Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-05-25_WEDNESDAY_8AM

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Rob Schlapfer from the Oregon Education Project - working to take the woke out of OR education, we talk the miserable stats in the school, a meeting for Saturday, how you can get involved. Open for Business, hot deals, staying warm Advanced Air and Randal

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. With a high of 41. 11 after 8, we have the Kim Commando digital update coming up here. We're looking at about 29 degrees, still pretty frozen and a little bit of foggy sort of thing. That will burn off to just kind of foggy and glop. Or just cloudy and glop, I think,

with the snow and all the rest of it. Although I must say, Southern Oregon looks very clean and pretty under all of the snow. That is for sure. A lot of people sending me their pictures. Best of luck. I know Francine, by the way, had mentioned that it's taking ski poles for her to go out there and walk and get across the street in order to see neighbors. And I have some hiking poles. I think I'm going to start keeping those in the car there too, Francine.

I'm right there with you, okay? Price of gold this morning is seeming to indicate that they're still looking for more. Let me see if I can get you the latest here. I always go to Bert's gold page on Lew Rockwell, get the current one. 2870. Yesterday I was talking to you about it. It was 2830. Day before that, it was 2806.

This is still reflecting not inflation because the dollar is actually very strong right now. So it's not the standard thing. We have strong dollar and extremely strong gold at the moment. And what this is seeming to me to indicate is the possibility of disorder, tumult, and uncertainty of what is going on. And this is where gold and, to a lesser extent, silver really shines. By the way, silver has popped up more over the last few days now pushing 32 33 bucks an ounce there somewhere in there it is not too late to either you know get some or if you're looking at these prices saying hey i'm selling right now maybe i think this is a peak one way or the other talk to jay

austin jay austin and company gold and silver buyers in ashland 1632 ashland street knowing them even in spite of the weather they'll be there today unless they tell me otherwise. That's just the way they roll. Also, 6th and G in downtown Grants Pass. That's by appointment. And you can call 482-3715 to set up your appointment. And Mark will meet you up there. But they know these markets.

They help you out. And they're big about you keeping physical gold and silver within your control and not putting it, like all of the national firms are saying, putting it into a gold-backed IRA, which of course is then known by the federal government, if things ever go a little sketchy. Now, I know we have President Trump right now, but who knows what happens. You can't predict the future, but I would just as soon keep it out of the view of the Fed. Just saying, okay? And you can do this.

Talk to your financial advisor. Then talk to Jay Austin. Ashland, Grants Pass, Fortunereserve.com. Kim Commando's digital update. That's in a matter of seconds. Always great info. This hour of the... Hear KMED and Grants Pass on 105.9, K290AF, Rogue River.

In South Jackson County on 1067, K294AS, Ashland. Schools are closed this morning. Probably will be closed tomorrow. Maybe the day after that. I know the weather has really blown a hole through the educational process. But when you look at the at the test scores, boy, I don't know. Maybe we're just avoiding some of the damage. That sounds a little cynical. Maybe I shouldn't be this way, but Rob Schlaufer joins me. He's working to try to fight and vanquish my cynicism in the public education system. And he is one of the people involved in the Oregon Education Project.

OregonEd.info is the website there. Rob, I know that it was kind of a little too snowy and you just don't want to be on the road if you can help it this morning but i'm glad you could get on the phone how you doing today i'm doing great i much prefer being live in the studio to have a real conversation but i'm happy to be here and it's and it's a really a critical time right now for education particularly particularly in Oregon. You ended up having a talk with some state legislators last week, and this is kind of going down into, all right, there's the Trump administration, and then there's the Oregon Department of Education.

No doubt they will not see eye to eye. But on the other hand, the Trump administration ends up holding sway then over grad stream funding. And that should make the Oregon Department of Education really set up and take notice. And I'm sure they couldn't be happy because we are looking at what, 10 to 15 percent of public school funding could be at risk if certain school policies continue in the Oregon public school system. Is that a fair assessment of what's going on? It is. And, you know, my estimate is about 11 percent. But still, that's significant. That's a significant amount of money. Sure. And it's particularly targeting grant monies that go to provide material that are used in

classrooms. And, you know, what exactly is ODE investing those funds in? And just to back up a minute, in case people don't know, last Wednesday, the Trump administration issued an executive order called Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools. And it really focuses on two things. One is this radical gender ideology, which I know you've talked about a lot over the last couple of years, which is very widespread in some Oregon school districts. And the other side is what they call ending discriminatory equity ideology, which is another way of talking about the presence of critical race theory and intersectionality in schools,, popularly people talk about identity politics. At the source of it, though, is it essentially, you know, everybody hates on Whitey, and Whitey has to feel embarrassed to be Whitey, and then, you know, Whitey needs to do something about it? Is it that simple or a little more complex? Well, it's a little more complex. In fact,

you know, I'm doing this talk Saturday, you know, weather permitting, where we're going to look at woke education and what that means. Okay, okay, before you do that,, I'm doing this talk Saturday, you know, weather permitting, where we're going to look at woke education and what that means. Okay, okay, before you do that, before you go into this talk then, where is it going to be and what time? It's going to be Saturday, 6 o'clock, Saturday at the Medford Library. Again, weather permitting. If we have to cancel because of the weather, we'll probably redo it on Zoom. But the real focus is what do we mean by woke education? And we will look at what the Trump administration is talking about when it says discriminatory equity ideology. The ODE and the state believe that the reason why there are disparities between people of color and white people and Asians, which, by the way, they tend to lump them with whites, don't they? Right. They do much better.

And they believe it's because our schools are plagued with white supremacy and that students of color are subject to racial trauma in the schools. Again, that's their language. And the whole equity paradigm really is about redistributing wealth and power. And we want to see more teachers of color. And again, there may be some, you know, again, you know, I don't want to just completely dismiss it. Yeah, there may be some value in some of what's being discussed, but the overall agenda appears to be – well, it's kind of like – and like I said, you're not a conservative or a liberal up there in this organization. You really are kind of a politically neutral kind of thing.

Yeah, absolutely. you're doing your best to try to dig into this, but this, this agenda that the ODE and the state have signed into is arguably what the president of the United States has targeted in these executive orders saying, Hey, you're not going to get the money if you're pushing this stuff. So you got to pay attention to it. Right? Right. Exactly. And I want to make this clear because what the real issue from our perspective, it's the ideology. It really is a Marxist inspiredinspired ideology that has taken over

the educational establishment over the last 20, 25, 30 years. And so this is not about, you know, doing away with efforts to get, for example, stories of Black pioneers and school books and that kind of thing. This is not in any way about trying to go back to an era when people of color were not represented. So this is about getting the ideology, which is driving this out of the schools. And I appreciate you saying that, too, because there's nothing wrong with having a more complete picture of Oregon history, as an example, that may have been overlooked. Perfectly fine.

You know, that's smart. And. Perfectly fine, you know? That's smart. And there's a reason why we have revisionist history. But the way revisionist history has been in practice over the, I would say the last 10, 20 years here, Rob, you probably agree with me on this, is that whatever was good about America has to be trashed and then it has to be replaced with essentially education being a struggle session coming from the neo-Marxists. And anything that was good, nothing good ever came from the past. Everything was evil. You need to hate the system even right now that you're in. I mean, that's really where we are.

It's what you're talking about with this ideology, right? Right. That's exactly right. And that is the problem with critical race theory. And the RV Times posted the last comment that was made. We had five speakers at the Medford School Board meeting a couple of weeks ago, and they published the comments from the last speaker that really underscores the fact that this is really about this very cynical view of America and race in America that's put forward by critical race theory. bought it, you know, the Oregon Department of Education, particularly through its standards, the new social science standards and also the transformative SEL standards, both embraced this idea. And by the way, SEL, for people who don't know, that's social emotional learning, if

I recall, right? Correct. Okay. Which has been around for quite a while, but more recently it has become, you could say it's become woke. That's what transformative SEL is. It now grounds SEL in the same perspective from critical race theory. And, you know, so the real issue here is that our standards have bought into this idea that America is systemically racist. And what that means is that there is a racial

hierarchy in America that's been established. And it's something that's been established unwittingly that promotes white success and penalizes people of color. And that permeates all of the standards that come down from the Oregon Department of Education. So students in Medford, for example, when they're told to look at American history, they have to assume that America is systemically racist, which is something I pointed out to our local curriculum director. They're not given the opportunity to just think about it. You know, might this be true? Is this one way of looking at it? It is just, boom, it's's just boom. The country is racist. You're a victim of that racism if you're a person of color. Hence, goodies for you. And I know I'm kind of, you know, going cutting to a chase, I guess. Maybe that's not entirely accurate, but that is sort of the goal, isn't it?

Right. Well, and that's the assumed framework. And again, this doesn't allow for students to really think critically about these issues. Now, granted, at the local level here in Medford, for example, we have people that are very much committed to making sure idea that the students really do need to think critically about that. The problem, though, is the standards don't. The standards don't really spell that out very clearly, which is why our goal is to get into local schools, local school districts, and actually work with the curriculum directors and the teams that are producing curriculum and are driving what's taught in the classrooms to make sure that students are not being indoctrinated with stuff. And again, that's going to take boots on the ground. And speaking of the boots on the ground, do you think that it actually is going to,

that maybe actually getting into the curriculum direction side of things may be the most effective way to reform public education. Absolutely. And just as an aside about this executive order, I was in Salem Thursday, the day after this, and I talked to several GOP representatives. Of course, the Democrats are going to be completely against this. One of my concerns is that Republicans and conservatives are going to see this executive order and say, oh, problem solved. Trump's going to go in. He's going to withhold money. This is going to get a lot of scrutiny. Now, the executive order says that the president is put together, is given 90 days for the various department heads to come up with a plan, a strategic plan for exactly

how we're going to do that. And when they roll out that plan, you can expect that there are going to be legal challenges left and right, because there is precedent within the government statutes to keep the federal agencies out of curriculum. Curriculum is supposed to be a local issue. It's not just a state issue. Yeah, but if the school district is being paid for curriculum or if, you know, other expenses are being paid by the federal government, he who is bringing the gold tends to have to call the shots, usually. Is that not the case? That is true. But again, these legal challenges could very well kind of nip that in the bud, could stop that. So in spite of the executive orders, people who are looking for a higher quality, less ideological school district and school experience for their kids and grandkids are going to have to be involved in this.

And don't just fall asleep and think that an executive order from one president who's going to be out in less than four years is going to solve this. In other words, this is really where you're coming from, Rob. Yeah, exactly. And that was one of the reasons why I was hoping, you know, I really wanted to get on the call because this is not a time for people who are concerned about this issue to sit back and relax. We really do need people to get involved in their local schools. And again, here in Medford, I think we have a great opportunity to provide balance. The school district, I think, is more than willing to work with parents on these kinds of issues. But they're kind of stuck in the middle. You know,

they're stuck with a situation where, again, Oregon is driving this. Tina Kotak has said repeatedly that she's going to push back on the Trump administration when it comes to Oregon values. And diversity, equity, and inclusion is an Oregon value. Well, diversity, equity, and inclusion is a Democratic Party value in Oregon. It is not necessarily an Oregon value, the bulk of the population. I think most parents are hoping that their children will go through the public school system and know stuff and be functional and be competent. And it's not about their social values in all ways, but it seems to be a very strange set of priorities that you've been talking about.

I think you're really getting on what the real issue is, because the very next day after, last week after the president's executive order came out, we got the test scores from the National Center for Educational Statistics, which is kind of the gold standard measuring where students are with reading and math nationwide, state by state. And if I know how the statistics have been going for Oregon, it probably didn't look good, did it? No, Oregon is actually at the very—they're not just at the bottom, they are the bottom. The Urban Institute did an analysis of the data, and Oregon is 51 out of 51. And the reason, it's really important to ask, you know, why is this? And some of it does have to do with the focus that Oregon has on woke education. The number one state right now is Louisiana. And Louisiana and Oregon are a study in contrast.

Louisiana for the last, you know, 10 years has been very focused, very focused on reading and math. They invested in high-level curriculum for reading and math, and they've been able to get that into about 90% of their schools. They're completely focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic, and they have deliberately stayed away from all the educational fads that become distractions like diversity, equity, and inclusion. Well, with Oregon seeing the results of these tests and understanding that our kids aren't doing well at all, and other kids that are coming out of districts that are just concentrating on truly what the school is meant to do are thriving,

wouldn't that have some effect on saying, hey, maybe we need to back away from this and refocus? Well, you would think. But again, there's a reason why, you know, Elon Musk talks about the woke mind virus. There's a reason why it's called the woke mind virus, because this mentality just captures people. And the Oregon State Board of Education and ODE is just so completely absorbed in this. And again, we knew the proficiency was going down starting around 2013, 2014. Nationwide, we were seeing lower test scores, lower and lower. The pandemic did a lot of damage, particularly here in Oregon. But it also exposed a lot of the rot that was in the educational system. Parents saw it when they were...

Exactly. Exactly. But in states like Louisiana that were smart said, we have to triple our efforts right now because now we have a situation where students who were behind are even further behind. And we have to make up that ground. So that's why they doubled down on their focus. Now, what did Oregon do? Oregon has not been working on a high-level curriculum for reading and math. They've been working on curriculum to embed critical consciousness in students. In fact, the new social science standards, They've hired about 1,000 people to get these standards implemented in schools around the state.

That's 1,000 people that could be getting high-level reading and math instruction into schools around the state. So it really is, from my perspective, a matter of focus. And one of the reasons why Oregon is at the very bottom is, from what I can tell, out of all the blue states even, Oregon is the most focused on woke education. And that's what you're hoping to restore some balance over. Rob Schlaufer is one of the many people in the Oregon Education Project, and you can email him, rob at oregoned.info oregoned.info is the main website too i just want to make sure i got that right is that true rob yes that's right and uh they can follow we'll be putting out and one of the things we're going to be doing i i have uh i have applied to make

public comment at the upcoming uh oregon state board of education meeting next week it's interesting you have to request to make public comment and you have to tell them what it is you want to talk about. And they have the opportunity to say yes or no. But I'm going to be speaking to this issue and particularly raising the question about President Trump's executive order, because it seems to me that even though this is going to go into some litigation and they're going to be issues, this ought to give pause to educators all around the state. Surveys around the country show that this is very unpopular, this whole diversity, equity, inclusion, the presence of critical... All of these things are very unpopular with parents, not only because of the effect that they have

in classrooms in terms of actually creating more racial tension, but again, this whole issue of where are the priorities in local school districts. Yeah, it gets in the way of actual education and also developing skills and competency, which is what parents are hoping their children will get in this system. Well, exactly. And this is the point I raised in my comments a couple of weeks ago with the Medford School Board, is pursuing social justice and equity, those are not educational pursuits. Those are political pursuits. We need to focus on what are truly educational pursuits. And I'm going to be following up the talk we're doing on Saturday.

Next month, we're going to be looking at how do we get students to succeed. We'll look at the science of learning. We'll look at the value of investing in high-level, high-quality curriculum. We'll look at what cognitive psychology is telling us about how students learn. And what you find is there's a whole host of things that educators are doing that are getting in the way of that. And it comes from the fact that our schools of education are not providing good material and good resources for teachers. Teachers, I think, are kind of stuck in many cases without being given the tools to be able to really create success in the classroom. Rob Schlaffer, Oregon Education Project. Now, weather permitting, it would be a Saturday, this Saturday at 6 p.m. We'll just have to see how that works out.

But one way or the other, go to OregonEd.info to stay in touch with the group. And you're looking for people who will war for a quality education for all children, and I think it is something well worth it. Rob, hang on here a second. We'll see if someone's been on hold and something tells me you had a question or comment on what you're doing. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hey, it's Deplorable Patrick. Good morning. I'm not a parent, but I'm a grandpa in terms of school, and when COVID came out, well, you just mentioned this, then the students had to learn from home and the teachers said, oh, no, now they're going to find out what we've been teaching. And my question for you, is there or could there be a law that they have to report everything they teach, maybe even including cameras in the classroom that you can go online and see so that they don't get away with this stuff.

At least we know. I would love to see a law that they report, they give out a report of everything they teach. Rob, I don't know if there's anything, if you get into that or not, could you comment with Patrick on that? What do you think? Yeah, you know, I'm a little just off the cuff. That makes me a little nervous. You know, again, teachers are, it's important to say, teachers are not the enemies here. And again, yeah, I think you've got some teachers who are activists and some teachers who put their political opinions maybe to force in classes. But most teachers right now are struggling with just doing the basics,

and there are a lot of things that work against that. I think, again, our strategy is supportive. We need to support teachers. Teachers have a lot of mandates that come, and schools in general, have a lot of mandates that come down from the Oregon Department of Education, not just mandates with reference to, again, woke education. There are all kinds of things that schools and teachers are expected to do. They're not funded for many of these things. So teachers right now are, again, they are people that need to be supported. The best way to do that, I would say, is get involved with your local district in a positive way. They are not the enemy. The people who run, you know, Brett Champion and his team, in my opinion, are working hard on this issue. Yes, there are legitimate criticisms that people in the community have. She said, we're going to reset our priorities, even for our monthly public school board meetings.

We're going to put student success at the front. We're going to make sure that we are prioritizing student success. That is a positive development. I'm glad to hear that. I really am. And I think the community, and it's kind of like I always, and people who are skeptics, I always say it's the old Reagan adage, trust but verify. Trust but verify. All right.

Like I said, I am tired of my cynicism about public education being so richly rewarded. I would love to see it just vanquished. And so I just said, hey, they're doing the right thing, and the kids are getting better education. Everybody wins, you know. And I'll take one more call here before we take off. Thank you for the call there, Patrick. Hi, good morning. You're with Rob Schlaufer from Oregon Education Project.

Hey, this is Lauren, not in Eagle Point. Hi, Lauren. Rob, question. Do you know how the Eagle Point School District is in kind of in the areas you've been talking about? I'm quite involved in it and i'm thinking even about running for the school board but um i think it's a great idea i think eagle point is great for one thing emily mcintyre is uh our local local representatives i believe she's the chair she's been involved she is one of the best people on this issue that i have talked

to good i think eagle point in many respects, can provide a lot of leadership. And they already have. They were able to adjust some of the curriculum requirements coming down from ODE with reference to sex education. So it's a model. Support that district. They've got some really good people. Rob Schlaffer, once again, we thank you for the time. From the Oregon Education Project and on the web, oregoned.info. And we'll post the information on kmad.com on the Bill Myers Show blog. Rob, always a good thing talking.

All right. We'll see you and have you back. Love sharing, Bill. Thanks a bunch. All right. And stay warm. It is 20 before 9. It's a bit of a challenge this morning in the ice and the snow.

But this is the Bill Myers Show. I'm certainly hoping in all of this interesting weather that we've been having as of late that you don't have to file any insurance claims. You know, whether it's slip and falls or auto accidents or anything else. Hopefully everything is very cool. But I'll tell you, when you do, though, have a claim, it's great to talk to someone who's a friend in the business, and that would be Steve Yancey at Skypark Insurance. Skypark, of course, is an independent insurance agency, and in the midst of all of the cancellations and the doubling and tripling of fire coverage and all the rest of it, he's been an oasis of at least,

hey, he's going to go to the mat and try to find the best coverage for you and your property and your family, whether it is home and auto or life or rental insurance, all sorts of other things. It covers all the lines. It works with lots of different companies. Just call 261-544-4 to find out more, and he'll give you a quote, 261-544-4. Give him a shot, all right? It's been working out really well for me. I got my auto insurance recently, renewal, and I didn't pass out. That was kind of nice really nice okay but on the uh on the medicare side of things well we have

lynn barton who has now joined the team to her number four nine nine zero nine five eight couple of great people good service at skypark insurance skypark ins.com at skypark we make insurance easy one of the check-in with randall at advanced air on open for business the locally owned and operated business segment that we do now and then sponsored by in this case it is randall over at advanced air 772-6866 and i would imagine uh you guys are the what uh how do i how have i termed it with myself sometimes uh randall uh a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest and some days the butts are The, what, how do I, how have I termed it with myself sometimes, Randall? A one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. And some days the butts are winning.

I don't know. But how's it going out there with the weather and the cold, the deep cold especially? Yeah, good morning, Bill. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we, our team is rolling. We've got everybody but a couple of team members that are on board. They were unable to get in because of the road conditions, but we got all vehicles rolling. We're trying to get to as many people as we can

who are left without heat. It is difficult, though. Please understand that these road conditions make it hard, if not even impossible in some cases, to reach everybody. Yeah, if you're having trouble getting out, guess what? You're having trouble getting in. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's taken us longer to perform calls and to get to each site. Instead of doing eight to 12 calls a day, we're doing four or five calls per technician. And I know yesterday, for example, we were hiking in to places in Ashland. So big applause for our technicians for trying to reach as many people as we can and taking great measures to do so. And by the way, Randall's number is 772-6866, 772-6866. And of course, hopefully, if you do have a problem, you're a Comfort Club member,

but Comfort Club member is a big help because if you are a member over at Advanced Air, myadvancedair.com, you get first priority when it comes time for service, right? That's right. That's absolutely right, yeah, along with many other benefits. All right. Hey, tell us about that $1,000 qualifying Bryant equipment rebate there. It's a pretty big thing in case you have blown out your system right now and you're in need of help. Yeah, absolutely. now. You're in need of help. Absolutely. All Bryant residential retrofits are eligible for

up to an additional $1,000 in-house rebate. That is a rebate from Advanced Air. And that is for Bryant ductless and crossover systems. So it's a great savings. It can be stacked with other Energy Trust of Oregon, you know, savings within reach sort of incentives. And you can literally save thousands of dollars on a replacement HVAC system. All right. Now, what is a crossover system? A crossover system is using a conventional indoor fan coil with an outdoor ductless condenser. Oh, OK. All right. I get it now. They're basically modulating outdoor condensers, and the fan coil is a conventional piece of equipment, and you can do some different types of applications for that. You can go with a wall-mounted air handler, you can do a conventional

fan coil in an attic, or you could even do a gas furnace is where the technology is going. So you have some flexibility there is what you're talking about, right? Exactly. Okay. All right, that's good to know. Once again, Randall on Open for Business from Advanced Air, myadvancedair.com. A couple of tips, though, when it comes to heat pumps. I have a heat pump, and I operate it the way you say, and that is just to more or less pick the temperature and set it. And it has worked out so well, the only thing we do, we take it down one degree at nighttime because we sleep better that way. But is that

a pretty good way of working this most of the time? That is the ideal way to operate a heat pump. I had a friend call the other day saying, hey, my system is not, I'm not able to get to heat. And I asked, well, do you have a furnace or a heat pump? And they have a heat pump, but they were operating it like a furnace. When you turn on a furnace, you're adding BTUs to a space, and that's what they're designed to do. However, when you're using a heat pump, which is about half of the systems in our area, they're designed to maintain temperature. So rather than adding BTUs to a space, you're maintaining a temperature and you're actually removing heat and adding heat in a different way.

And so trying to stay, they're designed to stay as close to set point as possible. So if you're setting back the temperature, five or six degrees or turning it off on the weekend and then coming home, whether after work or on a Sunday afternoon, and you're expecting your house to warm up from about 55 degrees to 80 degrees. Oh boy, you're going to have a long wait. And let me tell you, those heat strips that essentially space heater within the heat pump system is just going to be running like crazy, right? Yeah, and that's the costliest way to heat your home is with auxiliary heat. So an auxiliary heat on a heat pump kicks in

to help supplement the call for heat until the equipment can catch up. And so if the margin on your set point is, you know, greater than a few degrees, I mean, your auxiliary heat could be on for hours, which is very expensive. Yeah. And by the way, even at the best, your bill from Pacific Power is likely going to be pretty high right now, given the increases, what, 20% overall increase in power rates for the residents? Yeah. Over the last few months, we've heard and seen reports of an increase of about 20% on power. So yeah, the cost of utility usage is going up for sure. All right. Have they come up with new refrigerants to make everything else obsolete before? They seem to do this. This is coming from FedGov. A little bit.

Yeah. What's the latest on that, huh? We have new refrigerant coming out right now. Hooray! Okay. 454B equipment. means is that if you're running on particularly older refrigerant like R22, which, you know, things prior to 2000, for example, there's a lot of R22 out there still, it's going to be even more costly to repair that equipment. We're going to start running into challenges with 410A equipment in the sense that sometimes you have to replace.

And when you start going down the repair route, you have to replace pretty much the whole thing with 454B if it conks out. So just keep that in mind as you're budgeting and as you're planning. Like everything else, you're saying, in other words, thank you to the new rules, it will be, what, 10% to 20% more expensive, right? Very likely, yeah. Okay. But of course, you could buy a 410A system right now, correct? You can, but the quantity, the inventory is diminishing, and it diminishes pretty rapidly because everybody's trying to sell through their dead stock and then release the 454. So there is a lot of stuff still available in 410A, but it is in the coming months going to be harder and harder to get. Hey, before we take off here, Randall, and by the way, thank you.

Get in touch with Randall and they'll get together with you whether you need a repair or you're looking to actually replace your system. There are deals available. There are other things, but we just wanted to let you know about, hey, the political realities behind the scene. And I shared an email from you the other day, which is talking about the political reality, reality rather, of what Governor Kotick did with her PLA recently. And this is saying that people like you can't qualify for state projects. Is that pretty much it? Could you explain and why this is such a such an attack on Southern Oregon in many ways? Yeah, right before Christmas, Tina Kotek signed an executive order, Executive Order No. 24-31,

and that basically requires all bidders on commercial projects that are publicly funded to be in a project labor agreement or to be unionized, essentially. And that's devastating for hundreds of Oregon construction companies that are not unionized because it basically disqualifies us from the bid, which is really concerning because BOLI has a whole prevailing wage apparatus that protects and provides equality in the bidding process to where non-unionized shops can go after public work by paying prevailing wage, basically matching union wage. Well, this executive order basically disqualifies any non-union shops from bidding public work. Now, aren't most of the shops in Southern Oregon non-union? Most of the HVAC shops, in fact, I think all of the HVAC shops in the Medford area

are, well, I think there might be one that does service, but all are non-union. You know, there are a lot of union plumbing and a lot of union electrical contractors out there that we work closely with. But in our industry, HVAC, we are predominantly non-union. And it's just cost prohibitive to be so because we're both commercial and residential contractors. There isn't enough public work down here to keep us busy. So therefore, you know, we do a broader spectrum. Yeah, but what work is there? You would want everybody to have an equal shot at getting in on this.

Is there any talk about a court challenge on something like this? Do you know within the industry? I don't know if you can or not. How do you challenge an EO? Yeah, you know, I'm vetting through all of that right now. There are some lobbyists that are opposed to this. You know, we have Congress, you know, we can kind of go through. We have some Republican Senate contacts that we're talking to. We have some trade associates that we're working through to get our concern, our voice out there. But, I mean, this is – it undermines the very nature of bully, though, which is concerning. And as an employee, I'd be concerned about that, too, because you have rights as a boldly protected employee. And prevailing wage – and you can get into a whole other discussion about the cost of labor on public works jobs versus private jobs, which is a whole other show. But, you know, prevailing wage is the great equalizer between non-unionized and unionized shops.

This would appear to then be a political gift is what was going on. Absolutely. I mean, it sure looks that way, given that state unions tend to be very generous donors to democratic politics. So it's something to keep in mind. And when you're putting a thumb on the scale of who can actually bid for projects, that is a real problem. We'll stay in touch with you on this one, Randall. I appreciate you coming in at least to share a bit about it because I didn't quite understand it until you and Brad Bennington and others kind of set me straight. This is what it really means, okay? It's catastrophic for local companies that are bidding public jobs that are non-union.

All right. And it's, once again, myadvancedair.com. To find out more, you can call Randall and the whole crew there. Get in touch if you need help, sales service, whatever. And it's 772-672-6866 6 6 gosh i've only done it for like 15 years with you and it just kind of escaped me but i'll get it done okay hey randall thanks for being on open for business okay thank you bill all right this is kmed and kmed hd1 equal point medford kbxg grants pass ready to upgrade your roof to a durable i'm tony dusty with Dusty's Transmissions, and I'm on KMED.

I appreciate you being here this morning. Some emails of the day. Emails of the day are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson and Central Point Family Dentistry. CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. By the way, while you wait, crowns available. We'll have a longer email segment tomorrow. We just ran a little bit long on the various great people we were talking about. But CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com.com check it out i think you'll enjoy that matt wrote me this morning here uh bill trump has no interest in owning gaza he asked egypt and

jordan to take in gaza maniac said that uh yeah well uh these people are nuts and we don't want them here trump's negotiation is to push those countries and others to take these people in. And he wants neighboring friendlier to USA countries to step in and rebuild Gaza and then run it. Trump is right with what Gaza could be if somebody else steps in. It could be a beautiful resort. That could be interesting. Gazalago. How about that, Matt?

All right. We'll see see we'll see about this i think it's a bit of a distraction right now but uh thanks for that matt yeah three minutes after seven let me see what else we got going on by the way we have uh senator jeff golden on the show tomorrow we're going to have him on at 7 3030, talking about Senate Bill 762, 79.2 for that matter. And Todd writes me this morning about this bill. From what little I've heard about Senator Golden's Senate Bill 79, it sounds like yet another attack on private property rights without compensation. Go get him.

Well, we'll have a good conversation tomorrow on this, okay? So 7.30. And I'm glad that the senator is willing to come on as we keep these lines of communication open. Terry writes this morning, hypocrisy alive and well within the Democratic Party bill. Not one vote was cast for Musk that they're all talking about this morning. Now, the question for the Democrats is how many primary votes were cast for Kamala Harris? It's a very interesting point. Thank you very much, Terry in Wairika. Anybody else I wanted to weigh in there? Bill, Wyden does not live in or represent most of Oregon, but then again,

Salem seldom represents most of us either either he's a total call and should have been voted out years ago oregon jop has failed us over and over by not insisting on something more than placeholder candidates election after election thank you very much for that sam all right on that note the email bill at bill myers show.com and as we close out remember the 14th annual wipeout hunger drive at ke's Automotive Service is still going on right now. 40 ounces of peanut butter or 10 or more ounces of jelly to either the Grants Pass or Medford locations. They put a brand new windshield wipers on your car worth up to $35. And by the way, donations up to $500 matched by Tammy Schmidt from Rogue Solutions Accounting and Dr. Emily Sander from the Well Integrated Medicine. We talked with her yesterday. Very good stuff. And they're making a difference

over at Kelly's Automotive. Help them out this week, would you? KMED Weather brought to you this hour by Rotary Drilling Company, a division of Siskiyou Pump Service. From field