By Ben Rodgers
Editor
DE PERE – After nearly a quarter of a century, 12 elections and approximately 1,400 meetings, De Pere Mayor Mike Walsh has announced he will not seek reelection in April.
At 70 years old, Walsh is looking forward to helping his wife Sue at home and maybe visiting his grandchildren in California.
“I’ll probably do some volunteer work,” Walsh said. “I’m pretty sure I won’t get a job, I think I’ve done enough work in my lifetime. I don’t need to find a job when I’m 70.”
The De Pere native has spent the majority of his life serving the city and its residents in some capacity.
Before being elected mayor for the first time in 1996, Walsh worked as a UPS driver and put in 14 years on the city park board.
Walsh said his experience with the park board prepared him to become mayor.
He said he wanted to start as an alderman, so multiple area residents had to coax him into running for the mayor’s office.
“I thought there was only a year and a half to go before my daughter was out of school, and I would be able to devote the time,” Walsh said. “As long as I was going to go for alderman anyway, why not try for the top job?”
Walsh remembers when the City of De Pere signs boasted a population of around 9,000, now that number is closer to 25,000.
Under his watch, the city has seen more than an explosion in population.
De Pere has two business parks, a thriving, revitalized downtown and too many other accomplishments to list.
“I think it’s luck,” Walsh laughed. “A lot of luck, and hopefully we did some good things that people appreciated, and they could see the benefits that came about from the things that we did.”
East vs. West
Walsh said one of the more difficult things he faced when he first took office was breaking down the east vs. west mentality and working for the betterment of everyone.
“Its unique in the fact that we are separated, but I think we’re still close-knit together and we’re able to get past that separation of the river and do what is good for the entire community,” he said. “I know years ago it wasn’t always that way, because what the west side had the east side had to have and vice versa. But I think over the years we’ve been able to change that a little bit, because you can’t always have double of everything. Things just don’t work out that way. If they do, they’re very costly. We’ve been able to continue with that type of uniqueness and the charm of the community by working together to make things happen.”
Walsh listed some of his most proud accomplishments as the Claude Allouez Bridge, The Riverwalk, Southwest Park, the De Pere Community Center and others.
“I’m pretty proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish in 24 years,” he said. “Granted, over 24 years you can accomplish a lot because that’s a lot of time, but I want to say it wasn’t me. I’ve had three city administrators, my entire staff, I should say staffs, over the years have just been phenomenal, they’re very professional to work with, very pleasant, and the councils that we’ve had have made it pretty easy to get the things through that we were looking forward to getting through.”
Development standards
Since his first term, Walsh said the revitalization of downtown was a priority, and he was happy to work toward that by incorporating architectural regulations when putting up new buildings next to historical ones.
“That was our goal, when we first started redevelopment in ’96 was to kind of blend the new buildings on the west side into what we had over there to complement each other,” he said. “Not only the buildings downtown, but the buildings on the campus of St. Norbert. On the east side, we put up a couple of new buildings that blend in to the downtown. They may not be historic, but they’re historic looking. We want to keep the past integrated with the future.”
Walsh said De Pere stayed true to those standards when developing the two business parks in the city limits.
“Both business parks are unique,” he said. “The one on the west side is kind of like corporate headquarters along with manufacturing. We got some of that on this (east) side, but a lot of it is manufacturing. We didn’t always own this one on this side. We bought it before I was mayor, and it didn’t do anything for a long time. I don’t know what caused it, but it really started to take off, and I think it was those standards that helped do it, and our reputation – the reputation De Pere had for being easy to work with and adhering to those standards.”
A place for families
When it comes to residential growth, Walsh is quick to point out the city’s two school districts have pushed each other to become highly regarded places for children to obtain an education.
“I like to think the city had something to do with it, but really the reputation of both of our school districts as being two of the top districts in the state, I think really brought people here,” he said. “I think the city’s part in it was we’ve been making it pretty easy in order to, once they get here, like to the community and I think that’s a big part also.”
Walsh said De Pere is positioned well for the future with the Mulva Cultural Center set to open around 2022.
“We anticipate having people coming in from not just the region, but the state, it could be from different states,” he said. “I think De Pere is going to be a destination point. They’re going to have exhibits, like King Tut, and the Titanic, those type of things, and it’s all going to be free. It’s just unbelievable what that project is going to do for the community, and by bringing in all these people, it’s going to make the city even more desirable to have businesses locate here and also have people move here. I think in the next 5 to 7 years you’re going to see the landscape in the City of De Pere change.”
Obstacles to growth
Walsh said that change in southern De Pere will be aided by the southern bridge project – a project Walsh he attests has been worked on for the past 24 years.
“I’d like to have the money right now, but we are making inroads,” he said. “Over the past two years, we’ve been working diligently in trying to get that done. The state has agreed to fund the interchange on Interstate 41, and at least the communities Ledgeview, De Pere and Lawrence have said they will help fund half of the environmental impact study for the corridor. We are looking at trying to get federal funding for it. The good part of this is now that it is actually a state project, we can start looking at federal funding for it, that’s what we needed was for it to be a state project.”
While the future for De Pere currently looks bright, Walsh said leaving the dark store loophole intact will hurt De Pere property taxpayers in the future.
The loophole has been used by commercial retailers and manufacturers challenging the assessed value of their properties by claiming they are worth the same or close to the lower assessed value of similar but empty buildings.
“I think it will not only affect the City of De Pere, but the entire state,” Walsh said. “I think it’s a mistake that the state Legislature is not even going to take a vote on it, we do know at one point anyway they had the votes to do away with it, and the leadership down in Madison for whatever reason did not bring it forward. That is going to affect the citizens of De Pere a lot, because the companies and the stores that are affecting this, their taxes are going to drop, but they have to be made up somewhere and how do they make it up? The citizens of De Pere.”
Help along the way
Looking back on the past 24 years, there is one group Walsh credits for always being there for him, after the countless meetings, and 12 elections that come with the part-time mayor job over the past 24 years – his wife, Sue, and his children, Tina, Chad and Kristy.
“My wife Sue had been terrific over these 24 years… she has kept me on the straight and narrow,” he said. “If I was putting in too many hours down at the office, she would say to me, ‘You know Mike, it’s only a part-time job.’ So I would change that for a while and would go back to doing it again, but she’s been great through the entire thing… Both her and my entire family have been terrific for me. They’ve all been involved in something or another, whether campaigning or going to different events, I think they’ve had as good a time as I have.”
Finally, Walsh thanked those who have trusted him since his days as a UPS driver, to help run the city 24 years ago, to his final day in office next April.
“I just want to say to the citizens of De Pere that it’s been an honor and a privilege to have served them for 24 years and that I really appreciate all their support for that time,” he said. “I know the city is in good hands and it will continue to progress.”