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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

2021 starts under the shadow of the coronavirus, as people continue to line up for testing, stay behind face masks and stay apart from each other and from family. But the New Year paves way for hope as COVID-19 vaccinations begin. And in Washington, changes ahead, with the anticipation of a new administration.

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” a look ahead to 2021 with Governor Tony Evers. A Milwaukee physician speaks to concerns in underrepresented communities about the safety of the coronavirus vaccine. The Bayfield mayor joins us to talk about the challenging fiscal year ahead for his city. And Ross and McCoshen gaze into the political crystal ball. It’s “Here & Now” for January 1.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

What a year it’s been. And what will the New Year bring? The world of politics and policy in 2020 became inextricably linked to the health and welfare of people stricken by COVID-19. Wisconsin has weathered perhaps more than its share of hardship and contention. Tonight we speak with Governor Tony Evers to look ahead to 2021 and take a look back. And, governor, thanks once again for joining us.

Tony Evers:

Thanks, Frederica. Good to be back.

Frederica Freyberg:

At the helm of state response to COVID-19 over the last year, how would you describe what that’s been like as chief executive to be responsible for the people of Wisconsin?

Tony Evers:

Yeah. It’s been an honor and, frankly, given the circumstances that we dealt with, the pandemic itself and then the political atmosphere around it and the defeats we had in the Supreme Court, I am really proud of the people of Wisconsin. You know, it wasn’t easy. It showed the resilience of the people. You know, I’m so pleased that our administration worked 24/7 to get federal money out to people that were struggling all across the state: small business owners, farmers. National Guard worked — you know, they became just invaluable partners. And you think about your friends and neighbors from the guard and from your neighborhood. Those people deserve our — always our thanks. And so it was an extraordinary year. I was proud of the resilience that we’ve seen. And our ability under really difficult situations as a government, as a state government, to move beyond, frankly, the mistakes that the Supreme Court made in our inability to mitigate like other governors could do to get the contact tracing done, get the things in the field around testing, PPE, all those things. We did an amazing job and I’m so thankful for all the people in the state and in state government that did that great work.

Frederica Freyberg:

Anything you would have done differently?

Tony Evers:

Certainly this last year as it relates to the pandemic, you know, like I said, I wish we had more ability to mitigate like other governors had. And frankly I think that inability actually did cost us lives and numbers of people that got the disease. But I’m disappointed that we were unable to convince the Legislature to come in and talk about policing and accountability and transparency in that special session. That was really needed. It was needed to send a message to the state that this is important work. And, frankly, even before the pandemic, on the Ag special session we got no help there. Those are disappointments and hopefully we can correct those going forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, direct aid to state and local governments was left out of the latest COVID stimulus package out of Washington. You’ve talked a lot about that need over the months. How important is that direct aid to governments?

Tony Evers:

It’s critical. And I’ll pinch hit here for our local governments. Obviously at the state government, the revenues that we would normally get are not there. But at the local level, it’s extremely important. I don’t care if you’re the smallest county or the most populated county. They had costs that they never expected to have. Federal government’s the only way that they can be made whole. So I know president-elect Biden knows these things and he’ll be pushing for that in the next stimulus package.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, any new funds from the feds for things like COVID vaccines presumably will help buffer what’s been described as “the toughest state budget since 2011.” How accurate is that description of the next state budget?

Tony Evers:

It’ll be difficult but I’m still confident we can work on some really important priorities that were always my priorities and frankly the people of Wisconsin. That’s making sure health care is as buoyant as possible, making sure we have a great education system, make sure we have good roads and other infrastructure including broadband. The world didn’t end with COVID-19. We still have lots of needs in this state and we will — we’ll push hard to address those in a really fiscally responsible way.

Frederica Freyberg:

Can you and Republican leaders possibly find a way to work together on a difficult budget and COVID response?

Tony Evers:

I hope so. But at the end of the day, we have to come to some agreement. Last time, it took the — we put our proposal out there, they had their proposal, and eventually it ended up someplace in between because they knew that they had to agree to some of the things we were talking about in the education and so on. So regardless, we’re going to have to have a budget and we will have a budget no matter how we negotiate or, frankly, don’t negotiate. And I’m hopeful. We will get there. I’m an optimist about these things and both the leader — both leaders in the Senate and the Assembly understand that we have to have good government in order to move forward and we have to meet the needs of the people to move forward. So we’ll — there will be battles. There will be shots shot across the bow all the time. I understand the politics of it. But at the end of the day, we have to have a budget.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Governor Tony Evers, thank you very much.

Tony Evers:

Thanks so much, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

How to keep the potholes filled, the parks clean and the streets safe under tough budget conditions has cities across Wisconsin cutting spending and dipping into savings to keep the lights on. Such is the case in the city of Bayfield, along the shores of Lake Superior, where the worst case under discussion has been dissolving the city. But it’s not just the pandemic that added to costs and took away from revenue. Mayor Gordon Ringberg joins us from Bayfield to tell us what’s happening there and, mayor, thanks a lot for being here.

Gordon Ringberg:

Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what does your 2021 budget look like and where are those pain points in terms of spending cuts and depletion of your savings?

Gordon Ringberg:

We did get a 2021 budget balanced this year although it’s about 10% less than last year and we’re dipping into savings. We’re dipping — about $200,000 of our budget is coming out of savings which we would have preferred to use for new infrastructure and projects like that. Our biggest concern is employees. That’s probably our largest expense in any part of our budget, is employee salaries, employee benefits. We don’t have that many employees. We’ve got about 14 employees in the city and they all work very hard and we want to keep them around. So that was our biggest concern when we put this budget together, how do we keep them on, our staff.

Frederica Freyberg:

Of course. As we just mentioned, too, the pandemic didn’t help. How has it affected your city?

Gordon Ringberg:

It was very interesting. We weren’t sure what to expect like everyone in the beginning. We weren’t sure if we were going to have tourists coming in all summer long or not. Matter of fact, we were very busy. There were tourists in town every day all summer long. It surprised me. Some of our businesses were very busy. The boat charters, the boat tour operators, those guys were every day all summer long and they maybe had their best summer yet. But our bars, and our restaurants and our lodging, they’re down. Some of our bars didn’t open at all because they were afraid they were going to pass the pandemic along. It varies who you talk to. We’re still waiting on the final numbers as far as room tax and some of the other taxes that we get. But I think we’re down from last year, but not as much as we were expecting.

Frederica Freyberg:

So a mixed bag. Now, the governor just spoke to the need on the part of not just the state, but for local governments to see direct federal aid in any stimulus package out of Washington. Is that something that you’d like to be able to count on?

Gordon Ringberg:

It would be. You know, again, our COVID-19 direct costs were very small. We got about $7,000 from the CARES Act, through the governor, that we used for our EMTs and our police officers and our fire department and general cleaning supplies. Really, though, I need more help from the governor on long-term financing for the city. You know, we’ve had a reduction in shared revenue over the years, reduction in — actually limitations on how we can increase our levies to pay for the things that we need. And our levy has not kept up with inflation.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so the revenue that you have coming in, either from property taxes or shared revenue, is not keeping pace with your costs. And this is not unique to your city. This is across the state, I trust.

Gordon Ringberg:

Just about every mayor that I talk to is going through the same problems, from us being the smallest city in the state to Milwaukee being the largest city in the state. We’re all trying to figure out how we’re going to get into the future and make it work.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet these have been longstanding kind of issues, this imbalance as described between incoming revenue and rising costs. What makes you believe that the state will come forward at this point and fix this?

Gordon Ringberg:

I’m not really sure. This is something that we and other cities have been asking the people in Madison to help us with for a long time. There seems to be a — you know, just a really hard point on raising taxes, which I understand we don’t want to put any burden on our taxpayers that we don’t need to. But we have to be realistic. Like any family, we have expenses that go up and we have to find ways to increase revenue. The state has relied on property tax to fund cities and villages for a long time and that just doesn’t seem to be realistic anymore. We have to look for more creative ways to bring money into the cities and our municipalities.

Frederica Freyberg:

We just have about 30 seconds left, but I just want to allow you to be able respond to the worst case scenario that had been kind of floating out there as discussion of dissolving the city. That’s not particularly realistic. Am I right?

Gordon Ringberg:

No. That’s something that popped up in a brainstorming session. If it’s on the table, it’s bottom of the list. I would hate for that to happen. But if we can’t figure something out in the next few years, it might be our last resort.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wow. We don’t want to hear about that. But good luck to you and your city. Mayor Gordon Ringberg, thank you.

Gordon Ringberg:

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on your show.

Frederica Freyberg:

The COVID-19 vaccines brought new hope as we rang out the year 2020. And while many can’t wait for their number to be called to get the shot in coming months, some people in underrepresented communities are reluctant. But why? We turn to Dr. Tito Izard, president and CEO of Milwaukee Health Services, a health center working to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities among racial and ethnic communities. Thanks for being here.

Tito Izard:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Describe for us how your parents are responding to the possibility of getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

Tito Izard:

Well, I think our patients are responding just like all Americans. When we say “all Americans,” we clearly have a divide in how we’re interpreting the results. Some people are extremely excited about the fact that the vaccine is here and ready to get their shot yesterday. And others are a little bit more hesitant and reluctant, for a number of different reasons that are pretty complex.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, I wanted to ask you about those. What are those kinds of concerns on the part of people who might be reluctant?

Tito Izard:

So the community I serve is 85% African-American and of the population here in Wisconsin and in the city of Milwaukee, most have historical lineage to slavery. When we think about health care, health care for American descendants of slavery has actually never been in parity with the majority of society. We’ve always experienced health disparities. At the beginning, the doctor/patient relationship it was not one of altruism or the Hippocratic Oath, which is to do no harm. Slaves were used to advance science but not at the betterment of the individual person. And even one physician, Dr. Marion Simms, who was known as the father of modern gynecology, actually performed over 30 surgeries on a 17-year-old slave woman named Anarcha without anesthesia. Between that and even up to the 1970s where you had a lot of doctors performing hysterectomies on black women without full consent, the Tuskegee experiment we all know regarding syphilis. There’s a longstanding history. Especially when you look at the African American/Black community and other minority communities, not having continuity of care with a primary care physician or provider where you can develop those long-term relationships, then you don’t know what you’re dealing with with a health care provider. You don’t know if they really have your best interest because relationships are actually developed over time and with trust.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how do you get past that developing of trust?

Tito Izard:

Well, unfortunately, that’s what everybody wants to know. How do you get past that? I love the statement to say always be cautious or weary of a simple solution to a complex problem. Well, the reality is in order to get past that, we have to address the historical health disparities that have existed. For native Blacks, being an American descendant of slavery is why we have health disparities. And health disparities, whether it’s in infant mortality, whether we see it now here with COVID-19, whether it was cancer rates or cardiovascular disease, asthma rates. All of these things actually link back to either the social determinants of health components which are all direct consequences of being economically excluded from American society. So in order to truly get past it, we actually would have to actually create a comprehensive reparations program, which one of the core components would be restorative health equity.

Frederica Freyberg:

What are you advising at this moment to your patients around the vaccine?

Tito Izard:

Yeah. And that’s a great point, because it is — it’s very difficult and when you look at it for ethnic minority populations like American descendants of slavery as I mentioned versus the general population, many people would consider getting the vaccine over a period of time. So what I’m recommending at this point in time, because the vaccine — we have to realize what do we really know and what are we making assumptions on. Right now the vaccine has been proven to reduce more severe symptoms. It has not been proven yet — and we hope it will — to reduce actual deaths. So at this time for those patients who are a little bit more leery of getting the vaccine, I’m not trying to denigrate them or make them feel bad. What I’m trying to do is educate them properly. So what I would say is if you are 60 or over or if you have any uncontrolled chronic health condition or three or more chronic health conditions, I would say you really should consider getting the vaccine right now. If you are someone who is between 40 to 59 and you may have two chronic health conditions but they’re pretty stable, then I would say if you wanted to wait, you know, three up to six months that may be reasonable for you. And if you’re someone who’s under 40 and you have no chronic health conditions, I think it’s completely reasonable for that person to wait six months if they decided to allow the science to better assess whether the outcomes are actually going to reduce mortality or not. And so I think that we don’t have to have this one size fits all. It can be a conversation for our patients. Clearly those that have high risk, your risk of dying or having severe illness from the COVID-19 virus, it may make you decide, yeah, I’d rather get the vaccine right now. But if you’re 27 and healthy, the reality is with the symptoms right now that we know, 63% have fatigue, 55% have headaches, almost 14%, 15% will have fever. So I think it’s reasonable for that person to wait six months.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. That is great and reasoned advice. Dr. Tito Izard, thank you so much and good luck.

Tito Izard:

Well, thank you so much. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Out with the old and in with the new. But the year now in the rear view can never be forgotten and will be felt well to 2021 and beyond. For predictions of what’s ahead we turn to our political panelists to revisit what they said last year at this time and what they see in this year’s crystal ball. Republican Bill McCoshen and Democrat Scot Ross to ring in the new year.

Bill McCoshen:

Good to be with you.

Scot Ross:

Happy New Year.

Frederica Freyberg:

So this time last year you both made predictions before the whole world turned upside down because of COVID. Bill, you predicted an outcome in the presidential election at odds with what happened. Let’s listen to what you said this time last year.

Bill McCoshen:

Trump wins Wisconsin. He takes the ten electoral votes just like he did four years ago. Democrats are well on their way to nominating someone who will keep at least a portion of their party home just like Hillary Clinton did.

Frederica Freyberg:

So whoops. Bill, why do you think in the end, Biden did become president-elect?

Bill McCoshen:

Well, he’s a little more centrist than a lot of candidates in their field and he had an appeal to Wisconsinites, right? He was — union folks liked him here and he was able to turn out the second highest vote turnout for a Democrat in Wisconsin electoral history. Now, in fairness to me, President Trump turned out the highest turnout for a Republican candidate for president in Wisconsin history. He added 205,000 votes to his 2016 total. He had a pretty darn good showing but he came up, at least at this point, 20,600 votes short.

Frederica Freyberg:

Scot, I’m going to go directly to your last year’s prediction now. You said Wisconsin and the rest of the country would elect the Democrat.

Scot Ross:

Democrats are not going to take Wisconsin for granted this time. They’re already doing communications, attacking Trump on a daily basis in the local media, in the state media, in digital and at the doors. And that’s going to be the key. Wisconsin will be a Democratic state in 2020.

Frederica Freyberg:

There you go. You won that round. But did you ever expect, either one of you, that the transition would be quite this fraught? Scot?

Scot Ross:

Not exactly. I mean, what are we at eight lawsuits the Republicans have lost here in the state of Wisconsin trying to overturn the will of the people. Trump may believe that he didn’t win, but everybody else on the planet basically knows that he lost this election. He lost Wisconsin. Like I said, Wisconsin Democrats did not take this state for granted. They did a great job. Biden was a great candidate. Trump is going to have to invent things to mess up and that’s why Wisconsin went blue.

Frederica Freyberg:

So, Bill, did you ever predict that this transition would be quite this fraught?

Bill McCoshen:

Well, remember, ten weeks after we made those predictions COVID hit America and hit the world. Nobody could have predicted that and how that impacted politics here in Wisconsin and across the country. I think that had an impact for sure. As it relates to the transition, I think the president’s greatest legacy, truthfully Frederica, will be Operation Warp Speed and the ability to get vaccines done that quickly. Two of them approved by the FDA in the same year that the pandemic hit this country. That’s never been done in history and that will ultimately be his greatest legacy.

Frederica Freyberg:

So I wanted to talk a little bit more about last year, but at this point I’m going to move forward into the current year and talk about your predictions for 2021. You say, Bill, you have this prediction. Germantown Superintendent Deb Kerr will be elected superintendent of public instruction in April with strong support from education reform groups from across the nation. So that one kind of came out of the blue to me. Maybe my head just wasn’t there quite yet. Who else is in the running?

Bill McCoshen:

There’s a DPI senior staff member and then one other person in the race. Deb Kerr has actually been superintendent at Brown Deer, which is one of the most diverse school districts in the state. 80% of the students are of color. 50% are in poverty. She happens to be white. She’s a school reformer. There’s no other statewide race on the ballot in April. This is one where Dems are going to miss an opportunity. I think Deb Kerr is going to be our first non-teachers union-backed candidate to win that seat in my lifetime.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think about Deb Kerr, Scot?

Scot Ross:

It’s very clear who the Betsy DeVos candidate is. The word reform is just another word for privatization. And I think that progressives have had a really good track record in terms of getting out the vote for DPI. And by virtue of the fact that our governor was the former DPI secretary. I think that Democrats have figured out how to get people out to the vote in the spring elections. And even though there won’t be a huge interest in it because there’s no Supreme Court race, there’s no primary races, it’s just this race. I think that given the way that progressives have performed in getting out the vote, using absentee, I think this seat will remain in progressive hands.

Frederica Freyberg:

We’ll see. Okay. Scot, here’s your prediction for 2021. “The Republicans will produce an immoral budget that attacks education, health care, cities, the environment and voting rights, creating the longest budget stalemate in state history.” So how long do you think that stalemate will last?

Scot Ross:

The longest one was in 1971. It went to October 28. If you remember, the third longest one was when the Republicans were in charge in 2017. It went till nearly October. I think that the Republicans with Vos and LeMahieu are going to create a budget that’s just simply unacceptable. Like you pointed out, the attacks are going to be on education, health care, certainly on voting rights. Governor Evers is going to have a real difficult decision whether or not to proceed with finding a way to make this budget even tolerable or vetoing it all in total.

Frederica Freyberg:

So we only have a minute left. So, Bill, I’m going to skip your next prediction. It was good. Next time we have you on we’ll talk about it. And go directly to Scot’s, which was that Democrats will win both Georgia U.S. Senate races. Talk about that for a minute. You go ahead, Scot.

Scot Ross:

I will. Yeah. There’s two incumbent Republicans who are crooks who used their office and information in order to profiteer and trade stocks, sell stocks, buy stocks when they were telling the public that nothing was wrong with the pandemic. I think the Democrats have a huge advantage in new registration. I think that the win is for the Democrats on this one. And they’re going to win both of those.

Frederica Freyberg:

We’ve got to give Bill the last word.

Bill McCoshen:

Republicans will turn out. Voters in Georgia understand and like divided government. We will likely have a Democratic president. We certainly will have a Democratic Congress. They like the checks and the balances. Both Republicans will be re-elected and Republicans will come back with 52 seats.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wow, well, we will see. Bill and Scot, thanks very much.

Scot Ross:

Thank you.

Bill McCoshen

Happy New Year.

Frederica Freyberg:

Thanks. And for in-depth political news coverage online, go to PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. And for ongoing coverage on COVID-19, visit our partner news site at WisContext.org.

That is our program for tonight. Happy New Year. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a safe holiday weekend.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.