Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-17-25_FRIDAY_7AM

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Outdoor report with Greg Roberts at Rogue Weather, Tik Tok Ban and more, Sen. Jeff Golden, ODF Tim Holsch back talk the wildfire map issues, law, appeals, challenges addressed.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Nine minutes after seven, Mr. Outdoors will join me here in a couple of minutes. State Senator Jeff Golden at 730, at 735 or so I think is when we're going to get on the air and talk about the fire map and the various controversies about that and from all accounts it was a pretty contentious uh people yelling at him not letting him speak kind of kind of town hall meeting and it's uh interesting times interesting times and i think it's more than just because people are angry at the government i think people are angry at this particular government under left-wing control

i could be wrong about that but hey remember some some Republicans idiotically voted for Senate Bill 762. But we'll have to ask him. Maybe, you know, I've never even had the opportunity to ask the senator, why did we need this in the first place, I guess, is really, you know, what we would have to start with. And then we'll move along, okay? So, Mr. Outdoors, like I i said will be joining me here in just a moment after the hannity update and a bunch more by the way breaking news uh the tiktok ban looks

like it's going to go into effect it can be put into effect and supposedly according to the law you know sunday it's supposed to go away uh biden administration says it is not going to enforce a tiktok ban and they've kind of tossed the hot potato into the Trump administration. And President Trump, from what I understand, has discussed in the past of wanting to put a moratorium or hold off on this and try to find another way to deal with it other than just an out-and-out ban of the app. So that's it, though. Supreme Court, though, did rule this morning that TikTok can be banned, that Congress does have that authority. Okay. All right. There we go. One of each. K4VIN 016551 MSRP 20 years. Bill Meyer.

Mr. Outdoors is here. Outdoor Report. Every Friday, we like to talk about things like that. Sponsored by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority on Airway Drive in Medford. And Mr. Outdoors, we appreciate you being here. Wanted to talk about TikTok, man. You're going to move to TikTok now? Now that TikTok is going to be alive, at least? Well, it could be gone Sunday, but then Trump says he's probably going to keep it alive. What do you think?

Well, okay. I was planning on it, then I put it on pause, waiting to see what was going to happen here with the government. You know, and it's kind of interesting. Donald Trump in the first term was a very outspoken opponent of TikTok. Why are they gone? Absolutely. He did support in the first term TikTok bans.

And I was very leery about the program because once I found out it was in China, you know, I already know that, you know, virtually every other social media platform ever created was definitely harvesting all kinds of things about us. Facebook especially, because you will never convince me that Mark Zuckerberg ever developed that on his own. That's the cover story, and I truly believe that. Well, yeah, I've read enough about this, too, that, yeah, yeah, yeah. We know that this was basically, in fact, most of the social media, a lot of the social media have essentially been having their roots in intelligence agencies. Let's just be real, okay? Yeah, let's be very real about that, because it's a genius way to do all kinds of things without having to expend a lot of both money... And those pesky constitutional rights and protections. Exactly. So, no, it's perfect for, you know, that.

And so knowing that, knowing TikTok was based in China and not really wanting to feed the Chinese a whole bunch of data, I avoided it. Yeah, same here for the same reason. And yet TikTok pays more and pays better than any of the other social media. I'm going to get into that as a personal situation. But now we jump to the last election, and the Trump campaign used TikTok extraordinarily effectively. And I can say that for a fact, not just my own opinion. I can say that for a fact, looking at how those between 18 and 30 voted for him. Yeah, it definitely moved the needle. There's no doubt.

And those people now, their chief source of information on everything is TikTok. So clearly, you know, it is a tool that can be used for just about any purpose you want and now of course trump has done a complete 180 on it in fact stupid americans give give all your information to us and we eventually we eventually turn your women into sex slaves for us have good day all right yeah and then eventually you know so i'm listening to a major leading conservative who himself does not go on tiktok talking about how trump you know since this is probably one of the first things he's likely to inherit is actively working already on trying to make sure tiktok doesn't get shut down. That doesn't surprise me.

Yeah. A lot of people were asking me, you know, writing me about this and saying, well, why can't you just build a new TikTok and have an American-owned? I said, well, it's because you have people that have built their entire careers out of being influencers, you know, that kind of thing. Right. Exactly. You know, it's kind of funny, you know,'d like everybody you know in a newer vehicle we have satellite radio in it and emily you know our daughter just loves listening to you know all of the current hit radio which of course most of that stuff drives me up the wall but one of those stations did something we used to do all the time. And by we, I mean you and I.

The prank phone call, which itself may have been entirely set up, but they prank called a TikTok influencer who clearly derives every bit of money they exist on from TikTok. And they warned her that it was going to get shut down. And then they said, unfortunately, we're starting to shut down some of the biggest influencers. And she bought it hook, line and sinker. So whether the whole thing was scripted, I don't know. But it was hilarious to listen to because she just flat loses it. Yeah, well, I would really like to see. I'm hoping that President Trump will make the prank call great again, because FCC's really cracked down on that over the years.

It's really hard to do that. Like I said, you and I in our radio careers have both done it. Oh, I know. I know. You know, I once had my morning partner call up, let's see, I had him call up a funeral home in Milan, Ohio. Remember where I grew up? You know, in that area. Yeah, and she was, and my partner pretended to be from the Medford Casket Company.

It was like discount caskets, you know, only, and, you know, and there were, you know, various models. And you could tell that they were looking, oh, I could get a good these caskets but that's a that's a conversation for another time well let's shift away from tiktok because uh senator golden's going to be coming on and tiktok tiktok time goes on right yeah and uh as far as outdoors it's just gonna be dry what the next week or two still and what are we looking at long term okay i'm gonna say the next um i'm trying to do my math, because what it looks like is not this coming week, but the following week, the last week of January, is when we're going to switch out of comes a deluge all at once, at least not from what I see right now, because running out the really extended versions of both the European and the GFS models, they show rain and snow returning, but it's definitely light amounts, especially for the time of the year. So, yeah, we're finally going to get some rain and snow coming back in.

We're finally going to be getting, you know, what I would say more typical weather for the time of the year. And that also will help break up this persistent thing of freezing fog in the mornings and just, you know, kind of that low cloud fogginess in the valleys that may or may not burn off. Yesterday it burned off in Medford and Jackson County, but it never did fully burn off over in Josephine County and definitely did not up to the north. We're finally going to get out of that. We'll see improved air quality conditions that right now we are in moderate conditions that, you know, at the level we're at, you typically will see a lot of that in the summer with fires nearby or at least close enough to influence us. And that's where we're at right now.

So air quality continues to deteriorate down here in the valleys. And the bad news is that's probably going to continue for about another, what, 12 days or so before we really get to where we think there'll be enough to break the inversions, knock it out. That persistent high pressure ridge is going to be replaced by low pressure. And the other part of this, too, that needs to be said is when that storm door opens, it looks like some rain will even make it into Southern California. That's interesting. They'd love to see that, I'm sure. Well, yeah. And the other good part is, you know, typically with Southern California, when they have the fires that completely strip the hillsides off, typically what happens is they get really heavy rain events come

in. And then the mud slides. Debris slides. This time, it looks like the rain that will come in will be far more of a gentle type rain that will be perfect for really helping snuff out any hot spots on any fires that remain out there. good news was it looks like all the lines held on Palisades and Eaton Fire, and now winds have decreased down there, thank goodness. So hopefully we're going to see containment percentages increase. But the bad news is, you know, normally with fires, when they impact populated areas, we have a period of time where we have to keep the fire areas, and I say we, firefighters, going back to my background, you have to keep people out of their homes until you can complete all risk assessment, meaning do we have trees now that we've got to take out that are a danger? What other dangers are out there that need to be mitigated? We've got to restore power and gas service to the area, if at all possible, so when people go home, they can

have lights, they can have heat, they can cook, you know what I'm saying? The problem is, in Southern California, this is just so immense. Just doing the hazard assessment in the fire areas is going to take a long period of time, then there's so much destruction, and I mean total destruction, it's going to take even longer than that to go through and assess, do we have any kind of toxic hazards left behind? There would have to be some. Some of that.

There'd have to be some. Well, that happened with the Almeda fire, especially on that west side of Phoenix. You know, I went in there with a TV crew from Dakota Fred, and I went into that fire area, and we saw a neighborhood where hazmat crews were working where homes had been burned down in Phoenix. So magnify that, geez, a thousand times down there in Southern California. And if we had that situation with Almeda and Phoenix, guarantee you they're going to have that situation down in Southern California and on a much bigger scale. All right. Hey, if you were going to be going out and fishing or doing some outdoor activity, what would you suggest this weekend in the outdoor?

I, you know, I would definitely be headed to the coast because without the storm activity happening, the ocean conditions are generally much more benign and you can get out and you can go bottom fishing, which you typically can't do at this time of the year, and you can also get out and go crabbing. Now, crabbing is also improving back in the bays and estuaries because we're just not getting that big rush of fresh water coming down and pushing the crabs back out in the salt. So the good news is if you don't really feel like venturing out on

the ocean, you can throw your crab pots right there in the bays and estuaries. And you can fish for bottom fish because they move in in the bays and estuaries. And, you know, without storm activity, you don't have to worry about waves hitting jetties. So the good news is you should be fine on fishing and crabbing and have success, even if all you can do is fish off of piers and off of jetties, because we just don't have that kind of storm activity. What we are seeing right now is, you know, being where we are on the, you know, eastern side of the Pacific, we still will get a lot of what's called fetch rolling in. And there are storms out in the Pacific, and from time to time you can get, well, I'm looking for the exact right word here, but sneaker wave situations coming in because of those very distant storms. And this is when sneaker waves can become even more of a danger because there's no obvious storminess going on with us. It's just all of a

sudden here comes this big sneaker wave that was generated by a storm, you know. Yeah, and you've posted pictures on RogueWeather.com, by the way, of these just idiots that are just standing by there and trying to get their latest social media posts. How dangerous. It's like, just don't go for the shot. That's insane. And I'm bringing this up because we do have a possibility for sneaker waves hitting the southern oregon coast from saturday afternoon to sunday afternoon all right but still head out there that's the place to be this weekend risks will be west facing beaches okay that's facing is pretty much all of them over there

well he's on the coast that's for sure all right hey greg thanks so much we will talk soon and uh be well this weekend over at rogueweather.com. You always appreciate the look there. And go get your TikTok account, okay? We'll talk a little later, all right? See you. Greg Roberts at RogueWeather.com. 727 at KMED, 99.3 KBXG. Looking for your next adventure?

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Hi, I'm Amber Rose with Siskiyou Pump Service, and I'm on KMED. And you're on the Bill Myers Show. It is 733 Friday morning. And there was a town hall with State Senator Jeff Golden yesterday, pretty contentious at times, and had a little talk with him last night about it. And he agreed to come on this morning and talk about Senate Bill 762 and the wildfire map. And he also brought along Tim Holschbach of the Oregon Department of Forestry. Tim, I'll introduce you first. Good morning, Tim.

Welcome. Thank you for having me. And what do you do over at ODF, Tim? I serve as our Deputy Chief of Policy and Planning in our protection. Okay, very good. Senator, great to have you on as always. Welcome back. It's been years since we've had a chance to talk, and we really should talk a little bit more often.

How are you doing, Jeff? I agree with that, Bill. Thanks for asking me on. Okay. Well, I have to tell you, and the reason I reached out to you earlier this week is that I've been getting peppered, and the email boxes are filled up, and I imagine you've probably been getting a lot of incoming, too, about the fire maps. And it got real, especially with all the letters going out to the affected property owners and before we even move forward here and why did we need senate bill 762 or what was the actual purpose of this in the first place it's it's one thing i

think a lot of people are still scratching their head over could you help us okay well yeah i'm going to try to be brief though because i know we got a lot a lot to talk about. But 762, which passed in 2021, is a very broad bill, you know, for understandable reasons and all the attentions on the wildfire map and all of it goes along with it. That's like 5% of this bill. So no way we'll talk about the whole bill. But it was a product of really several years' deliberation as every 10 years starting in the 90 bill, but it was a product of really several years deliberation as every 10 years, starting in the 90s, the number of acres, average acreage that burned in Oregon doubled.

And then what finally kicked us over the top was the 2020 wildfire season, which of course was devastating in our valley, but had major fires all over the state. And then, you know, and we're getting yet a fresh reminder of what's happening with Los Angeles, because Los Angeles, if you look historically, has kind of been the preview of coming attractions for the whole West Coast. It moves northward. So there was a realization we are in an entirely new era when it comes to wildfire. We have to employ, deploy the smartest and best proven methods we possibly can. And I would say, briefly, it is working quite well in every area except this wildfire map situation. And I got to say, yes, it was contentious last night at the town hall.

There were very upset people there. I got to say that I understand. I mean, it was, I'll tell you, it was frustrating not being able to answer the questions because so many people kind of were shouting out there more questions. It wasn't the kind of most productive thing, but I got to say, I fully understand the frustration right now because the mapping system we have doesn't factor in the work people do on their own property and is difficult to understand in many properties if you're just walking around the ground. Now, there are reasons for that. It is a scientifically based system, the classifications of what are the factors that have started and fueled these massive fires all over the West. So I'm not saying it's kind of all nonsense.

What I'm saying is it doesn't make sense to a lot of people. And I don't know if we can get where we need to be if it doesn't make sense. Well, here is the— That's what I'm pondering. Yeah. Senator, one of the challenges that people have brought up to me is the appeals process. And I'm going through the law, ORS 477.490. These are the rules for the statewide map of wildfire risk.

This is what we're mostly going to be talking about. And so it establishes a specific process for appeals through which a requested change in assignment is assessed or based on. And you can use any pertinent facts that may justify a change in any error in the data the department used to determine the assignment if the error justifies a change. But also, most importantly, though, that map must be sufficiently detailed to allow the assessment of wildfire risk at the property ownership level. This is the actual laws and the rules requirement. And this wildfire map does not. It does not. It does not give you granular data. In fact, Bob Hart, land use consultant who I spoke to, said, you have no way of understanding how the map came up with this particular rating because it's like you can't see the work. It's like trust the algorithm.

It's like an algorithm on a social media platform. You don't know how it is, but this is the answer that it came from so how how so bob bob brought that comment up last night in the meeting and i i've been working with bob he's been very constructive throughout this whole thing uh and that's like very high on my list to follow up i thought that with analysis you could get a breakdown in numbers bob had something different to say about that. But because he works every day in this sphere, I wonder if Tim wants to address that or any of your questions about the appeals. Yeah, Tim, could you address that appeals process? Because the way it has been presented to me and looking at the wildfire map letters, one was scanned by a listener and sent to me, it appears that heads the state wins, B, the property owner loses,

or tails, the property owner loses, and that there is really no way to get a classification change. Is that true or not? I think that was even said in that last night's meeting. Thanks for the question. So I wanted to identify that the way the map, the classifications are established is that each tax lot is assigned a hazard rating. And that rating is a number, and then it's associated with one of three buckets, either low, moderate, or high.

Right. It's not essentially just moving from high to moderate. It's appealing the number that's associated with the property to a range that's within the other class. There are more rules than this 477490. There's also Oregon Administrative Rule 629-044. That division of rules also associates with the wild and urban interface and how the hazard map is created. So with that, the map itself is actually an average of the pixelated hazard values across property. A pixel is about 30 meters by 30 meters, so about 100 feet by 100 feet square.

And those are averaged, all those pixels that are within a tax plot are then averaged across that boundary, and then that is what is resulting in the hazard rating. So it's more granular than the broad brush approach that, you know, there's only three buckets that it can go in, but it's more granular than that. Why can't we see the math? Why can't we see the formulas? Why can't we see the input? Because otherwise it's like it's a totally opaque system from what I can tell. So on the Organic Explorer, you can actually, you can download the pixelated data and the wildland and renegotiation layers. You can. On there. So they're available for public download. They don't have,

due to not sharing tax lot information, they don't have the tax lot boundaries, but you can see those pixels that are associated with the geography. Okay. Now, on the appeals process then, it's generally accepted that there seems to be no real way to change this and that hardening your property has nothing to do with your rating. And this would seem to be contrary to the actual rules, to ORS 477.490 in which the administrative law judge is supposed to be there to hear and make common sense. We have this on this map here, Tim, and I would also say State Senator Golden,

there are properties that are rated high that have absolutely no vegetation, that are concrete and asphalt. And you're trying to tell me that the administrative judge says, no, you're just going to keep your high rating it doesn't make sense and it is against the law according to 477.490 where am i wrong on this so the hazard map itself is a construct of the environment that our environment that our communities are built in that's's the four criteria. They're climate, vegetation, weather, and topography. So it doesn't have any association with the built environment at all. And that's one of the challenges as we work. Okay. No, wait a minute. I just want to hear that I heard you

that it doesn't have anything to do with the built environment. Did I hear that correctly? Correct. There's no references or in performance relations that the built environment? Did I hear that correctly? Correct. There's no references or in formulations that the built environment has an effect on the hazard map. Okay. That makes no sense at all. So what I can say about this, Bill, and here is you're at the crux of people's frustration, i think understandable frustration i've walked quite a few properties with property owners around all this and and um it's it's really hard to absorb but what the best science we could find over the last 20 years is is that fires have reached a pitch of intensity flame flang length, ember showers, such that a particular

property itself doesn't determine the likelihood of mega fires. So if you went down to any of the catastrophic community fires, LA right now, Paradise, kind of any of them, you could have found properties that were as, you know, where people did the best fireproofing job they could on their properties, and fires just blew right through them. It sort of didn't matter. And I would agree with you that, and even then when you talk about Almeda, we're talking about an arson set fire in a 60 mile an hour wind event. And I don't think there's much of anything that would have made much difference because look at, I mean, you know, essentially an arson based fire destroyed 23, 2600 homes and businesses and killed a few people here.

And there probably wasn't much that was going to stop that. So, well, you're you're you're you're right. I mean, I don't you know best i know the arson part is undetermined but in a in a way i mean our arson is horrible we have to do everything we can to stop it but for this conversation it's not that relevant because it was human cause but you're talking about but you're talking about hardening against fire storms or putting uh this sounds like about a firestorm i don't know if you're if you can realistically uh put a regulation to try to stop firestorms unless you just get

people off the land and people wonder if that's what the intent of all of this is ultimately the whole other discussion which you know i don't i don't buy that at all but i i heard it last night i heard there's a there's an agenda that's what makes this conversation even harder but some people really believe there's a gender we're not talking about i don't know everybody in the fire community or even in government i know the people i work with do not have an agenda to drive people off the land but let's save that for another day but the point is so the almeda fire ignited it ign ignited a half mile from my home, and I don't know why. It blew the other direction. But in all probability, those kinds of things are going to happen again.

Some people believe it's arson. I don't know. You know, campfires, whatever, people say we need to deal more with the homeless and mental illness. All true. But there will be ignitions. So what happens after there is an ignition? In the Almeida fire, I think that's, you know, one example of why we have to pay a lot of attention to what's in people's yards. Because among, you know, it was the the bear creek corridor the vegetation there and the you know the the

nature of of yards that all made for wick that blew this fire allowed this fire to blow from north aspen to south medford and i and i agree with you i don't know if i want to re-litigate all media at the moment okay in our limited time what i do want to focus i just say that the arson question i mean it's important we need to look at that but it doesn't relate to how we can best protect ourselves well when we're looking at that would be very a very good thing to do yeah when we're looking though at the fire map here senator as senator jeff golden with us this morning i take it to the law and this is where the biggest thing about we can appeal, but you can't change your classification. And you're looking for solutions, right? You were looking for solutions yesterday, and I think the solution is within 477.490, Because 7B, Section 7B of the law says that any pertinent facts that may justify a change in the assignment.

All right? And we're not talking about being able to harden against a firestorm coming through. So in other words, you know, the Forest Service burns down, and so we're supposed to be able to survive that. It's not realistic here. We're talking about what the administrative law judges will be doing when people appeal their rating. And if you bring up justified facts that I've got water tanks everywhere, I'm green, I have no trees and whatever the case might be, and I'm perfectly safe. And I'm being told that this cannot change the rating. That is nonsense. And it is against the law, according to these rules. The rules say that they're supposed to be considered here. And if they're not going to be considered, you need to get in touch with the Secretary of State and have the Secretary of State school the administrative law judge on what's going on and what the rules actually say about ORS 477.490

about this map, and could you do that? Well, I'm going to defer to Tim because he's living daily in the appeals world, and he's going to give you a smarter answer than I can. All right, well, Tim, take a shot at this one because uh the law appears to say and there's peace within our law and this idea that uh you know heads the state gets its way entails the uh property owner loses their appeal does not match what the law says and so why you know we need to follow the law here. Can you help me out? Yeah, so 477490 is titled Wildfire Map. Yeah, these are the rules.

And in fact, it's the rules that are meant to be followed in this. Yep, so that the appeals of the pertinent facts that may change the assignment have to tie to the sections higher in the law. So I would refer back to section four there that the map is based on climate, weather, topography, and vegetation. And we're not allowed to know, but we're not allowed to know what is that formula to contest that. You know, it's just, you know, a map coming from the state university system. Thank you very much. And, you know, you're trying uh and you know you're you're trying to fight something that you can't even get the evidence of it here's just the number this is the rate and good luck with your appeal that is not transparent government here tim helping out here so there is a there actually is a step-by-step methodology guidebook associated with how that

how those um factors were integrated into the map, how they were modeled, how the pixels were averaged together. Yeah. How could you, though, average the pixels about vegetation if the vegetation is not there, as an example, because of property owners and a bunch of property owners have done this, have helped themselves to harden? So for that question, I would actually refer you over to the administrative rules that are also associated with the map, where those factors are combined into those two portions of burn probability and wildfire intensity. And those are the portions that are then averaged into the pixel creation.

And again, that's in the step-by-step methodology manual that's on ODS website. It's also on the OSU's hazard map website there. And as well, if it's not a reader, feel free to, there's a great 12-minute video on OSU's webpage that actually talks through the whole creation of that map as well. And that's the same book when people are asking questions of how do I appeal or where do I find the information? We have a conversation and I send them that. And then we'll send a follow-up appointment for a week later to talk through some of the more detailed statistics.

But Tim, if the judge is not going to follow the law, how do we get the judge to follow the law to consider pertinent facts of common sense? I'm not talking about the university systems uh pixelated map the common sense of hardening and water availability and all the rest of this stuff this is nonsense that i'm hearing you know from this under the guise of uh of trying to make sure that we have this blanket rating of all these different lands. One size fits all. It's wrong, and it seems to be against the law.

Against the law, the rules here. The judge is supposed to consider this. Otherwise, what's the point? Well, Bill, my follow-up from last night is a few things, and a couple of them are looking at the argument you're making about what the administrative law says right now but the other one that i think is real is is troubling was a claim that was made that is counter to what i've heard before which is that people can't see the numbers you can't if you want to appeal you have no access to the numbers that were used to analyze your property bob hart who has forgotten more about this than any of us know, Senator, has said this.

I heard it. Okay. And I'm going to vet that today. If that's true, I think you have a very valid point. So does Bob. If this is numerically based and you're making an appeal but you can't see the numbers, that is improper procedure. I agree with that. So I'm betting that today.

Okay. Because I just want to get to what's really true about that on that point. That's a problem. All right. Would you consider, you know, at this point, you know, the way this looks here, Senator, is that, and I'll go to a different ORS here, 477.504. Reduction of wildfire risk does not expand, diminish, or otherwise affect a right, privilege, duty, or function established under federal, state, or local law or rules that pertain to the management of private lands in this state. This would almost seem to completely negate the purpose of Senate Bill 762 in the first place. In other words, it's a constitutional protection, and neither of you are lawyers.

Am I wrong? Would you read that sentence once more? Yeah. It says this is ORS 477503. This is right near the other law we were talking about. And that reduction of wildfire risk does not expand, diminish, or otherwise affect a right, privilege, duty, or function established under federal, state, or local laws or rules that pertain to the management of private lands in this state. And what's your takeaway from that? Well, I was, you know, I look at this and I read that.

And of course, the laws are supposed to be understandable by the common man constitutionally. I guess I'm common, right? That would strike me as saying that the state doesn't really have, you know, the right to go into this. I'll set that aside for right now. Yeah, we could maybe offline later. We could talk about that. I don't interpret that sentence to say what you just said. Okay.

But I'm willing to talk more about that. All right. Also as a non-lawyer. Now, we know, though, that another aspect of this is, is this map going to be used to assess wildfire fighting fees that you know, or some sort of assessment in the future? No. No, there's a whole separate conversation going on that I'd love to talk about sometime about how do we fund wildfire programs and where should the money go. Yeah, I know the proposal is to grab the kicker, right? There's like eight or ten proposals.

But let me say this. One of the things I kind of got last night, and I want to be totally blunt about this, is people were saying, how are you going to solve this? And, you know, don't, I can't afford any more anywhere. And they talked about their utility situation, their insurance situation, also worth another conversation, by the way. So, you know, you're in government, you need to fix this and don't come to me for more money. That's sort of a paraphrase. I don't think that's possible. One thing I just got to keep saying, you brought up really important things people did last night. We're going to continue to talk about them. There is a reality here that we are in a new age about this. I think, I really believe,

I swear I believe this, Phil, that if we don't take major action and continue with these programs, we'll leave aside the mapping for the moment, which we have to deal with. I think within five to 10 years, we are where L.A. is right now, this valley is. I think there's a lot of evidence for that over the last 20 years and how this problem has migrated northward. And I, you know, I'm sort of I am desperate. I am. I wake up at night and think about this every day so the idea that government can solve this and it's not going to cost us anymore i think is a fairy tale and i'm i'm going to push back against that every time i hear it all right i'll i'll i'll i'll concede your point there i I will not completely bag on that, Senator. Here is the issue, though.

You're looking for a solution. The solution in the administrative appeals process, which has most of the people just ready to just go nuts over, is this idea that you can do whatever it takes to harden your property and then it doesn't matter. Follow the law get together with will you pledge to follow the law and have the administrative in other words uh bust the chops of administrative law judges that are just saying hey you know i'm going to be here to listen to you but uh hey it's probably not going to do anything yeah we got to follow the law that's right one more thing thing about hardening. I have seen walk properties where people have done a really great job on this. They've already done the work ahead of time. You know, where this leads, this will lead eventually, probably, to requirements that you have to maintain certain standards around your property.

Not clear-cutting. That's another discussion. There's a lot of misinformation about what's required. But those folks who've done that are ahead of the game. They've done it. So where that factors in and where they get rewarded is later in this process. That said, I'll say it again. I really haven't walked a lot of properties. Get the frustration. Have a call later today with other wildfire leaders, sharing some of what happened last night, some of the points you're making. This is in play. And what's so difficult is I really believe we have to move this program

ahead. I think every, we're whistling past the graveyard every fire season, but we've got to do what we can to get it as close to right as possible. So this conversation is not ended. Yeah, there's also another aspect of this that what concerns me is that all government, even the state of Oregon, rules by consent of the governed. And down in our particular area, since we're the area most affected by this, the consent is being withdrawn in people's minds. And it's going into dangerous territory. You saw some of that yesterday, I think, or potentially.

I get that, Bill. I agree we're getting into dangerous territory. Senator, I appreciate your call. Thanks for making it on this morning. Tim Halschbach of the Oregon Department of Forestry, thank you for your input on this too, Tim. We appreciate both of you. Okay? Appreciate the focus on this bill. Take care. All right. Be well. And I think we'll definitely have another conversation about this soon. Okay. 759 KMED, KMED HD one Eagle point Medford, KBXG grants pass. Hi, this is Dwayne Barkley with KMED.

This is news talk one Oh six three KMED. This is News Talk 1063 KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. The lines are filled right now. You know what we're going to do is probably have an open phone segment after 830, after 830. And this way I can give good credence to your response to the conversation with Senator Golden and the ODF individual who I was speaking to, Tim. And it is – and Ed, Mr. X, you heard that. I'm still very frustrated after this because I'm just trying to get people to follow the law here. I know you're just trying to get people to follow the law here.

And if we're supposedly looking for results, wouldn't following the law on even the appeals fix a lot of what is going wrong with this map? That's exactly right. And I sense the, you know, in the response from the ODF guy that was talking, I don't see, I saw a resistance to that. Well, all in the administrative rule section, it says this and this, you know, well, it sure says a lot, but it also says that you have to remain constitutional for the law to be valid. But I want to go back to a common sense thing. What is the purpose of the map? So you look at fire mapping and what is the purpose? Well, the purpose has to be or should be to identify problem areas for treatment to help reduce the risk, to mitigate the possibility of a catastrophic fire thing. So if you're truly organizing a map to identify treatment, then what you'd want to do is warm areas that have been treated so you know where to go. So those, you know, the private property owners that have

addressed the problem, that have looked at it and invested heavily and worked hard to clear, to make it fire safe, now you have spots within the map that would highlight the areas that need potential treatment. And sure, topography, climate, whatever. We have a climate everywhere that's prone to fire in the summertime here. Sure, yeah. You know, this idea of— But, you know, the idea of hiding—the idea really of hardening to an Almeda firestorm is nonsense, I think. But I could be wrong about that.

You know, unless you're going to make everybody just live underground from this point forward i don't know but maybe i'm wrong about that the almeda firestorm what people forget is that the responders who first responded to that and to start that fire spread so quick it had already damaged the infrastructure by destroying a large part of the water that was being pumped. And you've got to remember, we only had 4,000 gallons a minute in the water line that the environmental collaborative groups had put together through the TAP project. But remember, we also have to remember that they talked about, there was that conversation with the senator and Tim about how, well, you know, the damage has been getting worse and the flames have been getting higher. Well, of course, they're putting in the average of the once in 100 years, you know, 60-mile-an-hour wind event, and an arson started fire, you know, in that.

That's right. To justify that and i look at it historically how old is medford how old is jackson county how old is southern oregon and where have these fires been all these years well they haven't been because we've had fires but it's response it's resources and response. And if you respond to a fire under a plan of saying fire is your friend and we have to burn for land management, this is the concept or the construct that's going wrong. Well, yeah, it's been, well, it's been years now of having to assume that we don't fight it, we let it burn. All right. Well, yeah, it's been years now of having to assume that.

We don't fight it. We let it burn. All right. Well, the let it burn. Okay. All right. All right. Hey, Ed, I got to roll here because we have Commissioner Roberts and the current U.S.

Forest Service fire supervisor or the forest supervisor. And we're going to talk a little bit about that and other things. And I promise, folks, we will have open phones on this. And so you can have at it after 8.30 news, okay? Well, Bill, I want you to update us. Okay. I'm losing your cell there, Ed, but I'm sure it was a good one.