February 28, 2025 • 46 mins
George Metanias has been a Village Trustee since 2005 and is running for Mayor of Mokena for the first time. He is running with the "Friends of Mokena" slate with candidates for Trustee and Clerk. Learn more about Trustee Metanias and his plans for Mokena, should he be elected in the April 1st, 2025 election.
You can watch my other conversation with Trustee Metanias as we took a walk around Main Park on our YouTube channel or our website.
You can view all our candidate interviews and election updates on our website and YouTube channel.
Be sure to vote on April 1st!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Trustee Metanus, thank you for sitting down with
me.
You have decided to run formayor this election and we had a
previous conversation.
We really got to talk and getto know you.
I dragged you around Main Park.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, I thought we were going to be sitting at a
bench.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I have to apologize.
I caught you a little off guardwith that.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It's fine, I have to apologize.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I caught you a little off guard, I hear you, but I
think it was a good conversationand we kind of tipped off a
little bit.
You know, we heard that youwere planning to run, but so you
did tell us, but we didn'treally get to talk any more
about that.
So this is kind of anopportunity we talk more about
the, you know, the political endor the business end of now that
(00:46):
you're running.
So first, just how's thecampaign going?
What do you think so far?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's going well.
It's going really well.
We have meet and greets comingup so that people can meet all
our candidates, myself and allthe friends of Mokina Group.
Ask questions, listen to whatwe've got to say.
So we have three dates.
We have one on next February20th, which is coming up this
(01:13):
Thursday at Stony Point from 5to 7 o'clock.
We'll have light appetizers andrefreshments.
Please come on out and askquestions, get to know us a
little bit better.
We're there, we'll be walkingaround, excuse me, we'll be
obviously making a couplespeeches or whatever.
(01:34):
Then we have another one on the27th at 19th Hole.
Then the last one is going tobe March 6th at the VFW.
We thought we'd just keep it in.
We went to one side, we'restaying inside, so we're trying
to catch and help businesses outthroughout by doing that and
(01:56):
what's your hope?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
what do you think your expectations for those meet
and greets?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
so people get to know us.
I want people to know who weare, if they don't already, so I
want them to learn what ourpolicies are and what our
philosophy is, and any questionsthey may want to ask us, we'll
be more than happy to answer.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So maybe start just talking a little bit.
You've been on the board, for Ithink this is your 20th year is
that right Correct?
After 20 years, what made youpull the trigger and say it's
time for me to run for mayor?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, you kind of said it 20 years.
It was time.
It was time for me to run formayor.
I felt that, as a businessperson which I was in business
for like 34 years inconstruction, actually local 134
, ibw the leadership skills thatI have, we need those on the
(02:54):
board and we need people thatcan communicate with the rest of
the board, communicate with ourstaff, get things happening.
We need somebody in there thatcan move our village forward
with the rest of the board,communicate with our staff, get
things happening.
We need somebody in there thatcan move our village forward.
Our village is kind of stagnantright now and it's easy to blame
other people for maybe yourinabilities that you can't get
(03:18):
things done.
But a leader gets things doneand I guarantee you I will get
things done in the village,including downtown, including
the rest of the village.
We talked about a comprehensiveplan for like years.
Nothing happened, I mean.
So then, when Mayor Flesher wasout sick for those four or five
(03:39):
months and I was the mayor protem, I communicated with the
board.
You know I said we need this.
Here's why we need it, here'swhat the cost is going to be.
We need to put it in the budget.
So I was able to get that doneand we put it in the budget.
So right now it's going on.
I don't know when it's going tofinish exactly, but we had a lot
(04:02):
of input from the village.
They've been to differentevents in the village.
They have a website.
People can go on and askquestions and that will tell us,
you know, give us a better ideaon what we can do, what we can
do with the village, wherethings can go and not go, what
we need, you know.
And also in our downtown, youknow, I mean, I can throw out,
(04:23):
we need traffic study.
Okay, why?
Who said that's going to helpus and what's he going to do?
Is that going to give us grants?
How?
None of that has been explainedto anybody.
They just throw out stuff andthen see if it sticks.
You know it makes it sound good, you know.
I think that our village it'san easy choice.
(04:47):
Do you want to continue thepath we're on now or do you want
to change?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So talk about that.
You come into office.
What kind of changes would youmake, or what does that mean for
you?
What do you do differently thancurrently?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, what I want to do is, first of all, with our
comprehensive plan, I want toget the studies back and see
exactly what we need to dodifferently than currently.
What I want to do is, first ofall, with our comprehensive plan
, I want to get the studies backand see exactly what we need to
do, whether for our downtownarea.
What do we need there?
Do we need certain type ofbusinesses to come in or not
come in?
Also, all our ordinancesthey're outdated.
There's nothing current there,so I need to bring all those up
(05:26):
to date.
Not only that, but I want toput them on our website so that
if a developer or a contractorwants to come in to our village,
they don't have to make anappointment, come in and see
somebody.
They can go right online, getall the information, all the
ordinance, what it takes, whatthey need to get to bring in the
development or whatever theywant to bring in.
So I want to make sure thatthat gets done, because without
(05:49):
that, it takes us forever to getthrough the process and I think
a lot of builders, developerswe're going to call it they shy
away from Mokina because ittakes too long to get things
done.
I want to speed up that process.
So make sure that we bringmeaningful businesses into our
town and make it as easy aspossible for them to get here.
(06:12):
You know, I also want to beable to take care of our
existing businesses, becauseit's our tax base, right.
I mean, if we don't take careof existing businesses and we
lose them, then we lose.
Then we lose our sales taxrevenue that we need.
This way, we keep the taxes inMokina low.
So I want to make sure that weget all that stuff done.
(06:35):
Also, communicate with yourboard.
You know who was really good atthat?
Joe Warner.
Joe Warner, when I first gotelected I wasn't part of his
team at the time, but as soon asI got elected he reached out to
me right away and then when Igot on the board, he would call,
(06:56):
he would pitch me his thing ona development or something and
he would listen to what I haveto say and work with me, not
just me, but the whole board.
That's a communicator, that's agood leader, and we need a
leader that can lead.
We need somebody that can makethings happen.
A leader doesn't blame otherpeople for his inabilities to
(07:16):
lead, and a leader makes thingshappen and I will.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I guarantee you, I promise you that Talk about, you
bring up Mayor Joe Warner, andso were there any examples where
he called up and you were justreally in disagreement and how
did you deal with it?
You know, in that case.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Originally, when the Myers was coming in, he called
me.
He was from Vegas, you know.
He says hey, you know we havean opportunity to bring a buyer
in.
You know, I said man, I don'tknow if the residents have been
kind of at the time.
This is back.
I said one, two, when you comein, let's talk about it, let's
see if we can get.
So we came in and we discussedit, we went over it.
(07:56):
They showed me all the things.
I got in touch with theresidents see how they feel
about it and we were able tobring it in.
Another one is JCPenney.
We, as an electrical contractor, we did a lot of work at
Orleans Square Mall.
There's a JCPenney there.
I found out that JCPenney islooking to move away from the
(08:18):
inside malls and do a standalone.
So they were gonna go on 191stand Harlem down that way.
So as soon as I found that out,I got a hold of Joe Warner.
I got a hold of John Downs.
I said, hey, listen, this iswhat's going on.
We need to bring them here, youknow.
So right away we calledmeetings with them and we were
able to bring them into Mokina.
(08:39):
That's communication, that'sleadership, that's getting
things done, you know, andthat's Joe.
Warner was like a mentor to me.
I learned a lot from him how tobe a good leader, how to be a
good communicator more thananything, you know and be able
to talk with your board everyweek and let them know what's
(09:01):
going on, get their input andmake things work.
You know, not go on the boardand get surprised at things that
you never know about.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
What do you think?
As we said, you've been on theboard for 20 years.
What will you be able to dodifferently that you couldn't do
as a trustee?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Be a leader from the top as a trustee.
The agenda is controlled by themayor what goes on and what
doesn't go on and if it's notthe agenda, there's nothing we
can do.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So if you have an agenda item that you want on
something you're bringing andthe mayor doesn't agree, how do
you get it as part of the agenda?
How can you get it on them?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, because we kind of push it really hard to get
it on there.
Well, because we kind of pushat it really hard to get it on
there, you know, and when itgets on there, you know there'll
be times that we do put it onthe agenda and you know you'll
have, you know, the mayor sayingyou know, you don't belong in
Mokina to this business.
You know, and like Andy'sfrozen custard, he told them you
don't belong in Mokina.
I mean things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And again, you know, now that they're in there, any
context to that, like why hemight have said that or thought
of it.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I'm not sure what his mindset was.
Maybe they thought they weren'tgood enough.
I don't know.
That's something he's got tohave to answer, but I mean just
stuff like that that you know.
That's why.
I's why I said you needsomebody that's a good leader,
somebody that can lead and movethis village forward, and I
(10:33):
guarantee you I will not blameanybody else for my failures if
I make any.
Whatever I do, I will makethings happen, and the way to do
that is communication.
I'm telling you it's the mostimportant thing in the world is
talking to people talking toyour board, talking to your
staff, getting information,getting all your ducks in a row
before you start talking toeverybody so you know why you
need all this stuff and explainto them why.
(10:54):
Okay, not just throw things outthere and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Talk about your relationship with the village
administrator, as well as someof the staff and how you work
with them.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We have a good relationship.
I talk to them weekly aboutthings.
Excuse me, john Tomaszewskicalls us every week to let us
know what's going to be in theagenda and we go over it with
him.
You know our economicdevelopment director, you know
things that come up.
I'll call him up or he'll callme and say here's what's going
(11:26):
on.
We have a good relationship withour staff.
I do it with our staff and, nomatter how you look at it, our
staff really pretty much runsthings because they're day to
day.
We're not, you know, but inorder to find out what's going
on, and a lot of times, you know, they may call me on something
and say, hey, can you reach outto this person?
You know, and blah, blah, blah,and you know, see what you can
(11:54):
do, and I do that you know.
So, yeah, it's important thatagain we go back to
communication.
You know, be able tocommunicate with your staff, be
able to communicate with yourboard.
You know, be able tocommunicate with developers and
the residents in Waukena and youknow, be transparent on what's
going on.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Can you talk a little bit?
You know as a trustee thedirect kind of impact you can
make and maybe give someexamples.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And you've given a couple as a trustee.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, like maybe examples of things you've
directly had an impact on.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, I can tell you this.
On Front Street there by mygovernment, there used to be a
gravel parking lot.
I got calls from residentssaying that.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So it's Front and Wolf the Terrafin lot.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The Terrafin.
Yeah, that's what it was calledbefore.
So we graveled that and weactually were renting spaces out
for the Metro.
Well, I would get phone calls.
Hey, you know, my wife almosttwisted her ankle.
My, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And also they said you know,you're renting this out in the
(12:56):
wintertime.
It gets dark by 3, 3, 4 o'clockand you know, my wife, my
daughter, whatever, you know,it's not lit up, it's dangerous.
So I said okay.
So I got a hold of Kirk's ownerat the time.
I said let's get ComEd, callComEd.
We got ComEd to come out to thesite.
They got all those poles allthe way down.
(13:18):
Being an electrical contractor,I know what they do, what they
can do and not do.
So I asked them if they couldput lights on every one of those
hitting the lot withoutblinding people on the other
side.
And after a couple of meetingsthey agreed to do it at no cost
to the village whatsoever.
Oh, wow, yeah, so they were ableto put that up and then I
(13:39):
pushed to get that lot paved,for safety reasons first of all,
and it's a temporary pavement,that if a developer wants to
come in then it's not going tobe.
It didn't cost us like it wouldif we had to do it complete.
And that's the other thing wedon't have a marketing person in
(14:01):
our village.
We have nobody that can marketour town, nobody that can market
our downtown.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And is that a standard thing, something you
typically see in surroundingvillages?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, they have, and we need somebody that can market
our downtown.
Let's say okay and say hey, youknow what?
Here's what we have Callbusinesses up the therapist site
.
We've had it what 10, 15 yearsnow Sitting there.
There hasn't been a for salesign put up.
It hasn't been put on themarket whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
And it is, or technically is, for sale.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
But you know, and we talked about it up there as
trustees or whatever to put upfor sale.
So I didn't put it up for saleand nothing happened.
Nothing moved forward.
Nothing went in the agenda.
Nothing happened.
Nothing moved forward.
Nothing went in the agenda.
So you know, we need amarketing person that can come
in and market our town you knowour downtown absolutely, you
(14:53):
know and trying to bring peoplein the rest of our town I'm
sorry, my voice is a little offthe last couple of days, so we
don't have that.
That's something I want to getin.
I want to make sure that we canmarket our Mokina village of
Mokina and we had the Southlandbefore.
(15:16):
It wasn't marketing anything.
We're paying all this money,we're paying like $40,000 for
really maybe putting us on thereonce or twice.
So we decided to get rid ofthat Get rid of what the.
Southland, not be within themanymore.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
What is that?
The Southland Chamber ofCommerce?
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
It's $40,000.
We can take that money and useit towards our own marketing
person.
And so now they came back to usthis last time and they they
wanted to put us on there forfree, you know, because they get
money if they have us on.
Okay, so I said, for free, let'sdo it yeah but uh, we do need
(15:58):
our own marketing person to dothat.
And you know the same thingwith the therapist side.
You know getting it paved,getting the lighting in there.
And you know same thing withthe therapist side.
You know, getting it paved,getting the lighting in there.
Our downtown used to be likestones and stuff like that and
people were tripping over it.
It was dangerous.
I pushed hard, me and JillianHerstadt actually pushed hard to
get that, get those out and putpavers down, and we got that
(16:20):
done.
And then getting the flowerpots and making it look nice.
You know we also have a facadeprogram for our downtown.
It's $10,000.
Somebody wants to improve theirfacade.
We give them $10,000 to do it.
We have a TIF.
(16:42):
We made a TIF program in thereso that it can make it easier
for developers to get money tobe able to develop there, you
know.
So there's a lot of things thatyou know.
You said what I've done.
I've done as much as I can as atrustee to get this village
moving forward, bringingJCPenney in, getting our you
know downtown.
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
So there was a village president I think it was
back in November of the tariffin sight and the potential
development there with therestaurant from Payless, which
is really exciting, agreat-looking plan, but nothing
else has really come of it.
There hasn't appeared to be anyoffers or a solid offer for
(17:19):
purchase.
Is there anything that we canpoint to that's holding that up
or why there hasn't been anymore progress there?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I really can't talk too much about it because we're
in the process of negotiatingwith that.
But again, it takescommunication, it takes
leadership to make things happeninstead of pushing them back
and pushing them back, andthat's something that I will do.
As a leader, I will do all that.
But the therapist side rightnow with the restaurant stuff,
(17:51):
like I said, I can't really talktoo much about it.
But it's not dead, it's stillthere.
But it's again negotiations.
You have to know how tonegotiate right as a contractor.
I mean, I did that all the time.
I negotiated contracts.
I had payroll, I did it withunions, work orders, contracts,
(18:13):
all that stuff that, as abusiness owner, you learn how to
do and this is how you learnhow to lead and how to be a good
leader.
So you know that's.
I can't really say too muchabout it because I don't want to
, but it's not a dead issue.
(18:36):
I think that's something that'sin the works of talking about it
.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Well, those type of projects, I mean to me living in
downtown is really excitingbecause, you know, between the
dock, you know, I think the dockhopefully will really kick
things off.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I think it's going to do really well, as well as the
other business, you know,between the dock.
You know, I think the dockhopefully will really kick
things off.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I think it's going to do really well, as well as the
other business.
You know Zapp, so it's good tosee.
But maybe what would you liketo see?
What would your ideal downtownMolkina look like?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
You know, I'd like to see a downtown, I'd like to see
our village, our downtown, tohave the restaurants you know
like, even like this FranklinHouse, that they're talking
about going in Doc's and maybe afew more, so then people can go
out and they want to go heretoday, there tomorrow, or they
want to go here, there and thereand there, and that's how you
get traffic in our downtown.
Once you get that in, then youcan do maybe your little shops
(19:24):
and stuff like that, that peopleare walking around and they're
able to shop, you know, in thelittle shops, because right now
and you have to remember abusiness has to make money to
survive and without having thefoot traffic in our downtown, a
business is going to have a hardtime surviving.
So we need to bring the foottraffic in, okay, including
(19:46):
possibly maybe a walking paththat connects that people can
walk to your downtown, and stuffPossibly maybe a walking path
that connects, that people canwalk to your downtown and stuff.
So there's a lot that can bedone, but you have to do it.
You can't talk about it, youhave to do it and that's
something that I'm the type ofperson that gets things done.
I do things, I don't just talkabout them.
Day one I'm going to startright off the bat with all our
(20:10):
ordinances.
Try to get that updated, getmodernized with our electronics.
Everything is electronicnowadays.
Everything's at your fingertips.
And we're still back.
We need to move forward.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Anything ordinance-wise specific that you
would want to target first?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
There isn't really a specific ordinance that I want,
but there's a lot of ordinancesthat are outdated.
Okay, because we have a lot ofissues and a lot of problems
with residents that have donesomething already.
You know, and it's not againstthe ordinance, you know, and
it's not a bad thing, but it'sagainst the ordinance.
It's something that we need towork and look at and get things
(20:50):
done.
So I can't give you specificson that, but all our ordinances
have to be updated and broughtup to date and they have to be
put on our website and theapplications can be up there.
So everything's at yourfingertips and you don't have to
make appointments to come inand get this and you don't have
to make appointments to come inand talk to somebody about our
(21:11):
ordinance, what they are andstuff.
I want to fast-track our permitapplications and all that so it
doesn't take forever, becauseunfortunately, we're known as
the village that is againstdevelopment and I hate that.
That bothers the heck out of mebecause we're not.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Where do you think that falls?
I mean, I've heard the samething.
You know people that want tocome in and it's either just
struggles or kind of walkingthrough mud a lot of times to
get things done.
I'm sure it can fall on thedeveloper as well as both sides.
But how do we make it easierfor people wanting to come in?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Again, we fast track it, meaning with the permit
applications and our ordinances,so people know what they are.
Okay, we don't bring them infront of us two or three times
before we approve anything.
Do our homework, work with thedeveloper, work with our staff.
Get it all set, bring it to theboard, move it on, move it on.
(22:16):
And you know it getsfrustrating sometimes when you
see things are not moving andyou know I want things to move.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
It's got to be extremely frustrating as a
developer.
I mean, I don't know all thesituation, but you know, you
think about some of thedevelopment on Front Street and
you know there's somebody with adesire to do something to make
it better.
You'd hope the village you knowwould work hand in hand to help
out.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, like Gino, gino wanted gaming.
Okay, we have gaming everywhere.
I mean, rios has it, l'orealhas gaming okay, we have gaming
everywhere.
I mean, rios has it, ll has it.
Okay, and he wasn't allowed toput gaming in the downtown and
that's what you know.
He called me George.
I can't get nobody in herewithout the gaming.
You know, can you do anything?
And I talked to the rest of thetrustees and everything.
(23:06):
So then, although Mayor Frankwas against it, you know he got
outvoted on it, but as soon ashe got the gaming man, we got
docs.
So I mean things like that thatyou know you can help a business
person.
You know, move forward.
(23:27):
Or you know something that youknow inspection wise.
You know you failed onsomething.
You know move forward.
Or you know something that youknow inspection wise.
You know you failed onsomething.
You know.
And I'll get involved a littlebit and say, okay, is it a life
safety thing?
What's going on?
You know, and we get itresolved, you know.
So it's things that goodleadership does.
I'm telling you it's it's uh.
And communication.
You have to be able to talk topeople one-on-one, not just over
(23:50):
the phone.
I like meeting with people andyou know that I like to meet
somebody face-to-face becausewhen I'm talking to them I can
tell where they're at and wherethey're not.
I can tell by their eyes.
So I like to see somebody inperson and I do that a lot.
I meet people for lunch.
This is more casual, morerelaxed, and people can talk to
you and be honest and see if youcan work something out.
And I did that through mybusiness and I continue doing it
(24:13):
now as a trustee, as mayor.
I will escalate that.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So, as you're talking to people, as you're running
what?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
are you finding?
What do people bring up that'simportant to them?
Change, change.
They want change.
They're tired of nothinghappening.
They want somebody in therethat can move this village
forward.
That's what I'm hearing, and Iwill give that change.
Do you want to know about mylife, my wife, my kids.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Sorry, yeah, as.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I said this one's a little bit more.
Hopefully, I'm giving youinformation that you know
absolutely no, I think it.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I think it's helpful, um, and part of the reason I'm
not.
We talked a lot about that andI think, uh, you know it was
good to get more background, butI'll, I have some more, you
know, light-hearted questionsfor you, as we.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
i'm'm just kidding, I'm just joking with you.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
No, and I really appreciate it.
It's good to get a kind of anopen view of what's going on and
somebody coming in or notcoming in, but changing a
position, the perspective thatyou'll have if you come in.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Being the mayor.
Okay, the mayor doesn't vote,okay, so the only time he votes
is if it's a tie If it's 3-3,then he'll vote, but the key is
to make sure that hopefullynever is a tie.
And that's where communicationcomes in with your trustees.
When I was mayor pro tem, Iwould call every trustee every
(25:47):
week before the meetings anddiscuss the agenda.
What do you think about this?
What's your viewpoint?
What's this?
What's that?
I would give them mine and theywould give me theirs, and if we
don't agree, that's fine.
We don't have to agree.
I knew where everybody was atand if I could convince them the
reason why I think it'simportant, then I would do that.
But it's communication withyour trustees and your staff,
(26:13):
but especially with the trustees, to get things moving and get
things done, and that'ssomething that hasn't been going
on at all.
So that's something I willdefinitely.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, I did it and I'm going to do it again so you
had uh time at the beginning ofthe year when the mayor was out
and you did as you said.
You stepped in as mayor pro tem.
So anything else that you shareabout that or what that process
is like.
What did it show you?
Did that give you anymotivation to run for mayor now?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Well, yes, because I saw how things moved.
I mean we moved that villagepretty quick and I told Thomas
Ashby bring everything in.
You know, let's not.
We moved that village prettyquick and I told Tom Osakie
bring everything in, let's nothold back here, let's get as
much stuff as we can done.
And we did.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
And what is that?
The role of Mayor Pro Tem?
Are you technically I meanfully the mayor at that point?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yes, a Mayor Pro Tem is.
Um, I was appointed by frank asmayor pro temp and it's been
done in the past and usually thesenior trustee not always, but
usually the senior trusteebecomes the mayor pro temp.
This way, let's say, if themayor is sick or he's not out or
something, that you can step inand continue the meetings, so
(27:31):
you have full power.
You know, and I did that whenhe was out for those few months
when he was in the hospital, andI did that again because he got
sick again another time.
So I was able to fill in foranother month or two, a couple
months in, but and but he tookme off mayor pro tem.
(27:53):
These reasons where we don'tagree on things, you know, on
certain things or whatever youknow, so, which is fine.
So now, every time he's notthere, the board has to vote me
in as the mayor pro tem everytime.
So I have to hold a meetingbeginning and do this and take a
vote, and you know was there aconversation there when that
(28:14):
happened?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
When?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
he took me off.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, he said that you know we don't see eye to eye
on things and I said what doesthat have to do with it?
I said you know I'm justfilling in, but in my opinion it
was political.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
At that point, you were planning to run already, do
you?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
think it was known Not really to be honest with you
, but I think they motivate me alittle bit.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think they motivate me a little bit.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So you're running with Melissa Martini for clerk?
Yeah, she's our clerk, nowMelissa Fedora.
She's a trustee already.
Josh Bailey.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Josh Bailey.
He's on an economic developmentcommittee.
He's also a finance guy, he'salso a CPA.
He's got a photogenic memory.
It's amazing.
Very smart person, very smart,somebody that can really help
with a lot of the developmentthings that are going on.
And then then Gilbert, he's onthe park board.
Now Okay.
(29:11):
And then you got Colleen.
You know she's, she's been intown for forever, I mean, I
think I don't know if she wasborn here, but she was here
since she was little.
She knows a lot of people.
You know, she's involved in acommittee with our village also,
(29:32):
and she's very smart, a womanthat she wanted to run for
office.
She wanted to help, to be ableto make a difference.
Colleen Leonard, colleenLeonard.
And so I think I have a greatgroup of people running with me
(29:58):
that I think this group can movethis village forward.
They really can, becausethey're all smart.
I have young, I have older, Ihave it's a combination of women
, I have guys, so actuallythere's three women and three
guys running.
So you know me, josh and Dan,and then you got you know
Melissa, melissa and Colleen.
(30:18):
So I think this group canreally make a difference in this
village.
I think we could be a workingboard that we can work together
and make things happen.
They're all smart, they're allinvolved in the village in one
way or another.
They're all involved.
They've all done, they're on acommittee or they've done stuff.
(30:38):
And Dan, he's not been on thepark board I don't know if it's
second term or whatever.
He's been elected a coupletimes, I think, so he knows how
government works and how thingsare.
So, yeah, we've got a very goodgroup.
I'm very proud of him.
What?
I've got a very good group, I'mvery proud of them.
What went into putting yourslate together?
(30:59):
Well, I was trying to findpeople that I believe they have
independent thinking, peoplethat are smart, people that love
their village, first of all,and want to see it move forward
and succeed.
So I made some calls, you knowI've already.
I talked to a couple of them, acouple of them an election ago
(31:21):
about it.
They were interested in it.
It just didn't work out at thetime.
So I contacted them, I met withthem, you know, and had a
conversation to see if ourphilosophies are, you know, the
same, we don't have to agree.
And I told them we don't haveto agree on everything.
If you're set on something likethat, on something, then it's,
you know, but let's communicate,let's talk and respect each
(31:43):
other up there, let's not yellat each other and it gets.
But so this is how, and then Ihad the rest of the team kind of
meet him, you know, and wedecided to put this light
together and move forward.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So how are you getting your message out?
Well, right now.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
You saw, the signs came rolling out this week, the
signs finally starting to comeout.
Well, the weather obviously nowimpaired us from putting more
signs up.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
It gets a little hard in a frozen ground, doesn't?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
it.
We put about 25 4x4s up.
I ordered another 20.
So we got a lot more coming andwith yard signs.
People are asking me coachingfootball.
I coached the Burroughs for 20years.
The kids that I coach now areadults, so I coach.
I need signs.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Talk about that because I thought we talked
about it when we walked aroundthe park.
But I still think it'sinteresting.
The scoreboard yeah.
And that you were responsiblefor getting this score.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Oh yeah, the Burroughs used to have like a
wagon or something.
They pulled a scoreboard out,you know, and set it on there
and you know it.
It took a lot of years that way.
And, uh, one point, I decided,you know what I mean, we need a
scoreboard.
So I was able to contact uhcoca-cola, I think it was at the
(33:03):
time, and I said, hey, you know, I need a scoreboard for an
organization.
What can you guys do, you know?
So I talked to him for a fewtimes.
I decided they were going todonate the scoreboard yeah,
that's great yeah again, that'swhat leaders do correct.
They lead and get things done.
So I was able to get thatscoreboard in.
(33:24):
We put it up, wired it and nocost to the boroughs whatsoever
or anybody you know.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So that's great that was a neat little history memory
thing to learn.
Talk about your relationshipwith the Park.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
District.
What have you done?
I have a really goodrelationship with the Park
District.
They reach out to me a lot oftimes about things, especially
not with the development thatthey're doing, not development,
but the barn finishing it up andstuff like that.
They've had some issues onthings.
They call me up.
I'd meet them over there,discuss it, go over it, get them
resolved.
We move forward the park.
(34:03):
When I was coaching football,obviously we had a really good
relationship because it's at thepark, we're doing it.
So I get along with everybodyat the park.
We communicate, not on a dailybasis or weekly, but we
communicate.
If there's anything they need,they call me and I know a few of
them on there personally.
So yeah, and I think it's veryimportant that we work together
(34:28):
with our practice the village,like the fireworks, we're able
to partner with them, split thecost and we're doing it at their
park.
So I think it's important tosupport them and they support us
.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
You know, the one thing that always comes up is
the Yunker Farm there and thebig field that really sits
between the park and downtown.
Any thoughts there?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Well, I've talked to some people at the park about it
and some are saying well, youknow we don't have a lot of open
field anymore.
You know that would be nice tomake like a walking area and
things you know for theresidents to enjoy.
You know, then you knowdevelopment there.
I haven't got into depth withthem about that conversation,
(35:17):
about that, if they're lookingto possibly sell it or develop
it or do something.
But I think it would be a shameto I mean, you've got such a
nice open area, there'sresidents all around there.
You know to do something that'sgoing to impair the residents
in any way.
So they're doing a little compplan themselves right now, a
five-year plan, I think it is.
So let's see what that allcomes out to be and what they're
(35:39):
looking to do.
So that's a conversation thatwe will have in the future.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
You bring up the comp plan again and the village has
gone through that whole process.
What's the next step?
Once the company delivers, youknow they bring a plan to you.
Is that how it works?
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, what they'll do is they'll bring a plan to us
and say, okay, here's what wefigured out, okay, that your
downtown needs this, this, thisand this 191st to bring.
You need the businesses certainbusinesses here, certain
businesses there what we need todo.
So do we need any trafficstudies on anything?
They will give us an idea andit's not a brand new comp plan
(36:20):
because our village is prettymuch built out.
It's more updating our compplan because right now our
company is like 20 years old.
You know so, and I push for thatto happen, obviously, and I put
it in the budget for it.
But once they come back withtheir recommendations, then
staff will present it to theboard.
We'll sit there and we'lldiscuss it, We'll talk about it
to see exactly, even likeextending the downtown area
(36:44):
Instead of being just here andhere, maybe extend it down to
Wolf Road or whatever, to makeit even bigger, because our
downtown is actually kind ofsmall and we want to be able to
attract businesses into ourdowntown area.
So there's a lot of things thatand I don't want to get ahead
of what they want to recommend.
But they're going to make theirrecommendations and they'll
(37:07):
come back to the board and thenwe act on them.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Well, our village at one point has had bars all the
way almost to schoolhouse road.
It's been a long time, but Icould see it as a longer stretch
of, yes, of front street yes, Imean not saying that will, I'm
just saying that's a possibility, that's a possibility, but uh,
it's good to.
I, I think that it's great tohave dreamers in office, sure,
(37:31):
uh, as well as the balance ofpeople that you know, bring us,
bring you to reality, but it's agood balance to have it is, in
our it is.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I mean, if you don't, if you don't dream, you're not
alive, true?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 2 (37:49):
uh, over the next five to ten years are the things
that are going to be thebiggest challenges for our
village I think our biggestchallenges are going to be
maintaining our businesses here,because right now, with
everything online and you canorder everything online and
bring it to your house you knowyou're not going to see strip
malls going in anymore.
You know even businessesbecause they the.
(38:09):
You know it's so easy, it's somuch easier, and I'm sure you've
done and I've done it too.
You know well you wantsomething.
You go to your easier and I'msure you've done and I've done
it too.
You know well you want somethingyou go it's at your front door
and I think that's going to be achallenge in the future to make
to keep, you know, businessesopen in Mokina, not just in
Mokina but anywhere.
But I'm concerned about Mokinawith all that going on, and it's
going to get easier and easierto order things online than it
(38:34):
is to go somewhere and shop andthey say, well, you've got to
wear something.
You know they order two orthree things and they send the
rest back.
So that's going to be achallenge to maintain our
business, because without ourbusinesses, I mean what happens
to us Tax, sales tax and stuffgoes down, you know hustle and
(38:59):
heart on front, there has been agood.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
You know I've heard a lot of people say the same
thing.
It's really hard to bring likea retailer or somebody.
That's a very kind of nichething.
But man, the groups of younggirls you see coming out getting
custom hats made or footballmoms.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Imagine if you had more restaurants.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Oh, sure they could walk down somewhere and have a
drink afterwards, and that's thekey for small business to
succeed.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
You need to have that .
You need to have that base.
Yeah, and that's what I'm goingto concentrate on.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
So what does your wife think of all this?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
My wife is not a political person.
Okay, she doesn't get involvedof all this.
My wife is not a politicalperson, she doesn't get involved
in all this stuff.
And she said this is what youwant to do, I'll support you,
but that's your thing and Irespect that.
I wouldn't want her to beinvolved in everything that I do
politically, because she's notthat.
(39:53):
She supports me 100%, but she'snot somebody that likes that
title of first lady, let's say,or to be out in public with you,
know everybody, she's not thattype of person, which, which is
fine.
I respect that for her.
She you tell us about hers.
(40:13):
Right now we have my daughterand my two grandkids living with
us.
We've had them for a while, soit's kind of taken up a lot of
time.
Sure, it really has.
You know, make sure they get onthe bus on time, get off the
bus on time.
My daughter's working.
We have to be there for themall the time and you know, know,
(40:34):
it's tough.
Uh, my wife went through some,uh, health issues in the past,
you know, and, uh, she made itout okay and uh, so far.
So it's been a, it's been atrying time, uh, you know, um,
yeah, I get a little emotionalwhen I talk about it sure, sure,
(40:54):
I didn't want to lose her, youknow I mean it was tough.
It was tough.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
And you talk a lot about your grandkids and you
said you just had a birthdaycelebrated for one of them.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, Logan Okay, and Brandon next month, and we got
to meet them.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I think they were on my video of the police station.
We walked through too right.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, the characters.
Logan is just turned 13.
That kid's growing like a weed.
I mean all of a sudden, I meanthe last six months.
He's like, not that I'm nottall, but he's only 12, just
turned 13, as tall as me.
But and they're great kids.
They're very smart.
They both get straight A's inschool.
Very proud of them.
They play football.
(41:33):
Where do?
They play football.
They play for the JuniorKnights, oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
No influencer to get them over to the boroughs.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Well, unfortunately they're not boroughs anymore.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Right, they're Junior Celtics.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And they travel all over the place.
With my daughter being a singlemom and with us it's easier to
put them all over the place.
With my daughter being a singlemom and with us it's easier to
put them with the junior night,because they don't travel as far
and do all these things,because it's going to be very
hard for her or for us to dothat.
And plus, they're going to goto Central.
So all those kids they'replaying with, they're all going
(42:10):
to play and, believe it or not,there's a lot of Mokina kids
that play there.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
So kids that are playing with?
They're all going to play andthere's a lot, believe it or not
, there's a lot of Mokina kidsthat play there.
So what do you bring?
Are you on the sidelinesyelling at the?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
helping out those coaches.
They've been trying to get meto coach again and I told them I
did that for 20 years.
I said I just enjoy sittingthere coaching.
But you know, coach, ex-coachI'd say why the heck would they
call that play, you know?
But then again, I'm sure peoplesaid that about me, you know,
when I was coaching.
But no, it's fun.
It's fun to sit there and watchthem play and not have to,
(42:43):
because when I was coaching Iwould start in March, you know,
getting my playbook, getting mycamp schedule, getting my
practice schedule.
Because I used to hold my owncamp, maintainers Football Camp,
and I wouldn't charge the kidsanything.
It was free to them and notonly charge, but I would buy
them T-shirts to give them forfree.
Where would you do that?
Grimeros Park.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Okay, how many kids would you get coming up to that?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Anywhere from 40 to 60 kids.
Geez, wow, that's pretty cool.
So you know I would work withthem and, you know, get them
ready to, and then the Burroughswould have their football camp
right after when I had it, youknow.
So they got, you know, moreexperience and then when we came
together, we, you know a lot ofthem knew a lot of things that
(43:34):
they would have to learn, youknow.
So you know.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
So how'd you guys do?
How was?
Speaker 2 (43:39):
your teams.
We won a lot of championships,nice Undefeated seasons,
actually.
In 2005, we won thechampionship undefeated, linkway
won their championshipundefeated Wow and the so socks
won their championship.
It's a good year for everybody.
(43:59):
That's when I got elected onthe board, oh wow okay, so it
was a great year all the wayaround it was just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
It was awesome yeah well, anything else you want to
share?
Uh, maybe tell voters you knowwhy, why you're the right choice
.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Well, I think I kind of brought that up.
I think if you want to change,vote for me.
If you want the same, staywhere you're at.
But I think that I can bringbusiness-type leadership into
this village, that we can getthings done and move things
forward.
(44:34):
I will not push things aside, Iwill not say let's think about
it, let's talk about it, putthis here, put this there.
I will move this villageforward and bring it up to date,
especially with our electronicsand everything with our website
and even our cameras that we onChannel 6, they're all outdated
(44:54):
.
When you watch it it looks likea haze.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
It looks like the 1990s, exactly.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Because nothing has changed, nothing has moved
forward, and I want to be theperson that does that and I will
do it.
I guarantee you From day one, Iwill start, I'm not going to
wait.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Well, trust me, mattanious, I really appreciate
you sitting down with me.
You know, as you know, ourpodcast is we've been doing this
for two years and to have youknow a sitting trustee and mayor
or candidate sit down, Iappreciate that and I want to
extend the thank you as well fordoing that.
You can check out all of ourcandidate interviews with the
(45:36):
rest of the Friends of Mokinaslate Friends of Mokina don't
forget that name.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Everybody on that slate will move this village
forward, and we are going tohave a working board up there.
Please come out and vote andcome to our meet and greets.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
This is how you're going to meet everybody.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Unfortunately, you're the only venue that we have in
meet everybody.
You know, unfortunately wedon't.
You're the only venue that wehave in Waukena that can get out
.
You know we don't have anewspaper anymore.
We don't have any of that.
So please come out and meet ourcandidates every one of us and
ask questions, listen to what wegot to say and hopefully you'll
like it and you'll vote for us,so early voting starts March
(46:19):
17th.
We'll have all these out by then, so please share.
And again, trustee Metaneus,thank you for meeting us.
Thanks, israel, great job,thank you.
Trustee Metanus, thank you for sitting down with
me.
You have decided to run formayor this election and we had a
previous conversation.
We really got to talk and getto know you.
I dragged you around Main Park.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, I thought we were going to be sitting at a
bench.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I have to apologize.
I caught you a little off guardwith that.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It's fine, I have to apologize.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I caught you a little off guard, I hear you, but I
think it was a good conversationand we kind of tipped off a
little bit.
You know, we heard that youwere planning to run, but so you
did tell us, but we didn'treally get to talk any more
about that.
So this is kind of anopportunity we talk more about
the, you know, the political endor the business end of now that
(00:46):
you're running.
So first, just how's thecampaign going?
What do you think so far?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's going well.
It's going really well.
We have meet and greets comingup so that people can meet all
our candidates, myself and allthe friends of Mokina Group.
Ask questions, listen to whatwe've got to say.
So we have three dates.
We have one on next February20th, which is coming up this
(01:13):
Thursday at Stony Point from 5to 7 o'clock.
We'll have light appetizers andrefreshments.
Please come on out and askquestions, get to know us a
little bit better.
We're there, we'll be walkingaround, excuse me, we'll be
obviously making a couplespeeches or whatever.
(01:34):
Then we have another one on the27th at 19th Hole.
Then the last one is going tobe March 6th at the VFW.
We thought we'd just keep it in.
We went to one side, we'restaying inside, so we're trying
to catch and help businesses outthroughout by doing that and
(01:56):
what's your hope?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
what do you think your expectations for those meet
and greets?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
so people get to know us.
I want people to know who weare, if they don't already, so I
want them to learn what ourpolicies are and what our
philosophy is, and any questionsthey may want to ask us, we'll
be more than happy to answer.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So maybe start just talking a little bit.
You've been on the board, for Ithink this is your 20th year is
that right Correct?
After 20 years, what made youpull the trigger and say it's
time for me to run for mayor?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, you kind of said it 20 years.
It was time.
It was time for me to run formayor.
I felt that, as a businessperson which I was in business
for like 34 years inconstruction, actually local 134
, ibw the leadership skills thatI have, we need those on the
(02:54):
board and we need people thatcan communicate with the rest of
the board, communicate with ourstaff, get things happening.
We need somebody in there thatcan move our village forward
with the rest of the board,communicate with our staff, get
things happening.
We need somebody in there thatcan move our village forward.
Our village is kind of stagnantright now and it's easy to blame
other people for maybe yourinabilities that you can't get
(03:18):
things done.
But a leader gets things doneand I guarantee you I will get
things done in the village,including downtown, including
the rest of the village.
We talked about a comprehensiveplan for like years.
Nothing happened, I mean.
So then, when Mayor Flesher wasout sick for those four or five
(03:39):
months and I was the mayor protem, I communicated with the
board.
You know I said we need this.
Here's why we need it, here'swhat the cost is going to be.
We need to put it in the budget.
So I was able to get that doneand we put it in the budget.
So right now it's going on.
I don't know when it's going tofinish exactly, but we had a lot
(04:02):
of input from the village.
They've been to differentevents in the village.
They have a website.
People can go on and askquestions and that will tell us,
you know, give us a better ideaon what we can do, what we can
do with the village, wherethings can go and not go, what
we need, you know.
And also in our downtown, youknow, I mean, I can throw out,
(04:23):
we need traffic study.
Okay, why?
Who said that's going to helpus and what's he going to do?
Is that going to give us grants?
How?
None of that has been explainedto anybody.
They just throw out stuff andthen see if it sticks.
You know it makes it sound good, you know.
I think that our village it'san easy choice.
(04:47):
Do you want to continue thepath we're on now or do you want
to change?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So talk about that.
You come into office.
What kind of changes would youmake, or what does that mean for
you?
What do you do differently thancurrently?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, what I want to do is, first of all, with our
comprehensive plan, I want toget the studies back and see
exactly what we need to dodifferently than currently.
What I want to do is, first ofall, with our comprehensive plan
, I want to get the studies backand see exactly what we need to
do, whether for our downtownarea.
What do we need there?
Do we need certain type ofbusinesses to come in or not
come in?
Also, all our ordinancesthey're outdated.
There's nothing current there,so I need to bring all those up
(05:26):
to date.
Not only that, but I want toput them on our website so that
if a developer or a contractorwants to come in to our village,
they don't have to make anappointment, come in and see
somebody.
They can go right online, getall the information, all the
ordinance, what it takes, whatthey need to get to bring in the
development or whatever theywant to bring in.
So I want to make sure thatthat gets done, because without
(05:49):
that, it takes us forever to getthrough the process and I think
a lot of builders, developerswe're going to call it they shy
away from Mokina because ittakes too long to get things
done.
I want to speed up that process.
So make sure that we bringmeaningful businesses into our
town and make it as easy aspossible for them to get here.
(06:12):
You know, I also want to beable to take care of our
existing businesses, becauseit's our tax base, right.
I mean, if we don't take careof existing businesses and we
lose them, then we lose.
Then we lose our sales taxrevenue that we need.
This way, we keep the taxes inMokina low.
So I want to make sure that weget all that stuff done.
(06:35):
Also, communicate with yourboard.
You know who was really good atthat?
Joe Warner.
Joe Warner, when I first gotelected I wasn't part of his
team at the time, but as soon asI got elected he reached out to
me right away and then when Igot on the board, he would call,
(06:56):
he would pitch me his thing ona development or something and
he would listen to what I haveto say and work with me, not
just me, but the whole board.
That's a communicator, that's agood leader, and we need a
leader that can lead.
We need somebody that can makethings happen.
A leader doesn't blame otherpeople for his inabilities to
(07:16):
lead, and a leader makes thingshappen and I will.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I guarantee you, I promise you that Talk about, you
bring up Mayor Joe Warner, andso were there any examples where
he called up and you were justreally in disagreement and how
did you deal with it?
You know, in that case.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Originally, when the Myers was coming in, he called
me.
He was from Vegas, you know.
He says hey, you know we havean opportunity to bring a buyer
in.
You know, I said man, I don'tknow if the residents have been
kind of at the time.
This is back.
I said one, two, when you comein, let's talk about it, let's
see if we can get.
So we came in and we discussedit, we went over it.
(07:56):
They showed me all the things.
I got in touch with theresidents see how they feel
about it and we were able tobring it in.
Another one is JCPenney.
We, as an electrical contractor, we did a lot of work at
Orleans Square Mall.
There's a JCPenney there.
I found out that JCPenney islooking to move away from the
(08:18):
inside malls and do a standalone.
So they were gonna go on 191stand Harlem down that way.
So as soon as I found that out,I got a hold of Joe Warner.
I got a hold of John Downs.
I said, hey, listen, this iswhat's going on.
We need to bring them here, youknow.
So right away we calledmeetings with them and we were
able to bring them into Mokina.
(08:39):
That's communication, that'sleadership, that's getting
things done, you know, andthat's Joe.
Warner was like a mentor to me.
I learned a lot from him how tobe a good leader, how to be a
good communicator more thananything, you know and be able
to talk with your board everyweek and let them know what's
(09:01):
going on, get their input andmake things work.
You know, not go on the boardand get surprised at things that
you never know about.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
What do you think?
As we said, you've been on theboard for 20 years.
What will you be able to dodifferently that you couldn't do
as a trustee?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Be a leader from the top as a trustee.
The agenda is controlled by themayor what goes on and what
doesn't go on and if it's notthe agenda, there's nothing we
can do.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So if you have an agenda item that you want on
something you're bringing andthe mayor doesn't agree, how do
you get it as part of the agenda?
How can you get it on them?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Well, because we kind of push it really hard to get
it on there.
Well, because we kind of pushat it really hard to get it on
there, you know, and when itgets on there, you know there'll
be times that we do put it onthe agenda and you know you'll
have, you know, the mayor sayingyou know, you don't belong in
Mokina to this business.
You know, and like Andy'sfrozen custard, he told them you
don't belong in Mokina.
I mean things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And again, you know, now that they're in there, any
context to that, like why hemight have said that or thought
of it.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I'm not sure what his mindset was.
Maybe they thought they weren'tgood enough.
I don't know.
That's something he's got tohave to answer, but I mean just
stuff like that that you know.
That's why.
I's why I said you needsomebody that's a good leader,
somebody that can lead and movethis village forward, and I
(10:33):
guarantee you I will not blameanybody else for my failures if
I make any.
Whatever I do, I will makethings happen, and the way to do
that is communication.
I'm telling you it's the mostimportant thing in the world is
talking to people talking toyour board, talking to your
staff, getting information,getting all your ducks in a row
before you start talking toeverybody so you know why you
need all this stuff and explainto them why.
(10:54):
Okay, not just throw things outthere and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Talk about your relationship with the village
administrator, as well as someof the staff and how you work
with them.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
We have a good relationship.
I talk to them weekly aboutthings.
Excuse me, john Tomaszewskicalls us every week to let us
know what's going to be in theagenda and we go over it with
him.
You know our economicdevelopment director, you know
things that come up.
I'll call him up or he'll callme and say here's what's going
(11:26):
on.
We have a good relationship withour staff.
I do it with our staff and, nomatter how you look at it, our
staff really pretty much runsthings because they're day to
day.
We're not, you know, but inorder to find out what's going
on, and a lot of times, you know, they may call me on something
and say, hey, can you reach outto this person?
You know, and blah, blah, blah,and you know, see what you can
(11:54):
do, and I do that you know.
So, yeah, it's important thatagain we go back to
communication.
You know, be able tocommunicate with your staff, be
able to communicate with yourboard.
You know, be able tocommunicate with developers and
the residents in Waukena and youknow, be transparent on what's
going on.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Can you talk a little bit?
You know as a trustee thedirect kind of impact you can
make and maybe give someexamples.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And you've given a couple as a trustee.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, like maybe examples of things you've
directly had an impact on.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, I can tell you this.
On Front Street there by mygovernment, there used to be a
gravel parking lot.
I got calls from residentssaying that.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
So it's Front and Wolf the Terrafin lot.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The Terrafin.
Yeah, that's what it was calledbefore.
So we graveled that and weactually were renting spaces out
for the Metro.
Well, I would get phone calls.
Hey, you know, my wife almosttwisted her ankle.
My, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And also they said you know,you're renting this out in the
(12:56):
wintertime.
It gets dark by 3, 3, 4 o'clockand you know, my wife, my
daughter, whatever, you know,it's not lit up, it's dangerous.
So I said okay.
So I got a hold of Kirk's ownerat the time.
I said let's get ComEd, callComEd.
We got ComEd to come out to thesite.
They got all those poles allthe way down.
(13:18):
Being an electrical contractor,I know what they do, what they
can do and not do.
So I asked them if they couldput lights on every one of those
hitting the lot withoutblinding people on the other
side.
And after a couple of meetingsthey agreed to do it at no cost
to the village whatsoever.
Oh, wow, yeah, so they were ableto put that up and then I
(13:39):
pushed to get that lot paved,for safety reasons first of all,
and it's a temporary pavement,that if a developer wants to
come in then it's not going tobe.
It didn't cost us like it wouldif we had to do it complete.
And that's the other thing wedon't have a marketing person in
(14:01):
our village.
We have nobody that can marketour town, nobody that can market
our downtown.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And is that a standard thing, something you
typically see in surroundingvillages?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, they have, and we need somebody that can market
our downtown.
Let's say okay and say hey, youknow what?
Here's what we have Callbusinesses up the therapist site
.
We've had it what 10, 15 yearsnow Sitting there.
There hasn't been a for salesign put up.
It hasn't been put on themarket whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
And it is, or technically is, for sale.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
But you know, and we talked about it up there as
trustees or whatever to put upfor sale.
So I didn't put it up for saleand nothing happened.
Nothing moved forward.
Nothing went in the agenda.
Nothing happened.
Nothing moved forward.
Nothing went in the agenda.
So you know, we need amarketing person that can come
in and market our town you knowour downtown absolutely, you
(14:53):
know and trying to bring peoplein the rest of our town I'm
sorry, my voice is a little offthe last couple of days, so we
don't have that.
That's something I want to getin.
I want to make sure that we canmarket our Mokina village of
Mokina and we had the Southlandbefore.
(15:16):
It wasn't marketing anything.
We're paying all this money,we're paying like $40,000 for
really maybe putting us on thereonce or twice.
So we decided to get rid ofthat Get rid of what the.
Southland, not be within themanymore.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
What is that?
The Southland Chamber ofCommerce?
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
It's $40,000.
We can take that money and useit towards our own marketing
person.
And so now they came back to usthis last time and they they
wanted to put us on there forfree, you know, because they get
money if they have us on.
Okay, so I said, for free, let'sdo it yeah but uh, we do need
(15:58):
our own marketing person to dothat.
And you know the same thingwith the therapist side.
You know getting it paved,getting the lighting in there.
And you know same thing withthe therapist side.
You know, getting it paved,getting the lighting in there.
Our downtown used to be likestones and stuff like that and
people were tripping over it.
It was dangerous.
I pushed hard, me and JillianHerstadt actually pushed hard to
get that, get those out and putpavers down, and we got that
(16:20):
done.
And then getting the flowerpots and making it look nice.
You know we also have a facadeprogram for our downtown.
It's $10,000.
Somebody wants to improve theirfacade.
We give them $10,000 to do it.
We have a TIF.
(16:42):
We made a TIF program in thereso that it can make it easier
for developers to get money tobe able to develop there, you
know.
So there's a lot of things thatyou know.
You said what I've done.
I've done as much as I can as atrustee to get this village
moving forward, bringingJCPenney in, getting our you
know downtown.
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
So there was a village president I think it was
back in November of the tariffin sight and the potential
development there with therestaurant from Payless, which
is really exciting, agreat-looking plan, but nothing
else has really come of it.
There hasn't appeared to be anyoffers or a solid offer for
(17:19):
purchase.
Is there anything that we canpoint to that's holding that up
or why there hasn't been anymore progress there?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I really can't talk too much about it because we're
in the process of negotiatingwith that.
But again, it takescommunication, it takes
leadership to make things happeninstead of pushing them back
and pushing them back, andthat's something that I will do.
As a leader, I will do all that.
But the therapist side rightnow with the restaurant stuff,
(17:51):
like I said, I can't really talktoo much about it.
But it's not dead, it's stillthere.
But it's again negotiations.
You have to know how tonegotiate right as a contractor.
I mean, I did that all the time.
I negotiated contracts.
I had payroll, I did it withunions, work orders, contracts,
(18:13):
all that stuff that, as abusiness owner, you learn how to
do and this is how you learnhow to lead and how to be a good
leader.
So you know that's.
I can't really say too muchabout it because I don't want to
, but it's not a dead issue.
(18:36):
I think that's something that'sin the works of talking about it
.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Well, those type of projects, I mean to me living in
downtown is really excitingbecause, you know, between the
dock, you know, I think the dockhopefully will really kick
things off.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I think it's going to do really well, as well as the
other business, you know,between the dock.
You know, I think the dockhopefully will really kick
things off.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I think it's going to do really well, as well as the
other business.
You know Zapp, so it's good tosee.
But maybe what would you liketo see?
What would your ideal downtownMolkina look like?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
You know, I'd like to see a downtown, I'd like to see
our village, our downtown, tohave the restaurants you know
like, even like this FranklinHouse, that they're talking
about going in Doc's and maybe afew more, so then people can go
out and they want to go heretoday, there tomorrow, or they
want to go here, there and thereand there, and that's how you
get traffic in our downtown.
Once you get that in, then youcan do maybe your little shops
(19:24):
and stuff like that, that peopleare walking around and they're
able to shop, you know, in thelittle shops, because right now
and you have to remember abusiness has to make money to
survive and without having thefoot traffic in our downtown, a
business is going to have a hardtime surviving.
So we need to bring the foottraffic in, okay, including
(19:46):
possibly maybe a walking paththat connects that people can
walk to your downtown, and stuffPossibly maybe a walking path
that connects, that people canwalk to your downtown and stuff.
So there's a lot that can bedone, but you have to do it.
You can't talk about it, youhave to do it and that's
something that I'm the type ofperson that gets things done.
I do things, I don't just talkabout them.
Day one I'm going to startright off the bat with all our
(20:10):
ordinances.
Try to get that updated, getmodernized with our electronics.
Everything is electronicnowadays.
Everything's at your fingertips.
And we're still back.
We need to move forward.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Anything ordinance-wise specific that you
would want to target first?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
There isn't really a specific ordinance that I want,
but there's a lot of ordinancesthat are outdated.
Okay, because we have a lot ofissues and a lot of problems
with residents that have donesomething already.
You know, and it's not againstthe ordinance, you know, and
it's not a bad thing, but it'sagainst the ordinance.
It's something that we need towork and look at and get things
(20:50):
done.
So I can't give you specificson that, but all our ordinances
have to be updated and broughtup to date and they have to be
put on our website and theapplications can be up there.
So everything's at yourfingertips and you don't have to
make appointments to come inand get this and you don't have
to make appointments to come inand talk to somebody about our
(21:11):
ordinance, what they are andstuff.
I want to fast-track our permitapplications and all that so it
doesn't take forever, becauseunfortunately, we're known as
the village that is againstdevelopment and I hate that.
That bothers the heck out of mebecause we're not.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Where do you think that falls?
I mean, I've heard the samething.
You know people that want tocome in and it's either just
struggles or kind of walkingthrough mud a lot of times to
get things done.
I'm sure it can fall on thedeveloper as well as both sides.
But how do we make it easierfor people wanting to come in?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Again, we fast track it, meaning with the permit
applications and our ordinances,so people know what they are.
Okay, we don't bring them infront of us two or three times
before we approve anything.
Do our homework, work with thedeveloper, work with our staff.
Get it all set, bring it to theboard, move it on, move it on.
(22:16):
And you know it getsfrustrating sometimes when you
see things are not moving andyou know I want things to move.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
It's got to be extremely frustrating as a
developer.
I mean, I don't know all thesituation, but you know, you
think about some of thedevelopment on Front Street and
you know there's somebody with adesire to do something to make
it better.
You'd hope the village you knowwould work hand in hand to help
out.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, like Gino, gino wanted gaming.
Okay, we have gaming everywhere.
I mean, rios has it, l'orealhas gaming okay, we have gaming
everywhere.
I mean, rios has it, ll has it.
Okay, and he wasn't allowed toput gaming in the downtown and
that's what you know.
He called me George.
I can't get nobody in herewithout the gaming.
You know, can you do anything?
And I talked to the rest of thetrustees and everything.
(23:06):
So then, although Mayor Frankwas against it, you know he got
outvoted on it, but as soon ashe got the gaming man, we got
docs.
So I mean things like that thatyou know you can help a business
person.
You know, move forward.
(23:27):
Or you know something that youknow inspection wise.
You know you failed onsomething.
You know move forward.
Or you know something that youknow inspection wise.
You know you failed onsomething.
You know.
And I'll get involved a littlebit and say, okay, is it a life
safety thing?
What's going on?
You know, and we get itresolved, you know.
So it's things that goodleadership does.
I'm telling you it's it's uh.
And communication.
You have to be able to talk topeople one-on-one, not just over
(23:50):
the phone.
I like meeting with people andyou know that I like to meet
somebody face-to-face becausewhen I'm talking to them I can
tell where they're at and wherethey're not.
I can tell by their eyes.
So I like to see somebody inperson and I do that a lot.
I meet people for lunch.
This is more casual, morerelaxed, and people can talk to
you and be honest and see if youcan work something out.
And I did that through mybusiness and I continue doing it
(24:13):
now as a trustee, as mayor.
I will escalate that.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So, as you're talking to people, as you're running
what?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
are you finding?
What do people bring up that'simportant to them?
Change, change.
They want change.
They're tired of nothinghappening.
They want somebody in therethat can move this village
forward.
That's what I'm hearing, and Iwill give that change.
Do you want to know about mylife, my wife, my kids.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Sorry, yeah, as.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I said this one's a little bit more.
Hopefully, I'm giving youinformation that you know
absolutely no, I think it.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I think it's helpful, um, and part of the reason I'm
not.
We talked a lot about that andI think, uh, you know it was
good to get more background, butI'll, I have some more, you
know, light-hearted questionsfor you, as we.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
i'm'm just kidding, I'm just joking with you.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
No, and I really appreciate it.
It's good to get a kind of anopen view of what's going on and
somebody coming in or notcoming in, but changing a
position, the perspective thatyou'll have if you come in.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Being the mayor.
Okay, the mayor doesn't vote,okay, so the only time he votes
is if it's a tie If it's 3-3,then he'll vote, but the key is
to make sure that hopefullynever is a tie.
And that's where communicationcomes in with your trustees.
When I was mayor pro tem, Iwould call every trustee every
(25:47):
week before the meetings anddiscuss the agenda.
What do you think about this?
What's your viewpoint?
What's this?
What's that?
I would give them mine and theywould give me theirs, and if we
don't agree, that's fine.
We don't have to agree.
I knew where everybody was atand if I could convince them the
reason why I think it'simportant, then I would do that.
But it's communication withyour trustees and your staff,
(26:13):
but especially with the trustees, to get things moving and get
things done, and that'ssomething that hasn't been going
on at all.
So that's something I willdefinitely.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, I did it and I'm going to do it again so you
had uh time at the beginning ofthe year when the mayor was out
and you did as you said.
You stepped in as mayor pro tem.
So anything else that you shareabout that or what that process
is like.
What did it show you?
Did that give you anymotivation to run for mayor now?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Well, yes, because I saw how things moved.
I mean we moved that villagepretty quick and I told Thomas
Ashby bring everything in.
You know, let's not.
We moved that village prettyquick and I told Tom Osakie
bring everything in, let's nothold back here, let's get as
much stuff as we can done.
And we did.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
And what is that?
The role of Mayor Pro Tem?
Are you technically I meanfully the mayor at that point?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yes, a Mayor Pro Tem is.
Um, I was appointed by frank asmayor pro temp and it's been
done in the past and usually thesenior trustee not always, but
usually the senior trusteebecomes the mayor pro temp.
This way, let's say, if themayor is sick or he's not out or
something, that you can step inand continue the meetings, so
(27:31):
you have full power.
You know, and I did that whenhe was out for those few months
when he was in the hospital, andI did that again because he got
sick again another time.
So I was able to fill in foranother month or two, a couple
months in, but and but he tookme off mayor pro tem.
(27:53):
These reasons where we don'tagree on things, you know, on
certain things or whatever youknow, so, which is fine.
So now, every time he's notthere, the board has to vote me
in as the mayor pro tem everytime.
So I have to hold a meetingbeginning and do this and take a
vote, and you know was there aconversation there when that
(28:14):
happened?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
When?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
he took me off.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, he said that you know we don't see eye to eye
on things and I said what doesthat have to do with it?
I said you know I'm justfilling in, but in my opinion it
was political.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
At that point, you were planning to run already, do
you?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
think it was known Not really to be honest with you
, but I think they motivate me alittle bit.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think they motivate me a little bit.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So you're running with Melissa Martini for clerk?
Yeah, she's our clerk, nowMelissa Fedora.
She's a trustee already.
Josh Bailey.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Josh Bailey.
He's on an economic developmentcommittee.
He's also a finance guy, he'salso a CPA.
He's got a photogenic memory.
It's amazing.
Very smart person, very smart,somebody that can really help
with a lot of the developmentthings that are going on.
And then then Gilbert, he's onthe park board.
Now Okay.
(29:11):
And then you got Colleen.
You know she's, she's been intown for forever, I mean, I
think I don't know if she wasborn here, but she was here
since she was little.
She knows a lot of people.
You know, she's involved in acommittee with our village also,
(29:32):
and she's very smart, a womanthat she wanted to run for
office.
She wanted to help, to be ableto make a difference.
Colleen Leonard, colleenLeonard.
And so I think I have a greatgroup of people running with me
(29:58):
that I think this group can movethis village forward.
They really can, becausethey're all smart.
I have young, I have older, Ihave it's a combination of women
, I have guys, so actuallythere's three women and three
guys running.
So you know me, josh and Dan,and then you got you know
Melissa, melissa and Colleen.
(30:18):
So I think this group canreally make a difference in this
village.
I think we could be a workingboard that we can work together
and make things happen.
They're all smart, they're allinvolved in the village in one
way or another.
They're all involved.
They've all done, they're on acommittee or they've done stuff.
(30:38):
And Dan, he's not been on thepark board I don't know if it's
second term or whatever.
He's been elected a coupletimes, I think, so he knows how
government works and how thingsare.
So, yeah, we've got a very goodgroup.
I'm very proud of him.
What?
I've got a very good group, I'mvery proud of them.
What went into putting yourslate together?
(30:59):
Well, I was trying to findpeople that I believe they have
independent thinking, peoplethat are smart, people that love
their village, first of all,and want to see it move forward
and succeed.
So I made some calls, you knowI've already.
I talked to a couple of them, acouple of them an election ago
(31:21):
about it.
They were interested in it.
It just didn't work out at thetime.
So I contacted them, I met withthem, you know, and had a
conversation to see if ourphilosophies are, you know, the
same, we don't have to agree.
And I told them we don't haveto agree on everything.
If you're set on something likethat, on something, then it's,
you know, but let's communicate,let's talk and respect each
(31:43):
other up there, let's not yellat each other and it gets.
But so this is how, and then Ihad the rest of the team kind of
meet him, you know, and wedecided to put this light
together and move forward.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So how are you getting your message out?
Well, right now.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
You saw, the signs came rolling out this week, the
signs finally starting to comeout.
Well, the weather obviously nowimpaired us from putting more
signs up.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
It gets a little hard in a frozen ground, doesn't?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
it.
We put about 25 4x4s up.
I ordered another 20.
So we got a lot more coming andwith yard signs.
People are asking me coachingfootball.
I coached the Burroughs for 20years.
The kids that I coach now areadults, so I coach.
I need signs.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Talk about that because I thought we talked
about it when we walked aroundthe park.
But I still think it'sinteresting.
The scoreboard yeah.
And that you were responsiblefor getting this score.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Oh yeah, the Burroughs used to have like a
wagon or something.
They pulled a scoreboard out,you know, and set it on there
and you know it.
It took a lot of years that way.
And, uh, one point, I decided,you know what I mean, we need a
scoreboard.
So I was able to contact uhcoca-cola, I think it was at the
(33:03):
time, and I said, hey, you know, I need a scoreboard for an
organization.
What can you guys do, you know?
So I talked to him for a fewtimes.
I decided they were going todonate the scoreboard yeah,
that's great yeah again, that'swhat leaders do correct.
They lead and get things done.
So I was able to get thatscoreboard in.
(33:24):
We put it up, wired it and nocost to the boroughs whatsoever
or anybody you know.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So that's great that was a neat little history memory
thing to learn.
Talk about your relationshipwith the Park.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
District.
What have you done?
I have a really goodrelationship with the Park
District.
They reach out to me a lot oftimes about things, especially
not with the development thatthey're doing, not development,
but the barn finishing it up andstuff like that.
They've had some issues onthings.
They call me up.
I'd meet them over there,discuss it, go over it, get them
resolved.
We move forward the park.
(34:03):
When I was coaching football,obviously we had a really good
relationship because it's at thepark, we're doing it.
So I get along with everybodyat the park.
We communicate, not on a dailybasis or weekly, but we
communicate.
If there's anything they need,they call me and I know a few of
them on there personally.
So yeah, and I think it's veryimportant that we work together
(34:28):
with our practice the village,like the fireworks, we're able
to partner with them, split thecost and we're doing it at their
park.
So I think it's important tosupport them and they support us
.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
You know, the one thing that always comes up is
the Yunker Farm there and thebig field that really sits
between the park and downtown.
Any thoughts there?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Well, I've talked to some people at the park about it
and some are saying well, youknow we don't have a lot of open
field anymore.
You know that would be nice tomake like a walking area and
things you know for theresidents to enjoy.
You know, then you knowdevelopment there.
I haven't got into depth withthem about that conversation,
(35:17):
about that, if they're lookingto possibly sell it or develop
it or do something.
But I think it would be a shameto I mean, you've got such a
nice open area, there'sresidents all around there.
You know to do something that'sgoing to impair the residents
in any way.
So they're doing a little compplan themselves right now, a
five-year plan, I think it is.
So let's see what that allcomes out to be and what they're
(35:39):
looking to do.
So that's a conversation thatwe will have in the future.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
You bring up the comp plan again and the village has
gone through that whole process.
What's the next step?
Once the company delivers, youknow they bring a plan to you.
Is that how it works?
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, what they'll do is they'll bring a plan to us
and say, okay, here's what wefigured out, okay, that your
downtown needs this, this, thisand this 191st to bring.
You need the businesses certainbusinesses here, certain
businesses there what we need todo.
So do we need any trafficstudies on anything?
They will give us an idea andit's not a brand new comp plan
(36:20):
because our village is prettymuch built out.
It's more updating our compplan because right now our
company is like 20 years old.
You know so, and I push for thatto happen, obviously, and I put
it in the budget for it.
But once they come back withtheir recommendations, then
staff will present it to theboard.
We'll sit there and we'lldiscuss it, We'll talk about it
to see exactly, even likeextending the downtown area
(36:44):
Instead of being just here andhere, maybe extend it down to
Wolf Road or whatever, to makeit even bigger, because our
downtown is actually kind ofsmall and we want to be able to
attract businesses into ourdowntown area.
So there's a lot of things thatand I don't want to get ahead
of what they want to recommend.
But they're going to make theirrecommendations and they'll
(37:07):
come back to the board and thenwe act on them.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Well, our village at one point has had bars all the
way almost to schoolhouse road.
It's been a long time, but Icould see it as a longer stretch
of, yes, of front street yes, Imean not saying that will, I'm
just saying that's a possibility, that's a possibility, but uh,
it's good to.
I, I think that it's great tohave dreamers in office, sure,
(37:31):
uh, as well as the balance ofpeople that you know, bring us,
bring you to reality, but it's agood balance to have it is, in
our it is.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I mean, if you don't, if you don't dream, you're not
alive, true?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 2 (37:49):
uh, over the next five to ten years are the things
that are going to be thebiggest challenges for our
village I think our biggestchallenges are going to be
maintaining our businesses here,because right now, with
everything online and you canorder everything online and
bring it to your house you knowyou're not going to see strip
malls going in anymore.
You know even businessesbecause they the.
(38:09):
You know it's so easy, it's somuch easier, and I'm sure you've
done and I've done it too.
You know well you wantsomething.
You go to your easier and I'msure you've done and I've done
it too.
You know well you want somethingyou go it's at your front door
and I think that's going to be achallenge in the future to make
to keep, you know, businessesopen in Mokina, not just in
Mokina but anywhere.
But I'm concerned about Mokinawith all that going on, and it's
going to get easier and easierto order things online than it
(38:34):
is to go somewhere and shop andthey say, well, you've got to
wear something.
You know they order two orthree things and they send the
rest back.
So that's going to be achallenge to maintain our
business, because without ourbusinesses, I mean what happens
to us Tax, sales tax and stuffgoes down, you know hustle and
(38:59):
heart on front, there has been agood.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
You know I've heard a lot of people say the same
thing.
It's really hard to bring likea retailer or somebody.
That's a very kind of nichething.
But man, the groups of younggirls you see coming out getting
custom hats made or footballmoms.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Imagine if you had more restaurants.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Oh, sure they could walk down somewhere and have a
drink afterwards, and that's thekey for small business to
succeed.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
You need to have that .
You need to have that base.
Yeah, and that's what I'm goingto concentrate on.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
So what does your wife think of all this?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
My wife is not a political person.
Okay, she doesn't get involvedof all this.
My wife is not a politicalperson, she doesn't get involved
in all this stuff.
And she said this is what youwant to do, I'll support you,
but that's your thing and Irespect that.
I wouldn't want her to beinvolved in everything that I do
politically, because she's notthat.
(39:53):
She supports me 100%, but she'snot somebody that likes that
title of first lady, let's say,or to be out in public with you,
know everybody, she's not thattype of person, which, which is
fine.
I respect that for her.
She you tell us about hers.
(40:13):
Right now we have my daughterand my two grandkids living with
us.
We've had them for a while, soit's kind of taken up a lot of
time.
Sure, it really has.
You know, make sure they get onthe bus on time, get off the
bus on time.
My daughter's working.
We have to be there for themall the time and you know, know,
(40:34):
it's tough.
Uh, my wife went through some,uh, health issues in the past,
you know, and, uh, she made itout okay and uh, so far.
So it's been a, it's been atrying time, uh, you know, um,
yeah, I get a little emotionalwhen I talk about it sure, sure,
(40:54):
I didn't want to lose her, youknow I mean it was tough.
It was tough.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
And you talk a lot about your grandkids and you
said you just had a birthdaycelebrated for one of them.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, Logan Okay, and Brandon next month, and we got
to meet them.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I think they were on my video of the police station.
We walked through too right.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, the characters.
Logan is just turned 13.
That kid's growing like a weed.
I mean all of a sudden, I meanthe last six months.
He's like, not that I'm nottall, but he's only 12, just
turned 13, as tall as me.
But and they're great kids.
They're very smart.
They both get straight A's inschool.
Very proud of them.
They play football.
(41:33):
Where do?
They play football.
They play for the JuniorKnights, oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
No influencer to get them over to the boroughs.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Well, unfortunately they're not boroughs anymore.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Right, they're Junior Celtics.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And they travel all over the place.
With my daughter being a singlemom and with us it's easier to
put them all over the place.
With my daughter being a singlemom and with us it's easier to
put them with the junior night,because they don't travel as far
and do all these things,because it's going to be very
hard for her or for us to dothat.
And plus, they're going to goto Central.
So all those kids they'replaying with, they're all going
(42:10):
to play and, believe it or not,there's a lot of Mokina kids
that play there.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
So kids that are playing with?
They're all going to play andthere's a lot, believe it or not
, there's a lot of Mokina kidsthat play there.
So what do you bring?
Are you on the sidelinesyelling at the?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
helping out those coaches.
They've been trying to get meto coach again and I told them I
did that for 20 years.
I said I just enjoy sittingthere coaching.
But you know, coach, ex-coachI'd say why the heck would they
call that play, you know?
But then again, I'm sure peoplesaid that about me, you know,
when I was coaching.
But no, it's fun.
It's fun to sit there and watchthem play and not have to,
(42:43):
because when I was coaching Iwould start in March, you know,
getting my playbook, getting mycamp schedule, getting my
practice schedule.
Because I used to hold my owncamp, maintainers Football Camp,
and I wouldn't charge the kidsanything.
It was free to them and notonly charge, but I would buy
them T-shirts to give them forfree.
Where would you do that?
Grimeros Park.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Okay, how many kids would you get coming up to that?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Anywhere from 40 to 60 kids.
Geez, wow, that's pretty cool.
So you know I would work withthem and, you know, get them
ready to, and then the Burroughswould have their football camp
right after when I had it, youknow.
So they got, you know, moreexperience and then when we came
together, we, you know a lot ofthem knew a lot of things that
(43:34):
they would have to learn, youknow.
So you know.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
So how'd you guys do?
How was?
Speaker 2 (43:39):
your teams.
We won a lot of championships,nice Undefeated seasons,
actually.
In 2005, we won thechampionship undefeated, linkway
won their championshipundefeated Wow and the so socks
won their championship.
It's a good year for everybody.
(43:59):
That's when I got elected onthe board, oh wow okay, so it
was a great year all the wayaround it was just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
It was awesome yeah well, anything else you want to
share?
Uh, maybe tell voters you knowwhy, why you're the right choice
.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Well, I think I kind of brought that up.
I think if you want to change,vote for me.
If you want the same, staywhere you're at.
But I think that I can bringbusiness-type leadership into
this village, that we can getthings done and move things
forward.
(44:34):
I will not push things aside, Iwill not say let's think about
it, let's talk about it, putthis here, put this there.
I will move this villageforward and bring it up to date,
especially with our electronicsand everything with our website
and even our cameras that we onChannel 6, they're all outdated
(44:54):
.
When you watch it it looks likea haze.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
It looks like the 1990s, exactly.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Because nothing has changed, nothing has moved
forward, and I want to be theperson that does that and I will
do it.
I guarantee you From day one, Iwill start, I'm not going to
wait.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
Well, trust me, mattanious, I really appreciate
you sitting down with me.
You know, as you know, ourpodcast is we've been doing this
for two years and to have youknow a sitting trustee and mayor
or candidate sit down, Iappreciate that and I want to
extend the thank you as well fordoing that.
You can check out all of ourcandidate interviews with the
(45:36):
rest of the Friends of Mokinaslate Friends of Mokina don't
forget that name.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Everybody on that slate will move this village
forward, and we are going tohave a working board up there.
Please come out and vote andcome to our meet and greets.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
This is how you're going to meet everybody.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Unfortunately, you're the only venue that we have in
meet everybody.
You know, unfortunately wedon't.
You're the only venue that wehave in Waukena that can get out
.
You know we don't have anewspaper anymore.
We don't have any of that.
So please come out and meet ourcandidates every one of us and
ask questions, listen to what wegot to say and hopefully you'll
like it and you'll vote for us,so early voting starts March
(46:19):
17th.
We'll have all these out by then, so please share.
And again, trustee Metaneus,thank you for meeting us.
Thanks, israel, great job,thank you.
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