Empower Wisconsin | July 8, 2020

MADISON — The big government types in Racine weren’t about to turn over their new powers simply because the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the Evers administration’s pandemic-driven lockdown. 

When the court’s ruling came down on May 13, Racine’s liberal mayor and its unelected health director went to work on keeping the city shut down and under the control of city hall. 

They told David Yandel that his Harbor Park Cross Fitness club was still considered a “nonessential” business under the “Forward Racine” public health plan, a broad order that looked a lot like the Gov. Tony Evers’ shutdown and painfully slow reopening plan. 

“At that point, I didn’t know how much longer this was going to go on,” Yandel told Empower Wisconsin’s Matt Kittle this week on the Vicki McKenna Show. “We had already been closed for more than 60 days. I had employees, I had been paying their salaries the whole time. I didn’t want to let them go.” 

Yandel said he and other fitness club owners tried to work with the city on a safe plan to reopen their businesses. Racine Mayor Cory Mason and Public Health Administrator Dottie-Kay Bowersox didn’t have time for such citizen input. They had a city to control. 

Frustrated and fearing the dream that he and his wife have built over years would soon be gone, Yandel filed a lawsuit alleging the city had robbed him of his civil liberties. 

David Yandel is Empower Wisconsin’s guest today on this edition of the PowerUp Podcast.