Okay, let's actually do it this time. You know, thinking about it now, it's been a while since I've been really harsh on things. I know people call me a negative critic and that kind of was true, mainly in my hot-headed years, but I think I've mellowed out, especially after Supernatural ended, but this year, the bad movies stand out to me more than the good ones, and that shouldn't be. So I actually wasn't going to do this video because I try to stay out of that negativity now, but it needs to be said how bad some of the movies were this year. Just as an off-handed one dash cam, that movie came out and oh my God, award winner for the most irritating main character of all time.  There's women in Iran dying right now. There's people dying in Iran right now just fighting for normal women's rights.   They don't get any kind of defining arc.  Oh, so it's just not a very good found footage movie. I know they're not really that good in general, but this one in particular is shitty. Some of these on this list aren't just on here because they're bad. It's also because they're disappointing. Some of them I had some hope for. Some of them I had some curiosity for. One, I was very particularly interested in watching except it was not what I expected. Let's actually just start with that one. One of the worst movies of the year to me was Bones and All. I know a ton of people love this movie. I know it got praised. I know it's a cool little idea, admittedly based off of a young adult novel.  This had a Stephen King story written all over it, yet I think that the napkin size of the script was somehow dragged out over two and a half hours. Two hours and 10 minutes, but it's still far too long than it needs to be. There are lots of moments where it's hanging on pretty photos, almost veering into Terrence Malick territory and I feel it's taking away the pacing. I really enjoyed the chemistry between the two leads. The acting was great.  So dumb and so rushed, absolutely no justification, completely demitigates the character resolution that just happened, was not at all happy. I was very disappointed with this film, so that's why it's on the list. Speaking of disappointment, there's a meme going on right now of Daniel Craig from The Glass Union, just like, it's just so dumb. And he's got Thor Love and Thunder above him. And that is exactly what I thought this film was. Not to say that Taika Waititi, this might not have been expected, considering he had a very small amount of time to make this movie.   I'm gonna do what I want, whatever. They asked me to do something. And maybe this is his way of getting out of it. He then burned the bridge with a Star Wars job because he went up to Natalie Portman and legitimately said, hey, you wanna be in a Star Wars movie? Having not realized she was in the prequels. Taika's just on this kind of self-destruction train and I don't know why, but oh well. Anyways, Thor Love and Thunder lost all of the magic, the appeal, and even the story relevancy that the previous Taika movie had. It has no point. It has no purpose. It completely, completely robs you of a good Christian bail performance. You have one of the best actors in the age right now and you'll waste him. Absolutely waste him. This character got no development and any development that he did have was so routines, so basic.  His amount of time in the movie was dumb and then the ending too, with Thor just being able to give all these kids his powers like, all right guys, that's the worst MacGuffin I've seen in the Marvel movies. Considering the caliber we had been given before, I just feel that Thor needs to have a different arc again. Like this is unfortunate because Thor is one of my favorite characters in this. I've never liked him as a comic, but I've liked the development they did with him in the shows, or certain in the movies, but it just didn't happen in this one, so that's why it's on one of the worst list. Speaking of franchise ideas, the secrets of Dumbledore. Now this movie isn't in the worst list because it's bad purely. It's not great, but probably the dumbest part about it is how boring it is, despite the fact that they had Steve Clove's come in. The guy who adapted almost every single Harry Potter movie, except for Order of the Phoenix for some reason. I feel that this guy should have been hired from the beginning.  That was a pretty decent movie, despite the fact that this lady had no experience making a screenplay. And I feel that that magic, that luck ran out dry with the Crimes of Grindelwald and then this one. She's just like, here's an idea. This movie's two hours long, but really the plot's maybe like 10 minutes long. It's better construction-wise than the last movie was, but the last movie was such a convoluted mess. There's a lot of elements that were in that that could have been crossed over into this movie, but it also pretty much spelled an end for the Fantastic Beasts series. Forgive me if I'm wrong, I don't think it's truly, truly dead yet, but it is basically on its last breath. They want to reboot the Harry Potter movies into a TV show more than anything else. Whole prequel thing, Fantastic Beasts, which it shouldn't have been. It should have just been Newton the first movie and just continue on, but whatever. Yeah, they're dead. Speaking of things that should be dead and stay dead, Jurassic World Dominion.   Talk about a bad movie. Talk about a bland movie. I don't know how Colin Travarro kept this gig. Universal were just like, you know what? The first one made a billion. Hey, the second one made a billion. Sure, dude, you do it. It's because it's dinosaurs, guys. People love dinosaurs. Somehow this one made a billion. God damn, Michael Crichton's rolling in his grave. This is so bad. The movie has this really terrible plot with Locus and the villain, the villain of the movie who's not Tim Cook. Is that Tim Cook? Is that the head of Apple?   It got a lot of people to come back, but you did not use them. Very evident to see how you can use a legacy cast and that's Top Gun Maverick. My G, the only one who came back was Tom Cruise and Val Kimmer. Everyone else was kind of dead or not in the movie. That's a good legacy sequel. This movie was not at all. This was probably one of the worst big movies I've ever seen in a long time coming. Lacking of any kind of originality, it feels like a studio did it. It doesn't have any heart, it doesn't have any pulse. It is an animate object. It is that lifeless. I can barely remember this film despite the fact that I watched it within the recent months.  I remember the last one more than this one, but it feels kind of like the Rise of Skywalker conclusion to this trilogy. They didn't know what to do with it and there's a good game. Then the final terrible last movie of the year is one that Mark, I feel, is going to be particularly happy about this one. Halloween ends. This is the perfect example of why you shouldn't give stoners the budget for three movies in a story.  I thought the last one was gonna be the worst one. This is worse. Halloween ends was awful, except for the John Carpenter soundtrack. That was good. Everything else was awful. You have a film within a film that should not be in this film. Had that part been separate from the movie, that might have not been bad. But when you have a Halloween movie and Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers are pushed literally to the sides, they've got maybe 15 to 20 minutes and you don't even explain how he survived.    Disappointments, disappointments to come. But that's it, guys. Those are my worst movies of 2023. I hope you enjoyed your time with the films this year. There were some other ones that could have made this list. Like Doctor Strange 2 got really close to it.  It was a lot of shitty movies this year. I really hope that we get a better year. Dune 2 comes out next year. Anyways, guys, those are my thoughts. I have rambled on long enough. Give me your worst movies of the year. It doesn't have to be listed. You don't have to make it like, what was your worst one? I just said three once at a couple that were really, really bad. I really hope that I'm able to edit this because I have been rambling for a bit. Whoa. Thank you for watching this year. Thank you for tuning in, watching whatever I come up with. I know I was very absent this year and I apologize for that. It was just, that was how the year went. That was how it went. I do want to see if I can be more attuned to this, this year, or 2023. I would like to do more because it's kind of fallen off onto the wayside and I miss it. I miss talking with you guys. I miss making videos. I don't want to commit to anything because I have said I would do things in the past and I did not even get close to them. So I'll say I am going to try. I will not promise anything, but I am going to try next year. I feel bad, so. And I've got this itch, this want to go, this aspiration that I haven't had in a while. But this might be gone by tomorrow, but we'll see, that's ADHD for you. Anyways guys, that's all for me. Thank you for this year. And I look forward to talking to you guys in 2023.


Who are your favorite Asian male youtubers? Here's a few that we watch Yeah, if you guys are anything like us you definitely watch a lot of YouTube you watch like every single type of channel Andrew But we compile the list of some of our favorite Asian guy channels to sort of just give an extra shout out right because sometimes When you relate to the messenger sometimes the information can seep into your head a little bit more and sometimes There's just unique content. Yeah, so let us know it hit our that like button Let us know who your favorite Asian male youtubers as we get into our list. All right guys We are in the food section. I gotta start off by shouting out somebody Andrew This is actually a Mandarin channel even though he does speak English fluently Chinese food tour Yeah, it's just called Chinese food tour. Yeah, literally Yeah, it's just Chinese food tour and I'm telling you he goes all around China to small villages Andrew The most famous like food city in that region and he tries Everything yeah, and he always wears this black backwards hat. I think the brand is you Pong I'm pretty sure they also sell it on Amazon, but man. He makes the food look delicious Obviously, I can't understand fully everything that he's saying so I watch it with the captions sometimes But man, he shows a lot of dishes that I've never seen before. Yeah, and I think the main key is Andrew He doesn't just go to the international chains coming out of China that are super sleek like a Heidi Lau or Dalong Yi He's deep in the cut. Yeah moving on Andrew Um, this is something that we send to dad a lot and are cooking with Lau dude This is a channel about a father Cantonese father who doesn't really speak English that well But he ran restaurants for many many years and then his son helped him start a channel covering a lot of his recipes And his son narrates in English, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it's very well done super well edited a lot of great recipes And sometimes it's just nice to watch just a good-looking video of somebody cooking man Yeah, it almost reminds me of the content that you find in Asia, but in English. There's a ton of food content over there Quang Tran Yo, he got known for doing mukbangs and cooking. Yeah, so when you got into the cooking space and yeah, he's charismatic dude He's kind of like leading that one of the main, you know, home chef type guys So it's cool and I like it because a lot of his equipment is very relatable. It's not like he's using a big propane Butane like walk not formally trained. Yeah, Andrew and last but not least Andrew We've got iron chef dad with the famous Canadian chef Suzer Lee. Yeah hosted by his son Jet Lee who's the youngest of the brothers, but uh, man, he's always taking like okay, so we can take the McDonald's. Hmm. Yeah, you know, this cheeseburger is pretty good I used to grow up on this so but uh, let me make a gourmet for you Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm not the biggest fan of the The frozen home cooked dinner meals, but we're gonna see how we can twist it up today a little bit Yeah, it's basically it's like a cooking channel with an iron chef. So Essentially, it's pretty cool. Um some outdoor chef is pretty good too. Andrew He cooks a lot with like a game meats and things like that that he finds out in the wild But there's a ton of other people make sure you let us know who you follow in the comments section below These are the ones that we thought of just off the top of our head Andrew Um, we work in YouTube so we use a lot of film equipment Andrew There's a couple good Asian guy film channels potato jet NVU films in Sydney, Young's on These guys they review camera equipment lights Audio equipment stuff that we use. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I would tune into them I probably don't watch all their videos every day, but when I catch it, it's always informative, you know Yeah, it's fun. I think a lot of Asian guys have some really good gadget channels explaining phones as well Ben's gadget reviews. He reviews a lot of cell phones electric scooters electric bikes things like that Moving on to the workout section Andrew There's a ton of Asian guy workout channels actually because one of the original guys was actually Mike Chang from six pack shortcuts He was like the original work cut workout guy on YouTube period, right? But I found somebody who's really really relatable. I believe they're originally from Australia But they live now in South Korea when he Andrew he's really good at making it relatable to the person who only really wants to work out three to four hours a week Right because there's a lot of channels on YouTube right now They teach you how to be a bodybuilder But to be a bodybuilder you have to spend seven to ten hours in the weight room a week, right? And you have to be like super harsh on your own diet. So you're saying you're not Gonna be a bodybuilder. No, so shout out to when he I feel like he really breaks it down in a very relatable way He talks about the mental aspect behind staying fit and losing weight. He talks about a lot of protein What is all insulin? Yeah, I like it It's a little bit more of a moderate how to get ripped in a moderate way where you kind of mention I remember he's making this video about like, hey You know the the key to a good diet that you want to get that's gonna make you get ripped It's just the one that you're gonna stick to because a lot of people they do these crash diets They and they don't like it and it stresses them out But if it stresses you out you want to stress eat more so it's almost like a bad cycle, right? It's very relatable advice and he doesn't try to sell you stuff. That's the key. I'm not saying listen guys There's a lot of good advice channels out there that are trying to sell you 17 products every 17 seconds, right? But if you do want to go the weight lift about Larry Gao is a guy from 6 to 6 who became a bodybuilder Yeah, and he does like funny videos with his friends. So he's kind of like represents that AZN Jim bro. Yeah Yeah, yeah, very easy and frat bro cool guy Moving on Andrew to the basketball sneaker reviews Would you say Andrew most of the performance basketball sneaker reviewers at least like 30 or 40% of them online are Asian? Yeah, yeah, dude a lot man those guys and they get really nerdy about it So, uh, obviously hoop and life shout out to Nelly Nell Chan you get to see, you know Whim hoop and review shoes also like the soul brothers channel, which is now just the soul drop Yeah, soul drop. Yeah, Sammy Lee. He gets like every single got every shoe Oh, you know who else got every single sneaker ever Tommy Liu Tommy Liu and he you know what I like about him He's buying a lot of stuff from China and a lot of stuff from Japan I got the a6 Nova surge one low because of him and I got a ship from Japan Oh, there's a really good guy in the Philippines Marquez from Manila Andrew and he always opens up his videos with my boohai Alright going on to kind of like martial arts channels. There's a couple that I want to highlight obviously our friend Jeff Chan MMA shredded I'm actually currently training with him. So there's some content that's gonna be coming out on You've been getting a lot more into martial arts training. Yeah between Wing Chun with Ronnie Chang and then I'm doing a MMA with Jeff boxing boxing We do boxing with some friends in New York So I've been I'm kind of I might do a video on martial arts and kind of my introduction to it and my thoughts on it Not being an expert, of course, but having kind of trained different You know what I love about Jeff and and you would say that some Western people in a generalized sense Obviously not all Western people have accused a lot of Asia martial arts lander of being too form-based and not enough heavy Pressure testing right? Yeah, like a specifically Chinese martial arts. Yeah, and I feel like Jeff he like shows you the applications in Real-life yeah, he's not like a Wing Chun master, but he'll do Wing Chun moves just to see how they might kind of work in sparring And here's the thing about Jeff of all the martial arts youtubers. Okay, not only did he win the self-defense Olympics, right? Yeah, they had like a mini self-defense youtubers like Olympics, right? Yeah, but he just spars constantly Yeah, actually he was a pro one championship fighter. Yeah Anyways guys, there's also Kevin Lee who does a a lot of mixed martial arts He does like focuses on Wing Chun, but also he can do other things like BJJ You know what I think it's cool about Kevin Lee Andrew is he invites these older masters that are 50 60 70 80 years old Onto his channel to showcase their skills These guys are never gonna do social media if a younger guy doesn't go and put the camera on him, right? Exactly. All right, David moving on to fashion fashion and sneakers moving on of course number one You got to go with Richie Lee. Yep. Number one fashion channel. I think Richie covers the most like kind of like Mainstream styles that you just get that you're gonna look good Especially if you grew up playing basketball He covers a lot of stuff that the NBA guys are wearing Kyle Kuzma Jordan Clarkson Shay Jilchis, etc. Etc. You know that specific type of style that we all grew up with Um, I would say one style David coming out of the Bay. That's a little bit different Yeah, Keesey TV to me it ain't easy being Keesey shout out to Keesey He's more like 88 rising international kid like like, you know, like Shanghai American school or like Tokyo American school You know like the third culture kids. Um, there's also was it Locust and honey Locust and wild honey Yeah, yeah that he's doing a little bit more of like, um, I don't his own like cleaner style of it You know what I mean? Like monochrome moving on to finance Andrew.  Like he really preaches like, you know index funds time in the market not doing Super high risky gambles, you know, that's his style But I think that that's the most style that like, you know, it's good to get even if that's not your style It's good to hear that conservative financial advice every once in a while. Exactly. Exactly moving on Andrew They've also got Charlie Chang. He's all about interviewing entrepreneurs to get more, you know, I mean the 10x 50x 100x style that appeals to a different type of person. Yeah, I think it's content It definitely appeals a lot to younger people, um, which is good I think Vincent Chan's pretty good. I follow him on social met him up in New York once. David You also watch minority mindset. Yeah, he's uh, I believe he's seek. He's a seek Indian and you know He covers like everything that's happening in the market If you want to know the impacts Andrew of like work from home ending and people going back to the office What are like going to be the impact in the market or investing? Watch minority mindset moving on Andrew Just do random street interviews. These are almost more like what humanistic things. Yeah asking societal questions Uh, so there's jubilee project obviously jubilee is a big channel It's actually ran by Jason Lee and they do have a lot of Asians on the team But it's not like Asian specific, but they do ask a lot of interesting questions, man Like and they do videos that I would honestly never think of but like what would it be like? Oh, do like all hoppers agree on this right or like liberals versus conservatives or like even different types of conservatives We've reacted to it on our channel. So that's how relevant it is Obviously Asian boss. This is a channel that's based out of South Korea But started by English speaking Korean guys and they actually have like people in different countries Different parts of asia that that go out on the street and interview them. I think they're like, you know Contractors or whatever and I did growing up when you're Asian Andrew It's very hard to see Asian people sharing their opinions on a wide variety of topics, right? And you also always I think sometimes when you're in a different country, you would like to talk to random people and kind of get Their thoughts, but you don't speak the language. You don't have the equipment You don't have a reason to do it. So they kind of do it Um, do you you get more of like what the average person on the street thinks versus getting like an internet troll version of them? Yeah, I also want to shout out to kanto mando I think that they they actually do a mix of content But the content to me that I really like is like when they went to uh the most racist town in America And they were like asking about chinese things and they it was like they went to some place Was it arkansas or wherever the city was and it was rated as the most racist and then they go out there And they like talk to people on the street. So I feel like being canadian. They have a definitely a different perception of Yeah, man, shout out to them. I told them in person I was like, yo man, shout out to you guys for doing that video because I definitely Um, shout out to geography now and one of the main guys who runs it is half korean Geography now is if you want to understand Social studies in a fun way and learn more than you ever learned in social studies class in middle school or high school Geography now do I like this channel a lot man And he always comes out and he'll try to get the information right if you got it wrong He'll like make a note about it in the comment section or he'll say hey god And he always tries to pull somebody from that culture. I've been watching his videos for years He kind of has just like a true love for like wanting to understand the world. Yeah at a cultural level Yeah, man, shout out david, uh, obviously there's also some more other Deep cut channels hosted by asian guys like ones about the military Rowning tactics, you know, Mike Glover shout out to him. I'm pretty Some pretty violent stuff, but it's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It could be useful Obviously depends on like what life you live, you know, and we didn't list that many gamer channels or anything like that Because that's not a huge part of my current lifestyle, but it could be so what I want everybody to do Is let me know in the comment section below if you watch any of the channels that we listed If we missed anybody and what are the channels that you watch that are run by asian guys on youtube And what they're about just so everybody else can discover them as well Yeah, and also let me know if you think we would like them because i'm down to discover some new channels Of like topics that I don't usually delve into but I am interested in them, you know But it's just sometimes like hard to find because there's no like guide Yeah, what do you think about tick tock somebody was telling me there's there's about like 50 to 100 creators I mean I watch some on tick tock. I'm on tick tock, but not like heavy heavy, but I think for me YouTube content has to be more well thought through though because you have to film it You have to upload it open it up in editing program Take the best cuts Throw the effects and the graphics and the titles and the overlays on it and then export it guys I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes it just feels like tick tockers just I just dump their brain and just On to a tick tock and they're like, all right, I'll post it. Yeah, that's how I feel sometimes Wildly entertaining though, but all right everybody you let us know in the comments down below That was just a short video just shouting out to some asian bro channels that we know of so until next time We out


Welcome to today's first Friday forum with the Sheboyin County Chamber of Commerce. We'd like to thank our first Friday forum sponsored Prevea Health. Without their support, we could not make this type of event happen. So thank you very much, Prevea. Today we are going to hear from Adam Payne. He's the Sheboyin County Administrator. As he explains, the county will deal with the ARPA funds and their distribution throughout the county, and then he will answer your questions. So be thinking as he's talking about what questions and follow-up you have and how you might stump him. I'm sure he'll appreciate that. As the Sheboyin County Administrator for 20 years, Adam Payne provides executive management and oversight to all operations of Sheboyin County Government. He coordinates and directs the administration and management functions of Sheboyin County's 19 departments comprised of 847 employees, 200 programs and services, and an annual budget of $149 million. Adam's responsibilities include developing and recommending organizational changes, assuring policies enacted by the County Board are carried out, and assuring fiscal and program accountability of the services to the taxpayers of Sheboyin County. Outside of work, if he still has some spare time, he's an active member of the Sheboyin Rotary, the Sheboyin County Chamber of Commerce, the Sheboyin County Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors, United Way Board of Directors, and former president of the County Executives and Administrators Association. He also coached youth sports and as an avid outdoorsman and sportsman. So without further ado, please help me welcoming Adam Payne. Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here to talk about the Ryder Cup. What a week we had at Sheboyin County. I don't know about you, but I'm still a little bit on a high with how well that went when we not only had one year, but two, two and a half years to plan it. And some of you, I know we're out there. We're just talking about it over lunch a little bit. Did Sheboyin County shine? So this morning, we're very, we're very fortunate to have a golf expert in the room, former County Board Chairperson Tom Wagner is with us this morning. So after this presentation, if anyone has any questions about golf, please ask Tom Wagner. In fact, I'd like to start with just a few quick introductions. It's always nice to see some of our County Board Supervisors attend important functions like this. And at the back table, I have Chair Vern Koch actually couldn't make it today, but Vice Chairman Robert Ziegelbauer. Robert, if you'd please stand and be recognized. I don't know if everyone knows who the Vice Chair is. Tom Wagner, who was our former County Board Chair for years, Robert Ziegelbauer. I just mentioned Roger Distruty, former Chair. Thank you for being here. And then Elaine Krauss, who is our Deputy Administrator. So pleased that she's here and also in the room, just to make sure I don't say anything about the state, is State Representative Terry Van Ackron. We appreciate that. Oh, Terry Kotzma. Terry is here. Sorry, Terry. Terry Kotzma is here, member of the Joint Finance Committee. Also here is Tyler Vorpogler. Where's Tyler? Is Tyler here? Thank you, Tyler. And then up in the front of the room, another County Board Supervisor, Rebecca Clark is with us here. So thank you. So I packed the room today with County Board Supervisors and state legislators. I see Mayor Ryan Sorensen here this morning. And again, I thank you all for taking the time for this today. So I'm going to touch a little bit on the American Rescue Plan Act, what it means for Sheboygan County, why it's so important for Sheboygan County. But before I start on that, I want to set the stage as to why we're even talking about ARPA. And unfortunately, that is because of COVID. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these statistics. And you all know you can go to our public health website and look at statistics day in and day out our public health staff. Everyone involved with battling COVID has been so essential to defeating COVID-19 and getting us back to some semblance of normalcy. But the number of deaths a year ago versus today, the activity, cases that continue to occur nationally. And of course, if you look at Sheboygan County, it was really in March of 2020 that we had our first case, our first case in Sheboygan County. We went from zero to three. And throughout the summer, we kept it in the teens. And I thought, all right, maybe we're going to, maybe we're going to avoid some of this and what's happening. But it tends to come from the south and move its way north. And ultimately a year later, from March, we are now up to over 600 active cases in Sheboygan County. We had a high of 2,600 active cases last November. So it's gone up and down. But when you look at those active case numbers, is that really the total? Does that really represent how many active cases there are in Sheboygan County? No, it doesn't. Because there's probably two to three times as many people that have gotten COVID and don't report it to public health or aren't followed up with or just stay at home and quarantine. So it continues to be a struggle for us. And again, I can't say enough about our public health team. I can't say enough about the county board and the city and the heads of government and their support. And also the Sheboygan County Chamber has been an absolute rock star with helping share information. Our businesses like the Kohler Company, Sargento, so many people have stepped up and are working to be part of the solution. And we appreciate that. Next slide, please. The bottom right hand bullet point is the one that concerns me the most and should concern all of us. If our hospitals will overrun and you or a family member is in a car accident or suffers from a heart attack or whatever it may be, you expect to go to the hospital and get immediate assistance. You expect there to be a bed and staff to care for you. And we have had upwards of over 90% of our ICU beds filled. And that has been going on for a while. I think there are probably people in this community and across the state and nation that aren't going to the hospital because they're just avoiding it, right? So this continues to be an issue. So regardless of how you feel about COVID, whether you've chosen to get vaccinated or not, please know that it's serious. And if nothing else, if our hospitals become overwhelmed, what is that going to mean for our community? What is that going to mean for you and your loved ones? Something we should all be mindful of. Next slide, please. Good news. And this is my last slide on COVID and the statistics. But the latest information, as of yesterday, over 55% of people in Sheboygan County have received at least one shot vaccinated. You can see the ages. Obviously, the younger folks haven't been able to do that as long as those of us that are older. I am so encouraged that if you're 50 and older, chances are good, you've chosen to get vaccinated. And you can see 55, 72%, 65 and up, 86%. I don't know about you, but my parents taught me that generally, it's some of the more experienced people in our lives that tend to have a lot of knowledge and insight. And we should learn and listen. And you can see that our older generations are leading the charge. So hopefully, we'll continue to see that number go up. And soon, perhaps a year from now, see COVID as being more in the rearview mirror. But it's not going to happen if we don't all pull together. Okay, next slide please. So all of this angst and intrepidation, sadness, death, all of this has had a tremendous impact on the world and on our nation and on our state and on Sheboygan County. And in March, there was the American Rescue Plan Act that came out and in my career, I've never seen anything quite like it to see this amount of revenue coming to local units of government to respond to COVID. Never seen anything like it. Actually, that bio that was read is about three years old. Now, I'm no longer on the United Way Board. I've been here 23 years instead of 20. And four and a half months ago, I became a grandpa. That's probably my most important title now. But in March of 2021, we saw this tremendous influx of resources that went out across the country to local units of government. And as you can see nationally, 1.9 trillion on which Wisconsin is going to receive. And as Sheboygan County is going to receive 22.4 million, we've already received half of that. You heard earlier, our budget is around $150 million. So this is a significant amount of funds. Although in the grand scheme of things, our Health and Human Services Department is about a $35 million department alone. So we're very equipped to deal with this situation and make sure that we make wise, thoughtful investments. But the total allocation countywide amongst all the local units of government is 51 million. What an opportunity for us to pull together and leverage resources and help make some good things happen. So as I mentioned, we've already received half the funds. We'll receive the second half sometime next May or June 2022. And we have until December 2024 to make decisions on how to allocate these resources. They must be expended by 2026.  We can thoughtfully plan and make sure we're getting input and engaging others to make wise and impactful decisions. And that's how Sheboygan County rolls. That's how we get things done. We work together. We collaborate. We make good, thoughtful decisions. And it's one of the reasons why this community is such a wonderful community. Next slide, please. So what can the funds be used for? Obviously supporting the public health response. We continue to fight the good fight, whether it's in our public health department, whether it's clinics, hospitals, what have you. We continue to see people suffering from behavioral health issues. Mental health, in fact, domestic violence, sadly, is on the increase. And that's a real concern for our law enforcement and certainly a real concern for families in our community. Covering payroll benefits associated with fighting the fight. So rather than us utilizing our reserves or having to raise property taxes or somehow get more funds from the community as a whole, we have these resources to subsidize these needs and expenses. Next slide, please. Address negative economic impact. So this is pretty broad. Strictly speaking, just about anything that's been negatively impacted as a result of COVID, whether it's your business, your community, your health, your industry, we have the ability to provide assistance and support, including tourism, travel, hospitality. Pretty broad. A lot of opportunity to do good things here. Next slide, please. Premium pay for essential workers. We could provide all of our public health officers at Health and Human Services additional pay. We could do that. We aren't. Government tends to be pretty conservative and we have barriers in place and we aren't in the business really of giving significant increases or pay increases. People pull together, they step up, they do what they can to help solve the problem. So we're not using these funds at least at this point. There has not been any discussion to use this for significant pay increases. Premium pay though, as I'll touch on in a few minutes, we're certainly using it to shore up some areas like staffing at Rocky Knoll. Next slide, please. Replace public sector revenue. I'm very pleased that this was part of it because, again, rather than diminishing our reserves or asking property taxpayers to pay more. I mean, I've heard Senator Devin Lemieux and Representative Terry Patsman, Representative Tyler Gorka will talk about how proud they are that they built up the rainy day funds. I mean, it was down to nothing there what four or five years ago and they pulled together and helped really build that up. The county's got a pretty nice rainy day fund too. It's because our county board's conservative and thoughtful and you want to have those funds when something hits the fan. Fortunately, because of these resources, we haven't had to deplete or diminish our rainy day funds and we appreciate that. We also have this unique situation that the federal government and the U.S. Treasury's guidance says that what was your average increase in revenue over a period of time and you can look at that in 2019 and say it was two or three percent and after that it's less. You can use the difference and essentially the county board can utilize these funds to shore up any area they wish. It's really a very flexible tool but not only did they say how much has it gone up in 2019, you can just use the factor of 4.1% that if your revenue is going up less than 4.1% you can use this flexibility to offset other expenses in the county. What was the introduction earlier? We have 19 departments, over 200 programs and services, a lot going on. We're going to have some flexibility to shore up some areas. We're going to make good use of that. Next slide please. Water, sewer, broadband infrastructure, or mayor. Sorenson and I know administrator Todd Wolfe and the common council are looking at a pretty extensive water treatment facility improvement in the city. I think 40 million or something like that. I mean huge important investment and if the city wanted to I think they could use some of these funds. They could use maybe all of their funds to help with those type of investments. I don't know if they're going to do so. That's a mayor and city common council decision but it allows local units of government to invest in water infrastructure improvements, sewer infrastructure improvements, and broadband. And this broadband is really exciting right now. How many of you have the best broadband service ever and it never lets you down? It doesn't matter where you are in the county. I mean broadband is becoming like a transportation system for agriculture or manufacturing. You gotta have the transportation system. Like electricity. Better turn on. I think that's where broadband is or certainly is heading and fortunately through the Chavoy County Economic Development Corporation, the county board, and others we're working with a local company, Bertram, who's already applied for some resources. There are other organizations looking to bring those dollars to our community and that is an area we can invest in. These are all eligible for the 22.4 million the county received or the 22 million that the city received or the 51 million county wide. We could put that all into broadband if we want to. But that's not the plan. Next slide please. Ineligible uses. We cannot use it just to say well we're going to cut property taxes. You know we're going to cut them in half next year. Merry Christmas. We can't use them to say oh we're going to give all our employees a nice big pension increase. Can't use it for debt service. Can't use it to build up our rainy day reserves. We're using it to offset using our rainy day reserves but not to build them up. We need to invest these dollars in ways that are going to make our community stronger, prove our quality of life, and have more people want to live, work, and play. Should point to county. Next slide. So how have we started handling this? So we received this news, this US Treasury guidance just touched on that and by the way on every one of your tables there is a summary of six advisory committees that we put together and I'm going to talk about that more in a minute and a little background on the county so feel free to take a copy when you leave today if you want to get into the weeds a little bit more. But as I said earlier collaboration is absolutely key to our success. That's how we rule. That's the culture in Sheboygan County, certainly on the county board and department heads with our budget development or whatever it may be and honestly I think that's the culture in this community with the Chamber of Commerce or United Way. We pull together, we problem solve, we help make good things happen. So we immediately reached out to our heads of local government which are the chief elected officials of all the local units of government. We get together a couple times a year, break bread, talk about common interests and this is what we talked about. We reached out to our Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation. There are people in this room like Deidre and myself and others that participate on the board of directors or the executive committee but the SEEDC represents what 35, 40 different businesses in our community including collars, Johnson bills, Sargento, pillars in our community. We reached out to them. We reached out to the Sheboygan County Chamber who as I said earlier I can't thank Deidre and Mark Shoe and your board enough for your support with sharing information about COVID and just helping this community get through this very difficult time. And then United Way. I'm no longer on that board as I mentioned earlier but I was for 15, 17 years. Kate Bear is a rock star. That board is so thoughtful and they help make good things happen. So we reached out to all of them. Next slide please. And with input particularly from the SEEDC and the city of Sheboygan, the mayor and the administrator, we put together six task forces. Now these have to look pretty familiar to you, right? These topics, affordable housing, behavioral health and crisis response, broadband development, childcare, transportation and workforce development. These are topics we've been talking about for years. How long have we been saying we've got 3,000 or more job openings in Sheboygan County? Two decades. At least a decade. How long have we been saying we need to invest more in behavioral health, crisis response, affordable housing? How do you get people to move here and work here if there isn't any affordable housing? Or if they have children and there's no accessible childcare? So again the city of Sheboygan, the SEEDC in Sheboygan County pulled together and we established these six task forces. We identified chairs for each one. I'm not going to read all of them but you can certainly see the names up there and some of the people are in the room. They then helped pull together a team of individuals and as I said on your table is a one page summary of every single one of these task forces. They got kicked off on August 17th. In fact we just had a check-in meeting with the chairs yesterday. By the end of the year we're looking forward to them coming to the board, County Board, SEEDC, City of Sheboygan, heads of local government and sharing the recommendations. But I'm really pleased that we have reached out and garnered input and are getting input from the community. Not every county board is doing it this way. Some county boards are just handling it all in house between the board and the department heads are handling it. So I'm pleased that we're working collaboratively. Next slide please. As I mentioned the goal is for the chairs of these task forces to provide a report by the end of the year. It doesn't have to be in January. It could be next week if they're ready. But by the end of the year we're looking for a report with recommendations and if it's not all completely finalized that committee can continue working. The key is they're together, they're convened, they're talking, they're problem solving and of course the sooner we get these recommendations the sooner we can start doing something with them and engaging others and establishing priorities and problem solving. Each committee, as you can see from those on your table, charge objectives, very diverse membership. I mean we have people from the polar company and Sargentu and the Chamber and Detrus Chair of one of these committees and just a wonderful group of people that pulled together. And when we first did this it felt a little bit like herding cats trying to get all these folks quickly pulled together. But then I started thinking about it and the chairs that we have identified. This is what these folks do. I mean Derrick is the head of the transportation committee. Derrick Mink is the head of public transportation at the city of Sheboygan. I mean this is right in his wheelhouse and of course he's always talking to others and seeking good ideas and how we can make improvements. We've got some really good people involved. We also established an ARPA grant oversight committee. What the heck's that? Well I've been talking about the county's 22.4 million or the city's 22 million or the 51 million county-wide when you look at all the local events of government. But you can hardly look at your email and not see the next grant opportunity coming from the state or federal government, right? I mean not a week goes by certainly that you don't see another grant opportunity. So I think it was Louis Gentine to give credit where credits do. We said who's monitoring all this so we're not missing opportunities. And so we listened and we pulled together a group of some internal county staff that do some grant writing and health and human services or transportation or planning. They're not big picture experts on ARPA but they have a feel for it. We pulled them together. Ray York from the SEEDC serves on it. And now we have a comprehensive list of every single grant that is coming our way regardless of who receives the notice. We're throwing it into this comprehensive spreadsheet that now has 3.4 billion dollars of grant opportunities that we can tap into potentially bring to Sheboyton County to make improvements. So what do you think? You think we're looking for these task force to focus on the 22.4 million the county has in part? But first and foremost we want to make sure that we're being mindful of these other state and federal grants that are out there and tapping into those and bringing as much as that home as we can to make investments. That's the first priority. And of course the sad thing about it is these doggone grant announcements are made and they give you like three weeks to respond. It's just remarkable. I don't get that. I just don't get that why they have to put such a quick turnaround on it. But fortunately because we have a lot of good people engaged and a lot of leaders in this community we will take advantage of some opportunities. I said it before we want to make wise and impactful investments. I'm at the tail end of my career as county administrator. I'm going to work here probably for another year or so.  I see this as an opportunity like I've never seen in my career for us to make some wise, thoughtful investments in our community. We haven't had this kind of opportunity in my 23 years. So we're going to engage others as we are and we are going to make a difference. And I know Chairman Koch, if he was here today because we've talked about it a fair amount, we're both really passionate about the child care area. I mean all of them are important but we have to have more accessible child care opportunities. It's not just from nine to five, right? We have to. In fact on that note just as an example, we have a Rocking Hill Healthcare Center where we are one of 34, 35 counties in the state that owns and operates a nursing home. It's a five-star quality nursing home. We're struggling with staffing just like everybody. We're the only one in the county that has now an attached child care center. The county board just supported that last year, a year and a half ago and it helps with recruitment and retention. So we need to do more of that. Next slide please. So this is your making process. So next steps ahead, you're sitting there thinking, well how do I get my hands on some of that, right? How does the process work? Well we have certainly two processes in play and there again, right in the county board's wheelhouse. This is how we roll. One is the annual county board budget development process. Everyone in the county has an opportunity to get their fingerprints on it, suggest ideas. It's very collaborative. Bill Gehring is the chair of our finance committee does a nice job but again our executive finance committees they really help lead that charge. All proposals come in from departments and liaison committees. They're all reviewed by myself and the finance director. They're considered by at least the finance and the executive committee and they go on to the board. So we can build some and we've already built in a few into our annual budget process but just a few initiatives because again this is so early and we're waiting to hear more from these task forces but that's one route and every year we have an annual budget process effect. Dietra and the chamber board seek some assistance from the county for the good work that the chamber does as does the SEEDC and I'm pleased to share. Dietra didn't didn't know this yet. Just this week the finance committee unanimously supported the chambers request as well as the SEEDC's request so there is there's strong synergy and support there. Next slide. And then if you're coming in from one of the task forces that again will be reviewed by myself finance director other key staff we try to make sure you know it's well prepared and thoughtful and questions are answered and then that too will go on to executive finance committees to the county board but with the ARPA request as they said we want to collaborate with the city of Sheboygan. We want to collaborate with the SEEDC because the more we can leverage resources if the city comes in and says I'll put a million toward that the county does and the SEEDC does or you know some businesses like Sargento or Kohler for child care the odds of that going forward are so much greater so we're looking for those opportunities goes through our liaison committees refer to the board and once again the county board is the final decision maker. Next slide. Other initiatives in progress and I've got like two slides left here and we'll open it up to questions. The county board just about three months ago we were contacted by Discover Wisconsin. One of the things we can use ARPA funds for is marketing the area workforce development bringing more attention to the job openings we have here the wonderful quality of life we have here and so to the county board's credit to the city comma council's credit and mayor Sorensen and to the SEEDC's credit all three entities pulled together and are all taking a piece of that responsibility to fund this initiative so that's a place. Rocky Noel out of our 19 departments this is probably the department I'm most concerned about right now why do you think that might be what's happening what's happening in health care right now staffing health care professionals are burning out my wife's one my daughter's whole work in health care I hear the stories they're burning out and right now I don't think there's a nursing home in our county that isn't struggling to keep staff it's been a grueling year and a half and for all of us who have felt it one way or the other I think of health care workers who are in the direct line of fire holding the hands of people that have passed away and the family can't even be there there's exactly example after example but Rocky Noel right now is struggling with staffing and if you don't have staff at your nursing home you can't take care of your residents that concerns me and should concern all of us so the county board finance committee just this week and and the weeks prior to this have supported additional resources to help plug some financial holes there our census is way down so our revenues way down but we still have to maintain staff new recruitment and retention opportunities for our staff we train like 24 cna's over the last couple years and many of them went to the hospital why we learned that the hospitals provide tuition reimbursement so if you want to go from being a cna to a nurse good move right we weren't doing that at Rocky Noel we're going to be going forward we're going to raise their minimum wage from 16 to 17 dollars an hour 17 dollars an hour to do peri care which if you're not sure what that is that's wiping rear ends and some of the work that none of us care to do unless maybe it's our own grandchild 17 dollars an hour is the minimum wage I can go to Sargento or master galley gallery and make over 20 dollars an hour standing in the cheese line child care rebecca was sharing with me as we were talking just before this she worked at the ymc and steven's point but I won't say how many years ago she said she was making 789 or they're about state bucks an hour providing child care and I said oh it must be over 10 now she said no it's essentially that exactly the same what were our priorities we've got we got to change this model and we're we're going to in part start with rocky no and certainly we want to work with others as well we're using some of these funds for ongoing personal protective equipment cleaning and supplies we continue to do a lot of that not only in county government but throughout every business I think knows that we're increasing our judicial assistance we have five circuit court judges they've run behind in court cases and delivering justice so we're going to provide them with additional assistance so they can catch up we're looking to enhance mobile crisis services our health and human services mad strip modder the police chief for the city they've had some discussions with us on some opportunities there so we're looking in that we're exploring that and then if you're not certain there are federal reporting requirements so anything we do let's say it's a county that isn't transparent or isn't working with others and how are they going to use this funds I presume our state legislators think about that a little bit how is that county or that community going to use those funds because there's always bad actors there's always someone out there who screws up right well the federal government does have reporting requirements on how these dollars are spent and I'm glad it's there that's an important checks and balance to make sure again people are making wise thoughtful investments excellent so with that how am I doing on time okay so let's just open it up to any questions you have and I'm okay with stunk the county administrator because I'll be the first to admit I don't have all the answers but there are a lot of good people in the room that may be able to help me but whether it's COVID whether it's the American rescue funds whether it's county government as a whole Ryder Cup Tom Wagner's here as I said you name it but fire away any any questions for me Roger I think something that might need some clarification is the the health care and the child care Rocky Noel that's not county owned or operated maybe you should explain that to the group and and how that might fit for other large companies to do something like that as well appreciate that question excellent clarification county government is not looking to get larger county government cannot afford to get larger for the last 10 12 years our average property tax levy increase has been 1.2 percent 1.2 1.3 something like that I mean very frugal we're not looking to add staff however we are looking to problem solve and meet needs so at Rocky Noel when we established this child care facility we found unused space or underutilized space we the county board invested we remodeled it because we had to for a child care setting but we are contracting with generations in Plymouth to actually provide the child care so it's completely run by generations there's no subsidy from the county for running we just provided the space and first and foremost our employees get first kick at an opportunity and again it's been helpful we can we can see the impact it's having on employees who have children there and how much they appreciate bringing them in and picking them up and then if there's space we open it up further but thank you Roger for raising that question good clarification we're not looking to add county staff to run these facilities but we're certainly looking to partner and with ARPA Gina and I and Kate Bear we're just talking a little bit about the child care and again I know Rebecca's on it I can big picture I can envision us establishing one or more additional child care centers I can see that happening I can envision the county board potentially investing in establishing one or more child care centers I can envision the county board providing some funds to help with the staff support while they get up and rolling because we're not going to hire many people at eight or nine dollars are we Rebecca that's not going to happen but at some point it needs to be self-sufficient and county government is not interested in having those be county employees thank you Roger any other questions yes Adam you had made mention of the quick turnaround required for the bachelor balance back program grants those that are coming from the state do you have the database of that we as as community representatives could check into I know you know oftentimes there's only three or four weeks when a grant is issued for you know that window to respond I just want to make sure we don't miss anything such a perfect timely question thank you for that just yesterday during our first check in with all the chairs we talked about that very issue so we are going to either include it on our website or we're going to make sure that it gets out to key partners such as United Way or the SCEDC or both but the key is we want to make sure it gets out there it's public information we want people to benefit from it and so I thank you for that well I think next week we'll be able to trigger that different approach to make sure that it's more broadly distributed thank you commenting question uh first the comment you know having grown up here I remember as a kid coming hearing either it was on shirts or people saying you're entering shabuigan county turn your clocks back 20 years um I have to say it it isn't that way anymore and and thanks for your efforts it's uh it's a renaissance if you will but as it relates to other counties do you get a feel you've mentioned you know there's always going to be some maybe that aren't as transparent in talking with other counties are they taking the collaborative approach that shabuigan county is or are we unique in that everyone hear the question okay um big picture I think county government is incredibly thoughtful government and it's nonpartisan so we don't spend a lot of time worrying about winners and losers we focus on problem solving and it's one of the reasons why I love being a county administrator county government there's 72 counties I think overall they do an excellent job but of course everyone's different different issues what have you I was recently at a county's association conference where we talked about this and I was also at a regional meeting up in brown county a couple of weeks ago where we talked about this as far as I know we're the only county that is established task forces that are partnering with our largest municipality and the shabuigan county economic development corporation there may be others but as far as I know we're the only one but are there other counties that are certainly engaging in working with others in collaboration absolutely absolutely thank you please extend my deep thank you to the staff at rocky mill both my parents spent their last years and months there and I just can't say enough about compassion and the care every day on my question thank you for that please keep paying them as much as you can they deserve it they really deserve it the question is about broadband I live in rural alcarte lake and um my speed of my wi-fi when I can get it it depends on how many greens are coming so I'm actually looking forward to winter so I can get rough again that's crazy that's crazy so my question is you know I see this timeline when can I even hope to get decent wi-fi where I live and everywhere else in rural shabuigan county everyone hear the question for the most part one more broadband be more highly available my answer is I really don't know I really don't know what I can tell you is that a birch room which is a local broadband provider in the random lake area has applied for funds as have at least one other broadband provider and there are there are a handful in our community and they're all it's like spaghetti right they work together yet they're competitors when they'll receive the funds the time out for the build out I don't know what I can recall birch I'm sharing with us is if they're awarded the grant and if everything comes together I think they were looking at least a year and a half two year up two year build out that's my recollection but I would not hold your breath but the good news is there's discussions in play all sorts of consultants are chopping at the bit to tap into these funds and I really believe in my heart a heart of heart in the next two to three years it's going to be better than it is today thanks for the question Rebecca did you have a question I'm just curious Adam about testing it seems like for COVID I've been hearing the school district is having a hard time many tests I know that I think we started doing community testing again but is there a shortage and is that a financial constraint or is it just no no testing I don't think it's a financial constraint because there's all sorts of resources for test kits I think it's the test kits and the test supplies and those actually administering the testing that's that's a struggle right now I think most people if you want to get tested if you're proactive you know you gotta you gotta go after it someone's not going to knock on your door and say can I test you you gotta get on the public health website and look on look at the different opportunities Prevea you contact Prevea you probably get in for appointment within 24 to 48 hours Aurora the same we have urgent care we have Wednesday testing by the National Guard at the Aging and Disability Resource Center there are opportunities in fact you can go to Walgreens if they have them on the shelf and purchase a test kit or sometimes the pharmacist will actually test you right there but please know there's different types of tests and some are more reliable than others but if anybody is looking to get tested or you're asked the question I get asked that question frequently and because you don't think about it every day you're like where do I go how do I do this contact someone at public health look at the public health website honey website call someone there they will put you right in the hands or give you guidance on exactly where to go but you gotta be an advocate for yourself you gotta be an advocate don't wait for someone to come knock on your door to point you out even even getting the booster shots that's all coming up now where do I go to get my booster shot how does this work in the timing or a little where you're thinking about getting vaccinated where do I go be an advocate for yourself gather information talk to your doctor and get it done task force really is a risk for the county here I need to go out and do something like that I mean it's a more complicated way to do it but I give Adam a lot of credit and he knows this he didn't say that it was his idea I know other counties are looking at and saying wow that's really a great way to do that but there's a real challenge that but at the end of the day the risk I believe is worth the reward and the credit starts with Adam and the county board leadership to be willing to spread out that decision making even though the final authority rests with the county board these committees are going to be invested and we know how that works so I think there's risk here but I also believe there's greater reward and Adam didn't say it but he deserves a lot of the credit for doing it so just want to mention that that's kind of you thank you Tom appreciate it any other yes yes yeah um I question a comment on this transportation thing um I no longer work in the air but I worked in here over 20 years we would see a disproportionate amount of people that would be considered poor unemployed whatever I never yet saw a person that didn't have a car and didn't have a cell phone so I'm not sure that it's saying that you can't they can't afford a vehicle is exactly accurate and I wonder if it would be better to focus on the temp agencies because so many employers are you know temp to hire helping them provide transport I know some of them do already like they'll they'll say we've got all these jobs if you don't have transport we can get you there I believe that would probably be a better focus than some sort of government transportation system because you're helping the employers which are these temp agencies you're helping them directly and you're helping the people that work for them that they're taking to their jobs I appreciate your comment and I'm sure Derek make does as well he chairs that task force now obviously the city provides public transportation generally what I'm hearing from major businesses is they're looking for more opportunities for people from the city of Sheboygan or other areas to get to their place of work you know how many people have heard oh it's a long drive or I can't get out to Sargento I can't get to master galleries like the Lord really but if they don't have a vehicle I get it I get it I'm glad I'm glad Derek's here to listen to that because he's hearing your input so thank you thank you anyone else here to comment on the Gulf expert had referenced the risks involved with doing it in this fashion versus you just running you know doing that that the task force what what what are the risks I think what Supervisor Wagner was getting at is when you engage a lot of people as we have you raise the bar for expectations and you've asked all these people to spend their time and resources coming together and working on this and how disappointing it would be to come forward with one or more recommendations and they're not supported so there's definitely risk and then of course that's their risk the risk for us is they bring those all recommendations in let's say there's 30 of them and we can fund 10 then the county board has the established priorities and who's the bad guy right so we so you stick your neck out and but I would rather err on the side of engaging people and getting ideas and we don't have all the answers we've got all these wonderful experts around the table who are engaging folks but that's the risk we might not be able to meet everyone's expectations maybe I'll make a general comment being a task force chair you know these issues have been I think been a been a negative in our community for for many years and I talked about the transportation item because over the last you know two decades transportation has gone up in in expense and the providers doing it have decreased and COVID did not help that at all you've seen actually uber drivers go down you've seen the cost per trip go up there's been consolidations in the cab services private companies that once provided accessible handicap transportation we're down to one private provider in the county right now so infrastructure for trans transit resources have all but decreased over the last couple decade which puts a lot more demand on what we're doing as a service and that's evident in my 10 years in shabuigan our public transit system prior to COVID increased ridership by 54 percent that cannot be matched by any other transit agency in the entire state of Wisconsin so if we look at the need here locally there is a tremendous need and the task force has identified and I got to say I've got a passionate group of 15 to 20 individuals that will all stand up and say we have a disconnect we have a problem we've got large employers we've got locations that are under service we've got small communities that can't get transportation to and from medical facilities it's also the elderly too right I mean we have an elderly population that needs to get around go to the grocery store and it does help the school district yeah as well we've grown partnerships we've tried to provide more resources but unfortunately we're we're being hit hard right now with a shortage in labor so we can't even begin to look at expanding transportation services but this group of individuals has representatives from universities large manufacturers several organizations that we all know and shabuigan county not one of them is saying we don't have a transportation problem so you know this group is going to be very valuable now what adam hasn't stated is that we do have received uh we have received separate ARPA funds that were not distributed directly to the city they were actually separated out for public mass transit purposes so we have yet another opportunity to use some of these funds to um enhance and create a better transportation infrastructure but you know shabuigan county a great place I love this place it is such a great county but everything is spread out and we have to look at this as almost like a connect the dots because we don't have everything centrally uh located in in an urban setting we have it situated throughout our county and that also goes for people and where they live so this task force I have the full faith that these individuals are going to stay on well past December because this is such a short window and such a large issue that this group wants to stick together we want to put some solutions together and take a look at a long term approach not not necessarily just to meet adam's request here for report in january but also look at possibly infrastructure improvement that enhances the entire county as a transportation network thank you for derek and again we don't have to actually allocate the resources until December 2024 so we're not in a rush with our contributions but these other state and federal grants the better prepared we are in fact some that are looking for you to be shovel ready the better chance will bring some forward one last question and i'll close here anyone else yes sir yeah just uh we were earlier talking about the timelines and kind of struck me 2026 spend the money seems a long time for an act that was created to solve a real urgent need that what what are your goals as far as how soon you'd like to see the money actually utilized versus the deadline yeah everybody hear the question it is a long time generally we see appropriations from the state or federal government that's a year right maybe two generally a year at annual basis and county budgets are an annual basis so that this is unique but what is really gratifying is that for the first time let's just use the child care for example let's say the county board decides to build a child care facility or renovate some existing place and turn it into a child care facility and we are looking to recruit and retain staff and generations or whoever it might be that throws their hat in the ring the most they can afford under their current model is nine dollars an hour and we don't get anyone to apply or very few people the county board could say i'll tell you what we'll take year nine we'll leverage another two from sargental coaler beamess and johnsonville because we know they need these these workers and they're willing to put some skin in the game so now we're at now we're at 11 and then the county will put two more in and you'll be at 13 and now maybe we're getting some people to come you know something like that the time period allows us to invest over a period of years and get something rolling and then once the deadline approaches we're we're done and it's going to have to be self-sufficient so in some cases i love the fact that we can look beyond our nose and make some investments that are going to last a year or two or three or four in other cases it might be just some immediate infrastructure at rocky no we're gonna improve all the uh uh heating or air conditioning or something like that so we immediately improve the the safety and welfare for the residents that's one and done that's built into the budget but in other instances we might want that time to have a longer expenditure and we got to track it i mean we track it and report on it and it's different you're right it's different but i welcome that challenge all right i just want to say thank you for the opportunity appreciate the discussion good questions and thank you for the very good work that you all do thank you


Hello guys, and welcome back. So this is the first video in five of a miniseries that I've put together To give you some ideas as to how I progress certain shots in Junior tennis players in particular under eights and in this first video. We're going to be looking at serve progressions These videos have been designed to help tennis parents and tennis coaches To gain new ideas as to how they can help their children or their players to progress in certain shots So I'll be covering the serve the forehand the backhand Rallying skills and match play skills to hopefully give you a nice well rounded approach to how you can develop some of these swings Now it's important to understand that before working on anything technical with a junior player You really need to make sure that they've got a base level of motor skills Now what I mean by this is it's really important to work on receiving and sending skills So lots of work on throwing and catching is crucial for a child to be able to track an oncoming ball And that could be done through rolling across the floor to introducing a bounce so that they can read the height and the depth of the ball but also lateral movement to to ensure that this child has a 360-degree approach to their tennis now if you jump into technique too early and You try to work on the forehand technique before they have the ability to read an oncoming ball and to catch it Then it's going to take a lot longer for them to develop the technique and even when they do develop the technique It's going to be quite fragile So developing motor skills is crucial before any of these approaches There are plenty of ways that you can develop technique in junior players These are some of the ways that I like to progress the strokes They aren't the only ways and it's important to know that every single junior is different the way that they learn But the way that they're built physically and the way that they cope with Information mentally too so although these are quite simple ways of coaching They're not going to work for everybody, but hopefully they'll work for most people So let's get into our first video serve progressions So as I mentioned before usually before even putting a racket in the players hand We would be doing lots of work using just the tennis ball so giving the child the ability to throw and catch above their head or throw and Catch with their hitting arm will give them the opportunity when they get the racket to be much much better I wouldn't have time to do all of these in one video So we're going to be looking at just the racket and ball skills Giving a junior player success is vital for their enjoyment. So this first progression is very very simple I call it the scoop serve Playable stand based on with their racket face pointing where they're aiming All on the strings and scoop If you can from this first progression It's really useful to get your child using the chopper grip and a very basic way of picking up the chopper grip Is simply passing the racket to your partner edge-side up They'll be shaking hands with the racket and this will give them some resemblance of the chopper grip It might not be perfect But it will give them a good feel of how that chopper grip should feel the next progression You can see I put the line sideways on so we want our players shoes each side of the line And I call this one pop and push. So basically you're going to get your player holding strings forwards again Tennis ball out in front. They're going to pop the ball up and push the ball forward. So pop and push A good teaching point for this one is to make sure that they finish with the tip stance So they're turning their hips to face the court Go again pop and push So on this next progression we're going to stay sideways on but we're going to introduce a bigger swing So we're going to call it the L serve We're going to get our elbow at a right angle our armpit at a right angle as well We're going to pop the ball up Hit the ball over the net and finish in our opposite pocket Notice I'm still doing the tip stance at the end Progression is the full action and I like to call this one chop your toes So we're going to start with our shoes each side of the line against them sideways on And we're going to set up with our tip of our racket pointing forwards to where we're aiming The reason we call it chop your toes is because we want the tip of the racket to brush past your toes here Before you get to the L shape Now an in-between progression that may help players to find the coordination chain is starting in the setup Chop your toes L Throw And hit Once they get used to that motion of 1, 2, 3 You can then make it into one action So it will look more like this Still looking for that tip stance at the end So I hope you found those progressions useful If you did be sure to subscribe to the channel And I'll be posting a few more videos on the forehand, backhand, rallying skills and mashup skills See you soon


Welcome in to GoMustangSports.com, post-game recap with field hockey head coach Lara Martin. Coach, you knew it was going to be a tough test tonight against a really good Lynchburg squad. Your overall thoughts on the game tonight? Well, I mean they're a very strong team and they showed the athleticism and their speed and they they came up with the win. They did they did a good job. Yeah. How do you defend somebody like Jackie Laro when you know going in the player that she is? She did get four goals tonight. What was the mindset going in against her? Well, we knew that she was a main contributor to their to their team and we were hoping to mark her up and take notice of her and and do the best we could against her. Kelsey had a fantastic night. 20 saves, kept your team in the game. Your overall thoughts on Kelsey's effort tonight? Well, Kelsey is just as one of the captains on our team. She's really coming along. She's making the big saves and I just continue to see her improve as the season goes on so I look forward to seeing more of her good saves. Yeah, you've had 10 games so far. Now you start conference play on Saturday. Your thoughts as you begin conference play that the second season of sorts. Yeah, yeah. So at this point in stage, we're trying to take everything that we learned from these previous games and take all of the good things and compile them into one big effort and and take on Arcadia and get a win under our belt. All right. Well, you have them at home on Saturday. So fans, if you can't be here in person, start to one o'clock. If you can't be here, join us at gomustangsports.com. For Coach Martin, I'm Paul Taylor. Thanks so much for tuning in tonight and until Saturday.


There are 3 billion bases in the haploid human genome. In 1990, the U.S. Department of Energy formally began mapping those DNA sequences for the unimaginatively named human genome project. The project was expected to take 15 years, at cost between $5 and $10 billion. A very early rough draft, the first round assembly, was announced as completed in 2000, but realistically the first nearly complete assembly was 2003. It had cost about $3 billion. A competing private effort, started by Craig Venner of Solarogenomics in 1998, promised to finish the project first in a small fraction of the time, and for a tenth of the cost, simply by using improved technologies and a more efficient workflow. So now we know the full sequence of the human genome, right? Well, not exactly. Actually about 8% of the sequences aren't collected, and probably won't be in the near future. These are the structural elements of DNA, like at the tips and middles of chromosomes. They consist of long repetitive elements, and wouldn't be very interesting to sequence. But the really interesting parts, the actual genes that make up the proteins that make up the cell, are completely sequenced. In fact, we've begun mapping the variations in those genes. We'll take a thousand people from around the world, and deep sequence each of them to give us representative variation mapping. There are going to be a lot of innovations to come out of this project, and a related project to HAPMAP, or haplotype mapping project. The primary goal, is to identify what gene variants are involved in different diseases. Ultimately, this could lead to improved diagnostics for cancer, diabetes, and birth defects. It will also greatly advance our knowledge about genetics and biology. Imagine the human genome project was a sort of Lewis and Clark exploration project, and what comes now is a series of survey teams that will produce elevation maps and identify useful resources. Or imagine that the human genome project was Apollo 11, and the current efforts are laying the groundwork for our first lunar colony. It was necessary to develop the tools on a pilot run, so that we can invest wisely in the right technologies for future more extensive undertakings. It's one of the most exciting times to be a molecular biologist since DNA was discovered. Some of you may be familiar with Moore's law. It states that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The power of logarithmic growth is really quite astounding. We've gone in 20 years from transistor counts in the thousands to counts in the billions. This is from incremental breakthroughs in technology, materials, and miniaturization. It's not a law really, it's just an uncanny observation. It's at least that rapid in the field of DNA sequencing. Just 12 years ago, I can remember pouring slab gels, giant glass plates filled with a polyacrylamide chemical jello material, then using electricity to separate out DNA sequencing reactions labeled with radioactive phosphorous isotopes. Prepping the runs took most of the day, then exposed the radioactive spots in the gel to a piece of x-ray film and develop it. Finally, a human sat at a computer and typed in the sequence, decoding it like a visual Moore's code. It took me three days to produce 200 base pairs of sequence. Remember that the Human Genome Project was 3 billion base pairs. It seemed to me at the time a monumental undertaking, like describing flying to the moon to the Wright Brothers. At the time the project started, I was using state-of-the-art technology. But new technologies were developed to support the effort. Radioisotopes were replaced with safer and cheaper fluorescent dyes. Big slabs of polyacrylamide gel were replaced with very thin tubes of the same material, which is why we call this capillary sequencing. Lasers read the fluorescent dyes as they move past the detector, rather than the tedious film exposure and development. The upstream processes of PCR, cycle sequencing, and chain termination were all vastly improved, and computer power allowed for automated reading, scoring, and assembly of sequences into their proper order. No more unpaid grad students manually decoding and typing sequences. I went to grad school at a facility that housed one of the Human Genome Project sites. It was a wonder to behold. There was automation at every level. Robots were on 24-hour shifts, picking bacteria off Petri dishes, transferring them to tubes, adding chemicals, making other important chemicals with complicated reactions. It was a symphony of noises, a ballet of science and engineering, and the energy was amazing. The capacity of one of these centers was about 10,000 bases per day. That's the technology that finished the Human Genome Project. High-tech sequencing in 24-7 automation, and a desperate race between private and public efforts. Brilliant scientists, innovators, and a public that was only slightly apathetic about the research goals. But we've moved on yet again. There are a series of commercial instruments described as next-generation sequencing technologies. They've pushed the boundaries of what is possible yet again. None of them existed when I finished grad school not so very long ago. One instrument, the 454GS, owned by Swiss, pharma, and biotech Hoffman La Roche, can produce one billion bases per day, at a fraction of the cost of older-fashioned capillary sequencing. The Human Genome is three billion bases, so we either need three instruments or three days to sequence the whole Human Genome. Total costs would be in the thousands of dollars, not billions. So let's stop to think about that. We've come in 20 years from 200 bases per day to one billion bases per day. That's more than a doubling in throughput every year. Remember that Moore's law predicts a doubling in transistors and by proxy computing power every two years. I've already used Concordance's law to advise you not to take health advice from the Internet. Therefore, this will need to be Concordance's second law. Sequencing throughput will double every year. It's already started the next stage. The company that makes the 454 next-gen sequencer have announced an improvement that nearly doubles the number of DNA bases that can be read per run. So Concordance's second law is already coming true. There are several competing technologies like the solid system or lumina beta rays, but the biggest innovations are yet to come. I don't want to bore you with the precise details of how the 454 system works, but a friend of mine shared a used chip with me, and I broke out my kid's digital microscope to take a look at it magnified so you can see the coolest parts. The 454 genome sequencer works by a technology called pyro sequencing, which is a specialized form of sequencing by synthesis. The scientist takes bits of DNA that have been stuck on tiny beads made of a kind of starch extracted from seaweed that's called sephrose. They put the beads into what looks like a microchip or solar panel about the size of a playing card. In the surface of this chip are very tiny grooves of a specific size that only allows a single bead in. Then additional beads are added that contain the components of the sequencing reaction. One type of DNA base or nucleotide is allowed to flow across the chip at a time. If that nucleotide is the correct pairing to the one from the sample, that particular hole lights up using an enzyme system taken from fireflies called luciferase. A CCD camera, not unlike a security camera, takes pictures of those flashes of light in sequence and decodes them to read out the sequences from all the slots in the plate. The overall workflow takes the better part of a week, and the time required to read the plate is around 10 hours. Roche conveniently sells a computer array for the intensive image processing and sequence assembly required. Compared to the current generation sequencing, which runs about $4 per 500 bases, the next-gen technologies are already much, much less expensive, assuming full runs and high efficiency reads. The applications for these technologies go far beyond simply re-sequencing the human genome. It's also possible to look at only those genes that are actually turned on being transcribed, and comparing the on-and-off gene switches may give more information about diseases like cancer. We can also use this technology to look at the full diversity of bacterial sequences in a sample. For example, we can sequence all the bacteria in the intestine of a human, which will allow us to learn a lot about what effect our flora have on our health status. I'm a big fan of new technologies for their own sake, but next-gen sequencing is one that's going to lead to a lot of very exciting discoveries, and keep us molecular biologists busy for at least another century. When people ask me why I'm always complaining about anti-science and pseudoscience, like creationism, AIDS denialism, and alternative medicine, the answer is that it cheapens what the real scientists are doing. We are accomplishing so much, moving the boundaries of knowledge further each year, and when I see people yearning for the wonders of the ancient Chinese secrets, or aspiring to be cavemen, or just complaining about evil corporate biotech, I feel very sad for them. I suspect that they fear new knowledge, and there has never been a time when our more knowledge was being produced than right now. Personally, I rejoice in our advances, our modern medicine, our technological progress, our advancing knowledge. In that knowledge, I see a bright future. Thanks for watching.


Simon Michelle from FIG live for you at the camera there. Simon welcome. So yelling in the shade Draghi to the fore Markets seemingly of a might to believe him for once and not believe Janet. Yes, it's interesting Carson. Good afternoon And we certainly saw global yields up on the back of those comments by Draghi He's also mentioned that you know, although inflation is soft and we know that globally that the ECB would be prepared to look through that and Consider cutting back on the bond buying program possibly some point later this year Removing some of that stimulus that we've seen So yields up up about seven basis points in Australia But in the US they didn't really get that movement because you had at the same time the IMF coming out with a downgrade to US growth and obviously a bit of a delay around the US Senate Healthcare agreements, so you know again a bit of nervousness around the implementation of Trump's program Yeah, it's kind of that that program's got such big question marks over it Do you get a sense that we do setting start the side of Christmas? Look, it's interesting at the IMF basically put down Discounting a lot of the Trump tax cuts the infrastructure that we just haven't yet seen The challenges he's having at getting some of his policies through as one of the reasons they downgraded their growth forecasts They actually downgraded it not only for next year but the year after as well down to 2.1 So that's certainly a key driver there, you know every time we see this delay emerge We definitely see a little bit of a pullback and we've definitely seen that in US yields which remain flat While as I said over here in Australia, we're up about seven basis points Yeah, what do we make of what's going on meanwhile across the Atlantic back in London? I never mind Janet Yellen the Bank of England I think it's capital requirements for banks They're worried specifically about the lax lending standards that are coming at a time of still Anemic wage growth and wondering whether, you know, we've learned anything from the GFC Do we see parallels with the Australian banking? Sector to the extent that we are in a holding pattern now over the capital adequacy and we're we're getting these murmurings from Carney You're getting a sense that Baal could be set to be the big I suppose stick That is waves are the way of the sector globally Look a few things there Carson. I think you're absolutely right I mean, don't forget we've actually seen one of the Italian banks go down just recently And another couple struggling as well on the top of that You've obviously got the Trump administration the US looking to remove a lot of those protections that don't Frank that that came in after the GFC So I think connecting it to Australia is is is is a good way to do it because you know We've got the same problem over here excessive borrowing excessive lending off very very historically low interest rates and You know supported by low interest rate settings and and you know quantity of easing and monetary policy initiatives So, you know, it's it's interesting that you see Draghi now sort of saying we might pull that back because when you look at equity markets You know, there's certainly a lot of confidence there We've seen, you know, tremendous support in equity markets over the last six months Yeah, but we haven't really seen that either reflected in yield curves, which remain a historically low They're touch recent lows for this year all reflected in changes to monetary policy Except obviously with the US which is now in a hiking phase. You've still got the rest of the globe In an accommodation phase. So, you know, I think we are getting to a bit of a turning point here Domestic issuance I on the banks and also an electricity distributor. Yes, absolutely So we have an electricity distribution distribution at SGSP Australia They've gone into the US market and doing an issue over there and on the back of Westpac last week doing a US dollar issue We've had nab come out and do 2.25 billion Aussie So as I say plenty of money out there for these issuance and demand What was the what was the uptake on the NABB? Very good demand don't have the exact figure, but very good demand They got it away very easily at a nice margin haven't been affected by that recent Moody's downgrade And so really solid demand. I can probably tell you a bit later in the week how SGSP goes in the US market