Racine Mayor Cory Mason, photographed in the outdoor, rooftop lounge at the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

For Racine Mayor Corey Mason, a small park studded with boulders on the shore of Lake Michigan just south of the city’s downtown is an object lesson on the impact of climate change.

In January 2020, a 100-year storm demolished at least one-third of Sam Myers Park. “If you’d been here at the time, you would have seen a lot of these boulders on the street,” Mason said at a morning press conference on the park grounds last week.

“Climate change, if we don’t address it, is expensive,” Mason said. “We are seeing more frequent and more powerful storms, and the cost of upsizing our wastewater pipes or making a more resilient and powerful lakefront becomes an important investment that we have to make.”

While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) paid for the restoration, the park served as a backdrop last week for Mason to describe how the city has benefitted from other federal programs: three signature laws passed by Congress and signed by  President Joe Biden over the last four years.

Between the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, Racine has gotten a formidable amount of federal support.

“Those three together are sort of the holy trinity of federal legislation,” Mason said in an interview. “They’ve just been so transformational for us. I don’t know how we’d have gotten through Covid without them.”

ARPA, the pandemic relief program that was enacted in the first three months of Biden’s term, funded incentives the city used to encourage residents to get the first vaccine for COVID-19, which was just becoming available then. The city’s ARPA allotment also helped it fund programs for youth employment and adult high school, Mason said.

Some $38 million in ARPA money — $20 million from the state and $18 million from the city’s direct allotment — are helping to finance a new community and health center in Racine’s Lincoln-King neighborhood just west of Downtown.

A $9.8 million infusion from the bipartisan infrastructure law will cover more than 70% of design and construction costs to repave a stretch of one of Racine’s main north-south arteries and put new concrete on three other streets. Some of that money is also covering 80% of the cost of bridge repairs and additional street repairs.

In the coming year, Mason said, the law will fund Racine’s first “smart street” project — reconfiguring streets to be more walkable, adding bike lanes and curb bump-out features that require drivers to slow down “instead of four big lanes where people drive in as fast as they can in each direction.”

And the mayor singles out federal support for strong sustainability measures in the city. The sources of those measures are climate and clean energy provisions in the infrastructure law along with the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes extensive renewable energy and energy conservation provisions.

Racine has been electrifying the city’s bus fleet. The first nine electric buses were purchased from Racine’s share of a national legal settlement with Volkswagen over allegations the automaker cheated on federal emissions tests. The city is buying four more buses, funded through the infrastructure law, at which point the bus fleet will be 40% electric.

A new solar station is planned to recharge the mass transit vehicles. Construction is expected to start in the first half of 2025, with $1.2 million of its cost paid for from ARPA.

Federal government: From uninterested to policy ally

Climate change was a priority of Mason’s from when was first elected seven years ago. He committed the city to following the Paris Climate Accords.

Former President Donald Trump was in the White House at the time and withdrew from the accords in 2017. With federal policymakers uninterested in addressing climate change, Mason said, he looked elsewhere for support.

He joined the bipartisan Climate Mayors organization, municipal chief executives concerned about what many viewed as the central environmental concern of the time. He found the group invaluable for sharing ideas and learning what could work.

“You hear people, ‘Oh, you can’t do police cars that are electric,’” Mason said. “And then you go to a conference, and here’s 12 that are using electric vehicles as police cars.”

He welcomed the sharp federal turnaround on climate policy when Biden entered the White House in 2021.

“I can’t … emphasize enough just what a transformation it has been to have real partners at the federal government,” Mason told reporters at last week’s press event. He called the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act “generational pieces of legislation.”

The city started its work on renewable energy and energy conservation several years before either of those bills were on the national agenda. Nearly 20 years ago the city installed solar cells near a municipal annex building. In 2020 it leased a 2.6 acre patch of a South Side industrial park to Wisconsin Electric Power Co. to build a solar array.

Racine has been retrofitting municipal buildings, 70 years old on average, with energy-saving measures such as better insulation, which climate experts say shouldn’t be overlooked in the quest to reduce carbon emissions.

The infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act have helped turbocharge those efforts. Besides big projects like the park rehabilitation and the new electric buses, the city has also benefited from much smaller ones.

Homeowners and businesses have been eligible for tax credits to help cover the cost of what they spend on energy conservation. Nonprofit groups and municipalities can’t claim tax credits (they don’t pay taxes), but through the Inflation Reduction Act’s direct pay program, they can get the same sort of reimbursement. 

 “Having a check sent back to you for 30% to 60% of the costs is just transformational,” Mason said.

Green investment nets developer tax credits

The city hasn’t been the only beneficiary of the act.

Five years ago, Milwaukee developer Mike O’Connor paid a visit to Racine and  happened upon what had once been a major downtown department store. Unoccupied since the 1980s, the building had been partially renovated for a nonprofit, but that project was abandoned. “It was kind of a raw canvas — it was pretty well ready to go,” O’Connor said in an interview.

O’Connor and his business partner built their business, Dominion Properties, starting in the early 2000s with a focus on apartment buildings. Central to their business plan was lowering operating expenses by “chasing efficiency” on heating and related costs — adding insulation and high-efficiency furnaces.

In 2014 they went further, building a 20-unit apartment to meet high-efficiency standards known as LEED (for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) set by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Lenders weren’t interested in an apartment block, O’Connor’s first idea for the Racine building, and there was no market for office space, he said. Then the pair hit on the idea of a boutique hotel — a standard feature in many historic downtown neighborhoods worldwide but nonexistent in Racine.

The city welcomed the proposal, seeing it as a likely draw for tourists as well as an asset that the city’s corporate leaders would value for visiting business travelers.  

“We thought if we’re going to build, we’re going to build sustainably,” O’Connor said. “That fit well with what the mayor’s vision was.”

The 80-room Hotel Verdant opened a year ago. It’s heated with geothermal energy and boasts a rooftop full of solar panels that cover most of a green roof planted with sedum. The plant is a source of shade as well as a feature to reduce temperatures on the roof surface and in the surrounding air.

The hotel project preceded the Inflation Reduction Act, but this year the federal law provided an unexpected benefit: Dominion Properties qualified for green energy tax credits, and was able to resell the credits to a third party, O’Connor said.

Projects yet to come

More projects are on the drawing board. Racine will announce a new municipal building that meets “net-zero” standards, meaning its operation does not produce emissions that add to the carbon already going into the atmosphere. And the city’s water and wastewater utilities are on the verge of planning a major investment in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as well.

That idea came from a Climate Mayors colleague, Mason said. But he’s counting on the federal infrastructure and the inflation act’s climate programs to make it possible.

“More than half the energy the city consumes is from our water and wastewater utilities,” Mason said. “Without something like the bipartisan infrastructure law, it’s nearly impossible to imagine — how would you get to a net-zero water and wastewater utility? But now we are seeing other communities across the country that are using the [Inflation Reduction Act] and the infrastructure law to do exactly that.”

President’s announcement Thursday is just one piece of a big clean energy picture

Racine’s climate sustainability focus extends to the city’s policy with developers — and it has courted developers who share that perspective.

When a developer proposed a new apartment complex on a riverfront corner downtown, city officials included a requirement for 5% of the parking to have electric vehicle charging stations. “And the developer was like, ‘Well, at least — we’re going to need more than that,’” Mason said.

Developers and key local employers have told him they view expanded EV charging capacity as an important amenity to draw customers or prospective employees. “We want to help incentivize that for local businesses here who want to be able to do that,” Mason said.

Even with the growing private sector interest, he sees an important role for government to play spurring the growth of renewable energy.

“I think the more we can get ahead of the market, the more we get a competitive advantage by having those resources available for people who want to live here or work here,” Mason said.

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Milwaukee voters go to the polls on Election Day 2022 | Photo by Isiah Holmes

The Republican National Committee has filed a lawsuit against the city of Racine, claiming the city didn’t hire enough Republican poll workers for the August primary election. 

The lawsuit comes as skirmishes between the two major parties over voting ramp up with less than 50 days before Election Day. Filed on Friday, the suit states that the city didn’t allow 47 poll workers nominated by the Republican party and approved by the Racine Common Council to work the polls in August. The party nominated 55 people to serve as election workers in that election.

“Despite being qualified, nominated, and appointed, the Plaintiffs were neither contacted by the City Clerk nor scheduled by the City Clerk to work as election inspectors for the August 13th Partisan Primary,” the lawsuit states.  

Republicans have promised a massive effort to watch the polls this fall after baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen spread through the party’s leadership and voting base. Earlier this year, the party launched an effort to get 100,000 lawyers and volunteers watching elections to ensure “transparency and fairness.” 

After the election, the RNC filed an open records request with the city, learning that in the August election, the city used eight Republicans, seven Democrats and 90 people with no political affiliation to work the polls. 

The lawsuit names two people the party had nominated to work the polls but weren’t contacted by the city ahead of the election. It claims the Wisconsin Elections Commission has “repeatedly instructed municipal clerks that election inspectors nominated by the Democratic and Republican Parties must be given priority before any unaffiliated individuals are selected or scheduled to work polling locations as election inspectors.”

In a statement, Racine City Clerk Tara McMenamin said the city is “committed to hiring election officials who meet all statutory requirements, irrespective of political affiliation.”

“In anticipation of potential increases in meritless litigation leading up to the presidential election, we are steadfast in maintaining consistent standards,” the statement said. “We will continue to adhere to all state and federal laws and provide comprehensive training to ensure that all election officials are fully qualified and well prepared to serve City residents on this upcoming Election Day.” 

The lawsuit asks that the two nominated poll workers who weren’t asked to work in August be included in November.

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Liberal justices who control the Wisconsin Supreme Court voiced concerns Tuesday about the motives of a conservative activist who is seeking guardianship records in an effort to find ineligible voters while also appearing to cast doubt that the documents should be made public.

The lawsuit tests the line between protecting personal privacy rights and ensuring that ineligible people can’t vote. It is the latest attempt by those who questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential race to cast doubt on the integrity of elections in the presidential swing state.

“What it sounds to me like what you are trying to do is to introduce the fear that there is some sort of illegitimacy going on in the election in the state of Wisconsin, and that concerns me deeply,” said liberal Justice Jill Karofsky during oral arguments Tuesday.

Former travel agent Ron Heuer and a group he leads, Wisconsin Voter Alliance, allege that the number of ineligible voters doesn’t match the count on Wisconsin’s voter registration list. They want the state Supreme Court to rule that counties must release records filed when a judge determines that someone isn’t competent to vote so that those names can be compared to the voter registration list.

“What we want is eligible people to vote and people who are adjudicated by a circuit court judge ineligible to vote not to vote,” said Erick Kaardal, attorney for Heuer and the WVA.

There are ways for the government, not a private watchdog group, to review the records confidentially and determine if someone is voting illegally, said attorney Sam Hall, who represented Walworth County in Tuesday’s case.

Heuer and the WVA filed lawsuits in 13 counties in 2022 seeking guardianship records.

A state appeals court in 2023 overturned a circuit court ruling dismissing the case and found that the records are public. It ordered Walworth County to release them with birthdates and case numbers redacted. The ruling from the conservative 2nd District Court of Appeals contradicted a prior binding decision from the liberal 4th District Court of Appeals, which had dismissed the case.

The county appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments Tuesday. Its ruling is unlikely to come before the November election.

Hall said the appeals court ruling “blasts open the door for the personal information of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities to be broadcast, not only to those with noble and good intentions but to those who might do these folks harm.”

He urged the court to issue a ruling directly addressing the merits of the case, not a technical legal issue.

“I don’t think this issue is going away,” Hall said.

He also argued that the law is clear about who has access to the guardianship records, and the WVA did not demonstrate a need.

Kaardal argued that the records should be made public to root out people who are still on the voter rolls after being found ineligible to vote.

But the liberal justices questioned whether the law allows for the records to be made public. Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley asked if there was a way to perform an audit and ensure that government officials are removing people from the voting rolls when a court has determined they lost that right.

Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet stressed that there was no proof in the court record that a person ruled incompetent had voted illegally or been sent a ballot illegally or that the state elections commission had done anything wrong. Wisconsin Watch reported last year based on records provided by the Dane County clerk that adjudicated incompetent people have voted in past elections, though not in numbers that would affect the outcome of any election.

Heuer and the WVA have pushed inflated estimates about the 2020 election in an attempt to cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin. Heuer was hired as an investigator in the discredited 2020 election probe led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman that found no evidence of fraud or abuse that would have changed the election results.

The WVA also filed two unsuccessful lawsuits that sought to overturn Biden’s win in Wisconsin.

Biden defeated Donald Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020, a result that has withstood independent and partisan audits and reviews, as well as lawsuits and the recounts Trump requested.

Court weighs Racine mobile voting van case

The Wisconsin Supreme Court also wrestled Tuesday with whether a Republican had standing to bring a lawsuit that challenges the use of a mobile voting van in 2022 and seeks to ban its use in any future election in the presidential battleground state.

Such vans — a single van, actually — were used just once, in Racine in a primary election in 2022. It allowed voters to cast absentee ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election. Racine, the Democratic National Committee and others say nothing in state law prohibits the use of voting vans.

Whatever the court decides will not affect the November election, as a ruling isn’t expected until later and no towns or cities asked to use alternative voting locations for this election before the deadline to do so passed. But the ruling will determine whether mobile voting sites can be used in future elections.

Much of the oral argument Tuesday focused on whether the Racine County voter who brought the lawsuit was “aggrieved” under state law and allowed to sue. If the court rules that he didn’t have standing, it could make it more difficult to bring future lawsuits challenging election laws.

Karofsky said she had a hard time seeing how the voter who brought the lawsuit, Racine County Republican Party Chairman Ken Brown, had been injured by simply witnessing use of the mobile voting van.

The law allows Brown, as a voter, to file a complaint because he believed an election official was breaking the law, said Lucas Vebber, attorney for the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which represented Brown. Vebber argued that voters can bring an election lawsuit in their local jurisdiction.

But Gabe Johnson-Karp, representing the Wisconsin Elections Commission, argued that the voter in this case wasn’t personally injured and therefore can’t bring a lawsuit. He can’t bring a lawsuit making a “generalized grievance about too many people voting or the election officials not following the law,” Johnson-Karp argued.

Liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley asked if the court would have to consider other issues in the case if it determines Brown did not have standing.

Vebber said he didn’t know if the court could, but if it did, “I think it would be beneficial to the voters of Wisconsin and to the government entities to resolve these issues.”

Republicans argue it is against state law to operate mobile voting sites, that their repeated use would increase the chances of voter fraud, and that the one in Racine was used to bolster Democratic turnout.

Wisconsin law prohibits locating any early voting site in a place that gives an advantage to any political party. There are other limitations on early voting sites, including a requirement that they be “as near as practicable” to the clerk’s office.

For the 2022 election, Racine city Clerk Tara McMenamin and the city had a goal of making voting as accessible to as many voters as possible.

Racine purchased its van with grant money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. Republicans have been critical of the grants, calling the money “Zuckerbucks” that they say was used to tilt turnout in Democratic areas.

Wisconsin voters in April approved a constitutional amendment banning the use of private money to help run elections.

The van was used only to facilitate early in-person voting during the two weeks prior to an election, McMenamin said. It traveled for two weeks across the city, allowing voters to cast in-person absentee ballots in 21 locations.

Brown filed a complaint the day after the August 2022 primary with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, arguing that the van was against state law. He argued that it was only sent to Democratic areas in the city in an illegal move to bolster turnout.

McMenamin disputed those accusations, saying that it shows a misunderstanding of the city’s voting wards, which traditionally lean Democratic.

Liberal justices appeared wary of accepting the argument that the van improperly favored Democrats.

The elections commission dismissed the complaint four days before the 2022 election, saying there was no probable cause shown to believe the law had been broken. Brown sued.

Brown sued, and in January, a Racine County Circuit Court judge sided with Republicans, ruling that state election laws do not allow for the use of mobile voting sites.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in June kept that ruling in place pending its consideration of the case, which effectively meant the use of mobile voting sites would not be allowed in the upcoming presidential election. The court also kept in place the same rules that have been in place since 2016 for determining the location of early voting sites. The deadline for selecting those sites for use in the November election was in June.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court justices question merits of case brought by election activist is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.