Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-11-25_TUESDAY_8AM

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Jackson County Commissioner Colleen Roberts digs into what happened at The National Association of Counties meeting in DC, smoke and fire policy conversation, and the discussion with Trump administration officials.

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 Clouser Drilling.com. K290AF Rogue River in South Jackson County on 1067 K294AS Ashland. It's 11 after eight and Jackson County Commissioner Colleen Roberts joins me in studio. Commissioner, welcome back. Good to see you. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me in.

Hey, you know, having that conversation with Herman Barchinger, of course, former state senator, former Josephine County Commission, I know that they're dealing with a lot. I mean, dealing with serious, serious economic blowback and changes, having to do buyouts for employees and things like that. And I imagine that would kind of color it. I'm a little more guardedly optimistic, I think, over where we may be looking in the next few years here because of Trump administration policies filtering down to the state and maybe forcing

more common sense, at least I'm hoping. I'm kind of curious, what is Jackson County, in your view, looking at here? Now, I know you're a wealthier county than Josephine, but how is it looking over all you think? Well, we have every department looking to see what kind of federal grants they get. Our staff is analyzing that at every department level and our budget reviews start this Thursday and Friday. And I know from talks earlier that we are just budgeting very conservatively and cautiously for our operations. So we're not caught flat-footed. Are we seeing any reduction in force that's going to be necessary for the next fiscal year or things pretty much staying the course?

We will just kind of several things like say for instance, SRS money that used to come in it probably is not coming. That's secure rural schools. Like say for instance, SRS money that used to come in, it probably is not coming. That's secure rural schools. And schools are made whole, but counties are not. And we are not probably going to budget for that. If we get it, that's great. We can add it.

And I think that's kind of our response on most any federal grant we're looking at that if, you know, if we get it, it's good. I think a lot of the news that's coming in may be not be as accurate as possible. Like I was telling you, I was just at the National Association of Counties meeting in Washington, DC. And there are several areas. We met with Congressman Benz and Westerman Staffer, but Congressman Benz, and they informed us that all of the water grants for infrastructure and rural counties has not been frozen. There's a lot of grant monies for our really good and benefit as a whole

that isn't frozen. Firefighting money and hiring has not been frozen according to the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service. Okay, wait a minute. Take it a bit further because one of the biggest things that I saw, like even Newswatch 12 story in Callahan, I know it's Callahan's little town, but they're out there protesting Trump saying he's cutting our firefighters, all the rest of it. I don't know, maybe they're talking about firefighting grants, maybe grant stream funding is being nipped a little bit. I don't know, how did you? Grant stream funding, like maybe I know push for firefighting and for active timber management is well on the move and supported by this administration, by President Trump's executive orders and by funding. Now, whether they're going to support just continue to light off our forests in our country and fire may be stopped. I hope that's the case. But we'll meet with

our board meets with our federal agencies before fire season. And so I hope to hear what I heard it in DC put into action locally that those the hiring is in place, our firefighters are in place, their funding is in place to be ready to put out fires. And I also met with actually ODF Dave Larson the week before I went to Washington and they seemed pretty optimistic of their readiness for fire season. So some of the reporting that's been going on or some of the stories that have been shared about firefighting is going to be gutted this summer, etc., etc. We're going to be burning to a crisp.

Well, we may be burning to a crisp, but hopefully it's not due to a federal fire policy and let it burn. You know, I'm just kind of curious. I've kind of crossed our sideways with some people on this one. I've been concerned on this focus on putting fire on the landscape is going to solve our problems with fire in the summer. Is there a position that the board has on this? I'm talking about the pushing of what I have termed, you know, professional burners, arsonists, whatever you want to call it, you know, in the collaborative world. And I've been kind of concerned that in over the long run, you know, doing burns,

I could see being very helpful in right around our city areas and burning out some of that stuff. But then you have to do it practically every year because you'll burn out the brush one year and it comes back the next. That's just the way it goes. It's healthier. Yeah. Yeah. And there is a real obsession, I would call it, with the prescribed buyer industry and

money. Is it because that's where the money is now? Because money used to be coming in and putting It's a tool, but it's a cheap tool, I suppose, and men on the ground, manual thinning, but that really should be a prerequisite. I know our board's position is that since 2019 is that once it's fire season, the state declared fire season, it's nothing. No burning, full suppression, initial attack. And we have six years of really success stories in Jackson

County. But you're always getting requests from people to do burning in the summer. And that's locally. So locally, have our coordination with federal agencies by law, and we have successfully done that. And I've gotten the resolution at the National Association of Counties for since 2019, so six years, and actually my resolution became a platform last year. And I still took the fire policy. I met with the Department of Wildland Fire, that's another issue. But anyway, but we do have an issue locally. And that's the reason I had met with ODF and Dave Larson

and Dan Quinones, his replacement as our local forester here. In that, how can we implement this more successfully locally? Cause we do have something come up every fire season where I hear about a fire and they want to burn and our board gets actively involved with ODF, which usually is the person giving a burn permit. And we said, you know, we'll write a letter, our policies is please do not issue the burn permit. And we've been

successful. But so how can we better implement this success story and this policy throughout our county? And we're going to start meeting with our fire districts, one-on-one with ODF and see, and my goal is to explain the pathway we have come, the success story we've had with it, and how can they mirror their policies to match ours. And so that's where my next effort is moving towards working with ODF and trying to work with our fire districts. But our policy is in our community wildfire protection plan. So it's part of the plan and we just have to tell the story better, get the information

out and get better just cooperation through every buyer district. To be clear though, Jackson County's policy summertime, it's wildfire season or fire season here, full suppression. No, don't come to us looking for prescribed burns and that you're going to, you know, we're going to burn things down in the summertime because I can show you story after story that shows that there's, you know, prescribed burns that does prescribed fire that ends up getting away and causing major conflagrations in fire season. Even in 2024, there was a fire that broke out, a Tiger Creek fire, something name, it got a name up in Umatilla

County. And it was just days before fire season was expected to end. And I, and it got out of control. And I sent our plan up to the Umatilla County commissioners. I said, why don't you do what we've done? And it's been a success and the fires don't get started. They don't get out of control. And, and. And one of the commissioners got back with me and said, you know, they met with us, they asked us, please, I know fire season is ending in two days, can't we do this? And we gave them permission. And I said, you just can't give an inch. And then it touched off the...

It did, yes. So there's a lot of instances. A prescribed fire has its place. Definitely in the fall and in the spring, it's probably most effective. It's easiest in summer. See, that's just, they want to do the prescribed burns in the summer because it's a lot easier

to make everything go up and smoke. Yeah, it's not as wet. Because it's all dry. Yeah, exactly. That is the challenge. I think ultimately here is that, you know, they're trying to take burning as a replacement for removing fiber and removing grass and brush. And I'm going to talk with

Captain Bill Simpson about this. You know, he has certainly a way about it. You know, he's been pushing for a long time, you know, the Wild Horse Fire Brigade. But really where he's coming from these days is saying that restoring nature's lawnmowers really needs to happen where we don't have as much crunching down of grass and such in the area as we once did when you go back in history. Well there's really a balance to active management. I'm no logging professional by all means. But there is, you know, our timber is way overstocked.

And it does keep growing. It is a renewable resource. But and without people on land, the grasses do, you know, when people are moving timber, they're also moving vegetation as well. And there was hope both at our Federal Lands meeting and I had a follow-up meeting with our Oregon California Railroads, the ONC lands on Friday. And there really is an optimism about the new executive order requiring a timber plan to the president for four years. What is the plan to get our forests under control? Which means that the ONC lands may actually start getting some level of harvesting again. Which is what they're for and that's the majority of our federal lands. Well that's a congressional act. It's a congressional act. It is in law. Well, I mean, for years though, I would

keep holding this up and I would say this is that the ONC Act. It's an act of Congress, but it appeared to have been completely ignored and or crushed, I guess, for a while. So is this possibility that this could be vanquished finally or getting back to some kind of balance on these lands? Well, I would hope that is the outcome. And that is the goal. And you know, even with, and there was a concern, I know I heard Herman Burt Sugar mention it, you know, about the mill infrastructure is gone. And there was a real concern spoken in the meetings in DC from the various counties that, you know, we're concerned there's no acumen to do what we've had done in the past, you know, as far as logging and utilizing the resources effectively.

But I also heard another commissioner say, you know, when the first tree was cut, there wasn't one mill. But when there is there is opportunity and there's resource, private industry has a way of, of, of knowing what to do with it. Yeah. The one thing about this, though though is that there would still be political risk involved in getting into timber, committing capital to it, committing money to it as you understand because there's always the concern that what was brought in by an executive order could then be undone very quickly next time around and

then you end up holding the bag or left holding the bag. There's always risk in private business, I'm sure. And that is an investment that's a huge risk. We do have still a few mills locally. Douglas County said they still have 17. And I was really surprised at that. Maybe we harvest here and you got to ship to Douglas then. Yeah, but we still have a few here that they want the raw material as well. What is your biggest takeaway from getting together with the feds last week and also with the National Association of Counties? What is the overall tenor? Are the counties prepping for the fact that the grant stream

funding is probably going to be weaned off to an extent over the years or what? I think as far as grant stream funding in every meeting, there's a lot of hand ringing over it. There's a lot of unknown, a lot of uncertainty. I think when money quits being flaunted and handed out, ingenuity kicks in and common sense kind of reigns the day. It does sharpen the minds. It does.

Because you have to get sharp. You've got to get sharp. That's right. And I personally do. It concern, you know, of course we all have our concern. I'm excited that maybe it will clean up some of the lax, laziness, reckless use and spending, you know, everywhere by people, by government, you know, that we do a better job with what we earn, what we do, not just sitting around

waiting for a handout is my opinion. But my best takeaway from NACO was the fact I had the opportunity in what I bring with our fire policies with the Department of Wildland Fire. Believe it or not, the Chief of Staff is still there. She was a liaison to Public Lands when I gave my very first presentation on my resolution about wildfire. She's heard it every year. I meet with her every year and with the director of that department, Director Rupert was there and his assistant director and they were really interested, sincerely interested in the path we have taken, what we came up with, our recommendation for an amendment, small but mighty little one-page recommendation to that 30-year-old policy that is, I think, our

detriment. And I said, you know, if there's other policies or there's other ways that we can, you know, protect our lands from the misuse of wildfire or the kind of almost adopted religion of prescribed fire, let me know. I would be happy to help and support your efforts. This is what we've come up with so far and we have a success story over it. And what we're talking about is what has been nicknamed the Let it Burn policy in the National Wildfire policy here, in the policy manual about this. And this the the burning lands for wildfire or for land management you know you get a resource management you get a lightning strike and then the

fire bosses and officials and say okay well there's a burn plan on this and so we're gonna let it burn and that's you know it's kind of like they're doing prescribed burning on a large scale yes it's essentially you know what they've been doing and that's what created our mega fires and what tried to get implemented as acceptable three months of smoke, a smoke season, and that just was not acceptable to our board. It was not acceptable to the people of Jackson County and we acted. Yeah, and yet the state looks at us as that, you know, Southern Oregon, we're supposed to be working on tourism. And you look at it. It dies. Poor little Josephine County, I was reading, I think it was in the Daily Courier over the weekend, how, hey, look,

there's more visits going to the to the Oregon Caves. Oh, except when it was smoking, and then it went down. It's like, yeah, that's reality. Our tourism just totally came to a stop. And then also the many scientific articles that have come out about the health adverse effects from wildfire smoke to our health. And that's become quite renowned, you know, research as far as that 2.5 particulate stuff. Yeah, the 2.5 PM, right? Hey, Commissioner, we appreciate the update from DC and also what is going on. You're always welcome. And you're board chair,

by the way, right? I am. Okay. So you got the big gavel. I don't use a gavel. I should get me one. You need a big one. Big one, you know, about, you know, like that. I actually have one about that size in my office. Croquet mallet, you know, that kind of thing. Thanks. Thanks for coming in. Thanks so much. Commissioner Colleen Roberts, Jackson County, 828 at KMED, 993 KBXG. Kim Commando digital update is coming up. Have some time for your calls too.

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That's 770 KMED. Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. Tomorrow, about this time, actually around 8.10, Captain Bill Simpson, I haven't talked to him for a few weeks. And he's not just gonna be talking about wildfire or wild horse fire brigade, but he does think that there is a real need to rebuild nature's lawnmowers, the herbivory. And we'll talk with him about this. And he's one of the few people willing to kind of make it simple. You get the

lawnmowers back or nothing's going to really change out there. You can't put them up prescribed fire on the situation. James and Selma, you have a person that you watch on YouTube that is encouraging nature's lawnmowers. Would that be fair? How are you doing? Right. The title of the video is Alice Turns Weeds to Productive Land Under Trees. And she's probably in her mid-20s. She's got about 30 goats and about 30 cattle. And she's got herding dogs and she rides a horse. And she manages the land under the timber for the timber owners and the cows they kind of are like bulldozers to where they mow down the blackberries where the goats can get in and clear out the blackberries and she keeps moving on. Yeah, the goats will eat blackberries, no problem, no problem at all.

And also she gives them mineral blocks so they don't crib on the trees, so they're not killing the trees. But she's made a profitable business out of it and people hire her to manage the vegetation under the trees. And she makes money from the goats, from the cattle. And I would love to support something like that. And she's living the perfect life. She's out there just riding her horse, taking care of the cattle, the dogs are herding the cows.

Yeah, it sounds like a great life and a great use of the animals. I would be curious as if that could scale to larger scale forest management in some respect But hey, thanks for sharing that sharing that story there James. Let me go to the next line here on pebble in your shoe Tuesday Hi. Good morning. Who's this? This is Sylvia. Hi Sylvia. It's on your mind Well, I love Colleen Roberts. I'm so pleased that she's part of our County Commissioner. She's wonderful. And I like to add that it's not just wildfire smoke that affects us.

It's the controlled burning smoke as well. So, you know, smoke is not good. It's not good for us and it's not good for the environment. So therefore the, you know, anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was... Last week, you had a guy that was talking about how we don't hear all of the news that's going on. And I just wanted to say that on July 17, 2022, one of my friend's sons, his 16 years old, Keegan Boren, was murdered by a POS, illegal alien, with the last name of Lopez. And he was convicted of murdering him about two weeks ago.

And this was not on the news at all. Where did this occur? Over in Brookings, Oregon. Okay. Yeah. So it was really close to here. It should have been, the verdict should have been announced on the local news, in my opinion. And then another thing that happened about 15 days ago is that there was a huge illegal marijuana raid and bust on Reese Creek Road here in Eagle Point and nothing about that was on the news either. You know it's gotten to the point where, well I think honestly I think what goes on here is that illegal marijuana busts have become so commonplace.

It's kind of like another day, it's another illegal marijuana bust. I'm not trying to cover, you know, for the media. A lot of times, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. I don't know if there's anything about that which necessarily bleeds enough for local media, like for local TV to come out there unless we got tons and tons of guns. If there are tons of guns, then they would probably come. I think that they did get guns and I think there was fentanyl involved as well. But I don't know very much because it wasn't on the news.

And just wanted to say that the jury on the murder case, the jury was only out for hardly a day, even less than a day. And they found him guilty of murder and he got 25 years without parole. So we get to support him here for the next at least 25 years. Okay, so a López murder trial. Let me just look this up because I don't know if...what have we got here? Yeah, Darren Lopez. Is this the one that Darren Lopez or something different? That's in Texas. No, it was Francisco Villegas Lopez, and he murdered a 16-year-old Kegan Boran. Got it. All right. And I wonder if if maybe I'm going to find that story though, because I didn't recall seeing that either. But it was in Brookings, right? Yes.

All right. All right. I'll get back. Thanks, Bill. Appreciate you. All right. Appreciate you too. Thanks for the call. 770-5633. Let me go to another one on Pebbling Your Shoe Tuesday. Good morning. Hello? Bill, your friend Brad. Hi Brad. Agreeing with you that management matters. Management matters. So back when Commissioner Roberts and I were kids, when we had forest fires, we had these miraculous creatures out in the woods called loggers that went around with their bulldozers and put the fire out, working hand in hand with all the

forest guys, forest rangers, BLM, whichever forest unit they were in. It was all hands on deck. We put the fire out. Everybody went back to work. And the thing that made it work really well is because of the loggers, they already had all their equipment out in the forest. They had the roads well maintained. It was easy to get stuff around. And you were able to immediately start building fire breaks and doing stuff that right now you have to haul everything in, right? Yeah, and Bill, we didn't have satellites back then. We didn't have GPS. We didn't have any of that stuff. We had guys, we literally had fire lookouts that would be on the highest point. They'd have a pair of binoculars, you know, they'd look for a fire. Of course, if it was a lightning caused fire, there were guys that would find those. But the thing that made it work was

is that the logging operations, as was their mandate, as was their congressional mandate, the logging operations managed on federal lands were designed to produce revenue in those counties where those lands were located. And they did. ONC funds in the county I grew up in, Clamifal, 40% of the county budget were ONC revenues. And it was wonderful how the whole thing worked. So management matters. Maybe we can get back to some good management in this state. Well, I know that the Trump executive order may be a part, may be a tool in the toolbox for getting at least some balance to it. I don't think

anyone's looking for the kind of employment that timber used to have. It's much more automated than it used to be too. You'd agree with me on that. You don't need quite as many people to get the fiber out. But the forest continues to grow and a portion of that still needs to be taken out and then the animals need to be chewing down the grass and doing various other things because you can't put enough prescribed fire on everything. Right, so Bill the thing there that you hit the nail on is is yeah logging is a much more automated business than it used to be but we still need the product.

And the thing that so many people don't know you do because you follow this stuff, so many people don't understand is is that huge amounts of the building materials that we build with right here in Southern Oregon are being shipped in from Canada for Pete's sake. So we're paying these gigantic shipping fees to ship Canadian lumber down here when we

have our own lumber that we could be using. We are burning up more lumber every year than we actually use in the builder side. If we could begin using this lumber instead of building it up, it would be a huge financial benefit to our state and to our county. Thank you very much for the call. I always appreciate that. All right. Be well.

Thank you, Bill. All right. It's 8.42. We'll catch up on some news here in just a moment. A little bit of open for the call. Always appreciate that. Be well. Thank you, Bill. It's 8.42. We'll catch up on some news here in just a moment. A little bit of open for business time. Also, before the end of the show, we're going to have not only some emails of the day, but a Diner 62 real American quiz. I'd like to get you a chance at that. This is Randall at Advanced Air. It takes an expert to navigate the current HVAC rebates. Call Advanced Air to save big on equipment replacement. Advanced Air is currently offering an additional rebate on qualifying systems, up to $1,000 on Bryant mini-split and crossover heat pumps.

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rich chocolate, tangy cherry and bold espresso. Visit us at 1325 center drive across from the South Fred Meyer. From the KMED News Center, here's what's going on. It's beginning to look like Oregon's wildfire hazard map is dead. Speaking at a joint town hall with Republican Senator Noah Robinson, Ashland Democratic Senator Jeff Golden told the crowd he could say with a very high level of confidence that we are repealing the wildfire hazard map entirely, further stating that the second go of a risk map

when you still walk the properties just don't make sense. Robinson announced he's introduced a bill to eliminate the map in its entirety. Oregon Congresswomen Andrea Salinas and Janelle Bynum sent a letter to the acting commissioner of the IRS expressing concern over plans to close IRS offices in Salem and Bend. They claim the offices provide valuable help to people. They're asking the agency to reconsider the decision. Oregon State Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to increase the legal minimum age for marriage from 17 to 18.

Legislators claim marriage shields a child rapist from charges. The bipartisan bill moves to the House. Bill London, KMED. This hour of the Bill Meyer Show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services, visit FontanaRoofingServices.com. Wake up your garden, spring is here, winter's over. Get your garden blooming and your animals thriving at Grange Co-op's spring roundup sale through March 16th.

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That's Lithia Body and Paint on Bullock Road in Medford. Is your healthcare important to you? Well, Congressman Cliff Bent said, screw your health care, to over 1.4 million Oregonians. He voted to slash Medicaid funding so that Elon Musk and his buddies could have a nice, fat tax break. Cliff Bent got pressured and he couldn't take the heat. Call cowardly Cliff's office and tell him to do the right thing and restore Medicaid funding paid for by Oregonians for Democracy. You're hearing the Bill Meyers show on 1063 KMED. Oregonians for Democracy, I

can't help but think that Oregonians for the status quo don't change anything. What's your plan Oregonians for Democracy? Just saying. All right. Time for open for business. Locally owned and operated businesses and this time our favorite business that we're going to be talking about right now is Charisse over at No Wires Now. 1560 Biddle Road. Sweet B. How you saving us money today Charisse? Welcome back. Good morning Bill. Good morning everybody. All you have to do is come see me. It's that easy. What you just show up and you instantly start saving the money? You're a miracle worker.

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I can print all your bills now. Come in the store. I don't care if you have Dish, DirecTV, Spectrum, Hunter, whatever. Come in and talk to me. Tell me what you're paying. I'll beat the price. I'll get you free cell phone service. I'll help you lower your bills.

All right. And how do you end up getting free cell phone? By the way, you can call or text Cherise about this, 541-680-580-5875. But how do you get the free cell phone deal or cell phone service for a year? How do you do that? Well, you do what Bill and Linda did. You come in the store, I switch you from Verizon US Cellular, I get you Verizon Spectrum. So you got to have Spectrum internet. I get your internet. And I have Spectrum and I had Spectrum internet. I came in there, I took you up on the offer and it's working really well. And it works well in your business, in the building too.

Yep, as a matter of fact I can even make a phone call inside the bathroom, not that I want to make it a big habit though. You can take pictures and send them. No thank you, I'm not gonna do that. But in all seriousness though, it worked out pretty well. It took about 15-20 minutes to get both of our cell phones contracts up and then you ended up getting them all disconnected and moved over. It was very painless. It really was. It worked out really well. We used our same phones, but what if you needed a phone though? Yeah, you keep your same phone, you keep your same number. If you need a new phone, I'll help you get a new phone and then we'll help you transfer your data to your new phone and you have a nice comfy place to sit and coffee and you know there's no stress, there's

no waiting in line, there's no calling you know another country, you know I just spoil your own. Yeah and it's worked out really well for me. It's one line free for a year and so two lines unlimited, $30 a month tax rate, there's no contract with it and so I'm paying 30 bucks a month right now for two lines. It works pretty well. I like it a lot. I get a lot of people that go,

no, I'm not switching from Verizon or I'm not switching from US Cellular. And then when I show them, I can save them $200 a month. And then I say, yeah, no contract. If you're not happy, you can go back to your expensive bill. Sure, now, if you mentioned my name, my name is worth something over at NoWires right now. Brand new cell phone for free when you mention my name, right?

Yep. We have free phones. Okay. Now, what kind of restrictions are available? What kind of restrictions do we need to know about this? There are always some strengths. There have to be. Okay.

You know, it just depends on the person's situation. If I can't get them spectrum, I'll get them something else, and I'll figure out I can get them the boost phones. It just, everyone's different. If you live out in the country and you can't get spectrum, then you can still come talk to me and we can talk about your Hughes net or whatever you have. Sure. By the way, if you're getting those $500 gift cards from Dish in the Mail, don't call the 800 line there. Call NoWires now. And again, Cher Sharice's number you just call her at 541-680-5875 because you honor that and you do the local service that the 800 line will not right that's the bottom right and I'm going to take back your old equipment

I'm going to lower your internet cell phone bills for free if you get Dish from me and we I can do the $200 Visa card so you can mention Bill Meyer you do get the $200 Visa card all right D can mention Bill Meyer, you do get the $200 Visa card. All right. So this should prove to that again. I want to mention something. I had a guy come in yesterday from Shady Cove and he said, Spectrum is running lines out there and he wants to sign up with me.

If you are getting Spectrum lines, don't call Spectrum. They're not going to give you the $30 internet. You'll end up with a $100 bill a month. Oh really? Okay. So call me and I'll help you get the internet installed. I know that my internet and Spectrum Voice at Home is a very, very reasonable rate right now. I think it's $53. Yeah, something like that. You must get him in a headlock and just kind of put him in,

give up! Come on, give up! Okay, we'll cut the bill. You know, that must be how you work, huh? Well, you know, I was by myself for so long and now I have an assistant and he has made my life so much better. I can give way better service to our customers. You know, I'm on it. So there's no waiting around. Come in, Neri and I will take good care of you. All right. 541-680-5875. Anything else before we cut you loose for next time so you can go help people? If you just have internet and you don't have anything else and your bill is too high, I'll help you lower it. So, I mean, just doesn't matter. You just have to just come on down. Cherise can get the bill information if you don't have a copy of it, you know, those sort of things. She'll help you out and talk about all the details here. 541-680-5875. Family owned and operated No Wires Now, 1560 Biddle

Road, Sweet B in Medford. And thank you, Cherise. All right. Be well. Thank you. All right. And remember, make sure to mention my name. It's worth something, at least at No Wires Now. It is 852 and Change, Diner 62 Real American Quiz. We're going to hop on that here in just a minute. 7705633. $20 gift certificate could be yours and all we have to do is just answer some questions about one of the nation's biggest snowstorms ever. Next. When you call Fontana Roofing, our singular focus is a focus. You have questions, we have answers. Hello, Euphrates-Fontana Roofing, how may I help you?

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And of course every Friday their famous world well their world famous clam chowder homemade. And let's see if we can make Jerry a winner this morning. Hello Jerry how you doing? Good morning Bill. Jerry it was today March 11th 1888 the great blizzard of 1888 hit the East Coast. One of the worst blizzards in American history strikes the Northeast. Killed more than 400 people, dumped as much as 55 inches of snow in some areas. New York City ground to a near halt because of massive snow drifts. Stopped the trains, everything like that. On March 10, temperatures in the Northeast were around the mid-50s, but on March 11th, cold Arctic air from Canada came right in. By midnight on March 11th, gusts at 85 miles an hour in New York City, along with a heavy

snow, complete whiteout. What was the official accumulation of snow in Central Park during the Great Blizzard of 88? Was it 14 inches, 21 inches, 28, 35 or 42 inches in the city, in the park? What do you say? Oh, let's go with 35. You're going to go with 35, you're on the high end. No, it wasn't that one, Jerry.

I appreciate it. Let me go to Calvin. Calvin is next here. Hello, Calvin. So it's not 35. 14, 21, 28 or 42 inches of snow. What do you say? Well, this is Jack, Bill.

Oh, Jack, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm gonna say 28. Is it 28? No, it's not 28. Sorry about that. Now I'll go to Calvin. Hey Calvin. I gotta say 42. You're gonna say 42. You're going on the high side of that. No, it's not that either. I am so sorry. Let me go to line one. Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is Vicki from the Applegate. Vicki, 14 inches of snow or 21 inches of snow? How much fell during the great blizzard of 88? I'm going to say 14. You're going to say 14. We are down to the end and hi good morning who's this welcome. Good morning Bill it's Jerry. Jerry 21 or 21? Let's go 21. 21? You got it. Official 21 inches some areas in Brooklyn saw drifts up to 52 feet high because of gusts whipping up to 85 miles an hour. So you know we're complaining about that snowstorm we had a few weeks ago. Ain't nothing compared

to what they were dealing with. Everything froze and about 200 people just in New York City died because of that that that blizzard of 88. Okay hang on we're gonna send you to diner 62. You're gonna have a great time. We know that. This is the Bill Maier Show. Oregon Edeals has unbeatable offers for you. Grab a $25 gift certificate to Artisan Bakery for only $18. Perfect for fresh European-style pastries. Or get a $25 Malello Coffee Roasters gift certificate, also just $15, for your coffee fix.

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And Wolfman Jack came up as part of the conversation and said, Yep, Bill, Wolfman Jack was not in LA, but it was X-E-R-B, right over the border. Very cool to get him on my AM radio when the atmosphere allowed the signal to reach Medford. Late at night when we were supposed to be sleeping, he played music that we didn't hear on local radio. A lot of that going on. Jeff in Selma says, Bill, in Oregon if you took in a million dollars but you owed 1.27 million dollars you owe tax on the million. Go Oregon! You're right corporate activity tax, right? And Elaine writes me this morning, Bill, the only solution for the fire situation around here take away Tina Kotech's matches. Gotta laugh. Gotta laugh about that.

And finally, someone says, Ray says, Bill, Herman quoted a list of stats for Oregon. He mentioned an organization that didn't catch it. American something. It's ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council. That's the group where Herman got those amazing stats showing that Oregon about the bottom of the barrel on so much. Alright?