Door County Election News: Skare Draws on Community-building Experience

In a battle of restaurateurs, Republican incumbent Garey Bies seeks to hold off Democratic challenger Dick Skare to win his fifth term in Madison.

Dick Skare

As Dick Skare sat down for an interview with the Pulse on a Tuesday morning,, sounds of demolition could be heard outside his office.

“It’s amazing how fast it went down,” he says, watching as a crane tears down the structure of The Cookery, which was severely damaged in a fire in the early morning hours of May 9 and was closed this summer.

Skare and his wife, Carol, opened The Cookery when they moved to Door County in 1977, and while he admits that the demolition is hard to watch, he is cheerful and energetic. He is currently concentrating not on destruction, but on building – not only rebuilding The Cookery (construction is slated to begin immediately), but also on building enthusiasm for the upcoming election, in which Skare hopes to be elected as the District 1 representative to the Wisconsin State Assembly.

The Cookery is only one of Dick Skare’s many forays into the public life of Wisconsin’s District 1, which includes Door and parts of Brown and Kewaunee Counties. His civic engagement began unglamorously in 1980, when he was a founding member and president of the Fish Creek Sanitary District 1, charged with putting a sewer in the town. Since then, he has served on almost a dozen boards, including the Gibraltar Town Board, the Sunshine House, the Door Community Auditorium, and the Door County YMCA (Skare calls his work on the county’s two YMCA centers as his greatest accomplishment outside of his family and business). Skare has also served on the Door County Strategic Marketing Coalition and the Door County Tourism Zone Commission.

Skare’s experience with these organizations has given him a strong belief in the value of discussion and collaboration, and he thinks the skills he’s learned will be vital to his success in the legislature.

Skare says he’s learned that “people I totally disagree with still have the right to voice their opinion. You have to listen to what people want, discuss, then move forward – that’s the way I like to approach problems.”

Skare prioritized the issues he would approach most vigorously in the Assembly, placing health care reform at the top.

At The Cookery, Skare began offering insurance to his employees in 1987 and said he understands the difficulties of obtaining insurance for both small businesses and individuals.

According to Skare, 14 – 17 percent of people in Door County and 12 – 14 percent of people in Kewaunee County have no health insurance, and many more are underinsured – covered only in the case of catastrophic injury or illness.

To improve the situation, Skare proposes a large insurance pool that would give people leverage when dealing with insurance companies and would not deny people because of pre-existing conditions. He supports policies that are “open, transparent, and transportable” when people move between jobs.

School funding is high on Skare’s priority list as well, with several Door County schools resorting to referendums regularly to meet financial needs.

“We have declining enrollments, and revenue is attached to how many students we have,” he explains. “Our funding is an arbitrary number, but expenses continue to rise in a non-arbitrary way. So we’re in a pinch.”

To alleviate the problem, Skare believes the state should fund two-thirds of public education, regardless of the district. Furthermore, all educational mandates must be funded throughout the life of the program, and the trend of decreasing categorical aid (funding designated for particular groups of students) must be reversed.

Finally, Skare argues, control of the school system must be restored to the local level. In fact, restoring local control in all areas is a central tenet of Skare’s philosophy.

“I’ve been involved in town government since I got here in 1977, so I’m well aware of what goes on at the local level,” Skare says. “People on the local level are not spendthrifts. They use people’s money judiciously. Control should be local.”

As a means of increasing local control over local issues, Skare advocates strengthening small businesses as much as possible. He supports giving renewable energy incentives to small businesses and energy producers and making Wisconsin “a leader in developing alternative energy.”

Skare believes this and other pro-small business measures will invigorate the district’s economy, bringing more and better year-round jobs to the area.

“Small business is the engine that drives us,” Skare says. “We need to keep it healthy.”

Skare acknowledges that the programs and reforms he supports will cost money and recognizes the common belief that Democrats “tax and spend.” But he promises to use taxpayer money carefully and urges voters to consider the long-term impacts of cutting funding to public services.

“Taxing people is a very serious thing, and I believe in judicious use of that money,” he says. “There are times of crisis when we have to think about how we will change how we do things.”

“There’s talk about not raising taxes,” he says. “But what are the costs of not having adequate health care? Every time a person comes into the emergency room without health insurance, we pay for that. Same with education. What’s the cost of keeping our taxes low if we have to charge fees for everything and cut activities back? There are costs to not having that tax.”

Skare recognizes that if he reaches Madison, he will have to balance the concerns of District 1 with those of Wisconsin as a whole, but sees the role of an Assembly representative as to represent his or her own constituency primarily.

“My strong feeling is that I’m working for the people in District 1,” Skare says.

Merrell Runquist, who worked with Skare for over 10 years on the Gibraltar Town Board, says he trusts Skare’s ability to represent District 1 well.

“He’s steadfast in his views, oriented to people’s needs, follows through with what he says he’s going to do, and is always willing to step up and take responsibility,” Runquist says.

Fellow Fish Creek business owners Jan and Andy Coulson agree.

“We’ve known Dick for 30 years as a friend, as a fellow business owner, and as a public servant,” Andy Coulson says. “In all three cases he’s exhibited the type of judgment you’d want in Madison. He’d be a great assemblyman for us.”

Skare may be new to state legislature, but he hopes he’ll get the chance to prove he can do the job well.

“Everything I’ve been involved in, I’d never done before,” Skare says. “I’d never built a sewer, never attached an auditorium to a school, never built buildings like the YMCA. But I did it because that’s what we needed to do to move forward.”