course review most of the typical monthly budget items.
And then we'll also, uh, the budget committee will review the fire department budget.
And once again, they're, um, you know,
inflation and everything else, but they've really tried to keep things buttoned up there.
They asked for a 3.5% cost of living increase on their budget.
And I'll just make mention at this point that all of this background information that I'm talking about is on our website.
So if you go to the website, lower left hand corner, it says agendas and minutes.
And right there, you can click on that.
You can click on your meeting and
And there's also a click that you do for the packet and all this documentation is there.
So you can always take a look at the actual budget for the fire department if you have an interest in that.
Indeed.
And speaking of the budget, one of the things that comes up a lot is, you know, the reality that there may have to be some budget cuts and that could be
Quite impactful.
Yes.
So we've had several budget meetings where we go over departments and department heads, of course, have met with administrator Oliphant already.
And so we were looking at a $450,000 gap.
So yeah, unfortunately, some changes happened.
When you do the budget, you take last year's figures and put those in place and hope you can improve on those, either through cuts or maybe a different way to do things.
So the two main ones that we were able to codify and bring down the actual amount, first one was for the police budget.
So there was negotiations with their union and I participated in that.
And so for what they had asked for last year, we were able to bring that down a bit.
So overall, it decreased the budget by quite a bit.
And the other area is in insurance.
Now, we all know insurance has gone up 15% or something to that effect.
And the city has always had a really good
package for insurance health insurance and the like Where it was a zero deductible and from what I understand it was kind of like the Cadillac plan of the area It still is a very great very good plan, but we have added Where they will have a deductible and things so those two things along with probably I'm gonna say a good handful of other items were also decreased or
realize that we don't need that this year so they were you know postponed so and then the next budget meeting we will be looking at capital outlay amounts and we've gone over that we are all sent home with a sheet with homework and to try and figure out what we can do to either you know once again cut or maybe move it to the to the following year
bring back some ideas then the next time you get together correct
yes
You mentioned Ashley Oliphant.
She was here with you a month ago since that time she has resigned.
Any comment?
Correct.
Well, I think everybody decides to do things in life.
And Ashley has been a huge help in helping our community grow.
So unfortunately, like I said, she has decided to resign.
There'll be some some shoes to fill there because she has She has brought and it's not always evident to people in the community And we were we met the other on Friday I guess it was and we were just talking about you know the things that what's the difference between an administrator and not an administrator So there are three of us on council.
Well, I'm the mayor now, but I was on council so we were on council before administrator
and then after.
And, you know, it was, it's a little bit like night and day.
And one simple thing that we both, that Ashley brought up at our meeting was the fact that we have cover sheets for every topic that we have on our agenda.
And it's usually a one to two page cover sheet, but it covers, and it could cover 154 page report.
That's also in the documents.
We also see the background information or three or four
quotes or bids that we have gotten on a tractor or something.
And she takes the time to go through those and make sure they all compare so that we can look at apples to apples.
And like I say, well, it's only one sheet of paper.
It has meant smoother meetings, informed decisions, which that's what
Council's all about we have eight people and eight people make the decisions for the city so in So what we're going to do tomorrow is council will accept it'll be on the agenda to accept her resignation and while that's not in In an ordinance or in state statute that that's what they have to do.
It's a it's a nice way to allow council to
to give their blessing going forward.
Because actually the way that works is the administrator is council's only employee.
So the administrator receives direction from council and the administrator is boss.
is council.
So like I said, it's just a nice way to be able to have their input on that.
And then we'll take some steps going forward.
Now I've heard out in the public, you know, it's more maybe we can do without an administrator.
And I think I just mentioned a few reasons why that I believe that would not be a good idea.
But once again, this will be up to council to take the next steps.
I will also bring forward, it's probably a good idea to have an interim administrator, somebody that already knows what the role is involved, so that we don't have a gap in there.
We have three people in the clerk's office, and they already have
you know, heavy loads.
They already have their jobs.
If we were to put the administrator's jobs on each one of them, that wears people out.
So I would prefer that we go the route of an interim administrator and hopefully then, you know, obviously the search will start and the like.
for filling the position.
So Ashley finishes out the year?
Yes,
correct.
So her date of resignation is January 1, 2027.
And also I'll bring out, you know, when I heard some of the comments from the community that, you know, we don't need an administrator, I just took
a Google approach, I guess, and just took all the communities that have a population similar to ours.
So I'm from about 6,000 down to about 3,400.
And there was only one community out of all the communities in Wisconsin that did not have an administrator.
So it's a sign of the times.
Even though we did it before without one, it probably wasn't always the best.
Mayor Kevin Tepley, our guest on the morning show.
Coming up, it's Crash Responder Safety Week.
Correct.
I know you wanted to talk about that a little bit.
Yes.
So we are going to do a proclamation for that.
It's unfortunate that when an officer or EMTs or fire personnel are on the scene of a crash or a situation and they have to be out and about.
around there taking care of what needs to be taken care of and unfortunately people are just not paying enough attention and those members of our safety folks end up getting hurt and sometimes even worse than that.
So they do this
This week's called safety week, you know just for people to remember to slow down move over and so we will certainly honor that
Yeah, we always think about that when you see you know you have to go around to crash and things like that and How they they're right out there in the forefront risking their lives exactly and Billy Jones will be proclaiming that officially then
correct.
Yes
Coming up, that's actually this week, November 2nd through the 6th.
It is.
It's November already,
Phil.
I can't hardly get that through my hand.
I know, me neither.
I think it's something to do with the time change over the weekend too.
Yes.
Tourism.
I know that's always a hot topic here.
Things are going well.
Seems like we've had a pretty good year.
Yes.
I think so too.
We run into people often throughout our community that, you know, just, I received an email from a person who's relatively new in the community and just raves about the hills and just how much beauty that we have in the area and partakes in a few bike trails and whatnot.
So yeah, so right now with tourism, at one point tourism was
part of the city's budget.
So there was another area that we were able to cut.
So Marty Richards has what is called a Greater Richland Tourism is what is called a destination marketing organization.
So they do receive funding through the city's room tax.
And so 70% of that does fund this organization, but they're no longer
a part of the city.
So what Marty will do, I would imagine, on his report is not only say, you know, how there are more tourists in the area, but how well that organization is working, you know, for the city.
I think we've seen the results.
We had a lot of things.
It seems like we have more things in October than we ever have before in
the city.
Yes, well, and it's our time to shine, you know, with our beautiful hills and everything that we have here.
I know that Marty talks oftentimes about room tax and those kind of things.
Anything new in that for
us?
Yes.
On one of the meetings, they are going to look at increasing that rate.
It's right now at 7%.
The top end is eight percent, so it's only one percentage point, but that does matter.
Um, when you're talking about budgets, I mean, um, obviously for the tourism, if they can have an increase in their budget, it, what's it going to do?
It's going to, you know, work to bring more people here.
And for the city, um, it will increase our budgets somewhat too.
Okay.
We'll be back with more on the morning show.
Mayor Karen Teple is our guest and, uh, we'll be up next with more.
Mayor Karen Tepley is our guest on today's morning show for her visit.
We talk about a lot of things here in terms of the city and the relations to the county.
And one of the things we wanted to talk about next is EMS and the contract that has been talked about here a lot.
We had the county on a couple of weeks ago.
I know that contract at this point is set to expire in June of next year.
Karen, any comment on
that?
Correct.
So I would like to just like say kind of bring up, you know, how we got here and where we're headed.
So it is true that the that the county's EMS will expire in June.
But this is kind of how we're working together.
There was an email back and forth between Administrator Oliphant and County Administrator Clements.
And once again, you know, it was cut short.
It was going to be two years.
There's a lot of moving pieces in there of why it changed, and I'm not going to go through all that here.
I'm more than happy to, you know, discuss it with listeners at some point, but I'm not going to go through all that right now.
So they will work with us if we can't, if we don't have an EMS service set up by then.
So they're willing to like maybe extend that, you know, like through August.
But what we are doing is there are
12 municipalities, including the city, that is working together on forming an intergovernmental agreement, different than a district, because a district is, it is just different.
A district would be more if you were going to actually run a service.
So then you would have to, you know, know all about employing people, how to, you know, keep
Everything you know working as far as the the units and like say hiring people Having insurance and all of that so that is not something that a municipality Even like the city or smaller Townships can even think about taking on it's one of the reasons of the county is doing what they're doing That's a lot to take on to run as a department in this in this climate
So we are meeting with like, say these 12 municipalities and our last meeting, we decided to go out for a request for proposal RFP and, you know, just reach out to other vendors and see what they're willing, what they're willing to do.
And at that point, if the Richland County EMS wants to apply and put forth an RFP, they're certainly welcome to do that.
So then we'll take a look at everything and hopefully the hard part here is going to be for any third party to be able to ramp up, if you will, the ability to start service that quickly.
I know at some point during negotiations, we were told at the point that the county was still willing to run it for two years, we were told that if we had our information,
and our RFP and everything that we wanted to have done by April of 2027, that they would be ready January 1, 2028 would be the soonest.
So as you can see, there's, you know, there's months involved in that.
So, you know, of course, you know, Richland Center and the townships that do not currently have EM, you know, that have the County EMS certainly want to provide that service.
I'll backtrack just a bit.
The way it's set up is the state statute says that townships shall provide an EMS service, but that counties and cities may.
So we are not mandated by the state, neither the county nor the city to do so.
And the city cannot levy above their amount for an EMS.
While the county can, the city can't.
So her hands are a bit tied through state regulations, not anything to do with us.
So we're working through it.
We'll find a way to move through it.
We've had a gentleman by the name of James Small, who is like the Wisconsin Rural.
I forgot the title of his, but he works in rural communities for things like this.
an EMS person for a lot of years.
So he has a lot of background and he's, you know, he's provided a lot of information for us.
Similar situations in other counties and cities.
I'm thinking across the state.
Yes, exactly.
It's really hard to have standalone services these days in many areas and not just EMS.
We talked about a little bit, but in terms of the city and the county and that relationship working together.
What would you like to see?
Yes, we are working together.
So just to kind of let you know, we do have meetings between Carrie Seaverston, Larry Engel, myself, and Ryan Caron's.
And we meet monthly.
So we are discussing probably like the bigger picture type things.
But if there's anything specific that's going on, we discuss those.
And it's a very collaborative group.
working together to get things done.
We also have a group that meets collaboratively and there are city, county, hospital, citizens on board.
I think you remember there were several forums at the Phoenix Center that took place and that group is still meeting.
So, and the schools also involved with that.
So, I believe they're planning for another one sometime in December.
So, we're meeting for that.
So, you know, this community is working together.
And like I say, I've heard some comments to the contrary, but I just want to let folks know that we sit down across the table from each other and we do talk.
So some of the things that we're working on, we've been working on an MOU for the campus property.
That's a memorandum, easy for me to say, right, of understanding.
So this document happens to be, it's about a seven-page document and the city started with...
their wishes and we gave that to the county.
They've made some changes and last general government meeting for the city we met and discussed a few more changes.
So it's going back and forth and that's how you get things done through negotiations and so we're moving forward on that.
I will just touch briefly on the writ of mandamus that is
As we know, it's a court order that commands a government official or public agency to fulfill a mandatory duty.
So I guess it stands for we command.
And once again, how we got here, where we're headed, I'm not going to get into a lot of that simply because there is going to be a decision by Judge Daniel Wood of Adams County.
And that is scheduled for tomorrow at
at the courthouse at 10 30 a.m.
But what I will say is I think there just were missteps in communication between the staff elected officials and the attorneys and I'll leave it at that.
So tomorrow it'll be
tomorrow is there's an oral an oral decision given so I don't know if it's once again I'm not a lawyer so but I don't know if that is the final or
I'm hoping it is.
Public Works Committee, did we talk about that a
little bit?
Yeah, just a little bit.
We can touch on that.
They have just a couple of things coming up on there that will be brought forward to the council meeting.
They're just going to be updating some airport leases and how the fees are made.
We sometimes forget about that, that the city
runs the Richland Airport at Sextonville and the county is at Lone Rock.
Sometimes that's a little bit confusing.
It
is.
It is.
So, yeah, I mean, it's the new building for the pilots was built when Mike Kaufman was mayor.
You know, so it's certainly something that we want to
make sure it stays in place and that type of thing.
If there can be growth there, that would be great as well.
But there are federal committees and whatnot, commissions, I guess, that are involved with that.
So the federal government takes a lead on a lot of that and how we have to operate within that.
Simon's recreation complex, it's been in the news a little bit here as well.
Anything an update from the city standpoint?
Yes, once again, there's a MOU going back and forth between the city and the county.
As I'm sure people realize that that was built by a grant and given to the city and the county to maintain going forward.
Once again, as things just get so expensive and budgets get very tight,
That's kind of hard to do.
So what we are going back and forth, like said, just like doing what we would like to do is contribute to the real cost that's involved in Simons as our part.
We have to remember that the county owns the building and also, you know, anything that we would do
you know, to the actual, you know, building itself, you know, we should have a say in that.
And that's going back and forth.
And I believe administrator Clements from the county will be bringing that MOU to executive and finance, hopefully for approval.
Around the city, you know, we've had we talked about highway 14, but construction we've seen a few cones up around the city and things like that I'm guessing those projects are nearing completion
Correct.
So there is one that is on mill street and there was a barrel there for a while and I've heard from a few Community members that why is that barrel there?
You know But it is that great that metal great is failing and it's not and so in that one area it was failing
the actual metal grate was failing, but the grate is being held up on each side by concrete, and that's really where it's failing.
So the whole thing had to be replaced, and so they're in the process of doing that.
Of course, concrete has to sit and cure, I guess, but that should be wrapping up shortly.
And then there's also a project going up
Valley View Drive over by Storyfield.
Once again there was water main breaks and that type of thing.
So it was a project primarily headed by the utilities but the city also got involved.
At one point they were just going to patch everything.
I said well that's going to you know probably create more deterioration of the road around the street and so the city got involved and so it's going to be black tapped.
Get it fixed before it's 30 below, I guess.
Exactly.
Anything else you'd like to add today,
Karen?
No, I guess just once again, remember to get out and vote.
I will just say in my own election, it was a handful of votes between myself and the opponent.
So don't ever think that your vote doesn't count.
It certainly does.
So I would just request that people get out there and vote.
That's your voice.
And say thank you to some of those poll workers, too.
Yes,
please do.
I think they've always had good back and forth with people in their conversations and the people that do it have said that they enjoy helping, having their voices heard.
We're fortunate to have people that step up and do
that.
Yes, because that's all volunteer.
It is remarkable that we do have people that do it year after year.
So that's always a good sign that it's going well.
We'll see you next month.
It'll be the final month of the year.
How can
that?
I know.
How can that be?
Thank you again, Phil.
You bet.
Mayor Karen Tepley, the mayor of the city of Richland Center, joining us for our monthly visit on the morning show.