Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-06-26_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

01-06-26_TUESDAY_7AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Downtown Medford. The Bill Myers Show is on. News Talk 1063, KMED. Nick ends up writing me. By the way, my email is bill at billmire's show.com.

We'll give him another email today, sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson in Central Point Family Dentistry, Central Point Family Dentistry.com, and let me tell you, they have a really nice waiting room and great people there, but they get you in and out of there. I mean, they are like a machine. I'm talking about, like, you don't sit around there and wait and wait and wait and have to read all the old magazines and things like that. Just good people. Get your appointment today. It's on Freeman Road, Central Point, right next to the Mazadlon Mexican restaurant, Central Point Family Dentistry.com. Nick writes me, Bill, you were writing, is there also fraud in Oregon? because, you know, I was just talking with Julie at a minute ago who was battling what he thinks is fraud in New York State. And what Nick writes is that fraudsters have stolen some $9 billion from Minnesota's social services at the expense of the American taxpayer. All this fraud happened on Democrats' watch. So the question remains, is this also happening in Oregon on Janelle Bynum's watch? Nick writes, Democrat runs states responsible for at least $400 million in unemployment fraud in recent years. Who knows what other fraud hasn't been discovered yet?

they've tried to capitalize on messaging about corruption with the DNC chair explicitly saying that corruption is a slap in the face to the million of Americans who are struggling to get by and put food on the table. Okay, there you go. Turns out this whole time that they are the corrupt ones and now Democrats refuse to take action to stop future corrupt fraudsters from taking advantage of working families. You know, Nick, I couldn't help but notice that Governor Kotech the other day

seemed to be more concerned. And, well, you know, just putting out a great message, I'm in support of our Somalian community. Yeah, it does make you wonder. Nick, I'm going to have to look into the rest of the stuff that you just sent me to. I'll get back in touch. All right, all right. Here's Bill Meyer. 11 minutes after 7.

By the way, before we move forward here, yeah, you can join the show once again, 770KMED. But I wanted to make sure you knew. Fox just broke the news just a few minutes ago that Congressman Doug Lamalfa, Yes, Siskue County, the Northern California district there. He died this morning. Don't have any other details about that other than the fact that he just passed away, and he's only 65, 65, not an old man, and yikes, we'll let you know more as soon as we find out more about this, but Doug LaMalfa passing away this morning.

Twelve minutes after seven, we're going to turn our attention here to some local politics. Election Day, or I guess you could call it an election day in Josephine County with, Commissioner Chris Barnett, Commissioner Chris Barnett, and Josephine County is on the ballot here, targeted with a recall. Chris, good morning, and welcome back, and how are you feeling about things at the moment, huh? Well, good morning. My wife and I were just talking. It's one year from today I sworn in to office. I mean, I haven't, I just been in a year, and, you know, just after the six-month mark, when you can recall people, these people said they were going to recall us anyway. So, unfortunately, I got targeted with Andreas Black on this, and the same people that

we called John West. It's unfortunate and a disgruntled former employee. It's really unfortunate. I wanted to just touch in on what is the status here of replacing Andreas Black right now? Where are we? Because I last spoke to you about a couple of weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, because Commissioner Ron Smith was, Dragon's Feet, did not really want to vote on this or said he was for choosing himself. How did that end up getting resolved? Well, I talked to my legal counsel yesterday about this. This is new territory for them, new territory for us. And this setup was intended for a commissioner to walk out or be absent and not do what the charter says.

We shall appoint. And so that is the struggle. I did everything in my power as a chair to hold legal meetings every day, every business day I could to get Ron Smith to come to the table, at least start the conversations. And that's all it had to be was start the conversation, seeing if he agreed with any of the candidates. We do the process of elimination. I've done that many times in management, and, you know, we kind of finalize it down. And I'm sure at the 32 applicants, we could have came to a reasonable choice.

of one. If not, I would have been willing to open it up to get more applicants if he wasn't happy, but we haven't even gotten a chance to talk about that. How many people have applied so far? 32. And Ron Smith and I, we chose Andreas Black back in January, and we only had 16 applicants. And we did that no problem. We did the interviews. We selected a commissioner, Andreas Black, and he got sworn in that afternoon. It was easy-peasy. It was not difficult at all. So what happened, I guess what happens now, though, because I talked with Ron, Ron,

you know, Ron and I will disagree on this process. I thought to me it's pretty simple. You know, you're there as a commissioner to make hard decisions, and even if they're politically risky. I mean, and that's just said, you know, in Josephine County, even choosing a replacement would be politically risky. I'm sure Ron's thinking, hey, this means they're going to come after him and recall. them. Chances are the same group's going to recall them anyway, or come after them just later

rather than sooner. I could be wrong about this, but I'm just speculating on my part. It's a very tough spot that he put himself in, and it's unfortunate because we're a team, and we've got to make decisions and do things together. So making it political has really been difficult because by the charter, we're supposed to appoint within 30 days. So I held meetings. I know he called them dog and pony shows, which I thought was really unprofessional to call it that, because they are legally posted meetings, and they could have, he could have came any time and just spoke in his views again. And I think that I was just trying to give him the benefit of coming to the table, that we'd have a good conversation of why or why not. It didn't mean that we had to choose somebody that day. And I think he misunderstood that process, because we could deliberate for hours in a room, if we would.

wanted to. But you did have to deliberate it out an open forum, right? That was the rule. Correct. And that's all we needed to do was start that process of discussions and see that we even had a viable candidate. Maybe we didn't. And I think out of 32, we definitely did. And now it says 30 days it should go to the elected officials. Well, there's a little gray area in there because it says Bacon C versus vacant seeds with an S. And right now, we have a quorum of the board. There are two sitting commissioners that are current and present. So until that fails, and there's only one by themselves, then they get the help of the board because they have to have a corum. He can't do it by himself. So that's where we're at now, where the 30-day limit came up. He did get served

man damas from a citizen. Basically all the men damas says is basically do your job and appoint somebody. It wasn't suing him for monetary reasons. And even then, the law that says that you shall or, you know, that governs this, it doesn't really have a penalty for not doing it. It's kind of one of those things that, yes, you must or you shall do this. But there's, it's not like anyone's going to come and arresty and tossy in the clink over it, right? Nothing like that. No, not at all. It's a mandamus, and it's new to me. I was reading it, and I read it again yesterday with legal counsel, and basically there's no penalties, like you said, Bill, at all. It's just, hey, let's get to the table and let's do our job and pick somebody, and that's it. And we took an oath, and I take that very seriously, and we have to do the duties of the people and look out for them. And I don't want to abandon my post and give it to somebody else. I would never do that, but that's why I'm trying to give Ron have every opportunity to come to the table. Could he still come to the table?

Of course, we don't know if you're going to be recalled tonight or not. We don't know. We'll get the preliminary count. Well, correct. Let's say I stay in. He's going to have to work with me, and we're going to have to continue this process. And that's where it's going to be unprecedented to go forward going, hey, it's after 30 days, but we're still aboard.

So do we move forward or do we just wait until the next election? two commissioners still hold a quorum. So if I did, if I don't make it tonight, well, then it can go to the board and it'll change the dynamics of it. But the thing is, I'm still there for three more weeks. So even if you are recalled tonight, and we don't know, like I said, and by the way, folks, I've already gone on the record, and this is not endorsing Chris or Andreas or anybody else who's ever been in the city council or the county commission. It's not that. I'm just not a fan of recalls unless there is serious, serious, serious, serious, malfeasance. That's just not the way I think that this game is wisely played, and it is just turned into a political weapon, in my opinion, in Josephine County. But that is my opinion, okay? So let's say, so even if you are recalled, you are still in office for another, what,

two, three weeks? How long? Yeah, they said they told me 21 days to certify. by law, they have 21 days after the election, certify the results. Okay. So that means I'm still going to have to conduct business until that last day. Now, this also means, then, that Ron Smith and you could choose the replacement, at least for Andreas Black.

Now, you couldn't choose the replacement for yourself. That's not going to happen. That would have to wait, right? If that were to happen. Yeah, I think the goal I'd like to move forward is get back to the table. Let's pick somebody. go from there. And if I do not make it tonight, well, then they can choose the next commissioner and keep it within the Board of County Commissioners. That's the way it's set up.

You've got to work with these people. You've got to make sure that everybody gets along and everybody can do the job. You know, you go through job applicants all the time. I'm sure you've hired and had to let people go sometime in your life. And it's a difficult thing to try to find the right candidate. But I think, Out of the 32, Bill, we definitely have some talent in there. All right. Now, when it comes to the recall, Holly Morton ended up calling a few minutes ago last hour and was talking about a lot of theft of signs or a lot of issues going on with recall signs.

Could you give me your take of what has been going on? Oh, yeah. Well, I have a lot of supporters that are doing all that on their own. I mean, I'm not running for a candidate or a position. This is just to keep me in, and these are the good will of people that supported and voted for me. that are putting signs up and doing this around. And it's the same, what we found this round is that people are defacing the signs. They're cutting them up, they're stealing them, they're knocking them down at permissible locations.

So these are businesses or residents that people say, yes, I support you, and they got their signs up on their property. And they're cutting them up and ruining them on like a daily basis. And I kind of had this when I ran last year. year, I had a lady actually get caught by me, still in a sign. And she's part of this recall. Her name's Deb Berg. And she, I caught her on video. It went viral. And I'm like, I remember that one. Yeah. And she claimed, oh, she had a right to do it. And the thing is, you know, still people signs regardless. I mean, I can't be the sign police and be everywhere. Okay. Well, okay. I just want to tell you why I ask this, because

I had an email or reach out this morning, and it's an anonymous email. I don't have a name for the person, okay, who wrote. But they wanted me to ask you, and I'm going to, and what this person said is, have you applied to post signs on state and city property? That's one question. And the other question, do you, Chris Barnett, have permits that you have paid for to post your no-on recall signs on state and or city property? This seems to be some of the controversy that's going on.

people are claiming that a lot of this stuff is posted on a lot of these signs being placed in right-of-ways in areas that are not permitted or you would have to get permits to place these signs there. Any comment on that? Sure. Sure. I have no comment on it because I'm not in charge of the signs. So if people come and pick up a sign or they get one, I can't control. I'm not doing none of that. So if people are putting them in rights of ways, those can be removed by ODOT. All candidates know this. If you put them in state right away or anything like that, ODOT can come and take your signs. Grants Pass Police does that all the time.

They have a whole pile on their back of candidate signs from the past that people, on their goodwill, put signs up, not knowing if it was private or public property. And we can't control that. Any candidate that runs for office that has a sign campaign, you give them the rules, but, you give them the rules. they learned the hard way because I don't think there's a candidate out there that has had a sign taken in a ride away because they put it somewhere they shouldn't. Okay, so an answer to the two questions, that would be no on each of those. You have no permits then on anything? I had nothing to do with the signs whatsoever.

You have nothing to do with the signs? Really? Nothing to do with the signs. I didn't place them. I didn't put them anywhere. These are the goodwill of my supporters that did this on their own. Okay. So you haven't paid for these signs or anything else? You're handing them out or what? Yeah, they're free. People have been producing them since day one. And I just want to thank all the supporters for doing everything on their own goodwill. It really has been a battle and I really

appreciate all the support. Okay, but to be clear, though, you paid for the signs, right? People have paid for the signs. Okay, what do you mean people have paid for the signs? People have paid for the signs. Volunteers. I don't even know, Bill. People have been paying for these. I have no idea. Okay. All right. So you're not connected with the signs, where the signs end up, not you. And the defacing of the signs, though, that has nothing to do with whether they're permitted or not. Is that a fair assessment or not? These are the same people that have sent me emails to, Bill, anonymous, or they send them, you know, saying, hey, you're putting signs, you know, these recall people are putting signs up everywhere, but nobody's, you know, calling

the sign police saying, hey, your sign isn't a right-of-way. Nobody's doing it. Nobody's doing that that I know of, Bill. There's not very many signs out there, so I don't know if there was an intersection or somewhere where somebody put a sign, they should call the police, they should call ODOT, and they can remove it, simple. Okay. Commissioner Chris Barnett, go ahead and give your pitch here for the final 30, 40 seconds or so on, naturally, you're going to say why you don't want to be recalled.

At least I would think you would unless you want a vacation. Tell me what you're thinking, huh? No, people voted me in last year, and it was overwhelming yes, and served the people for four years. That's all I committed. I said, I'll do the four years, and I'll work hard every single day. I've been doing that seven days a week, been out in the community, solving things within the county with my colleagues. It's not just me. All the whole board of county commissioners, they make the decision.

So why I got targeted, and Andreas is beyond me, because all three of us, we do the business of the county. And, you know, some of these accusations and misinformation has gone rampant, Bill, and it's unfortunate that no matter what countermeasures you do on anything anymore. Okay, well, this is your chance, then. What are you calling misinformation, and what would you counter that with? I'll give you a chance. Go ahead. Information that I'm not trustworthy, and I'm not this, and I'm not that.

It just gets overwhelming where people, my military career, for instance, okay, Bill, I got a military history of 33 plus years. And then you got people saying I didn't serve and people saying that, oh, yeah, he's using his term incorrectly. And my radio handle, Commander Chris, I'm a chief in the Air Force. It's just gotten ridiculous. This all happened before I got elected. But moving forward, Bill, beyond all that, I look at all past that. I want to do the work of the county, rebuilding the county, doing proper things with the budget and our infrastructure. I've got goals that I put out yesterday. There's a video I put out how I want to move forward for 2026.

I want to continue to do that and serve the people of Josephine County. And I think I've done that very well. And I continue to work hard every day. All right, Commissioner. We'll see what the people say tonight. All right. We'll talk soon, I'm sure. All right.

You'd be well. All right. Thank you, Bill. Appreciate you. Bye-bye. Josephine County Commissioner Chris Barnett, 726 at KMED. When Italian food sounds good and when doesn't it. I'm slash free.

Zipracuda. News Talk 1063, KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. 729. I want to do some more emails of the day because I'm gone for a while, getting all these emails and a lot of good thinking. And I want to make sure I share some of these emails of the day, sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson and Central Point Family Dentistry.

Get your appointment today at Central Point Family Dentistry.com. Paul Princeton wrote me over the weekend, says, Bill, by now, most of us have become aware of the fire on New Year's in a nightclub in Switzerland that claim the lives of more than 40 young people and injured more than 100, maybe 70. To add luster to the festivities, the establishment provided sparklers on bottles of champagne. Looks like one of those held too close to the flammable ceiling, which ignited as a result. There's a lot of video available from the beginning of this catastrophe. They show the revelers continuing the festivities, while many have their phones out to capture

video of the fire as it progresses. How is it even possible that so many did not detect the mortal danger they were in until it was too late? Alcohol use may have been a contributing factor in clouding judgment, certainly, but it can't explain that in the face of danger, the first impulse of many was to whip out their cell phones and take videos as if they were mere spectators of something interesting developing. I believe there are two major contributing factors, Paul writes me. First, these were mostly folks in their 20s or younger that were raised in an environment obsessed with safety to the point of lunacy.

In this safety craze, responsibility for your safety is delegated to other people. And it seems, and not oneself. It seems like it's deemed to someone else and not yourself. So you witness this daily, this daily rather, in people engrossed in their phones. fearlessly stepping into traffic with no concern. Vehicles now come with lane assist, proximity sensors and such, taking away responsibility for safety and also denying the acquiring of the skills of driving. Many have never had to light a bonfire because, well, that would have been too dangerous. Many grew up in a rubber room, a rubber room of sorts. That's an interesting

way of looking at it, Paul. And second, the younger generation is much influenced by video games in virtual reality, thereby becoming observers. A state of mind that delays the realization that in a case like this, you're a participant compared to what they are used to seeing on a screen. A little fire in the ceiling seemed interesting, but by no means alarming. So the party went on extensively recorded on video until it was too late. With a diminished skill set of self-preservation, they didn't stand a chance. Now some of the dead have to be identified with dental records while the injured,

suffer horrible burns. With an intact sense of self-preservation, many of the souls lost might well have been saved. My heart breaks for the victims and their families. I really appreciate your writing. That's a very good point. How many times we have seen this, Paul, and we also seen this happen

when people are reacting to someone being assaulted or someone being abused by another individual, and the men will be around, whipping out their cell phones, but will the men actually step in and stop the abuse, right? Yeah, it's because they're observing rather than actually living life. And I think there's a real point to be made there. 733 at KMED, 993 KPXG. I sure appreciate you being here this morning.

Herman's going to join me here in a couple of minutes, and we'll talk more about the situation in Josephine County and what could be coming up next here. Now, he made me one of these calls. I don't have a call screener, so I'm going to see what we got, and we're just going to hit the lines live. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Hi, Bill. This is Victoria Marshall. Hello, Victoria. Now, you're on Grants Pass City Council, right? Oh, yes. Yes, I am. I was just listening to Chris, and I wanted to add something about what

people are emailing you about the removal of signs. Yeah, I guess we'll call it the recall sign gate for the moment, okay? There we go. Sure, sure. So if... The people were worried about signs being on public property. They would have removed the whole sign, but they were cutting the no out of the sign and leaving the rest of the sign. They were not interested. Oh, I see.

Okay, they're just defacing the sign and changing the message. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's what they were doing. So they weren't really that worried about where the sign was. So I just heard that, and it was a little annoying to hear that. Excuse. And I wanted to add that. And Chris, I think he's a great commissioner, and people really need to get out to support him today. So, yeah, thank you, Bill. All right, counselor. Thank you. 770KMED. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Hello.

Hello. This is Brian Weldon. Oh, Brian. Go ahead. It's on your mind. Yes. I'm one of the sign installers. And I have watched these people. destroy as many as six signs in just a few hours after they're installed or repaired. Okay. Now, you're one of the sign installers. Are you getting permission from private property owners? That's what the person who was writing me was asking. Yes. Yes. All of the signs are on commercial properties along roadside. Yeah, but just because they're commercial only doesn't mean you can put them there, right? Right. You have to have permission from the owner of the commercial property.

You cannot put a sign like down the sidewalks of 6th and 7th Street in downtown Grants Pass or in county land areas. They will remove them immediately. We learned that many years ago with another election. The city won't allow that. They say it's discerring the traffic of people driving by. It distracts them. Okay, now you're probably obviously not the only one putting those signs out, though,

right? There are other people? Yes, there's other people. But every day we go around and look at the installation of these signs, and tons of them are ruined every 24 hours. And like Victoria was just saying, they just take a razor blade and cut the no out of the no on the recall and just leave all this trash on the ground and drive away. And it's just ridiculous. Conservatives would never do that to the other side of the party. This is about destroying our county commissioners.

It's not about Chris Barnett. All right. I appreciate the call, and thanks for that, Brian. 736. We'll continue the conversation on the political craziness that we have going on here. By the way, if you just join me and you didn't hear the breaking news, 7 o'clock, we found out that Northern California, Congressman, U.S. Congressman Doug Lamaltha passed away last night. night, age of 65, don't have a lot of other details other than the fact that he has passed away.

And so rest in peace, and we'll try to find out more and get that information to you. Do you hesitate to heat the whole house when you spend most of your time in a particular room? Glacier heating and air is a diamond dealer for Mitsubishi. But they did not meet their standards. America's listening to Fox News. 739, and we have former state Senator Herman Berichiger who is standing by. We'll get to him just about a minute or so here. You wanted a way in on that email from Paul who was talking about the young people who ended up dying in that New Year's Eve fire in Switzerland, just tragic.

And he had talked about, though, and he was talking about how many people were, you know, videotaping it as it was getting ready to kill them, you know? Yeah, and he was absolutely right on. I think the only thing that maybe got left out was the part where we are so accustomed to this instant gratification. visual society. It's like everything you do, everything you say, everything is just, you can pop it out there

and everybody else gets to see it. And you just, you know, like there's no, I mean, when I was a little girl, my dad bought one of those little home movie cameras, you know,

and they would take movies of a birthday or something like that. And you had to wait like weeks and weeks and then finally it came back and you put up the screen and you go, oh, wow, this is so cool. You know,

I mean, it was a big deal. Now it's nothing. It's like it's like, way of life. And now the problem is, is that the actual picture or video is nothing. The only thing which makes it valuable is that, oh, this could be interesting, and it could get me clicks on Instagram, you know, that kind of thing. Well, yeah. The media, media mentality has been so ingrained into our children's brain. And it's really tragic. That has a lot to do with,

you know, that and your comments about the, you know, that, oh, everything is already, is going to be safe because we're being taken care of. You know, the government takes care of it. It's all, nothing would happen to us. If it would, they would have come and asked us to leave. Okay, appreciate that. Appreciate that, Francine. A good point, and we'll have you on again.

Thank you so much, all right? Thank you, Bill. All right. All right, 19 before 8, and, yeah, former state senator, Berchiger with me in just a moment. This hour of the Bill Myers show is sponsored by Glacier Heating and Air, making sense of the heating and air business. 106.7 KMED. 18 before 9.

I make that before eight, pardon me, getting an hour ahead of myself here. We have former state senator, Herman Berchiger, who's on the program this morning. We always talk politics every Tuesday, just sort of shoot the breeze here and noodle around a bit. How you doing, Herman? Welcome back. Well, I'm doing fine, you know, sitting around the woods still with a cup of coffee. So it's... Yeah, you were telling me the only thing you're missing, though, is a donut.

That's what you need is a donut, right? Right, donut, yeah. You know, I kind of banned myself from donuts, but... I kind of miss them. Oh, you know, there is nothing better than either a donut or some kind of a pastry with coffee, but yet I try to stay away from that myself. I don't even have my New Year's resolution is to stick with black coffee in the morning instead of any cream.

I do have cream on the weekend, though, as a special treat. I don't know what it is with this aging process, but I look at that stuff and I gain weight, I think, you know? I don't know. I know what you mean. I do know it. Hey, I was just talking with Commissioner Barnett. Of course, he's under recall threat today. I don't know what's going to happen.

Now, you've been keeping an eye on the numbers, and what are we looking at so far as far as ballot return? I don't think it's very high, is it? So I just looked at it here. Yeah, it's about a quarter, quarter of the voters. Okay, one-fourth of the voters have taken part in this so far. Okay. Yeah, yeah, about a quarter.

All right. But I'll tell you, I've been through so many elections, in my political career ran, you know, quite a few as a Senate leader and stuff. And I have never seen, well, yeah, I have seen some pretty ugly ones, but this is really ugly. I mean, some of the stuff, the nastiness, just the most, so many things that has no truth to it and makeup on social media. And then the signs, the signs, the signs. Every election there's a sign. Oh, look at Amy, but a sign in the public place.

And, oh, both sides do it. It's gone on forever. But this year is a little different. Usually people just steal the signs. This year, they're cutting them up, and they're doing it several times a day on the same sign location. So, you know, these campaigns and people that get behind them, you know, you have sign guys, you have location lists of people that have given you permission to put signs on them. their property and you go around and put them up and everything. And then now we have other people

that are destroying them. So that's pretty bad. You know, this is just, it's nasty, nasty, and I'm in your camp. I do not like recalls unless, like you said, it's something really atrocious. Yeah, to me, to me a recall is we're talking about really big malfeasance in office, not that I disagree with your policy or how you did. how you ended up doing something or you did something the way I wouldn't have done it because, hey, you're the person in the seat. Now, if you're breaking the law or you're putting the, let's say if you're putting the county at risk of liability, you know, that's kind of a malfeasance sort of thing, then maybe we have a conversation, you know, about stuff like that. But to me, recall has been, especially in Josephine County, it has been so politically weaponized, Herman. There's just no doubt about that.

Oh, it is, and it actually takes away from the wishes of the people. So the people elected somebody, and now you do this, you know, off, I call it an off-season election. In other words, it's... Well, I call it an underhanded election season. It was strategically designed to be happening a by-mail election, and you're doing it over the holiday. Oh, yeah. I mean, half the people in this world aren't even tuned back into what's been happening in the news until the last day or two. I mean, I don't even realize what's happening.

And these people, they waited six months because the law says you have to wait six months and then recall them and immediately did it. And it was. I think there's a lot of revenge going on. And the people with revenge, they sided with the people from the left who have been losing their mind ever since Trump got elected. and then the last November election, you know, that these commissioners were elected. There was actually 11 positions in Josephine County between the city and the county, and the Republicans swept it. And so the opposition, the left, they even went more crazy. Trump became president.

They lost all 11 races, and they literally lost their mind. And so this is a way, and it's obvious. This is so obvious is a plan to get their people in office without going through a regular election. The point being, though, is that it wasn't just Democrats, though, they were part of this recall. They were ostensibly Republican people that are part of this recall, are they not? Are they? I, anymore, there's been so many people that have been longtime Democrats in Josephine County that has changed their party affiliation, just so they can get involved in these types of events.

Oh, so it's kind of a reverse operation chaos. Yeah, Operation Chaos, like Rush Limbaugh used to talk about changing your party affiliation. And by the way, this was something I was bringing up on my social media post the other day, Herman, that there is a hard, hard push here in the state of Oregon to go for open primaries, to have open primaries, which means that you would end up having Democrats, choosing the candidates for the Republican Party. That's the only way. And nobody brings up a change in voting in the state of Oregon

unless it's to benefit the Democrats because they're in charge in this state. Absolutely. You're absolutely correct. Yeah, but they talk about this under an everybody gets to vote, you know, kind of thing. Everybody gets to vote. As far as I'm concerned, if you are not part of my party,

if you're not willing to choose the side, you don't get to choose my side's candidate is the way I would look at this. But, I don't know. Well, and I've had people, you know, in Josephine County, it's nonpartisan, and I've had some discussions, and people disagree with me. But, you know, I said, name a democracy on this planet that doesn't have party affiliation. You know, this nonpartisan idea, if it was so good, how come the Democrats in Portland aren't pushing it?

Or the, you know, or state the Democrats in the legislature are not pushing to have nonpartisan elections all through Oregon. Yeah, now what, I'm kind of wondering is it? Why is it nonpartisan in Joe County for being a commissioner? Was that something it was voted on or what? Well, it sounds good. Hey, you know, we're all going to sit around the campfire and sing kumbaya on. This is all nonpartisan and everything. It's not.

No matter who's in office, they have to pick a tribe. That's how democracies work. You can't, it never works out, say, well, I'm nonpartisan. It doesn't. you're either going to, you're either going to conduct business through somewhat of a liberal lens or somewhat of a conservative lens. It's just that simple. And nonpartisan never works. You wind up with both sides shooting you if you try to go down that road. Now, I know people are going to disagree because it does sound good. It sounds really good. Oh, yes. We'll take,

we'll take the dirtiness out of the parties, out of that partisan label. But it doesn't take the partisan out of the people, though, I guess is what I'm getting at. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, I've seen there's articles in the paper. Oh, we have to have nonpartisan in the run Josephine County. That's not going to work. I'm telling you. It doesn't work in a democracy. And I challenge anybody to point to any democracy in this world that works nonpartisan. Yeah. It's kind of a fig leave that nonpartisan label the way I kind of see that. Yeah. All right.

Now, the other thing that I was talking with Commissioner Barnett is that he says they have, like, some 32 people who have applied to replace Andreas Bleck. Now, you're one of those people, right? Yes, I was asked by quite a few people to throw my hat in for a few reasons. And I did. I was reluctant because I kind of like the retirement. But I also see there's absolutely, you know, if there's ever a need for a, leadership in Josephine County.

It's now, and I looked at those 32 applicants before I put my name in, and there's some really good people there. There are some people to have some government background. Okay, well, are you qualified your opinion to be that? Well, yeah, I would say, you know, two years in the Senate, and I was elected a leader in the Republicans. I was the chairman. I was elected, the chairman of the Oregon Republican Party.

I've always been elected not only to a position, but then to a leadership position within those positions. I was chair of Josephine County commissioners for two years. So I said, yes, I'll throw my name in. And as soon as I did, holy, holy, people come after. Oh, Verricker, he's cost the county millions of dollars in lawsuits. Boy, I guess just instantly, huh? Yeah, yeah. I did you do that? Okay, okay, so here's the question I'm going to have for you.

Now, when I asked you, are you qualified? I'm being rhetorical. I mean, you've been state Senate president. You've been a Josephine County commissioner, et cetera, okay? And I think you were even a state rep in one point, weren't you earlier? No, I was never a state rep. But I've also, it goes deeper in that in Josephine County. I served on the board for the airport board for decades, I think.

I think it was like 15 years, but I chaired it most of the time. So not only was I appointed to the board, I was elected to the chair there. Same with the Josephine County Ag board, the Josephine County Forestry Board. So, you know, I've headed up things for the City of Grants Pass. I did the River Reserve Force Task Force, where I was elected a chair of that task force. So I've done a lot of leadership positions in Josephine County. And, you know, the latest one was, Perrugar, he doesn't support the sheriff's office. I'm like, are you kidding me?

I said for eight years in the Senate, I championed funding for the state police. Well, you know what not supporting the sheriff's office means today. I will translate when I hear that kind of talk. It usually means won't give the sheriff a blank slate. of anything that he wants. That's what I think that means. Am I right or wrong about that? Normally when I hear somebody say that kind of nonsense,

when they spout that. Yeah, when you're appropriating, you do what you can in appropriating, but to say I haven't supported the sheriff, well, I got funding informed the bill, the new $5 million evidence center. I appropriated money for them to buy that armored tactical vehicle. I okayed the purchase of all new firearms, both handguns and long rifles for the sheriff's office.

And the last budget that I was involved in, I found some extra money that we could throw to the sheriff's department without having to dip our nose in the general fund. So to make a statement that I don't support the sheriff's department is just, but. Okay, now, Herman, now I talk with you every week. We've been talking politics for years. You've been in office, you've been out of office, okay? I just enjoy the conversation because you're an old hand about this. Why is it? Why is it that there seems to be such resistance?

And I have no doubt that Commissioner Ron Smith probably did not want to choose because you were probably at the top of the list and didn't want to say so. Is that what's going on? Is there something else? It could vary possibly, but the attacks are this. I have an R next to my name and not a D because that's where the attacks are coming from. So the whole idea is that they've got to get a Democrat. They have to get a Democrat by stealth by hook or crook onto the board.

That's the goal. Right. And so the elected officials are going to have to make the decision. And when you look at that slate of people, one, you have some people that have some government experience. Then you have another group that have no experience about any of this. Well, here's the challenge. And I talked about this morning. I don't know if it was with Chris or I think maybe it was with Holly.

One of the issues that I have with this is that I don't think that given the tumult that has been on the board, I don't think you can have a greenie going there right now. When I say greenie, I'm talking about a totally inexperienced person. I think this has been one of the challenges of the Josephine County Commission. And I also think this has been one of the reasons why the Jackson County Commission has been so boring because there is an administrator making sure that the eyes are dotted. than the T's are crossed, okay? Now, I know Joe County doesn't have that money, okay?

I get that. It's a different kind of a financial setup, but you have to know the rules, and I think that's one of the challenges that the Joe County Commission has been facing, wouldn't you say, given the... It is. You do have to know the rules, and you have to pay, you have to understand how the institution works.

Don't, you know, let's just throw out the issues at hand. Let's talk about how to conduct the... business lawfully, under the charter, under the state statutes, that kind of stuff. And you've got to know that. Now, people say, oh, Hubertiger had all these ethics complaints, secret meetings and all this. You know what? Every single one of those was, every single one was dismissed, though.

Every one of them. Right. And you're talking to ethics commission with five Democrats and four Republicans. But you see, this is the whole thing. Everything about the Ethics Commission has been politicized, and the recall process has been politicized here, too? Or, I mean, it's been weaponized, I should say. It's always a political process. Let me go back to these 32 people. We got the one group that has some government experience. None of them, none of them as a commissioner or elected. Next group, no experience.

And then there's this third group are past people that have ran in elections and the citizens rejected them. In other words, they didn't elect them. So why would you want to put people up who have already been rejected prior by the voters in the past? Well, that's it. And that's what these department heads are you going to, are you going to vote for somebody that's been rejected by the voters? Are you going to vote for somebody that doesn't have any experience? Or are you going to vote for somebody that has a lot of experience?

And, Bill, I've been elected overwhelmingly three times for positions in Josephine County by the citizens. I'm the only candidate that has been elected by the citizens. So is this your unofficial campaign campaign speech then? Is that what this is? Well, listen, I want Josephine County to get rolling again because we've just been stagnated here and we've got to start conducting. There's a lot of things. We've got a budget coming up.

There's a lot of things that are happening that are not happening. Well, you know, the way I'm looking at this, Herman, and this is why I'm so dispirmed. and how it's been going in Joe County over the last few months is because the issues throwing everybody out on the board, and even if they end up coming after Commissioner Smith at some point, and they may, you know, they may, depending on what happens. We don't know where things are going at this point in time. That doesn't fix the math problem, does it? No, it doesn't fix the math problem.

And you can see this is all engineered to have this recall at this time. And I think when Commissioner Blake resigned, that kind of threw a monkey wrench in there because they were hoping to recall them both, and then there would be two positions to be selected by the elected officials. Now there's only one position at this time. They're hoping that they recall Barnett, and then there's two. And so with Ron Smith, who I feel, in my opinion, that he's going to do what the recall people want because he may be afraid of being recalled himself. So they're hoping, okay, Ron Smith is going to do everything we say is going to do as long as we don't

recall him, and then we'll get two of our people in, and we've just flipped the county. Yeah. That's what I think is going on. Yeah, I think that's a reasonable playbook of what is happening right now in Joe County. All right, Herman, well, we'll see what happens. we don't know what's going to happen with the commissioner recall tonight, the recall vote. Tonight is it, and I hope people weigh in, and also folks need to remember that if you don't want the recall to happen, you have to vote.

Just not voting is not a no vote on this, okay? That's all there is to it. And that's, I appreciate you bringing that up. That's educating the voter out there because it's really easy to say, I'm not voting to kick Barnett out and then boom. In the trash can it goes because they think by not voting is a no vote. Yeah. That's simply not true.

All right. Hey, Armin, always appreciate it. And I guess we'll see what happens with the smoke clears this week, okay? Talk you next Tuesday. Be well. All right. You take care. Okay.

Former state senator, Herman Berchiger on KMED, KMED, HD, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Boy, I've got to tell you, price of gold, price of silver, price of platinum, by the way. Platinum's like doubled over the last year. there seems to be, I think it's about doubling, yeah, there has just been such a bull market and a lot of the reasons, a lot of reasons for this. You have central banks as an example that are stock piling gold everywhere around the world. You have the United States even talking about revaluing. It's Fort Knox gold, you know, the gold that's within Fort Knox, instead of the $42 from the

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