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E12 City of La Crosse - Mayor Kabat

E12 City of La Crosse - Mayor Kabat
Dec 15, 2020 · 13m 56s

Transcription is for SEO purposes only. To find out more about the city of La Crosse please visit their website www.cityoflacrosse.org to find out more about Podcast For Hire please...

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Transcription is for SEO purposes only. To find out more about the city of La Crosse please visit their website www.cityoflacrosse.org to find out more about Podcast For Hire please visit PodcastForHire.com

The city vision 2020 podcast we started this thing off back in January 2020 and were already at December 2020. My first guest in this podcast was Mayor Tim Kabat and my final guest in this podcast for city vision 2020 is Mayor Kabat Mayor this year was kind of a cluster and he will challenge great when it was a challenge for all of that and made no looking back on January 2020. That seemed like that was about 10 years ago already like this year's particularly long and particularly challenging in a notary lot of folks that have shared with me that they're happy to see that the next year. All the challenge and in many ways and very, very difficult. I've been pleased and proud of how our community has responded to the most part and just people we can help people receive a lot of shop local efforts to help our merchants and just a lot of giving in and trying to be there for each other so that that part of it is obviously very positive and surprised me because I know that lacrosse community is about stealth and very very difficult in your heart goes out to those that have lost jobs and all that are struggling right now. Mary asking about Covid 19 and then the coronavirus at one time this past year lacrosse was in the national spotlight for being one of the places that had some of the most outbreaks in the in the country. What what was done to stop that spread you right we were in the muddy list of the stars being one of those hotspots in the entire country, and that's not where you want to be that the combination of people returning to school and unfortunately most of that community spread impacted not only the schools but then also our assisted-living and long-term care facilities. That was really a bad thing. There was and there has been really all throughout this especially around that time, you know, ramping up the communication, and context of those institutions that really trying to get people to do the right thing, which is to stay home and to wear a mask if you go out and do the social distancing of the good hygiene, so the collective group between the healthcare providers in the county health department and ourselves and other institutions really increase that level of communication that the universities also increase their level of testing. So they were really trying to identify their their young people and their students that that might be positive and the contact tracing as well that the county has been doing really trying to charge people and let them know if they've been exposed to in close contact with someone so those efforts have been that they set on going but they were really ramped up around the fall and you know those universities that can things were quarantined and and going more virtually their classes which also help being the mayor and then this time of Covid and seeing businesses shutter and shut down for a while and some have gone out of business that way on you man are not taking things personally because we do see a business or or you will find what the pros build and scale up in the storefront really is hard to not take this personally and unfortunately we lost some thing else and long-standing businesses here to this whole thing in, we did respond to the city again in the area were we really did try to do whatever we could resources we have available to provide grants to our local businesses. The program back in April named their we down to through our own efforts on that map to any care spending your federal stimulus but through our own efforts. We distributed close to half $1 million to about 80 businesses to try to help them out. And no, there are many of those that are still in business, but the challenging the committee's frustration is that we receive the businesses we see are our friends and neighbors who might be struggling will make them right off and the health really has to come from the level in that first round of stimulus checks and the Malones and in the PPP support the government provided to businesses again back in April and May was very positive and needed. It's just unfortunate that that will get you know there wasn't anything there hasn't been anything else sense and that really where needed it throughout the summer and fall now into winter to think that people can survive on all $1200 support back in April and make that last year or sketch that out to the whole year is that's just not possible in the same goes for the business support site we've been working hard to not only try to support our local and also to reach out to our federal and state partners to encourage them to morning were still hopeful that maybe will be something done to you in the next month or so that can help people in O'Mara looking back this year there hasn't been any playbook or anything in history that we could've compared this to Rosalie thing on the front lines being in a part of the decision-making to help out. The city will we be treated this as an you still treating it as a community emergency so we established our emergency management protocols back in late March, which is really a different way he goes about communicating and organizing itself so the organization you know being able to respond to not only to continue to provide our services. So we spent the year still doing all of the essential things, providing safe water and taking care of people's waste and garbage and recycling and having our public safety be a priority in an emergency response and no still fixed in the streets until you those things so be modified somewhat the approach and how we communicating within the department. You can think of been very positive because I don't believe are residents of the really missed a beat and how we have provided those services and then then the other part of that was the partnering and will work with those I mentioned earlier healthcare providers are county health department are businesses to really try to encourage and support them and slowing the spread of Covid 19 some cases the notes and positive and successful. In other cases, as you mentioned earlier will now number one in the country hotspot and still continue to have high case numbers not gone as well so you know that, coupled with trying to provide grants for businesses to keep them going in and partnering with our nonprofit provide assistance in trying to prevent conviction. It has been below the there's been challenges almost on every front and we have responded pretty well, but it'll be interesting to see take a step back a year or two from now and really analyze what worked and what didn't do that to care for the Mexican community emergency that might come along in O'Mara's we have this last conversation for the 2020 vision podcast. I want to bring up some of the nice things and some of the good things the city is done like the fixing up of a lot of the roads there's a lot of stuff that happened at the different parks there's been you know the movement downtown with the La Crosse Center. I mean there's a lot of great things that happen this year as well and I think we have been all in all considered. We still maintain are those services and need to get that close libraries and we closed parks and beaches in our swimming pools and some of those things which were a disappointment to our our residents that we also expanded and added more miles of trails this year so people have the opportunity to get out more areas of the city on our trail network which I think is really phenomenal and like you mentioned are very significant renovation and expansion of La Crosse in the downtown is moving forward to be a beautiful addition that this guy lying in and we connection to the park and the river is spectacular and people are very excited to see that any of the other the other projects in an effort to will working on just again taking care of the business. The I will be breaking ground in the new fire station on the north side early next year on the road work in trying to just be the thing that people expect you know what their hard earned dollars in the pot contact that they pay trying to meet those expectations and I think no, all things considered, to get a good job this year, give or take away or get good memory. Good thought about 2027 or later or lead to an earlier that's just how people in our area have come together and there's been a number of separate to raise money for local businesses before you can about the marketing of topping local and just reinforcing how important it is that our our dollars stay here in the community have been very pleased and impressed with how many people I see on social media and no talking and communicating with people around around the city just that Patrick is been really pleasing to you and and and am hopeful that some businesses going during this very difficult times. I think that's probably the biggest thing is yes. 2020 think for everyone. Probably not on their top 10 list of favorite gears, but I think that the community response and somebody is trying to get through a shows how how resilient crosses and in the meanwhile look forward to brighter days ahead to share you know when we started this podcast were talking about looking at 2020 is that it is a great year. What did you want to get accomplished this year. That didn't happen. I would question that there's probably a few of the of the projects that just get longer you will be will delayed a little bit because of the need to respond to Covid I think about the Riverpoint district that still moving forward. I think that was delayed a little bit because of Covid
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Author Bob Schmidt
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