Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-25-25_FRIDAY_8AM

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

04-25-25_FRIDAY_8AM

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. Josephine County Operations Director Michael Sellers joins me, and I've known Michael for a number of years. I remember you, Michael, when you were first working with Herman Barrett Schicker a long time ago out there in the state legislature. Welcome back. Good to have you on. Hi Bill, thanks for having me on.

Well, here is a lot of drama and a lot of concerns on people of all political persuasions about what's going on in Josephine County. Arguably there's a big reorganizing going on. There were buyouts offered. A lot of people have been either being terminated or have taken buyouts. And ultimately, before we get started here, first thing is what? You can probably afford maybe half the number of employees that we actually have at Josephine County and that's what a lot of is that's been driving a lot of that. Would that be a fair assessment first off? I think maybe what we should look at is that there's we have to be more nimble to adjust for

changes in state and federal funding. I think we all see that there's some changes coming and most of the funding that comes for to run Josephine County government comes from outside sources so if that those sources change we have to be able to adjust okay and the adjustment day means that how much do you think we need to cut it by ultimately and then we'll start digging into your issue that's I don't know that's a question for the board because we don't know we haven't seen what the budgets are going to be the legislature still in session so we will know when the legislature comes out of session.

Okay. All right. So we don't have a budget yet. That's fine. And then we had a budget individual, Simon here, of course, a former county commissioner, who I would say quite noisily ended up quitting the other day. And this has been the talk of our area here lately when it comes to our local county governments in Josephine County's case, this particular deal. And he brought up a lot of things which are kind of concerning. And one of the ones he brought up was that $388,000 totaled up of a compensation that would tend to be tied to well, it was soon to be you, I guess.

And so you wanted to clear the air here. Where do we start? Sure. First of all, thank you for having me on. Like I said, I want to clear the air because I can't really go on social media. Facebook just tends to be a big food fight. Local media is never going to give me a fair shot based upon where I've worked and what I've done. And so it's, I think the first thing we should talk about is the board from the perspective that there we have a new board. They're very active board. I don't know where the rumors of that they're not active have come from, but they can't really talk about individual employee compensation in the public format and they can't really talk about individual employee compensation in the public

format. And they can't really talk about the budget outside of the budget process. So the man on the street can just kind of say whatever they want and the board is has to wait until a public meeting to speak and things like that. And then they can't come out and say, Michael Sellers this, Michael Sellers that. So I figured I've talked to, I've had a lot of folks say, Michael, you need to make some kind of a statement about this. Um, because I, as I've endured all these personal and professional attacks the past few years, it makes me, it's hard, it makes me angry. Um, but when my children say, dad, you gotta say something, um, I need to address it.

So what I don't want to do is be a lightning rod to, and to keep it from focusing on the good work they're doing here in the county. So I have to address it. The first thing I want to say is I do my job well. I take pride in the work that I do and I support my community. I work hard for my county. And so the first thing I want to say out loud is that I'm qualified to do the job. I'm a highly qualified executive and it's frustrating to get personal attacks like this.

But there are, I guess I just want to put that out there first. How is your pay determined? How is your pay determined? So the compensation I receive is based upon the previous board's policies and the positions they set. So the previous person who was in the role of director of finance and HR, they changed their pay grade back in August of 24. And then in December of 24, the county put in a policy that said this is how when we combine departments or we add extra positions to a director, this is how the compensation

is determined. So that's all out there for public record. There's a pay scale for directors that goes from D1 to D15. And where are you right now in that D1 through D15? I'm a D15. Okay so you're D15, you're top of that. What step are you at this point? I have to look actually. They want me to put a pay stub out there which I don't think that's a terribly great idea to do but I'm happy to share since everybody wants to know. It looks like I am a D6. A D6. D15 step. D15 step six. Okay. All right. So, okay. Yeah. I'm looking at the step five. I'm looking at this 82. Yeah. That's right., I have a copy of your, you know, you sent me,

you know, a copy of your, of your pay stub. Now, according to my, I'm just multiplying this, you're at about 172,000 a year, right? Is that roughly speaking where you are? Yes. Okay. 388,000 though, is what Simon Hare

ended up putting out there. So I guess my question is, where did that number come from in your opinion, because you must have had some access to that, maybe you know where that came from, and is 172,000 your stated wage and 388, let's say, total compensation, because we know that employee costs are considerably beyond what just you know the standard cost cost and by the way 172 is not out of is not out of line even with with some other cities when it comes to administrators you're essentially doing an administrator's job right now maybe without the title yet I don't know tell me what you feel yeah I'm not the county

administrator just in can't doesn't have a county administrator I'm running numerous departments but I'm not the county administrator. Josephine County doesn't have a county administrator. I'm running numerous departments, but I'm not the county administrator. There isn't one. There's there's a number of departments that report directly to the board. So that's uh, that's not the case. I don't know where that number came from. Um, I really can't speak to whatever that document was that was on the internet, uh, appears in yesterday because there is personally identifiable information of county employees and elected officials on it and so I anticipate that there will be several if not criminal action around it so I really can't comment on that. With regard to that number they have a cost calculation that people do it's uh with the in budgeting they call it the fully

loaded numbers. Yeah yeah what's the fully loaded number 172 times what? Is it like 1.3? You know, like 30% extra cost, 40% extra cost. What would you say? I would say it's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 or 40% extra cost. I don't have that number off the top of my head. Okay, so I'll just multiply it just to be on the safe side here. Okay, that would put total, let's say on the high side, if it was 40% of wages ends up being for a total cost of benefits, PERS, all these other things, that would put you at 240. That's total compensation, but that would be like anybody, my total compensation is more than what my pay stub says.

That's the way this works. Now, here is the question. This is one of the things that kind of concerned me about Simon Harris' letter. And the claim is that there is outside attorney, outside negotiation going on to, you know, essentially boost you up considerably. And this is being done by one commissioner, Andres Black, who supposedly was ceded authority by the other two board members to do this. Is there an outside attorney, to your knowledge, is there an outside attorney involved in negotiating a future contract, let's say?

Is this going on with Andres Bleck? Can you comment on this? What do you know? Because you would likely have to be part of this process. Yes, there is not a... Yes, I'll be part of the process. Okay. I have no employment contract with Josephine County. There is no negotiation with an outside counsel. That's a complete fabrication. Complete fabrication, so this is not happening? No. Josephine County policy states that if the county needs to enter into a contract

to have to go through county legal counsel. So any contracts the county goes through are vetted by the county's attorneys. And so there is no counsel there. We would have to, I would, a person would have to tell legal counsel to engage in it. So county's legal counsel would be aware of it. If so, if people think that they don't want to believe what I'm saying, the answer is no. Okay, so you're saying the answer is no on this. Now, county policy also requires, from what I understand, that your job

description has to be approved by the entire board. Was that done by the entire board or was it done by one member like Andreas? My position description is I'm filling the role of the finance and HR director which is approved by the previous board and then my role is the IT and emergency management director so I'm fulfilling both of those roles. The term director operations was a functional title that clearly has created some confusion and the folks out there think that, because how would it sound if I said, I'm the interim director of finance, human resources,

information technology, emergency management, et cetera, et cetera, that's a lot more cumbersome than director of operations, which those items are all related to operations. So clearly that's something that needs to be rectified. Who determined your wage? Because some are claiming that this was not done through comps and third-party evaluation. And the implication is that since you're overseeing finance and HR that there's not really an honest distance from you. You're kind of in the process of negotiating your own pay.

I guess that's sort of the implication that's being made here. What can you tell us about this? There's no negotiation. I didn't negotiate anything. The policies and the procedures determined the compensation. The previous board, John, Wes, Turner, Behr, Trigger, those folks, they passed the position in August of last year for finance and HR director.

They passed the policy that said that the directors get that increase if they...that, by the way, was not in the previous iteration of the policies. They passed new policies on the 31st of December that added that in there. And it says this is how this is done. So the current board is simply following those policies. That's all that they're doing. There's no, there's been no negotiation. So if you end up taking over finance and you end up taking over HR, there is already a policy in place that a certain, a certain amount of the,

uh, of that money gets, uh, assigned to you to boost you, so to speak. Well, it would be the current, the current current compensation that's that's already on the system so it is all out there for the public to see. All these documents are available on the county's website and the meeting where they had the change to the previous finance and HR directors position is online I think it was in August of 24. Was this a new policy openly negotiated or set on December 31st? I know I'm asking for past... I don't watch all the meetings. I just don't. Yeah, the previous board had multiple meetings about it. It

was a process they worked on for months. All right. So what can you say... this is the part that has concerned me most, I think, of what is going on. You may not be able to comment on this. I don't know. Is it true that the two county commissioners ended up ceding their authority to Andreas Bleck, the two of the three ended up ceding their authority to this, in order to not have to have these kind of conversations, whether it's about current employees or employees that they think will need to be cut. Did that happen the way it was described by people to me, including Simon Herr and others?

I don't think it happened the way that they described it. So I was there when it happened. And what was presented was, here's all the... We have to make organizational change. We have to be ready for the change that's coming. And so there are things that we need to do to make our county more efficient and more functional. And so to do that, there needs to be reorganization of certain departments. And so there was a motion made to that a single board member could approve personnel actions for a limited amount of time for administrative and functional changes.

Why would that be done? Sure, let me walk through that. So there is, Josephine County used to do things kind of loose and they used to say, oh, well, we used to get our favorite commissioner to sign off on this document, and then they would execute it. The way that it's supposed to be done is these things go before the board, the full board.

So when you have to move quickly, you have to make changes quickly, everything has to go before the board. There's a long process to do that. So because a lot of change had to happen rapidly, as we all saw with the federal government, we were reacting to that. They said, hey, for this period of time, let's allow him to make those changes so that we can move quickly. They're informed of all those things. We're not hiding anything. It's just it's the way to move quickly. So I don't understand the, well I do understand. I understand that this whole issue is an attempt to divide conservatives

for control of Justin County. That's what this is all about because otherwise it doesn't make any sense. All right. So I want to reiterate this. There is no outside counsel, third party counsel, this. There is no outside counsel, third party counsel that is negotiating pay with Andreas Bleck or anybody else on the board at this point. None? None. Okay. All right. You do not have a contract? I do not. All right. Are you an at-will employee? I am. Okay. Are you looking to get a contract or do you think there should be a contract for your position? Not at this time, but gosh, sure sounds like folks are going to have to get me. Okay. All right. So there is no multi-million dollar contract? No.

All right. Okay. I don't know if I have any other additional questions at this point. Could I have you back on if I do have other ones at this point because I'm kind of confused about where this is coming from because I read Simon's letter and I respect Simon I've talked with him about other issues over the years and I'm just I just don't know where this is all coming from at this moment okay I don't I don't know either. It feels very petty. It feels like an attack on my professional integrity. I don't understand the nature of it. I do think that we should all be leery of the fact that someone out there is allegedly distributing some kind of a document that has people's personal identifiable information on it. And that should probably stick a lot to the credibility of whomever on Facebook is doing that. All right now if you ever

get to the point where it's where you think you want to have a contact, a contract rather, if the current board were to have a contract, how does that get negotiated? Is it in private? Is it in an executive session? Is it out in public forum? How does that work? I don't know. I've never done that. So I would assume it would be how we do every other contract, which is it goes to legal, then there's a discussion in executive session, then they come out of executive session, then they would on some level have a public process about the whole thing. Okay.

There will be no secrets, backroom doors. There are backroom deals. Okay. Michael, we might have you back, but thank you at least for giving your side of this and we'll see where this leads, okay? Thanks Bill, appreciate it. All right.

Michael Sellers, and Michael Sellers is operations manager in Josephine County. It is 831. KMD 993 KBXG. We've heard it all. I should have chained up when I had the chance. Meyers show on 1063 KMED. You know, after all this this morning, we need a dad joke. A dad joke to cleanse the palate. We're also going to have a Diner 62 quiz to cleanse the palate too and actually make the

palate even better. But the dad jokes of the Day are sponsored by Two Dogs Fabricating. Two Dogs Fabricating on Bryan Way off Sage Road in Medford. And you can submit your dad jokes, just go to twodogsfab.com. And the great thing, by the way, Two Dogs will build a custom flatbed made to your specific specifications but they are Southern Oregon's exclusive North Star dealer and they have Iron Bull for heavy duty made by North Star and North Star trailers for the lighter loads. And by the way this is the time of year when you find out how broken your hitch is they can do hitch repairs and so much more custom fabricating over at the two dogs fam.com. Doug Dean from Rogue River

of course he is our master jokester there says, two morons were playing on a teeter-totter. The taller one fell off. Why didn't the shorter one? Well, because he was a little moron. There we go. There's our dad joke for today. You know, I think I could apply that to Washington, DC sometimes here. Doug, all right, it is 8.35. Now then, Diner 62, Real American Quiz. We will have that after the latest news here. And Diner 62, of course, I think we're gonna have a great question. Oh, it's about Oklahoma.

We're gonna be talking about Oklahoma. A little bit of history. It will get you a $20 gift certificate from Diner 62, your lunch destination. Half Ham Special is still on 11-15 Monday through Friday during my morning show. A couple of pork chops and eggs, or eight ounce New York steak. By the way, great New York steak. I've had that before. New York steak and eggs on special on the weekends. And of course today, Clam Chowder Friday. So if you haven't won this in the last 60 days, give a shot and we'll play it next. Sepsis, a life-threatening blood infection. Bill Lennon, KMED. Diner 62, real American quiz. Let's talk about some history and see who we can make as a winner. We're talking about yesterday in history, April 22nd, actually two days ago. I mean two days ago,

really. April 22nd, 1889. I mean two days ago really April 22nd 1889 let me go to Mike hello Mike how you doing this morning I'm great how are you I'm doing great Mike at precisely high noon April 22nd 1889 thousands of settlers made a mad dash Mike into the newly opened Oklahoma territory to claim cheap land. I wouldn't mind that right now here, but the nearly 2 million acres of land opened up to white settlers was located in Indian Territory, a large area once encompassed much of modern-day Oklahoma, initially considered unsuitable.

But the Indian Territory was thought to be an ideal place to relocate Native Americans who were removed from their traditional lands to make way for the settlement. By the 1890s though, they had improved agriculture and ranching techniques and they realized that the Indian territory could be valuable too and so they pressured the US government hey let us into there and so President Benjamin Harrison says you bet makes the first of a long series of authorizations that eventually got rid of most of the Indian territory from Indian control. So the question for the win this morning, Mike, how big were those plots of land that those settlers could go out there and rush and pick up? Was it A, 40 acres,

B, 80 acres, C, 120 acres, D, 160, or was it E, 200 acres? It's one of those five. That's when they were all running out there wanting to get their mule. Well, I'm thinking the Homestead Act, but I'll go for the 80 acres. 80 acres sounds pretty good. It's enough for a small farm.

Yeah, no, it's not that Mike. I appreciate it. Let me go to Jack up next. Hello, Jack, how you doing? Good morning Jack, or morning Bill, I'm doing good. Okay now 40 acres and a mule, was it 120 acres and a mule, 160 or 200 acres? What do you say? 40 acres and a mule. 40 acres and a mule! No, not this time, sorry. Let me go to Loren, Hungry Loren, who is out there in Eagle Point. Hello, Loren. How you doing? Hi. Good morning. Uh-oh. I'm trying hard again, I'll tell you that. All right. 120, 160 or 200. How many acres were the Oklahomans looking to get? I'm going to go with 200. You're

going to go with 200. Great number. No, it's less than that. Let me go to Todd. Hello, Todd. You got a 50-50. We have a 50-50 shot here. So it's either 160 or 120 acres. What do you say? Let's do 160, Bill. Let's do 160! Yep, 160 acres, an estimated 11,000 homesteads were claimed. Towns like Norman, Oklahoma City, Kingfisher, Guthrie sprang up into being almost overnight. Multiple Oklahoma land rushes after 1889. And after that initial one, the FedGov continued to open up land through various methods, including land runs, lotteries, and all sorts of auctions between 1889 and 1906. So and for that reason my friend Todd you're going to Diner 62. Hang on okay?

History class paid off. Yeah history class paid off. You see it was useful for something. He was able to get his $20 gift certificate. This hour of the Bill Meyer show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services visit FontanaRoofingServices.com. This is News Talk 1063 KMED and you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Oh wow we've had a lot going on this morning everything from crazy water bills going on in Salem. We talked with Michael Sellers, operations manager over at Josephine County. What did you think about that? Any thoughts? 7705633.

I have made this clear right from the beginning that I wanted to be proceeding carefully, you know, on this because I'm not a fan of this delegating HR to one employee or to one County Commissioner like they have done. At least that's my opinion. I've not been a big fan of that. I get concerned about, you know, transparency issues, but I don't know. It sounds like the letter that has been making so much news the last couple of days, it may not be everything we thought it was, or is it? Now, Michael has made it clear that there is no multi-million dollar contract, that there is no outside attorney negotiating it.

I don't think they're going to be able to hide that if there is, if there is no outside attorney negotiating it. I don't think they're going to be able to to hide that if there is. If there is that going on because someone would be getting paid and that would be in the books. You know someone would have to write a check to this but we'll see. We'll see and you know right now though everything is entering into legal situations here, given that the claim is that some of this information being released was not Simon Harris to release, supposedly. This is just what I'm saying. Now the lawyers are going to be getting involved. Boy, I got to tell you, circular firing squad. It would be nice if we didn't

have to have so many lawyers involved in all this. 7705633, 770, KMD. Let me go to... Hello. This must be, I think, looking at the caller ID. That would be you, Dave. Hello, Dave. Go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you got my email on my request from yesterday. And then, you know, there's... Yeah, but yeah, you want us to actually pressure the United States to give you a pardon, right? Right. You know, pardon is as much political as there are anything. So...

Boy, I'll tell you, the last few years of pardoning in this country, you bet it's political. Man. Just me. So anyways, I wanted to say is there's a magistrate in New Mexico, they got arrested for giving aid and comfort to that terrorist group. He had three terrorists living in his house. You know, I can't pronounce what they call themselves. What is that, the trendy Araguan? Is that the one you're talking about? That's the one I'm talking about. And it says he's a magistrate, but I don't know if he's a state magistrate or if he was a federal magistrate. They haven't said that yet. I just think it's down to

the same point of view that most of the folks from the left at this point have an illness in which they are in love and showing way too much love to the wrong people. Just saying, Dave. Well, you know, yeah. All right. Appreciate the call. Thanks for that.

770-5633. Good morning. This is Bill 846 on KMED. Who's this? Holly from Josephine County. Hello, Holly. We've got the drama down here, but I just can't let this time go by without saying I've worked closely with Michael for four years.

Number one, he's not just smart, he's brilliant. He's a strategist. He tries to figure things out. He cares so much about this community and this county. I found him always to be very honest, very direct, very forthright. I can't say enough good things about it. Well, all I'm going to say right now, now you have him, he's your vice chair though, okay? So you had a dog in the fight, right?

Well, I've been, well, dog in the fight, but also experienced working with the industry. Okay, all I can say though, Holly, is that I didn't want all of this to be turning into a circular firing squad for folks in Josephine County. Well, that's the problem. And that seems to happen quite frequently. All I can say, though, is that he's on the record, and he said emphatically that what was being claimed in these letters and other claims that have been going on out there are not true. Now, if they are true, we got problems. Okay? Well, of course, you know, but I, you know, I think if Michael says they're

not, they're not true, that they're not true. I mean, I'm not hearing from anyone else, the three board commissioners, all of whom I've spoken to, they all say there's no contract. There's no, there's, it's not happening. So, you know, unless somebody comes to me with some evidence of something, I'm just not going to buy into anything. If somebody comes to me with evidence, then, or I see anything other than, you know, people saying that's not true, then I'll take another look at it. But right now I have to say, you know, it's appearing to be that that information, you know, there seems to be no proof of it.

All right. Appreciate the call, Holly. Take care. 770-5633. We have open phones right now. Happy to take your call on anything on your mind here as we wrap up the week. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hey Bill, it's the other Dave. Oh, Dave. Hey Super Dave over in Idaho. How you doing? That's right. Hey Bill, it's the other Dave. Oh Dave? Hey Super Dave over in Idaho. How you doing? That's right. Hey, doing good, doing good. So this is Find a Phone Friday and I keep missing out on all these things that I want

to talk on. Well, that's great. By the way, do you know why I call it Find a Phone Friday? Why is that? Now Rush had Open Line Friday, right? And a lot of people have copied that and they say, hey, it's Open Line Friday. But I can still remember when Rush was on the air post-9-11. And do you remember he used to have, and you know, it was a fake, I think it was like an Afghan terrorist. It is like, find your phone Friday, like if you

can find a phone in Afghanistan. And so I always remembered that part about it. So, okay, find your phone Friday, find a phone. Can you find a phone in your particular neighborhood? But I always wanted to tell that story, but that's why it stuck in my head. Anyway, I think, I think you need to find that and bring it back. That'd be awesome. Oh yeah. Well, the, uh, well the Afghani terrorists, we were doing fine. Uh, it was like a rush limbo in Afghanistan. Remember they were doing a joke or a parody of it at that time.

Just cracked me up. But anyway, what's going on with you? What did you want to talk about? A couple of things. Go ahead. Okay, so we were in Sherwood Pass talking about logging in the old days and that. And you know, I grew up in southern Oregon 60 years there before I moved over here. Always a big hunter and it used to be that you're out hunting and you're driving between your favorite hunting spots where you get out and go hunting and all that and I was up over towards Onion Mountain and one of the fun things you do is car come and see pull over they pull over you roll away

and I see anything no I can tell them's cool. And you know, you go along your way. So I'm going down this road and this old boy pulls over. He's got like a, it looks like a 78 Ford with a caveman shell on the back. There's, there's a date for you, caveman campers. And he's about 80, he's between 80 and 90 years old. We strike up a conversation and he actually grew up in lumber camps when you actually went out into the forest. The whole family came with you.

Dad went out all day cutting wood and his dad was the camp hunter and day out, day in, he had to get seven deer every day. And that's how they ended up feeding the lumber camp, huh? And that's exactly how they fed them. He said sometimes dad was done by noon and sometimes dad didn't get back until well after midnight. That is amazing. That was his job. Very different time then.

Must have been different wildlife rules in those days too. Well, yeah, there was a lot more, a lot less hunters, a lot more deer. You know Super Dave, it reminds me of a story that we have so much to, you know, in spite of the challenges that we find today, there are still amazing, amazing lifestyles that we have these days, even if we're technically a poor person by today's standards. And I think about those lumber people in that camp in which you had to go hunt for your food. No, you weren't going to get fed otherwise. I think that's a very interesting way of looking at it.

That's something. Yep. Thanks for the call. You know, on Monday, maybe on Monday's show, you know, when it comes to those lifestyles, I'm going to have to tell you a bit more about the story of Charles Bronson because I was watching a video of him, not of him, I'm sorry, of Kurt Russell, Kurt Russell, a good conservative actor who actually worked with him as a child actor back in the early 1960s. And the deprivation that Charles Bronson went through when I read about him as the son of a coal miner in a tiny, tiny town in Western Pennsylvania,

not too far from where I was born, I wasn't poor, but when people talk about complaining about life today, you look up Charles Bronson's early days and then you you talked to me about deprivation all right someone who has been discriminated against or whatever it is yeah I'll share it maybe I'll share more of that on Monday's show if we have some time but I read more about that and it was just astounding to me just astounding 7705633 let me go to. Hi, it's open phones and who is this? Welcome. This is who now? Oh gosh, call back. You worked so hard to get on and then I think he actually hung up on himself.

Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is the guy that took out hunting. I want to talk to Dave. Dave is gone. I'm so sorry. No, he make fun of me. Okay, I went to work with him and he said, you go to bathroom you take one dollar. I took three quarters two dimes and a nickel it Didn't work. I Have poop all over me. No very good. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I Appreciate that greatly

Okay Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Going once, going twice. Next line. Hi, good morning.

Who's this? This is Ray. I was going about the ballpark situation on Monday. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The proposed Eugene Emeralds show, stadium rather, 90 million dollars and it's still very early. It is kind of a hurry up sort of thing, at least according to the Eugene Emeralds timeline. And the city council of course will likely be working on some plan and how to pay for it if they wish to move forward. What are you thinking?

working on some plan and how to pay for it if they wish to move forward. What are you thinking? Well, I'm thinking I don't see how they could build it in downtown Medford. I really don't. I think what Nick Card was talking about here was a lot of the industrial land that is over a little bit out of that pure pure downtown core area you know that Nate those neighborhoods over by the old Larsen's furniture store you know that neighborhood over there yeah I have a feeling they're thinking about in that vicinity because there you know a lot of old warehouses things not a lot going on there at this point and I think that's what they're talking about. If it was going to go downtown,

there was another proposal maybe to take it over at Hawthorne, but what would you like, if anything, or do nothing? Well, I mean, any of the industrial areas around Garfield Street or north of Sage Road and North Pacific Highway. I mean, there's more land for that. Yeah.

I guess it depends on how large this stadium would need to be according to the Major League Baseball standards. Appreciate the call. Thank you for that. Let me grab one more. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this?

Good morning, Bill. Tom here. Hey, about the water situation, the wells and so forth, the communization of Oregon is running about 20 years behind California. When I was down there in Santa Cruz County, they were proposing to put meters on all the wells. So all the land owners showed up at the County Commission there and it was like a riot. And you could see the commissioners up there, they were afraid for their lives.

Oh yeah, I could see them. Water is life. Water, electricity, it's all life. And you just can't screw around and just play around with this stuff. You are playing with people's lives when you're playing with their wells and their water. You know that. Yeah, and it's a takeover of private property. And that's the first tenet of the Communist Manifesto's abolition of private property. And I don't think the powers that be in Oregon that are currently in power won't be satisfied until we have a complete total police state because that seems to be their goal they have no desires for free speech or anything in the Bill of Rights. You just want to make a complete communist

totalitarian police state. And they only get that though if we comply. And this is why it's so important to join that Oregon Water Unity Facebook page and get involved and and get ready to to push back. As something tells me that this is I mean as bad as the wildfire map is, I think control of the water is even worse than what they were talking about in the wildfire map, don't you? Well, it's a good toss. Both of them are faults upon private property. I tell you, it's Jeff Goldin. He just... Mother, make him stop! Okay, all right. Thanks, Tom. Have a great weekend in spite of all of this. And yeah, the battle continues again Monday morning, okay? Ready to upgrade your...