Sept. 9, 2025 4p
(WGTD)---Holding out hope for the future, Racine Mayor Cory Mason painted a grim picture for the City of Racine as it sits under the Trump administration.
In his annual State of the City address to the city council Monday night, Mason covered topics that included housing, education, public safety and economic development. But he began his 45 minute-long speech with this observation: "I can not think of a time when the state of our beloved city is more directly affected by the changes being made at the federal level," Mason said.
"What is happening in our country is not normal. These changes threaten our values, diminish our freedom, reduce the health and safety of our neighborhoods, increase costs for residents and have created a culture of fear toward the government I have not encountered during my eight years as mayor," he said.
Specifically, Mason cited a tightening of the Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) programs and reductions in federal aid to law enforcement. One in every three city residents, Mason said, qualified for Medicaid.
Mason returned to the theme at the end of his speech when he discussed plans to appoint a committee to come up with ways for the city to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary next year. "How do we wave the flag when partisanship has poisoned our politics, when justice moves at a glacious pace, when too many of our neighbors are left behind? I tell you how," he said.
Continuing, Mason said: "We remember that every bent toward justice in the long arc of the moral universe came not in some straight line drawn by providence but through the sweat and struggle of ordinary people, organizing and agitating and demanding better."
Mason used his speech to highlight the advent of a federally-qualified health center, Racine Unified's building program, the city's home repair grant programs and progress in extending commuter rail from Kenosha through Racine to Milwaukee.
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