Are you ready?

 

 

 

With this day come not a story on issues with Racine, but more on being ready for a range of events that could occur in this area and what can do to mitigate the effects on you and yours.

I, truly believe that if the shit hits the fan in all so many ways, it will be up to us to take care of  ourself for a time be it a few days or weeks.  Should real bad shit happen far longer.

So the point of this post is to I hope get you thinking about that effort.

A lot to think about, My wife and I do more then some and less then others but we do have the basics:

Food/Water for three days  (for us and our Pets) the ability to provide light and not freeze to death.

We try to keep gas in the cars to drive to our bug out location should we need to run we plan to run like hell.

We can with a bit of time turn the house into more of a fort, it will not keep a armed mob out if it gets that bad my guess we go to bug out mode.

There are some great web sites for more info like Ready.gov that has a lot of information I would also if you have not take  a  CERT Class this will help you  by teaching useful skills you may need and I for sure have everyone in the house get basic first aid training.  First Aid training can come in useful in lots of ways.
If you have questions Ready.gov can help as can http://www.racineco.com/emergencymanagement/    Mr. Maack  knows his stuff very well as time and again has shown us. One of the few Government leaders I trust, you should too.

The sites I listed above ready.gov is the first place you should check out and do so today you may need that info far sooner then you think

 

What if we lose the Court fight?

 

What happens if we lose the court fight with the unions? Good question so I will speculate:

 

Well one we will have to come up with two million to pay the Unions for wages. AS well we will have paid how much in legal fees? 100K 200K More?  Way more?

How will we pay this? My guess is the City will lay off more staff. if the ave worker gets say  50K in wages and bennies the City would have to get rid of 40 more workers. If not more what Departments do they come out of? DPW the Police and Fire? Do we close civic centers? What? More to the point why is the City not planing for this? I would hope that the City would be planing for the worse case and informing the public what that plan might be.

Why are we planing to extend a Bike trail 2 blks for a City Co Pay of  $200,000?

Why? anyone? Hello? Should any money be sent on anything other then critical needs until we know what is going on with this union issue?

Major Issues of Racine WI

 

 

As I have been saying for some time Racine is in Ruins and getting worse if such a thing can happen

No one not even our fearless leader Mayor John Dickert can truly deal with all the issues facing this city so what do I think the main one is?

Housing

Not lack  of we got plenty, the crises is the number abandoned you  know walked away from because the owners  see no value in trying to keep up with payments be it to the bank or Taxes.
When a homeowner has chose to eat, maybe feed the kids or pay the mortgage/taxes what do you think the homeowner is going to do?

Can a owner who  can’t afford his mortgage be able to maintain his home? Will after being un/underemployed for the last three year even care?  I know the Unit’s job is to enforce code but if an owner cant pay his mortgage how does he pay a fine?

How bad is this in Racine? I have no clue I do know that last year we had about 450 properties in foreclosure .  I like to know how many properties are behind on taxes.  I and others using the City web pages and the county web pages are dazed and confused, in many ways they do not agree. I would hope that they would how else can we find out about proprieties we may be interested in? Is this not public information? That might be the point if the City  makes it hard to find info out or the info is not trustworthy investigations become hard and may not take place  or become so ineffective City leadership can belittle the investigation.

See Some think that the mess the City is in with lack of $$ and how poorly The City spends in be far worse a well create an outcry if we knew that facts.  How could RUSD ask for more $$ if say 40% of proprieties where behind on taxes?  Would our fearless leader be able to play real estate games if properties the City had fun with where behind or walked away from?

It gets worse The City of Racine has buildings that should be torn down. I can see two from my home. I am told by City workers that the City has no money to do this best if I understand right both have yet to be foreclosed on the The Bank. This is if the banks do they get in trouble from the Feds for making bad loans.  Wow! I am also told that by the same City worker that we should assume that on every block there is at least one home in forecloser!

I wonder now how many properties need to come down but the City has to money to do so. Wow Wow!

 

 

 

This IS the scandal of Racine

Interesting day on The Racine Journal Times 9/8/2012

A story on City  of Racine retirements spawned Blog postings on the non payment of Property taxes. Looks like that the City of Racine may have issues with folks paying their property taxes .

You can read the posts here

http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/city-retirements-on-the-rise—factors-include-age/article_af55e3bc-f950-11e1-8d3f-0019bb2963f4.html?comment_form=true#comments

One of the issues brought up is if the City of Racine property tax web site is up to date or not, if not why not?  Would this misinformation hurt someone looking say for a loan or a credit report?  if this is the case would having this information be wrong cause the City to be sued? We are good at being sued. On further review is that the web pages show that they are not the best to find information biggest issue is to find out about Back taxes owned.

How can we know if and how much is owed in back taxes

More critically IMHO what is being done to collect?  I like to know the total amount owed in back taxes I am sure that in any large city there are some when this goes from a few $$ to say 10’s of Millions I can not help but believe this becomes an issue.

An issue I want answers to.  I also like to know if there are rules in place to say stop someone massively behind in taxes to say sit on City/County boards, receive City/County Contracts  until payment is made or arrangements made.

When T.I.F.’s are created are back taxes repaid from this?

Myself I think a list should posted on line of folks who owe say over $5,000 in Taxes. As well these folks should not sit on boards nor receive  Government contracts, until payment is made or arrangements made.

However this is Racine, I think it will be hard to find out how bad the issue is. My guess is that should the news get out it would effect the City/County credit rating.

This opens the door to the issue of how much debit the City owes and how much this costs us to service.  To think our Mayor still wants to spend spend spend by selling Bonds. Wow

I do agree with one of the posters  from the JT, this is the scandal of Racine

Lack of Posts

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the lack of posts.  Been busy with a few things a kinda sort of job, waiting for more records and to finish some research helping out at The Racine Communicator  covering City meetings, and the big thing!!!!! Getting  the teaser of  my Russ Meyer Tribute epic Go Go Girls vs the Nazis out and up for the world to enjoy!

Yes, I am indeed a film maker! Unlike others who might say  that they have had documentaries done on events in their life I truly make films and TV

Here the link to the Teaser http://youtu.be/Q_NYkPTMp4o  its about 2 minuets long and does a great job getting the idea of the film across.  There are no Russ Meyer type  naughty bits but with the next Teaser that should change.

This film incorporating satire  of events in and around Racine WI.  Will be film both here and in Milwaukee WI.

You can find more at the Web Site http://www.gogogirlsvsthenazis.com

 

Even us Muckrakers need a hobby.

 

The Wolfman is back!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am very thankful for the Wolfman’s time and effort in doing this research. This is all info that I believe Mayor John Dickert you rather not know. If He could find a way to stop this information from being found he would after all we just have to believe that everything is fine. Please drink the Kool Aid and  vote Obama