In the previous lecture we had dealt in detail the closed reduction of mandibular fractures. Today we shall be discussing about the open reduction and fixation of mandibular fractures and the different surgical approaches to mandible. In open reduction there is direct visualization and access to the fracture through an incision or a facial wound. There are certain indications for open reduction. Let's see each of them one by one. Open reduction is indicated in displaced unfavorable fractures through the angle of the mandible because the proximal segment that is the fragment containing the condyle is displaced superiorly and medially and cannot be reduced without any bone implants. In displaced unfavorable fractures of the body or the panosymphoesial region of the mandible again the suprahyoid muscles tend to displace the fragments posteriorly and inferiorly. Therefore if you attempt closed reduction in symphysis the inferior border tends to open or flare. This mechanism will be explained in subsequent videos. Therefore open reduction is the mode of choice here. It was told in the previous lecture that in multiple facial fractures the mandible is reconstructed first because it provides a stable base to realign the rest of the bones. Therefore open reduction is very much required in multiple or panfacial fractures. A combination of mid-face and bilateral condyle fracture will necessitate opening of at least one of the condyle fractures. This is done in order to establish the vertical dimension of face. If you don't perform an open reduction there are chances of producing a shortened facial appearance. In edentulous mandible fractures with severe displacement of the fragments open reduction should be considered to maintain the continuity of mandible. The outcome will be better in a non-etrophied mandible with sufficient vascular supply. Like in a dentate mandible occlusion is not an immediate concern in edentulous patients. When a maxilla opposing a mandible fracture is edentulous or contains insufficient teeth to allow intermaxillary fixation then open reduction should be considered. But if the patient's condition demands closed reduction then you may first fabricate a denture for the maxilla which is stabilized with palatal screws and then the routine intermaxillary fixation could be used. When treatment has been delayed in instances like head injury or other serious medical conditions, connective tissue grows between the bone fragments thus inhibiting osteogenesis. This condition demands open reduction where the scar tissue is first removed and then the fracture is reduced and stabilized. In cases where a malunion or a poor result is obtained after mandibular fracture treatment a research is performed via open approach. In patients with difficulty to control seizures, psychiatric problems, compromised pulmonary function or gastrointestinal disorders all fall under the category of conditions contraindicating intermaxillary fixation. Therefore these patients can only benefit from open reduction. Patients in whom general anesthesia cannot be administered, severely infected fracture sites, comminuted fracture with gross loss of soft tissues are all contraindications of open reduction. Before going into the various techniques of open reduction and fixation we shall discuss the various approaches to the fracture site. There are both extra oral and intraoral approaches taken to gain access to the fracture. You decide the approach depending on the location, favorability, the soft tissue nature and fixation method. Extra oral approaches are performed always under general anesthesia. The first approach is the submandibular or residence approach. This particular incision is used for gaining access to the fractures in the ascending ramus, the angle and body of the mandible as far forward as premolar region. The skin incision is 4 to 5 centimeter in length. Marginal mandibular nerve runs 1.5 centimeter below the angle of mandible. Therefore the incision is placed at least 2 centimeters below the angle. Try to position the incision in an existing skin crease so that it hides the scar. Subcutaneous fat and superficial fascia is dissected to reach the platysma muscle. Platysma is then sharply incised to reach the superficial layer of deep cervical fascia. It is in this superficial layer of deep cervical fascia or just below it the marginal mandibular branch of facial nerve is visible. Carefully dissect through the deep cervical fascia to reach the bone. So you can identify the submandibular gland and the tail of parotid as you expose the mandible posteriorly. The section continues till the inferior border of the mandible and from here to the masseter. Once the muscle is encountered, sharply divide it at the inferior border to expose the bone. You know that the masseter is attached to the lateral aspect of the ramus. So you cut the masseter muscle to gain access and visibility to the angle and the lateral aspect of the ramus. The muscle, the periosteum and other soft tissues along with the marginal mandibular nerve is then retracted superiorly as you can see in the diagram. So this is how you expose the fracture site. The second extraural approach is the rectomandibular approach described by Heinz. It is only a variation of the submandibular incision and it is used to gain access to the angle, the ramus and subcondylar region. This incision will curve behind the angle and is placed at least 3 cm above the submandibular incision. Here also you encounter the parotid, the masseter and the deep cervical fascia as you proceed with the dissection. There are other incisions as well used specifically to approach the condyle which will be discussed in detail when discussing condylar fractures. The most common and technically easier approach is the intraoral approach. For fractures of anterior mandible, first the incision region is infiltrated with local anaesthetic solution. The lip is then retracted and a curvilinear incision is made leaving at least 1 cm of mucosa attached to the gingiva. The mentalis muscle is incised and the section is carried subperiostally to identify the mental nerve. The nerve is then preserved, the fracture site is identified, reduced and fixed. The incision is then closed in layers. So basically you give a de-loving incision or an anterior vestibular incision to gain access to the fractures at pedosimphysis and simphysis region. In body, angle and ramus fractures, the incision is made 5 mm from the mucogengival junction. It extends anteriorly from the first molar region and along the external oblique ridge as high as the mandibular occlusal plane.  The anterior surface of the ramus can be exposed after dissecting through the buccinator and temporalis tendon. A notched retractor and a cocker's clamp can be used to retract in the coronal region. A jay stripper can be used to elevate the mesater and a ball retractor can be used in the sigmoid notch and anti-gonial notch. Let us now move on to the different techniques of open reduction and internal fixation. Once you have opened and exposed the fracture site, first you reduce the fracture in its anatomical position. After reduction, you may use any of these techniques to achieve stabilization. Osteosynthesis can be done with or without IMF. What does the term osteosynthesis mean? It simply means stabilization or joining of the two fracture ends using a bone implant. Be it a plate, screw, pin, clamp or wire, you are using a bone implant to stabilize or fix the fracture ends. This is called osteosynthesis. Osteosynthesis can be done in two ways. The techniques given on the left will need an additional intermaxillary fixation to be performed for immobilization of the fracture.  It is followed by a duration of intermaxillary fixation, that is to provide immobilization to the fracture site. Whereas the techniques on the right are self-sufficient to provide stabilization as well as immobilization of the fracture site, thus eliminating the need of intermaxillary fixation. In today's lecture, we shall be discussing about the methods of osteosynthesis with intermaxillary fixation. The first technique is trans-ocious wiring. It is also known as direct wiring of the mandible and is usually used in combination with interdental eyelet wiring, cap splints or gunning type splints. Few indications are the fracture of identulous mandible and grossly comminuted mandibular fractures. It is also used to stabilize the inferior border of mandible in case of a fracture where the superior border has already been stabilized with other means. The term trans-ocious means across the bone. Here direct wiring is performed across the fracture line. Moving on to the technique. As you can see in this diagram, holes are drilled across the fracture lines and soft stainless steel wire of 0.45 mm diameter is passed through the holes across the fracture. Accurate reduction of the fractured segments is done by twisting the wires tightly and the twisted wire is stuck into one of the holes. The reduction of the fractured segments should be done with the teeth in occlusion. It is very important to keep the dentition in occlusion while performing fracture fixation. The wires are applied either at the superior border or at the lower border or at both the borders depending on the type of fracture. The superior border can be approached through an intra-oral incision whereas it is always better to approach the lower border extra-orally. It is sufficient for the upper border wire to pass through the outer cortical plate alone as the fixation is always combined with inter-maxillary fixation. Usually a single lower border wire is not sufficient to stabilize the fracture. Especially when the fracture line is oblique or multiple or in case of a comminuted fracture. The segments here tend to override. So in such cases a figure of 8 wiring along with the conventional wiring is performed. This is a conventional type of wiring. This fixation is reinforced by a figure of 8 wiring as you can see in this diagram. There are two kinds of wiring techniques performed here. Transocious wiring can be performed for any kind of mandibular fractures as you can see in the diagram. This is the wiring performed for a sub-condyler fracture. This is a figure of 8 wiring performed for angled fracture. And these are the wiring performed on the body and symphysis regions. It was told that for superior border wiring only dwelling through the buckle cortical plate is sufficient. As you can see in the second diagram here. Here the holes are drilled only on the buckled cortex. Whereas in the first diagram both the cortical plates, the buckle and the lingual cortical plates are drilled for the wiring. The next type of osteosynthesis with intermaxillary fixation is the circumferential wiring. This wiring is done through open reduction and used to create fractures at the angle and the body of mandible. Here the wiring is done by passing a 0.5 mm diameter stainless steel wire circumferentially around the mandible. As you can see in this diagram, this is the fracture and the wire goes around it thus stabilizing the fracture. The technique shall be explained in short. Imagine this sagittal view is that of the fracture at the anterior mandible. You place a stab incision on the skin in the sub-mandibular or sub-mental region depending on the location of the fracture. A catheter needle or a bone awl is pierced in through the stab incision and taken out intra-orally in the flow of the mouth just lingual to the fracture site. A stainless steel wire is passed in through the needle lumen. The needle is then gently withdrawn till the needle tip is just inferior to the mandible border. The tip is just beyond the inferior border. Take care not to withdraw the needle completely out through the incision. Just beyond the inferior border, change the direction of the tip labily and advance the needle superiorly so that it comes out through the labile aspect of the fracture site. Intra-orally it comes out at the labile aspect of the fracture. All this while one end of the wire which is on the lingual aspect is still secured with an artery forcep or a wire holder. Once the tip is out labily, the wire is pulled out thus circumferencing the mandible in this manner. The catheter is then retrieved out through the same incision and in this way circumferential wiring stabilizes the fracture and it is then followed by inter-maxillary fixation. This is how a completed wiring looks like. Bone clamp is an external type of fixation for mandibular fractures and is very rarely used these days. Here the fragmented segments are secured by clamps attached to the lower border of the mandible and from these clamps the pins project out. This is very similar to that of external pin fixation. This system is known as Brenthurst Splint and was used in the past instead of the stainless steel external pin fixation. K-virus another technique of osteosynthesis with IMF which is not very common these days. The fracture segments are held together in position and after reduction a virus dwelt through the cortex on one side of the fracture through an extra-oil approach. It is then passed through the medullary cavity of the undamaged bone on either side of the fracture. As you can see in these diagrams K-virus can be used at almost every site of the mandible. It can be used at the angle, the ramus, the sub-condyle even in multiple fractures of mandible. Several modifications has also been made to the K-virus design. So this is all about open reduction and fixation and osteosynthesis with IMF. In the next lecture we will discuss osteosynthesis without IMF and the different bone plating techniques used for mandibular fractures. Thanks for watching.


What's up everybody? Since you follow me over on Instagram and Twitter, you know that I got me some Shane Dawson Palace and you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to give one away right now. What are you doing? What am I doing? What are you doing? Okay, okay, okay. Enough of that. What do you mean? What am I doing? Don't just give it away. You got to tell him to like or subscribe or something like that. Oh yeah, yeah, you're right. Okay, okay. So like and subscribe. What else? I don't know man. Built the suspense or something. What's wrong dad? I just, I just can't stop thinking about the problem. Focus on the solution. You're right. Focus on the solution. Focus on the solution. Okay, so how about this Dylan? Yes. How about this? How about we have him watch a little bit of the vlog. Yes. When I went to the little Shane thing and then we come back, that'll give me some time to figure this out. What do you think? Sounds great. All right. Roll the intro. What's up everybody? Good morning. So yeah, it's 6 a.m. and I decided to get up super early and head down to here in Las Vegas, the Miracle Mile Shop where the Morphe story is because I got this idea. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to get my beautiful girlfriend Tristan. She's in there right now just still sleeping her beautiful self away. And I was like, I'm going to go get in line and get her this Shane Dawson palette. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to do a giveaway too. Right? But why am I going so early? So I don't know. We're going to see what the experience is like because I was talking to a friend who used to work at the shops down there. Yes, I know I look beautiful. But she was telling me that people would start lining up down there at midnight for certain releases like New Jordans and things like that. Because we're in Las Vegas. So this place is 24-7-2. So you can just go wherever, wait in line wherever and yeah. So yeah. So I'm like, okay, I'll do this. And maybe I'll vlog the experience. I might be in people there. I might be the only one, but I don't know. I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck. All right, everybody. It is quarter after seven. As you can see, I'm looking beautiful. But anyways, thought I would do a quick update because I need my car heater to warm up because it's 45 degrees here in Las Vegas. Like a lot of people like here, Las Vegas and you think desert hot and don't get me wrong. It gets hot as a mug, right? But it also gets cold as hell. So yeah. And by the way, so I tweeted something out the other day about like, I don't think enough people give credit to Shane Dawson and Andrew, like, especially as a creator, as a creator who does like very minimal editing. Like those, these two guys, like when you watch their series and you realize that it's just two dudes, like that is mind blowing, like what they do and the production quality and everything. Like, I just like, I was telling Tristan the other day, like, I would love just like a series of just like Andrew and Shane just showing us how they go through their process because they have so many clips and so much footage and everything like that and the way they intertwine it, especially from different times and everything like, I do a storyboard it like, I don't, I don't even know. But yeah, anyways, I had my morning coffee and I decided to watch a little bit of YouTube before I went in. And yeah, I just watched an awesome mental health video from a channel called Supreme Banana. I don't know if any of you know of her. But anyways, I was introduced to her earlier this year in like January, because some people were asking me about, you know, watching and reviewing her series on going and doing ayahuasca for her anxiety. And I have opinions about like ayahuasca and like Ibogaine and stuff like that. Some people in addiction recovery have tried that and I have some opinions about it. But anyways, I never ended up making those videos, but I saw Supreme Banana pop up today because she hasn't posted in a while and she did like a mental health update. So as I'm sipping on my coffee, I decided to watch it. And yeah, she opened up about how, you know, just some things going on in her life and how depression has hit her again. And I could definitely relate to what she was talking about. Like when things are going really well for you and then you get depressed, like it's it's weird, man. It is so weird and like things have been going really well for me. And I've been meaning to do like an update because there's like some stuff going on behind the scenes that are amazing that I haven't told any of you about it. Because I wanted to kind of like chill and just see where it went. But I might do that soon. But anyways, like, yeah, I was talking to my therapist the other day because depression hit me in a real funky way. But anyways, Supreme Banana, she also talks about like depersonalization and just learning these coping skills. And one of my favorite takeaways from her video was just realizing that life in your mental state is not this kind of linear path. And I think that's important for all of us to remember because sometimes like I get in my head and they call it shooting all over yourself. Like, I'm like, I should be here in my mental health journey. I should be able to feel this way when I want to. I shouldn't ever be depressed or anxious or whatever.  And the most we can do is turn to our coping skills, turn to our resources like our therapists, our support group, told step meetings, whatever the hell it is and try to get back on track. But life wouldn't be life if there weren't ups and downs. You know what I mean? But anyways, my car heater is finally going. So I'll see you guys at the Miracle Mile Shop. Oh, right, everybody. I just got to Planet Hollywood Miracle Mile Shop. How beautiful is Las Vegas in the morning?  Like, Vegas, Halloween gets crazy. But yeah, I haven't been down here to the strip in forever. Like, my anxiety is pretty under control these days.  And that is what the Las Vegas strip is. So anyways, I'm about to head in. I'm thinking there's either no line or a gigantic line. I have two hours until Morphe opens up. Anyways, I was driving over and I told you guys I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try to get more vulnerable on my channel and talk a little bit more. And my goal is that I hope it helps all of you open up. Like if I can do this on YouTube and have people come in and talk trash or whatever, like open up, talk to somebody you know. But anyways, whenever I go to something like this, like I went to VidCon. I went to Vid Summit. This is different. It's not a YouTube event, but a lot of people who watch YouTube are going to be there. And I get nervous. All right.  So like a lot of people, a lot of people who are here, like they might have found my channel from when I was covering Shane Dawson stuff or I still do, you know what I mean? And I get nervous. All right.  So I got to like psychologically prepare for that. Right. And then and then what I tell myself is, Chris, you're not that important.   Right. And then and then the next voice comes in and it's like, wait, but is that like talking down to yourself, Chris? You know what I mean? So it's just weird, like kind of balancing act. But anyways, I'm hoping if anybody does notice me that they're nice and they say hi and maybe we'll get some pictures to put up on the gram. You know what I'm saying? But anyways, again, I live in an amazing, amazing city, Las Vegas. So yeah, I'm going to head in there now. Wish me luck. Walking through the miracle mile shops at Planet Hollywood. I have no clue where I'm going, but I just start walking. I'm like, you know what, Chris? Just look for the line. Look for the line of people who are trying to get themselves a pallet. And I come around the corner and I start seeing people lined up. I'm like, oh no, because I got there like two hours early. All right. But I get there and it wasn't too long of a line. I was pleasantly surprised. So I jumped in the line and I thought I was like, maybe like number 20 in line. But that wasn't case. And you'll find out more about that later.  It was one of those weird things where I wanted there to be like an insane amount of people just for like the pure spectacle of it. But I also didn't want an insane amount of people because I didn't want to wait in line forever. And I thought like I was showing up like insanely late by getting in line at eight o'clock. But I was like, oh, you know what, it's Vegas. I guess not that many people are going to show up. Anyways, it was cool standing in line.  Some people were like watching his videos in the line and everything. The line was just like chilling. And then look at this baby. Look at this baby rocking Shane Dawson merch. How adorable is that? Well, as time went on, the line started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then all of a sudden like I kind of realized like, yo, they were not ready for this. So they started to move us a little bit and they like move this around to this like weird side. Like where there was like a probably like a 50 foot gap. And I was like, I better not lose my place in line because they didn't have those little like divider things. Like, you know, like at the bank or like at the movies when you're waiting in line. They didn't have those. So I was like worried we're going to lose our spots. But like me and the people in front of me were like, no, we ain't losing our spots. So we were good. So one of my biggest concerns going into this was I announced that I was doing a giveaway. Right. I was like, I'm going to try to get more to do a giveaway. And then I'm like sitting there. I'm like, oh my God, like am I going to be able to get any extras? So all of a sudden I heard this screaming. Like I heard a bunch of people in line screaming, not like panic screaming, but just like, yeah. Right. I was like, oh snap. Did like Shane Dawson show up or something. This kid showed up. I don't know if I have any footage of him. Who's this kid in makeup. I'm like, is James Charles here? But it was just like a little Morphe employee and he did his makeup very well. But anyways, they were like filming for their own social media and like getting everybody in line hyped. But they came over and they let us know that you can get two of each product. All right. So I'm like, okay, cool. Thank God. Because if I could only get one, sorry, that only one was going to my baby girl Tristan. All right. So I was pretty stoked. I found out I can get more than one. So like I said earlier, I thought there was only like maybe 20 people in front of me. And I actually tweeted out and I was like, oh, this is crazy. There's like over a hundred people here because as it got closer, the line kept getting bigger. And just kind of eyeballing it. And maybe it's because I don't go outside that much. It's like, there's like a hundred people here. You know what I mean? But anyways, I see the little mini James Charles coming through and like counting off people, right? And he gets to me and he counts number 47. And then it's like 48, 49, 50. And he tells the security people like, all right, we're letting 50 people in at the time. These are the first 50 people. So I was like, yo, that's pretty sweet. I'm in the first batch of folks to go in here. And by the way, I forgot to mention, but here's some footage like, how beautiful was this setup? Like I'm not a dude who usually goes to like makeup stores, but it was like nuts. It was so nuts seeing, you know, what Shane and Jeffrey were like working on and then seeing it on these big screens and everything inside the Morphe store. But anyways, so once I found out I was 47 and the people right behind me were 50, then I started scanning the line even more.  I'm like, there's got to be at least 3, 400 people here, right? Because the lines started getting even bigger and stretching down the mall. But anyways, finally doors open and we got to go in.  I forgot to tell her when I got home that I couldn't get it. But anyways, you guys are going to learn about it right now.  And then they had the mirrors, right? And I saw a bunch of people grab mirrors and then all the mirrors were gone. And then this lady, this employee who worked there, she comes up and she sets down a mirror and nobody was around. I'm like, swoop! And I got, I'm like, I got my girl a mirror, right? But then I noticed on it that it said, test her. And I'm like, oh, I wonder if they're going to let me buy this. And then when I finally got up to the counter, they didn't let me buy it. So anyways, guess we'll have to do that on the restock. But anyways, like it was, it was crazy, like something that I love, like something that's awesome about 2019 or just the time we're living in, like when people are like, oh, the internet's bad for you and everything like that.  Like when I was growing up and I was like a gamer and a computer nerd, like it wasn't cool yet, right? Like, Ninja wasn't out here making millions, you know, but it was hard to find people who were into that same thing. So like, I'm 34 years old now and whenever I see something that everybody can get behind and is into, whether it's makeup or whatever it is, I'm like, that is awesome, right? And it's so cool just like seeing all the young women and men, like, and it's not even just young, right? There were people of all ages up in that line, but it's so cool seeing everybody get together. So by the way, quick mental health tip, like, find people who are into the same stuff that you are, because a lot of us are socially awkward and it's hard to start conversations. But if you find somebody who's into the same thing that you are, such as makeup, right, start having that conversation or you notice like, like there were people in line, obviously everybody in the line was like a Shane Dawson fan or Jeffrey Starr fan or both or whatever. Like it was easy for people to just start talking and having conversations, right? But I want you to kind of think about that because social connections are the best way to improve your mental health.  All right. So first piece of good news is nobody came up to me and tried to punch me in the face, so that's always good. But anyways, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if anybody recognized me. Nobody came up to me, so that's good, bad. I don't know. So I do think it's important to realize sometimes, especially for those of us who have social anxiety, we are not nearly as important as we think we are. But anyways, the better news is, guess what's in here? Yeah, it was crazy. I was in line. I had to drop elbows on all these little girls trying to get there. The pallets. I'm just kidding. All right. All right. Thank you for watching my vlog of my experience. First time going to a makeup launch. And I was so glad that I was with Shane Dawson. But you're all waiting like, yo, Chris, when are you going to give away some pallets? All right. So check this out. What do you got to do to enter? What do you got to do to enter? All right. Just two very simple things. These are the easiest things that you got to do. One is you got to be subscribed. All right. Most of you are subscribed already. So boo, yeah, you're 50% there. Okay. But if you're not yet, make sure you're subscribed, notifications on and all that good stuff. Second thing is there's a link down in the description right there. Put in your email address and join my email list. All right. So check this out. It is November 1st when I am recording this and it is nano-remo. So some of you know that I am a writer.  Okay. Every single day and I'm going to send those out in my email list as well.  So if you're having a rough day at work or you're just like, you know, on the bus to work or you get home from work or you don't work, you can read a mental health blog. All right. So I'll be providing you with additional content, additional value. All right. So all you got to do is subscribe, sign up for the email list right down there below. Okay. So you'll be announcing a winner on Tuesday. All right. Like my son said, I got to build up a little suspense around this thing and I want to make sure everybody has time to enter. All right. But I'm going to be doing three separate giveaways. So make sure you're subscribed because even if you don't win this one, I'm going to be doing two more. Okay. So make sure you're subscribed and I'll talk to y'all very soon.


In this video we look at the Shure MV7 to see how it works in a noisy office environment and more specifically compare it with my trusty Rode NT USB Mini. In the box is the microphone itself with some mounting options, two USB cable and a mounting adapter. Both these microphones have one thing in common and that is all they need is a USB cable to connect the microphone to your laptop and you are good to go. The Rode NT USB Mini connects via USB-C cable which is the standard these days, however for some reason the Shure MV7 still uses the older micro USB cable to connect to your laptop. The other major difference is that if you have professional gear such as an audio interface the Shure MV7 also supports an XLR input. In terms of size the Rode NT USB is nice and compact and I still prefer it when I am traveling. The Shure MV7 is almost double its size, however the main difference between these two microphones is that the Rode NT USB Mini is a condenser microphone while this the Shure MV7 is a dynamic microphone. What does that mean? Condenser microphones are sensitive and are preferred in a studio environment where the room is treated for sound. Dynamic microphones are preferred in a noisy environment such as a stadium, a concert or in this case a noisy office environment. Both microphones support audio monitoring. You can plug in any 3.5mm headphones or earphones and now you will be able to monitor the audio. The Shure MV7 promises to deliver your voice with warmth and clarity and enjoy that professional radio sound you always wanted. Let me connect this to my laptop and see whether it delivers on its promise. I have now connected the Shure MV7 to my laptop. Let me connect the ear set so that I can monitor the audio. The first thing that I notice with this microphone is that all the office noise that I used to hear on my Rode suddenly seems to have disappeared. All I can hear is my own voice in my ear. The microphone has touch controls to control the gain of the microphone as well as the audio monitoring levels. To get the best out of this microphone, you need to keep it as close to your mouth as possible. For example, if I step back, the sound levels immediately drop. Similarly, if I were to speak from the side or from the back, you will notice that it immediately rejects all the sound that is coming from the side or from the back. And for this reason, I believe it's an excellent resource to use in an office environment. I will give a more detailed impression of this microphone after several days of use, but so far it is looking and sounding great. So that was a quick look at the Shure MV7, the dynamic microphone that will replace my condenser Rode NTUSB Mini. But as I mentioned earlier, when I'm traveling, the Rode is still a better option because of its portability. That's it for now. Do leave a comment. What kind of microphones do you use in office? If you have not used a dynamic microphone before, would you consider buying one?


Hey everybody, Bob Trossett here, post-game after a 13 to 9 York victory over Nazareth. I'm here with Coach Randall. Coach, nine turnovers on the game. You really showed a lot of fight in the fourth quarter though. What'd you tell the guys post-game? We just told them it was a good, good test of character and we won the game. We won the second half, but we only played for 30 minutes and you can't come out against anybody and expect to play only 30 good minutes of LaBros and expect to be successful. Your face-off game is one of the best in the country. How do you prepare for that going in? Seth is just doing a really good job for us. He's got good hands and we're getting some decent wing play with Luke Longo and Jason Partridge and our long sticks. We're fortunate to have Seth. He's done a really nice job. He's getting us possessions. If you look at time of possession, I would say it was even and maybe even won the time of possession battle throughout the course of the game. It's because of Seth and winning the face-offs. How do you prepare a freshman to start in goal against a number-six team in the country? Alex is just a great kid.  To Alex's credit, he's done a really nice job. He made some nice saves today, I thought, and certainly the result was not because of him. He made some nice saves and he throws a nice ball. We got the ball a quick couple of times, but we're just not doing a lot of the little things that we need to do in order to be successful. Two games and 24 hours, how can you convince the guys to have short memories? We just got to bounce back. That's what you do. The kids are resilient, let's hope. We got to forget about it and learn a little something from it and hopefully come out and play 60 minutes of La Crosse and not 30 minutes. Coach, thanks for your time. Best luck tomorrow. Absolutely. Thank you, Bob. Coach Randall Bob Tross, two games underway here in the 2017 Mustang Classic. We'll see you tomorrow.


Roll call Balvin he's excused Erg here Bonet is excused Serta Graf excused Manny Montemayor Perez Peterson Rinflash Sigali Sudefinn Van Akron Vander wheelie we had seven right in it and seven total Okay, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of Oh, I'm sorry Alderman Warner No, you don't there is no there's no action being taken so correct Okay, then I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the October 11th meeting Yes, okay Eight out of eight out of 15 is a quorum, isn't it You're missing one all right Yes That that's what Steve that's what Steve told me last night. Yeah Okay, the minutes have been approved and second it all in favor Contrary, okay tonight's Presentation will be on municipal problems, and it'll be the presenter will be mr. Ed Huck So I will turn it over to him immediately All kinds of wonderful news as you entered in your budget session But it's going to be another difficult year as you all know A lot of the state we have The meeting expenditure restraint Quote is in order to get the the incentive from the state dollars to keep spending down It's been a very difficult year for a lot of cities health insurance has been a major cause for for the dilemma Very large increases. I think the average is around 17 percent My understanding is that you've been fortunate enough to keep yours Under 15 percent, but nonetheless it is still going to be a very difficult year We don't really know what's going to happen with state shared revenues for 06 yet But at least for the 05 budget year you will remain fairly constant to last year Expenditure restraint however is a different story There were many more communities qualifying and although you have not received your estimate There's a high degree of probability It will be less than it was the year before because there were so many communities that were actually Qualifying for the expenditure restraint I'd like to start to talk a little bit about what you might expect in this upcoming session and some of the difficulties the the new majority leader and the speaker announced Their first hundred days of the upcoming session, which as you know starts in January of 05 Technically, they'll go to the floor in February and in the first hundred days One of the things they talked about was a was a tax freeze a property tax freeze Once again, the discussion will be about property taxes now the unfortunate discussion about just property taxes Is that a great deal of the problems that you folks have is the fact that your state shared revenues it's not increased at all but once in the last decade and We have no expectation and now they were cut in the last budget go around by seventy million dollars We don't know what will happen Right now the administration is estimating a seven hundred million dollar shortfall for the biennium If that's a minimum it could be as high as a billion, but we don't think so But when you consider you need around 450 million dollars for K-12 education We've got a one point one billion dollar problem again and even if the governor cut state Government spending by ten percent, which is his goal That will only take care of about half the problem So we don't know what will happen in the 06 but for 06 year for you folks, but it does not look especially promising at this moment although The administration contends they will do everything possible not to cut state shared revenues the the tax freeze is likely to Pass in the first hundred days of the session It is likely to be vetoed by the governor depending upon how the election turns out in November will determine whether The governor's veto will be sustained in the houses or not So we really don't know where any of this is going And we'll know a little bit more after the elections in November in terms of the constitutional amendment It is unclear at this particular time that there is consensus as to what this Constitutional amendment should look like there was a Senate proposal at the end of the last session It was Poorly written it had major problems with it Beyond just poorly written the very concept of putting a Tax policy in the state's Constitution is a critical error no matter where we look when it comes to The problem, but I just want to point some things out We really are not in a property tax crisis in Wisconsin as much as we hear this constantly from politicians It really is more of a diversion from the Fiscal crisis at the state level it is really the fiscal crisis at the state level that remains to be a problem And I can assure you that no Constitutional amendment that has been proposed up to this date takes care of the state's structural deficit So if you remember right before our economy crashed the state returned $700 million in taxes anybody remember this as we might have vague remembrance of this Credits back to folks right before the economy crashed and then we had a three billion dollar deficit problem Included in that was a structural deficit in other words spending from one budget was being pushed off into another budget in order for the Legislature to quote unquote technically balance the budget The constitutional amendments has been proposed at least in the Republican Senate in the last session did nothing to take care of the structural deficit and in fact would have allowed for Credits that go back to whoever the legislature chose to give those credits to could be homeowners But you know what it could be their favorite business pack We don't really know and in fact that's the case in Colorado. It's been more of Give money to our friends type of a scenario what the same time they were devastating Government in the state of Colorado, but let me just give you some statistics that you should know School property tax rates have fallen nearly 50 percent since 1991 That's very significant the property tax burden and by the way, I'm taking these statistics from Professor Roshofsky at La Follette Institute the property tax burden on a medium value house Has fallen since 1994 in terms of household income It was 6.4 percent of household income in 1994. It is now down to 5.1 percent was when you take Wisconsin's high taxes and you include fees for services rendered Wisconsin's burden falls to 15th we go from third to 15th when you include fees Also, it indicates that we have dropped from 6 to 12th in terms of total tax burden although my understanding is that that this data is old and 2002 and so it could be updated could be different but in terms of spending and this is a very significant point in Wisconsin as though it is third in taxes is 18th in state and local spending So we are not what we've considered to be a high spending state In fact, we're 3.8 percent above the national average in spending in state and local taxes so what I'm pointing out is that the taxpayers bill of rights the constitutional amendment is Really more political than it is policy and worse than putting fiscal policy in the Constitution is to put politics in the state's Constitution if you think about the debate over this constitutional amendment what they've been saying is well, you know, we always give the public the opportunity to to Pass a referendum to go above the controls This is not democracy because we already have I mean our forefathers created representative government You folks are here because of representative government the our forefathers were smart enough to understand that People needed to be experts about how government runs and the expenditures they need to have Full understanding and the general public doesn't have that level of understanding in fact the reality of it is if you think about your municipal elections in the face of Low voter turnout in the face of full knowledge about every issue that you folks deal with money dominates the issue because state law is no one the city cannot advocate for a referendum It's illegal for the city to advocate for a referendum. So only those folks outside the political arena can have a say so and Money will dictate that almost every time. So what you really have is a Concentration of power through the constant through the Constitution the essence of democracy is choice and The constitutional amendment does not fit the smell test when it comes to choice Because it takes choice away from local government. It takes choice away from people in a very real sense So we are going to continue at the Alliance to educate folks About the taxpayers bill of rights and what it's meant. We know what it's done in Colorado Right now the state of Wisconsin's university system, especially in Madison has Gathered some of the largest federal grants in research and development in the high-tech industry Colorado was kind of going in that direction But they've been devastated by the taxpayers bill of rights in Colorado and the university is almost a private university today But give you some statistics between Colorado and Wisconsin health insurance coverage were third in the United States Colorado's 21st was 21st in 1993. They're 37th today high school graduation, Wisconsin 7th Colorado was 31st in 1993. They're 47th today most livable state, Wisconsin 13th Colorado 8th in 1993 23rd today Healthiest state, Wisconsin 21st Colorado 9th in 1993 and has dropped the 27th Colorado continues to to go down Wisconsin has been stable. It's very important for if Wisconsin is going to compete in the international economy It's important for us to continue to be stable. I Want to talk a little bit about Real reform, but before I get to that I want to talk a little bit about what you already know Cities right now Have been fighting in order just to stay competitive Right now tax rates and the disparity between Cities tax rates and town tax rates Wealthy suburban tax rates have been they've been growing the disparity between wealth and poverty And where people live has been growing this creates added burden two things we know about taxes When wealth leaves one community and goes to another especially in large numbers It drives taxes in the place. They're leaving and it drives taxes in the place. They're going to So land use decisions by individuals have a driving of force on property taxes It's something that growing communities have to deal with and it's also Larger older well-established cities have to deal with one of the things that you want here in Sheboygan is for all Incomes to live in your city. You don't want to lose the middle class. You do not want to lose the wealthy You also have the problem that we recall it double whammy at the The alliance of cities, but what it really is right now the city of Sheboygan's Property value makes up about one-third of the county's property value Now some services you get from the county You've got you've got the jail. You've got some health services that type of thing But an example police services You don't really get a lot of police services from the county But you're paying for one-third of the cost of the police that may be Doing work in Kohler and some town government around this around the city And you're not really getting anything in value for that This can be extended to a whole variety of areas depending upon how active your county is in municipal services But the fact is that when you subsidize services outside of your borders You become less competitive for businesses and for residences and this is a problem all over, Wisconsin I don't know how you're dealing with your the cost of labor You know, we've got mediation arbitration which forces you to negotiate everything We had a bill last session that would have allowed for the city to determine How they provided service without negotiating it With their labor unions that got vetoed by the governor That was a problem for us now as we face. I mean 80% of your costs are associated with labor and the cost of labor you're going to be looking at a whole variety of things from opening up your contracts and talking about Concessions like virtually every city is doing in the state of Wisconsin to potentially laying people off You ought to consider the possibility of demanding from the sheriff that instead of hiring another police officer Maybe what you ought to do is tell the sheriff. Hey, we're paying one-third of all of those costs Maybe you ought to be providing some help within the city limits. It's something you ought to consider So we have the tax rate disparities. We have the tax-based disparities We have county government giving municipal services to smaller communities of which this city Taxpayers are subsidizing. These are problems that we're trying to correct We have the problem with Preempting of fees now right now as I mentioned We could do a lot more with fees and we could drop Wisconsin out of the top 10 in taxes Had we the ability to create do more with fees we've got an agenda I'll talk a little bit about that in terms of using fees a big problem. We've got property tax exemptions Every session the state legislature gives away an exemption to a property owner That benefits a few and everybody else picks that up Now one thing that we absolutely know Since 1975 almost all of the property tax exemptions that have been given out by state government Have impacted cities Significantly greater than any other type of local government because that's where the property value is I don't care if it's machinery and equipment line a stocks Theater equipment you start going down the line Housing there's a whole variety of exempt exemptions that have been given out that have had an impact we now have this pending crisis on property as my generation starts to Go into retirement these retirement homes. I don't know how many you have in the city of Sheboygan but what we have is a a virtual crisis about to occur large valued condominiums are being built by not-for-profits or non-profit groups and They are offering to take care of the elderly if they turn over large sums of money. So you've got these situations where Somebody will turn over two hundred two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a One of these not-for-profits. They'll move in and what has happened. They've been growing They've been growing exponentially throughout Wisconsin our expectations is that they will double and maybe even triple over the next ten years and that means that those people who are paying the property tax the people in their homes those that are in apartments that cannot afford 250,000 dollars to enter into these homes will be picking up the burden There's a legislative council study on this right now. They seem to be bogged down and not moving very fast We've got mandates mandates have been a problem in the past. They continue to be a problem today Why because when you have to make choices about where you're going to spend your money, you know You you have to do recycling So you're gonna have you can't make the choice between recycling and a police officer You can't make the the decision between Recycling and a firefighter those choices are taken away from you every time the state government mandates something new Down the city government you lose your opportunity and your flexibility to make a decision about what is essential services in your city And what is not and that's wrong we continue to fight with mandates So what are we going to try to do about this? Let's recap some of the things we're facing a tacked property tax freeze, which is not only unwarranted It is absolutely political and we're going to continue to oppose it and we hope that we can educate our legislators To to not do this. I mean we have The expenditure restraint program which all of the Alliance members are participating in we as city government is The has the best record in spending on any level of any level of government over the last 20 years far and away the most conservative spending group and government anywhere in Wisconsin and far exceed The the spending differences between state government and local government. So we're going to try to talk To the state about that we're going to pose this constitutional amendment. We do not need Artificial spending caps and revenue caps in the state's Constitution the unintended consequences of this have been tremendous you remember proposition 13 in California It's been about 20 years. I'll give us give me an anecdote my son He's in his early 30s. He had two job offers in California He went out they wind him and they dined him and and he took one look at their school system He's got a daughter. That's 10 and a son. That's eight. He took one look at their school system and came back home It's and you can't pay me enough money To have my kids go to the California school system. You cannot do that and Similarly in Colorado where the school system continues to decline the opportunities For every day working people to go to the University of Colorado are diminished Daily because there is now no state subsidy for the university So we're going to oppose that constitutional amendment because the fact is we need smarter government not prescriptive remedies that are go well in a bumper sticker But we also need reform We need a lot of reform. We need to reduce the cost of government and we need to do that By by looking at consolidating services with where we can in terms of other units of government We need reform of our mediation arbitration. We need our unions to take a very good look at whether they are going to be Holding on to their particular Contracts because the reality of it is that in today's environment We must reduce the cost of government and we must get help from labor unions in order to do that We need to reduce property taxes. We cannot Continue to have freezes in revenue sharing we got a plan for revenue sharing and I'll talk a little bit about that But we cannot You know one of the proposals I heard Was well, we'll just give you a local option sales tax now This is really remarkable because if you cut state-shared revenues Which is state spending going back to local government and you give the local governments A local option sales tax, you know what happens the state can spend more money and Tabor doesn't say taxpayers bill of rights doesn't say That when the state stops giving property tax relief back to local government that they can't spend it someplace else They're just freeing up spending at the state level and giving taxing authority to local government So what you actually have is more taxation not less taxation So the public needs to understand what's really going on here This is about this is not about less taxes This is about Shifting taxes. This is about allowing the state to spend more even though they look like they're not This is not what we should be doing in, Wisconsin.  They certainly will make those decisions So we can't we have to create a future with revenue sharing in it. We need to reduce property tax we need to reform government and In many ways we have really a 19th government's 19th century government system and I'm talking mostly about town government We need to try to figure out how we can Merge services and deliver them in a more effective manner and I don't just mean moving them to the county Maybe villages and cities and even some towns can get together and work through some of these problems Because if we're going to Revitalize Wisconsin's economy what we need to do is have smart government and smart government is hard work It's not Simplistic. There are a lot of barriers. There's labor barriers. There is turf barriers There are a variety of barriers. Does it mean we shouldn't try it that we shouldn't do it? No but I can assure you that if we pass a constitutional amendment in Wisconsin The ability to move services or to combine services will be gone Because that constitutional amendment will lock into place 19th century government in Wisconsin and we will never be able to get to smart government So we're looking for a variety of regional problems But we've got some other issues health insurance The Wisconsin Alliance of Cities has endorsed the AFL CIO proposal on health insurance now I Don't expect you all to be Experts, but you need to take a look at this We saw the actuarial report that was done on their proposal. This is good health insurance This is not Cadillac health insurance, but it's good health insurance. It's good for families This insurance if you follow the employer plan, it's an employer plan not a government plan. It's an employer plan this system would Reduce costs to about three hundred dollars per employee per month now right now The Alliance of Cities is paying anywhere from nine hundred and fifty and these are old numbers between nine hundred and fifty dollars per Employee all the way up to fourteen hundred dollars per employee our estimate is that if it were implemented today the taxpayers in Wisconsin would save eight hundred million dollars in State and local taxes eight hundred million dollars in savings to the taxpayers of Wisconsin if we reform health care Some might ask the state legislature. What are you waiting for? So health care reform? We need some changes in mediation arbitration. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to Combine services or to get out of the 19th century government box that we're in unless we have some changes in mediation arbitration. I've got three cities that 25 and 30 years ago lost in arbitration cases where they had to pay the insurance premiums for the retirees These three cities are not going to name them could be in receivership before the decade is over Because their retirement workforce is as large as their actual workforce and Just moving people into retirement doesn't help their problem with health care So we've got the health care problem, and we've got the mediation arbitration problem We need to do something with it. We've got a couple proposals on mandates Where we are mandated as cities to do things that other governments are not mandated to do it small stuff But we pay a gas tax Every city town village and school district in a state pays the state gas tax now. What Sense is it to have the property tax payer? pay for Higher tax have higher taxes because we pay the state's gas tax One level of government taxing another level of government. It doesn't make sense We would like to actually see some definition of the responsibilities between counties and cities and villages and towns why to eliminate redundancy of services In order for to make sure that the citizens the taxpayers in Sheboygan Don't pay a property tax to the county and then have the county provide services to everybody Accept the citizens of Sheboygan because that's the current law. We want to eliminate that And we've got a variety of proposals to do that we want to Want to do pursue regional revenue sharing now we've got a proposal now this is Just to kind of explain where we were the old formula for state share revenues has not run since 1999 so we really don't have a revenue sharing but what we're not talking about is Reallocation of any of that money We're going to use that as a base for the future So no city town village will lose Any shared revenues because of a new formula being Developed what we're talking about is Creating a base year The legislature could choose this year and if they did What shared revenue spending is as a percent of state taxes general taxes is six point three percent So what we're saying is carve out that six point six three percent for the future 25 percent of that new money would go as a percent increase to all levels of government Barring none, but then we create a regional focus now. This is what's different And this is this is quite unique What we'd be saying is that the general fund revenues raised in the County of Sheboygan would stay in the County of Sheboygan and Would be shared on a need basis But what this does your regional economy is the county of Sheboygan You are a metropolitan statistical area People who live in the county Work in the county to the greatest extent what we're talking about is for those revenues to stay in the county and be Distributed on a need basis for municipalities with with rates of three mils or greater So if you're under three mils, it's kind of hard to say you're a needy community when you have a mill rate of About three or less than three mils It's it's either because you're very wealthy or because you just not providing services either way You don't need a tremendous amount of help But the idea is that all local governments within Sheboygan County Would be more concerned about building The regional economy and working together Then working apart or between each other We want to be able to build cooperation to grow the economy because the fact of the matter is one of the major reasons we're a high tax state is because we have very low wages and Part of the reason we have very low wages is because we're tied very greatly to manufacturing Now you might think in terms of manufacturing being high high wage a Why high wage industry that was the case in 1970 it is not the case today high tech biotechnical types of Companies pay three times the wages Three times the wages that manufacturing pays We are changing in the world economy our vision for where we're going needs to be a little bit different So we want all local governments to work together to build their regional economy and if they do Then the corporate taxes and the income taxes that go up in the county of Sheboygan Will be shared by all local government and you will share in the the new economy in the new vision so We're going to be trying to push this agenda at the state legislature to deal with the problems they actually We we know what the problems are of city government. We've known them for years We cannot regress away from that fight We know we have land use problems. We know we have Separation of income problems. We know that we have the state legislature that just Loves to give away your tax base while they keep their tax base We know that politics partisan politics is the way of the land today And that we have to deal with that in some manner But we cannot just roll over to partisan politics because the problems That the cities face are about delivering Public safety, you know, every family wants the same thing, right? They want they want good schools. They want safe streets. They want the their Everybody wants a chance at a good-paying job. They want good health care This is and everybody wants this it doesn't matter what race what what ethnicity you are what religion you are you all want the same things and Cities play a role in that why because cities Cities are the only level of government that are part of the economy state government artificial lines Did he deliver services other than one of the lausias prison systems in the state of, Wisconsin? Where the spending is out of control three times higher than the state of minnesota a Little bit of subsidy the University of scots and the state doesn't do much They don't do anything counties artificial lines Those lines were drawn in the 1800s They haven't significantly changed in in a hundred and fifty odd years more than a hundred and fifty years They're artificial in their nature towns artificial boundaries just a way of measuring Governments so to speak back in the 19th century, but cities cities are dynamic and They grow because Businesses need space. They need to grow They grow because this is the place where jobs happen These are the flow of people and the flow of commerce is Because of cities This is where it happens So unlike any other level of government instead of the state trying to impede What cities do They ought to be turning over greater local autonomy They ought to be trying to help them grow because in the end That's what makes the state grow. So although you have these problems You also have the greatest ability to impact the people who live in wisconsin And it is an honor To represent those people and you know our forefathers created representative government. They were geniuses You know the I don't know if they saw 10% turn out at the polls in a municipal election I don't they first saw that But if it were not for the Republic That was given to us In the 1700s, where would we be? This is the greatest nation on earth because we are a republic because of representative democracy and And the thing to remember is this those legislators Are accountable to you That's what representative democracy is about To you and your neighbors and the citizens of this city, they're accountable to you. They don't tell you What to do in the real sense Unless you're willing to give that power over So we've got a really tough couple of years ahead of us But the thing about it is you're on the right side of the equation You're in the place where it matters. It's not partisan politics. It's about growing your economy It's about giving services and keeping your citizens safe So the Alliance of Cities is going to try to help in that effort And I'd be happy to entertain any questions about something that I said or didn't say And most willing to discuss it with you at this time Anybody to have any questions from Mr. Hook? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. He was Maryland's Mike here for a moment First of all a comment and then a question The health plan that Ed alluded to the AFL-CIO plan There is a presentation at Mead Public Library on that by Tom newbie on David David no be I believe on November 4th at 3 p.m. In the Roka room For anyone who's interested in that I think as Ed alluded to it's a kind of an exciting proposal That's going to spread the cost of health insurance amongst all employers and would reduce our costs substantially Then second point just a question for Ed I think as you alluded to Shared revenues have at best been frozen for the last decade decade and a half And I if I recall correctly Sheboygan sheboygan use sheboygan counts on Shared revenues. I believe we are the third Uh Third largest how would I phrase it third largest user of shared revenues in the state of Wisconsin it counts for a well over 40 percent of of our revenues Looking into your crystal ball because the state is on a different fiscal year than we are How the the second payment in 2005 For shared revenues. How is that does that look stable? Or will we have a problem with that? I asked this because we're in a midst of budgeting right now Yeah, I you'll be fine with it But it's part of the structural deficit the reason state shared revenues Is uh frequently targeted by the state legislature. I talked about the structural deficit of pushing out spending from one of their budgets into their next budget If you look at the state structural deficit About half of that structural deficit is state shared revenues because that second payment Now you got to go all the way back to 1985 Tony earl And the last time we had a crisis in wisconsin What they did to help pay Uh to balance the budget in 1985 was a shifted that Shared revenue payment out of the 1985 year budget to 1986 And they've never changed it in 20 years And so over a period of time that second payment is hanging out there Um Asking to be cut in the times of of fiscal crisis. That's why Uh, then governor mccallum took a look at it But let me just point out what shared where you're talking about 40% you lose your state shared revenues the local tax rate Here in shabuigan will go up $6 and 15 cents Without any new spending That that's the significance of it. I don't know where you are but imagine you're Somewhere around 10 11 dollars in your local rates.  I have seen no scenario where that'll be a problem Oh six is another manner We still have a structural deficit. We still have an actual deficit to deal with And we don't know what the recommendations are going to be at this particular time This many thank you, mr. Chairman My question relates to your influence in the capital today as the alliance of cities We can help you as we are informed and clear ourselves in lobbying our own representatives Um How effective are you in your educational process in your lobbying and in your own reading of the situation today? Well, we educate on two levels. Um, I have a communications director who spends Merchally all of his days and hours Communicating with Other levels of government and the public in general about what's happening in the state legislature because people Need to understand the issues And and and we do that We have a newsletter for for everyone listed here and listening if you go to www.withcities.org We have a website and we have a newsletter that changes on a regular basis about what's happening in madison So we update and educate a whole variety of folks in the business community and the private sector And in local government in terms of the alliance of cities in our lobbying We have a contract lobbyist jim tanuta jim and I share actually share office space jim is the former Caucus chair for the senate republican party He's a his expertise is in politics And I need jim because I live in a political world of partisan politics Which happens to be dominated in the legislature by republicans right now and we have in place a political strategist and someone who Works very closely with the republican party Myself As a lobbyist I have very good relationship with a lot of legislators We are the alliance is honoring six legislators five republicans and one democrat Across the state. I have two awards left to give we have Representative wickardt from appleton was legislator of the year senator step from we're seeing with senator of the year both republicans and both Urban folks who work for cities on behalf of urban families But I can't take political positions and so Where the alliance stands is on public policy Now public policy in a political world sometimes seeps through and it sometimes doesn't seep through So we have to have a a political strategy We have to have a political entity and we have to have somebody who stays on the straight and narrow when it comes to public policy Because in the end it's the public policy changes That advance the health and well-bearing of the citizens that live within cities across the state So We are incrementally successful. I have never Had well, that's not true. I've had a couple of outstanding budgets Last session we had the best tax incremental finance reform ever in the state of wisconsin That will allow for cities to invest in their downtowns for 30 years in a way. They've never had that opportunity before So we have our incremental successes And uh, but I can tell you this if you don't have Lobbyists working for the interests of urban families every day at the state capital You would have a situation like oak creek Incorporating and surrounding the city of milwaukee like in 1950 when we didn't have Lobbyists in the state of government you would have your annexation powers ripped away from your city in no time at all And you would see A decline like you've never seen before are we effective? Absolutely. Is it always visible? No Are we going to be successful on an ongoing basis? Yes, but it will be incremental I'm seeing there are no further questions. Mr. Huck. I'd like to thank you very much for coming tonight. It was a very good presentation Thank you. Thank you Now I entertain the motion to adjourn Motion made and seconded to adjourn all in favor Contrary


Alexa, what is today? Today is Thursday, September 14th. That means it's vlog Thursday. Vlog Thursday. Yay! We got one of these cool listening devices in our office because we weren't sure enough people were listening to us and we ought to make sure the government can too. And you ask her, hey Alexa, do you work for the government? Oh, she climbed up on us. Climbed up on us. Alexa, do you work for the FBI? No, I work for Amazon. I don't believe you. So the best part of this is telling where you got this, Tom. At a security company. That kids is what we call irony. Yes, had a great meeting. You can look them up. They're an interesting group of guys, group of guys, group of people, group of security professionals. Yes, human beings, a great group of human beings and a couple of them, maybe AI systems in disguise because they were really good. A cyber security company called CBI and other locals are big. They do security response and breach and all that stuff and sometimes you got to know your own limitations and that's part of the reason sometimes I like to meet with other companies like that because there comes a point where there may be some breach responses that happen and things like that that you need some outside help for because there's lots of legal navigation to do and so I had a meeting with them to talk about all those fun things that occur because here's the fun part. Lay it on us, Tom. I need a marker but we'll just pretend I have one. Marvin knows where I'm going with this. I do, yeah. We need tubes and markers. Tubes and markers. Just put the clip of our previous video in there. Yeah, yeah. So security is obviously a big topic right now especially since you know about a hundred and forty million people you know big database a little company called the Equifax and yeah I mean hey listen as long as you don't have credit cards a mortgage or a car payment you're probably fine. Yeah. As long as you know the people who have no credit all are celebrating going haha not me. Poor people for the win. Yeah right. Bad credit no credit. Sweet. Yes. And in a joke son they're offering free credit monitoring. Jokes on them. I already have a credit for you from another company that got breached and lost all my data. Yeah, yeah. Right. Haha. Like a hipster. I was doing it before it was cool. I had my data breached before you guys. Yeah everybody's thinking about the security now. Yeah well and then there's the ones that aren't and that's what we're gonna talk about right here. So I don't know the exact truth of this story but I like the story either way so we're gonna tell it and how it relates to what I'm gonna talk about next. Citizen journalism. Citizen journalism. It's probably wrong so you can stop here if you care about the facts. Anyways no this concept is a psychology count concept that was used I was told as I heard on how they got people to leave during disasters was they said oh you should leave there's an impending disaster coming and when the person would say no I plan to stay here they would pull out a marker and hand on the marker they said please take this and write name and phone number on each of your limbs so when we come back later after the disaster passes through your area we can put all the body parts together and know who to call and let them know. Grasm. Yeah it's gruesome. That's what you needed them I thought you were gonna do the VPN demonstration again.  VPNs with ink pens. Yeah yes no so as well as concepts and that's kind of where we're you know it's not a scare tactic it's we have some clients that are in clear violation of rules that govern them perhaps and they decline updating security they have firewalls that are 10 years old that were like you know right now I did do a vulnerability scan and there's currently no CBEs for this particular firewall but there's also no more updates for it because it's reach end of life from there you should really replace it because you have lots of things in your network that are very important to you and your clients and lots of them have the attitude of we're too small to get hit. I'm like okay and it still works and then they get hit. It's still working though. Why do I need to replace it? Yes it's working. Yes and some of them aren't our clients we came in because we were called from a place regulated under HIPAA compliance and they have a whole bunch of stuff that's way way outdated and they get 100 not gigabit 100 megabit switches which is part of the problem. The switching infrastructure and the firewalls are that old that they're only 100 meg. They're not to mention they bought them at Best Buy undoubtedly because of the brand it is I'm like yeah. The switch had a save by the bell sticker on top of it. Oh. So we want to make sure and if these if something worse happens to these clients for them after a client that we've got some type of plan. Now that plan it sounds like that's a cool contingency. I'll just have some breach stream come in. Be prepared because you could be upwards of seventy thousand dollars with these people I mean seventy thousand. Yes as opposed to you know us charging less than a thousand to replace that firewall far under a thousand replace that firewall you know it puts something decent in or we'd recommend even something better and intrusion production and all the whole thing but yeah to think that they want to decline everything and keep their you know 12 year old firewalls still in place. We just want to make sure that they also have another plan. It's kind of psychology. We're trying to scare them but we're trying to make sure they understand the series instead of this. It's not just Equifax and knowledge companies like Target when they get hit when they get breached we hear about our news. There are a ton of small companies constantly breached and it's it's a it's a problem that's getting bigger and bigger and it's something we've talked about it. I've actually had a lot of conversations with a lot of security people I know and that leads me to my next project. How'd they get hacked. How did they get hacked. How did they get hacked. So I first bought the domain and I gotta put a website up. I haven't done it yet. That's a hobby Tom has. He just buys domains. But I want to I want to compile stories and the stories you know protect the innocent. We're not going to reveal any names or anything in there but I know a lot of security professionals and I want more of them to help participate in this. I love a lot of the breakdowns and the details for how they get hacked. There's places like Krebs and security and a lot of others out there who do great details on some of those but I would like a more consolidated place that exclusively dedicates to the stories of all those because I found on Reddit some really interesting stories. Assistant men's have shared of how things went wrong in their network. You know when hackers got in and how they get crypto-lockered and you know one of them was just a overlooked misconfigured firewall rule which then someone had set the backup to like backup backup is the username password because they were testing and then they forgot after they were done testing to change the password again when they're trying to solve something. Those little things happen but it's like those couple calamities of one person on the firewall team. This is a bigger company that did the breakdown and then finding out someone else on the backup team you know that was supposed to be responsible for this. I mean it's a coincidence yeah but it was the way they got in and a hacker then held them ransom. He locked up everything but then also agreed if they paid the ransom because the hackers like to respond and reply and you've seen my text messages thing that was great. But they like to reply sometimes and so the hacker agreed that if they paid the ransom he'd say how he did it. Tell you how I did it if you give me your money. Yeah they well because he encrypted the backups and because he had the backup admin.  Yeah and it was they thought it was something more sophisticated and it really was just a oops on a firewall rule that opened up remote access in an area it shouldn't have and a backup back I think was just like backup backup was the username password for the backups which of course led him right to encrypting the backups which put them in the perils that they were in because the hacker when he got in did not immediately just shut them down it's about oh you know they waited encrypted backups they made sure they were playing with a lot of things before they released the ransom or so they made a big mess of their network they got a lot of it back but those kind of stories and and getting into some of the details I think would be cool to all have in one place because understanding those stories makes us think differently about how we should apply security and I wanted to be a resource because somebody you know when you meet some of these guys who work where they refer to as like red teams where they do some of those pentesting not just they usually reveal the results of the company well they do reveal the results of the company to home like this is how we reached a company but having some of that knowledge as opposed to just what you should follow these guidelines and here's a really long thing but talking about this is what went wrong I think would be very valuable to the security community you know just in concept because the sophistication is getting so much faster or so much better and faster and we've dealt with a few of them ourselves that we like wow they sent personal emails and things like that to impersonate wait till the owner of the company was on vacation impersonated them while they were on vacation with them completely plausible email to do a money transfer for a vendor they met I mean it's it's got all the personal details in it too it's not just a he send money and you can spot it as a scam no they impersonate him so almost admire it really yeah the love association which leads you to the text message thing and I found this on Reddit I thought it was great but it was well those it was a scam link to a bank and the person replied right away like do people really fall for the scam and the person sending out the scams that they said yeah like 15% of the people that have a phone also probably bank at this bank and they go why don't you get a real job because I can't find a job that pays me $20,000 a week now the $20,000 was in Australian dollars it's on my Twitter yeah but still but still that's that's I think that we're gonna be like 16,000 probably something like that and then my phone to do the conversion that's still that's a sizable amount of money to send emails and it's not like there's one solution to this there's a it's a tiered solution it's user training combined with you know making sure all the firewall rules right and everything else but you know thinking about the levels of sophistication and it's hitting small businesses really hard but no one talks about it because when a small firm or small you know law office or something like that gets hit locally we come in we'll clean something up that's it there's not where do I put that story and you know share it with people they went through some sophistication and it's kind of devastating small business obviously devastating the Equifax is happening but yeah you know they have more money to throw at it and these small businesses just assume if it's not in the news they're not hitting us and that's such a problem and when it does hit them they don't want to put necessarily want that out there that's why you have to change the names and you're you know in this because target's gonna be okay target gets hit you're still gonna go shop there yeah cuz I mean that's just how that's gonna work but you know if my if my attorney or my CPA or somebody gets hit and my information gets out well I'm probably not gonna use them anymore yeah you know and that makes a difference yeah so it's really it's hitting the small business is really hard right now I think people won't realize that so my is to raise awareness with both you know anyone who wants to read the stories and the stories are probably gonna be very interesting about some of these hacks occurred so I'm hoping to get that rolling up here pretty quick some fun graphics and pictures to fun graphics and pictures yeah I want to do a combination of some stories and a lot of videos I want to actually sit down and do interviews with some of the people who've worked on the security side of it so we can have fun discussion about it and hopefully enlighten people on all the stuff going on in that learning learning new stuff get some learning stuff going other things going on I'll be gone at Microsoft not this week but next week because Florida is still there so that's good they sent me a plane ticket to go down there so hope everybody in Florida and in Houston are digging out or swimming out or whatever you do whatever that was on there good luck to you and we're pulling for you so me and the whole Sunday morning Lennox review team well not all of us one of us can't make it but me Tony and Mary will be down there so you have an open slot and you didn't ask me to go dude dude you don't know legs but I'm I'm learning though that's this is an opportunity this is unacceptable now I'm upset they had to struggle to get us three tickets because oh they didn't they're Microsoft well they they make it dramatic to us I don't know if they're really struggling so like a yeah that's coming up that's very cool produce a ton of video at the build conference but I was really the build conference only a couple days and we were really back to back doing all the interviews we're there for more time so I'm gonna be doing a lot of video down there and I want to interview some of the Microsoft people and talk about a few things and that's gonna be a lot of fun so I'm kind of excited about all the hat while Tom's away who knows what shenanigans will get up to here no Steve wanted by a pirate hat because he's gonna be running around yelling at the captain that's that's on his list I am the captain now for the love yeah all right we'll see how that's gonna happen it probably will it probably have the eye patch and you know what I'll give him a peg leg he starts running around saying I'm yes he gets a peg leg yes I am almost done with some virtualization changeover stuff so we're doing some upgrades here internally with our infrastructure which is also what I'm gonna be doing a zensor review I try a lot of different things I kind of like the zensor so this weekend if nothing else comes up I'll probably do the whole migration over there plus I'll do a whole video on the migration and how it works and all kinds of fun details because why not do both I'm doing to work and documenting to work on video so yeah we tried a couple of new things out this past week we tried that oh man I might do a review on it mighty thing that it's a good concept I just yeah it wasn't terribly there's like one there's one feature of it where it's like if you just hadn't done this it would be awesome watch a review on it you'll see it look it up it's called the ergo slider it's really interesting they sent us one and I told them we're not just gonna do a demo we're gonna do a multiple-person demo on it so I'm gonna show you how it works it's interesting I I don't know I type different so I'll that'll be a separate video maybe we tried the that alternative to slack well yes and so you guys talked matter most was when we talked about last week and it was rocket chat someone suggested thank you for a suggestion rocket chat has a wonderful web interface I really liked it and there their mobile app isn't bad if you use an iPhone it seems to work better on the Android but us getting messages was bad and the app just didn't work very good at all the channels would randomly show up and it would decide occasionally it wouldn't want to show the chat history when you close the app until you logged out log back in now this is really odd because we got it up and running which was easy I may do a video on it's almost not worthy of doing a video was so easy I use their snap package and I got it set up then it's got to installer to install less encrypt certificates right in it so that was really easy to do as well so all those things are pluses with it and follow their instruction like wow this only took me a few minutes to give it you know get it up and running configured with an SSL cert awesome then came try to use the mobile app and that's unfortunately is a big hang up for us we do a lot of it because my people are out in the field I'm out in the field and slack messages are our favorite way to communicate while we're out in the field it's like hey I plug this in can you check the log and see if this or that occurred and it just doesn't work fine for me yeah it seems to work on the iPhone that's one puzzle we had it worked on the iPhone these guys are like it's not work I can't see this and I'm just like message yeah so we may visit Rockets yet again later if there's an app update but the problems with the app appear to be common because there's plenty of feedback and they don't have very good rating in the app store so I didn't I looked up matter most I never got around to installing it but the app had same thing didn't look good so I'm kind of like and try an alternative Google is working on coming out with theirs they scare me a little because they're Google not have something already hold on let's talk about that because right here I have my my Google alo and then we got what was the other one they had they we can hang out still but it's deprecated and there's there's another one they anyway Google has a few of them and none of them are clear there's not a roadmap they I think they're working on something that looks like a slack competitor I don't know where they're going with that we do enjoy hangouts hangouts actually work really well but I I've heard rumors that that's going away and so do you build anything on top of that yeah I know the video works really well on it so I'm like you know I prefer something open source but it comes back to I need an app that works and slack does the job so we're sticking with slack for now there's a quick change of subject but it's a good segue off of Google maybe you know this Tom so on the you know on the side I do some writing and I belong to a writers group we were discussing last night that somebody said that they had heard that if you write anything in Google docs Google owns the rights to that thing no I didn't think so yeah from what I could read it was they they have the right to use what you upload and store in there to better their product and promote their product but they don't own it they're not allowed to use or see the text you write yeah okay so they have a pretty sure I understood that yeah they can see or use it that that's where there's some convolution that comes in on rights to things like the voice because a lot of people like oh Microsoft's using the voice for telemetry that came the big deal it as much as normally I would jump on the let's bash Microsoft back and I'm much more rational person on things don't make any sense like that like yeah they kind of have to send telemetry back in order to do the voice recognition to make sure the words were coming out of your mouth in a way to understand so right but everything going to cloud everything is going to be in the cloud I mean apps everything like you can't have if that were the case then Google and Microsoft would own every single thing that's ever going to be written from here on out yeah that's not gonna happen there's so yeah there's so much confusion it goes around all that so that's definitely everybody if everybody read their terms of service they would know I mean I read every single terms of agreement that I get yes so and in comes back all the way around we're putting a cloud and you think about security on it and everything else yeah terms and conditions I don't I my videos rather popular about that because right away so you know we're trying to sort out the whole Equifax breakdown and I'm like someone to point it out and I've right away did a video on it because I'm like this is BS before everyone runs and signs up so I share this on my foot with my Facebook friends too I'm like the terms and conditions apparently you opt out of being able to sue Equifax on this and so yeah if you if you get their free credit monitoring you out you opt out and all their free credit monitoring is from my understanding is every couple of months they'll give you your credit report which you can you are entitled to 10 of like every right isn't it 10 every year I think something like there's a law now that says you're entitled to get your credit report free so many times a year so they're providing you for free a service that you can do for free they're not actually monitoring transactions and stuff that could be happening really they're not doing that Krebs on security is one of my favorite good security blogs to read he has amazing articles on there and I'll link below the the title of his for his aquifax one this is the dumpster fire that of ex aquifax is dumpster fire of a response or something like that it's a great read about everything that went wrong something triggered Alexa it's I said dumpster fire Alexa got excited oh yeah it's probably heard fire oh no she's gonna think some fire fire fire no okay anyway dumpster fire that is aquifax that's that's that's accurate though that is accurate yes so that yeah that's definitely crazy there's a lot of things going wrong I mean we're gonna hold off until there's a full debrief because I'd love and hopefully they do a good breakdown because of the facts being in the light that they are of everything wrong now we don't know when I don't know if this is a claim or we actually know it's for certain they're claiming there was a vulnerability the problem is that the software that they claim is about a billion there was multiple but some were passed and some weren't so when did it happen why did it take aquifax so long to know someone was inside your database there's so many questions we want answered about this I believe Krebs will probably have the first reports on that coming out so yeah it's it's really I have the answer aliens aliens aliens did it every time it's always aliens aliens yeah aliens stole our social security numbers you know someone did ask me because they can that's how they actually fuel their ships with social security numbers yep well people don't know that well people know that um here's something interesting in in lieu of this now there's a there's some companies that keep pricing notices and a lot of security companies internally do this and I'm tremor the name there's there's a couple places you can Google it they keep prices of things on the dark web so I've talked a little bit before about the dark web and one of the prices they have right now is what it what's all security numbers are going for and apparently this aquifax for you to just kill in the market for these things supply and demand right it's flooded the market literally supply and demand and they haven't hit the market yet but when they do like this is this is changing the the market dynamic for the value of a social security number so what the what are the chances that this will actually be like a good thing and people will stop buying so there are selling so secure numbers because it's not worth it yeah was that was that meme the the one you know when everyone's something that no one is whatever yeah when everyone's hacked no one's hacked this could turn out to be the best you don't thanks aquifax yeah thanks this could turn out to be great you guys are heroes so scary numbers anymore that's great idea that's fantastic anyways you should not have anything like that we should be using some type of public-private key crypto but it's an entirely under discussion which I thought about making a video about of how we should be doing it but that's said this stuff just so you know does end up on the dark web that's generally where this stuff goes and will be sold and parsed and yeah we need to talk about the dark web sometimes yeah get under later they get understanding people yeah the dark web and Bitcoin they'll just can't wrap my head around Bitcoin Bitcoin and dark web the two things kind of go hand-in-hand yeah I just can't get anyway get anywhere I just can't get my head around Bitcoin every time I think I understand it somebody said something different and I'm like the son of a yeah we gotta do the Bitcoin discussion yeah gotta bring Alexa what's Bitcoin thank you been helpful Alexa what's the current price of Bitcoin as of about two hours ago one Bitcoin was three thousand five hundred seven US dollars and thirty nine cents there you go where can I just find I just want all Bitcoin that's all I want is a $3,000 of Bitcoin tell me my watch as a Bitcoin all right all right we're we're gonna done and Felix content here like and subscribe more videos coming and all that fun stuff see you next week see you next week