Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-11-26_MONDAY_7AM

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Interesting study on Oregon politics, leftists know they are in charge, will they change vote?? Uh, no..other open phone topics for the hour..

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Happy to take your calls at 7705-633. We're going to talk with Martin Moyer. Maybe we'll get a hold of Martin for the next half hour. Sometimes when I schedule interviews on Monday, I always wonder, okay, it's been Mother's Day.

You're going to be out there. You're having mimosas with mom or something. like that, are you going to be a little hungover on Monday morning? I wonder how that goes. I wonder how that goes. But we'll see if we can talk about that story about the men building AI. Now I want to build better babies for sure. There was another topic that was going on.

I thought it was pretty interesting. And that has to do with the electorate and the Oregon gubernatorial race. Now, we got this big one right now. Oh, by the way, I wanted to ask you this morning. Have you received the smear text messages on your phones on the gubernatorial candidates? I've not received anything about Tina Kotech. No one has text message me about Tina Kotech. But I ended up getting one, you know, really smearing Ed Deal, in my opinion.

And I had another one that was, frankly, I think, smearing Christine Drazen a number of days ago, too. And now, of course, I ended up stopping and I ended up blocking them, you know, the standard thing. that you normally do when you get these kind of calls. But I love, you know, I don't know why we still have to put up with this stuff because the way that the laws are written is that anytime someone is giving you political advertising and trying to, you know, get you to go one way or the other, they're paying someone to do the text messaging. Someone's getting paid.

It's essentially a paid ad to say, you know, Ed Deal, Spawn of Satan, you know, and it comes on in on your cell phone. the way, Ed Deal is not the Spawn of Satan. I just want to be very much go on the record. You may disagree with some of the things or whatever it is, but no, not the Spawn of Satan. But I get a text message like that, you're talking about it. And you're supposed to be told who did the ad and who paid for it. You know, paid for by citizens against Spawn of Satan running for Republican politics. In other words, it's probably the Tina Kotech Network for all we know. I mean, who knows? But yeah, all of these smeary text messages, you know, coming out, you know, now write the life, as an example, ended up going out and doing a text message against Chris Dudley.

But it's perfectly okay. They said who they were when they said it. I'll tell you that irritates me. I know it's kind of like a pebble in my shoe on Monday, and it is a big one. We'll talk about that if you want to. Let me know what you've been receiving because I only received a couple of really bad ones. And there are some other ones that are like a win red, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, vote here. Da-da-da-da, fine, all right.

But anyway, I was reading this article this morning in the Oregon Live. Oregon Live, Cotex popularity craters in Portland polls show what that could mean for Republican candidates. Something like, oh, okay, all right. Because you know how the Republican Party tends to look at things is that, yeah, yeah, you know, it's so bad. in Oregon that at some point voters will understand and see the brilliance of our Republican candidates running for governor

and then they'll switch from voting from Republicans into Democrats or from Democrats rather into Republicans. Is this true? So let me share a little bit of this story here on Oregon Live from Carlos Fuentes. A new poll indicates that the majority of voters

in Oregon's mostly Democratic friendly regions are dissatisfied with Governor Tina Kotech as the Democrat approaches the end of her first term and seeks another four years in office. Just a third of Portland metro area respondents said they have a positive opinion of Kotech. 59% said they have a negative impression of her, this according to a recent survey commissioned by the Oregonian in Oregon Live. The survey of 600 registered voters in Multnomah, Clackamas in Washington counties was conducted by DHS research.

This is like the end of last week of April. It's when they were doing that. The poll results just over a week before the May 19th primary election in which Kotech's not facing a notable challenger. Meanwhile, Republicans seeking the party's nomination have pointed to her weak approval ratings as a sign that Oregon could be ready

to elect its first Republican governor in four decades. So right now you start getting a little excited, thinking about the future of our states. right? You can understand that. Hey, maybe this will actually work. Now, Kotech represented North and Northeast Portland in the Oregon House for 15 years, including nine is House Speaker before winning election as governor in 2022. Yet the poll finding that only 55% of Portland voters specifically had a negative

impression impression of the governor, and 37% had a positive. such tepid support in the state's Democratic stronghold indicates that there's a small but real possibility that a Republican could defeat her this fall, even as Republicans seek office nationwide. Expected to face headwinds, they're saying. Let me see here. Oh, here we go. Kotex campaign manager Marissa Sandgren said that the poll tells us nothing about November because it didn't ask about voting. voters' impressions of the Republican candidates for governor. So while Republican gubernatorial opponents continue to pledge their loyalty to Donald Trump's

chaos, yes, they're going to hang the Republicans on to any potential trouble with President Trump here in the Oregon, a state of Oregon, rather, voters will have a clear choice, a governor who stands up for them and a candidate or candidates that would hand Trump the keys to Oregon. Oh, that's going to be the policy. That's going to be the fight. this November. But anyway, the policies that Tina Kotech has done have yielded limited progress. They're admitting this in the Oregonian article. The states, particularly in the Portland area, continuing to face high housing costs,

lagging economic indications, poor testing, and a high rate of chronic absenteeism in the schools. Now, here we have a poll respondent. They interviewed a poll respondent from Gresham, Lisa Highsmith. and she has a negative impression of Tina Kotech. I'm just baffled, she says, in how a Democrat-led state is struggling with the things that we're struggling with. Now, remember, this is a Democrat faithful and is really unhappy with Tina Kotech.

She says, I'm just baffled at how this Democrat state is struggling with the things that we're struggling with. High Smith is a Democrat, and she is particularly concerned about Oregon's poor education outcomes and high homelessness rates. At the same time, she says, is it going to stop me from voting for Democrats? Absolutely not.

Isn't that what we're looking at here? What do you think about that? So we have the Democrat that's saying, gosh, I don't understand how we're dealing with all of these problems, you know, with a Democratic governor in line. And then they ask her, well, would you consider voting for someone else? Oh, no, no, absolutely not. It doesn't matter if you don't like Tita Kotech.

Of course, that doesn't mean we're going to vote for a Republican. Yeah. I wonder if that is where we're headed. That is the controlling authority in the state of Oregon, who sees people from their own party that are doing a bad job. She admits that they're doing a bad job. Would she go to something else? Would she go instead of, you know,

voting for Governor Pepsi, maybe voting for Governor Coke, you know, instead from the Republican Party, let's say, just for whatever reason. Oh, no, no, no, nothing's going to stop me from voting for Democrats. Absolutely not. Wash, rinse, repeat, huh? You know, that sort of thing? And, you know, it does seem odd that Republicans seem to be hanging their hats or, you know, the party on the, on the hat hook.

of, gosh, you know, if we just get it bad enough, if it's bad enough in the state of Oregon, people will just change their mind. You think that's true? According to that poll result, it doesn't look like it, because even someone who doesn't like Tina Kotech voted for it before, wow, I'm going to vote for something other than a Democrat? No, absolutely not. How would you fix that?

Maybe a third. You know, maybe that's the time to talk about a third party. Anything about that? You got to rename the Republican. Republican Party. Now, I'm just thinking out loud. I know. When renaming help, I don't know.

I don't know about that. Maybe we just all went nonpartisan like Josephine County, because, you know, Josephine County has very calm in elections, and everybody knows that everything is clean and everything's above board and everything's absolutely perfect because it's nonpartisan, right? Right. This is the Bill Meyer show on KMED and KBXG. Join the show if you want, 7705-633.

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including $100 off a new customer service visit. Dusty's Transmissions, Highway 99, two blocks north of fine, in Central Point. Dusty's transmission. You'll always find me hanging around there. Jackson County, your vote counts. This May 19th primary election process will be exactly the same as prior years. There have been no changes to how we conduct elections in Oregon. Democratic and Republican parties will use this election to nominate their candidates for the general election this November.

Please remember that your ballot will only contain the candidates and measures for which you are eligible to vote. Ballots must be postmarked or deposited at an official ballot drop box no later than 8 p.m. on May 19th. postage is required to mail your ballot. Track your ballot as it leaves your hand when you mail or deposit by visiting Oregonvotes.gov slash my vote. That's Oregonvotes.gov slash my vote. And don't forget to sign your ballot return envelope to secure your vote. Hello, I'm Chris Walker, your Jackson County Clerk. For more information, visit jacksoncounty.org.gov slash elections. Your county clerk's office, making sure your vote counts. You think a ticket for not wearing your seatbelt is the worst that could happen.

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Click it. Don't risk it. Paid for by NHTSA. This is the Bill Myers Show. 1063 KMED. Call bill now. 541-770-5-633. That's 720 KMED. Has anybody have a solar power generator on their house that they're selling power back into the grid?

What do they pay you for a kilowatt hour if you do? I'm trying to find out it's difficult for me to find the numbers for that right now. If anybody can tell me that, if you sell power back to position, What do they pay you for a kilowatt hour? Now, it might be 15, 16, 17 cents, depending on what it is, retail, and the end user. But what do they actually pay you? Usually it's like half the cost is the wholesale cost of power, and then they double it, and then that's what they charge you when you get at the end.

If you can help me, just let me know. I just wanted to kind of flesh out a story which has been out the last few days over solar power. I just want to find out what it really generates in revenue and how much you get paid. What's the real amount of money that you get paid for something? Okay, could you do that? 770-K-M-E-D. Let me go to Terry. Hello, Terry.

We've got Tom also here standing by. Good morning. Who's this? Welcome. This is Terry. Yeah, Terry. Good to have you on. And you had a question about what's going on with that.

U.S. Senator race against Jeff Preserkley, right? Yeah. Okay. What's going on? Well, I don't recognize most of these names, and are we voting for a new Republican to take over, or are we voting to keep whoever's in in place? Oh, no, no. Jeff Merckley is actually running for re-election.

And... Merckley, okay. Yeah, this is Markley. So it's Jeff Merckley. Of course, he will have millions upon millions upon millions of dollars in his campaign coffers because, you know, when you're an incumbent, there's a lot of money that comes to you. It's amazing, Terry. It really is.

And so these are Republicans that are all thinking that, yep, I'm going to go and, you know, I'm going to be the person to take on Jeff Merkley. So that's who you're selecting right now. The only one that maybe most people know, well, there is Joe Ray Perkins who has run for, I think, every U.S. Senate and congressional seat, she's a perennial, you know, every time there's an election, she's running for something. God bless her, all right. but there is a state senator, David Brock Smith, from the coast, who was running. He ended up joining. It's still a pretty high lift. You would have to figure, wouldn't you think, going against Berkeley?

Oh, yeah. He's got to get some advertising out there. I've never heard of them. What do you know about him? Oh, David Brock Smith. He has a chance. Does he have a chance of being the Republican nominee, possibly? He has a chance.

He just needs more money behind him. He needs a lot of money. They all need a lot of money. I don't think any of them. In fact, there was even one guy who was running in there. I forget his name. But he was like on the budget committee, I think, of Josephine County. I forget his name right now.

There's like, you know, eight, nine people, you know, that are on that. And all they're doing is, I think, I mean, there's always the possibility that Jeff Merckley might have a picture of him caught in bed with like some little boy or something like that. You know, but no, but not that I would ever, I'm not saying, hey, just trying to make fun of child trafficking. But I don't know, in a mostly democratically controlled state, I would dare say that it is really what you're picking, you are picking the long shot candidate against Jeff Merckley. Most likely. Yeah. So you're picking a long shot.

And, and I know that people will say, well, Joey Perkins got 42% last time. Yeah, it's about every Republican that's in the state ends up voting for, you know, the one of Republican. Now, unless there's a lot of dissatisfaction set up with Jeff Merkley, it's going to be tough. It's going to be a tough race. Do you get it now? Well, sort of. What's your opinion of the qualifications like Joe Ray against David Brock? I would lean, and this is nothing personal against Joe Ray.

If I had to choose between the two, I'd probably go with David. Brock Smith. Okay? As far as he's qualified? Well, they're all qualified. I mean, everyone who's there is qualified. They're a... Not necessarily. Yeah, you know, they're qualified and, you know, they're citizens of the United States and they're on the ballot and yet any of them could be elected. Was Jeff Merckley qualified when he became senator? I don't think so, but, you know, yeah. It's a matter of who do you want... I've got like a legal background, stuff like that, which is helpful when you're you've got somebody in that position, something that knows how to read, write, and understand

legal proceedings and paperwork. Okay. Well, I haven't thought too much about this, as you can tell, because I know that it's a very, very high lift. And, you know... We've got to start somewhere. Okay. Yeah, it's been a long time.

You know, Gordon Smith, please come back. All's forgiven. All right. Gordon Smith, huh? Yeah, remember Gordon Smith was the last Republican Senator. that we had in this state. Oh, I don't remember. Nobody else does either.

All right. All right, Terry. Thank you for the call. 770563. Tom's here. Hello, Tom. Welcome. Good to have you on.

Morning. Yeah. Very interesting talk to you gave about the Democrat who, yeah, things are going to hell in a handbasket, but she's still going to vote Democrats. Yeah, let me just repeat this for people who may have just joined the show. I was talking about this article in Oregon Live. Kotak's popularity, craters in Portland polls shows what that could mean for Republican candidates. And then I highlighted this one section that Lisa Highsmith, who responded to this poll, by the way, from Gresham,

and she has a somewhat negative impression of Kotak. And she says, I'm just baffled at how a Democrat-led state is struggling with the things that we're struggling with. Now, Highsmith said she's concerned about Oregon's poor education outcomes and high homelessness rates. At the same time, she said, is it going to stop me from voting for Democrats? Absolutely not. Right? Hmm. So you know that has been the Republican strategy for a while, that it'll get so bad in Oregon that Democrats will start voting for Republicans.

So what do you think about that? Yeah, well, it's crazy thinking. You know, she, this Democrat recognizes that, yeah, Oregon's the lowest. on education, there's a homeless explosion, we're importing all kinds of people who are not paying their way. Yeah, yeah, and these are all the official policies that are being done. Yeah, these are official policies. But I guess we also have to remember, you know, what is logically going to happen with most

of the Democrats. And think about this. Now, I voted for President Trump last time around, right? And I voted for him every time he was on the ballot. I voted for him, okay? I mean, this voted for him. Now, have I been upset about some of the things he's done? Yeah.

Does that mean all of a sudden? Damn, I wish I had voted for Kamala Harris. What do I wish I'd voted for Kamala Harris? Man, man, every day I wake up. Man, I wish I could have voted for Kamala Harris. Of course not. Yeah. Yeah, so what we're talking about here is the programming, the basic, the programming that's basic with Democrats.

in the program in the space with Republicans. And a Democrat, you know, they believe that government is a solution to all problems. Government is God. And, of course, Republicans say that, well, we're looking for limited government and yada, yada, yada, but then they usually govern they govern like Democrats, but just a little lighter, maybe, you know. Yeah, and so, you know, with Democrats, government is good and business is bad. For Republicans, just the opposite. Business is good, and government is liable to suspicion. But not bad. But not bad. Overall, it's not exactly like I see all the Republicans in Congress voting to just like dismantle everything there. I don't see that, do you?

Of course not. Yeah, the Republicans, I should say, are communist light, or I say that anyway, not you. But that's the way I kind of look at it. But neither one is, as far as a party across the nation, I don't see either Democrats or Republicans. offering a real, genuine valid solution to all our problems. It's too entrenched. The money governs both sides, and they're very deeply embedded, and they control the elections and policies. They bribe the legislators both getting elected and after they're elected and so forth.

So we have a moneyocracy. Yeah. Moneyocracy. There's a mouthful, but it says a lot. You know, it's sort of like the difference between a Republican. and Democrat. They both steal our money with taxation, but the Democrats give you a little bit more back than the Republicans do.

And then just print the difference. Gotcha. All right. Thank you for the insight there. Tom, it's 738. Before news, let's catch up on the rest of it. Hi, good morning. Who's this?

Hi, Bill Cliff. What's going on with you this morning, huh? I have an answer for your solar. Oh, please do. Please do. I'd like to find out more. All right? I put solar in my house back in 2021, and what it is for every kilowatt hour of energy produce,

I get a credit for one kilowatt-a-watt-hour. And so when a billing cycle comes around, my bill is basically for the meter read, and what I'm paying is a little over $14. Okay, so when you sell power into the grid, you're selling it as a credit. There's not like money exchanging hands. There's no money exchanging hands. It's a one-for-one credit system. Okay, so that's the way it works for House Solar.

Do you know how much it costs if you are in a situation where you actually sell the power for money into the grid? That's what I'm trying to find out, the real wholesale cost. of solar power on our grid in the state. Do you know off the top of your head? You'd have to ask someone that has a commercial setup and maybe who's the Senator, Senator Ashland, and Ashland. Oh, yeah, Senator DeBoer. Yeah.

He might have a little more insight on that. Okay, because I was just looking at just the standard residential rate of Well, we're paying about 15 to 16 cents a kilowatt hour right now, I believe, you know, for most of us. All right. Right. So funny. Just back in the 1990s, I had an old power bill from the 1990s for a radio station transmitter, and we were paying like three cents a kilowatt hour. Oh, what a day.

Well, yeah, I've got an opinion on that is that what you're not seeing on those bills is that the carbon fuel reduction. I imagine you're right. Yeah, I imagine you're right about that. Well, yeah, you know. All right, so Cliff, they're not paying you then the wholesale cost of power. They're just saying, all right, you're going to sell into us and we'll give you a credit for when you need. When you need a kilowatt hour, we'll give it to you, right? That's what happens.

Right. And then what happened, okay, I'm on a yearly schedule. It goes from March to, you know, into the March reading. And as I build up credits through the year, then, you know, I'm only paying the meter read bill. And then it resets again in March, and if there's any credits left over, it goes into the, I call it the Indigent Fund. All right. Yeah, I know.

So, but it swaps you one kilowatt hour for one kilowatt hour is what you're doing. Okay. All right. Correct. And that seems reasonable. It's not a bad deal for it. But you can't exactly say that it is the, you know, that it's worth the whole 15, 16 cents. Got it.

I'm trying to find out what the wholesale costs somebody who is commercially selling into the grid is costing. All right. And because there are a lot of people talking about that solar project out in Jacksonville right now, I want to kind of put some numbers on that. Hi, good morning, KMED. Who is this? Welcome. Hello.

Jerry. Hi, Jerry. What's going on? Hey, just a comment regarding the Democratic voter in the poll. Yeah, the Democratic voter who said that, yeah, yeah, Tina Kotech, not real happy with her, but does that mean I'm going to vote for Republican? No. Okay, Bill, here's a philosophical thought.

All right. Let's rewind about 10 years and pretend that Trump hasn't run at all. But, hey, he's running as a Democrat. Yeah. He's actually been a Democrat before. In fact, he's been a Democrat way longer than he ever was a Republican. I'm going to predict, Bill, that if, you know, we could rewind the clock 10 or 11 years, he would get elected as a Democrat.

Really? Now, granted, I'm not saying he might not hold the same opinions that he does today. For example, maybe he didn't run on the wall. Right. In other words, the border. My point is, I believe, I'm just using Trump as an example. You could throw Hitler in there, too, or anybody else. else. And I think people are, we have a home team, Bill.

Yes. Everybody has a home team. Everybody has a home team. Yeah. Except in Josephine County because they're so nonpartisan. Nobody pays attention to party labels at all in Joe County. I'm being sarcastic, of course. Some years, our team's going to lose, Bill, unfortunately. Yeah. But we're still going to root for them. And we're still going to vote for the team, right? And we're still going to vote for the team. Gotcha. Yeah. Thank you for explaining everything about politics. Jerry, I think you just boil it down to a ballgame. All righty. I know I'm running late into the news, but I'll take one more call anyway. I enjoy open phone conversations here. Good morning. Hi. Who's this? Welcome. Hey, Bill. It's wild salmon. Steve, what's going on? Do you know the cost, what someone will actually pay a commercial solar provider in the state of Oregon? No, I don't. But on the residential, it all depends on the contract you signed. So you agree to have solar power put on your house.

You end up borrowing money, and you have to pay for that. Right. And so you have a contract for X number of years, and that amount is set. You know, as the previous caller said, you get a credit, one for one credit. When the contract runs out, then what you get paid depends on the contract that you signed. And my friend was an early adopter. and he was getting like two cents a kilowatt for what he was putting back into the grid or what he was generating, and he turned it off.

He said he was so mad he was, and he was an electrical inspector. Okay. So you're saying about two cents a kilowatt hour. Okay. I'm going to go to my alter AI AI. I'm going to see what the artificial intelligence drone says because nobody has called me yet. I'm trying to find out. It depends on the contractor's sign.

Hmm, okay. So what is the deal here? Let's say what alter what alter system says. All right. In Oregon, the compensation for solar power is governed by two primary mechanisms, net metering for small systems. That would be like the rooftop solar, right? And avoided cost rates for larger utility scale or qualifying commercial projects. Okay, so what is the, what's the actual rate? You know, it's like it's kind of like next. to impossible for me to find out, like, what is a number that you get paid? It doesn't, even that, even the artificial intelligence seems to be mystified by this right now. It depends if it's peak or off peak or is it 15 to 20 years. Is it a fixed pricing? Is it, okay. It depends on the contractor sign. Okay. Well, the reason I'm asking, and this is why I'm just trying to figure this out, is that they had this solar power plant that is over with Medford Irrigation District. Did you see that story the other day?

No, I didn't. Okay. Okay. They have a bunch of floating solar panels on the Jacksonville Reservoir up there, and it's just outside of Jacksonville for the Medford Irrigation District. Now, the solar farm costs just under $4 million. It was completed this year, and they were just announcing this and showing it off, and they were talking about that it's about 2 million kilowatt hours a year of energy,

which is being... generated by this. Some of this, I guess, is going to go into the pumps for the irrigation district. That makes sense. You know, you pump your own water and you fill the reservoir and you empty the reservoir and you send it off to the farmers. And that makes perfect sense, right? But what they were saying here, the district is expecting to earn over $70,000 per year from selling electricity. This according to Senator Merckley, what Senator Merckley said, because he was there, you know, puffing up his reelection processes by, you know, talking. about this project on Saturday, on Friday, I guess he was apparently out there,

is reported in the Daily Courier, Channel 10, I'm sorry, Channel 12, Channel 5. And they're all reporting on this. And I'm trying to find out when they say it's like $70,000, they're going to earn $70,000. What is the rate? How much gets used? How much is being sold? There's a little kind of a shifty, changing card trick thing going on with solar panels. All right.

They have a nameplate capacity, which is the total amount that they're capable of producing. Right. But there's the actual amount, which is usually about one-third of what the nameplate is, because, well, it gets dark and there's clouds and all that sort of. Yeah, exactly. Well, $7 million. Now, the thing is, though, what I do kind of like about this project is that they're using dead space out there in the water, right? They cover it up, and it does stop or lowers the evaporation because it's the equivalent of putting a blanket over a lot of the water. It makes sense.

Okay. You can see how that can be useful, especially in a drought time. But they're saying that they could sell, make $70,000 a year. Now, of course, $70,000 a year, that means that it would pay for itself in like 45 years. Well, the solar cells will go bad long before that time because of what? Is it about a 20, 25-year lifespan on most of those? If they're lucky. Yeah.

You know, there's one other issue with that. Mm-hmm. How much of your electrical stuff do you float on water? You try not to normally. Yeah. What could go wrong, right? Exactly. So I'm just wondering if they're saying 70, because I just took, okay, 2 million, 2 million kilowatt hours.

And I know numbers and talk radio can be difficult, but 2 million kilowatt hours. but 2 million kilowatt hours, and if I just gave it 7 cents a kilowatt hour, that'd be $140,000 a year. Okay? 140 grand. Well, still, that would be like 25 years, you know, to pay for the... Yes. But remember, this was all grant stream funding, energy trust of Oregon, and all the rest of it. So it's that grift, you know, part of it that's paying for this.

I'm not criticizing the project, but I'm always trying to wonder how does it really pencil and if I can't find out what somebody really gets paid for a kilowatt hour and how they determine it, it gets very confusing. Well, I don't come and give you a bid to put it on your house, and then you can do the math, but you have to read the legalese and figure out, you know, because during the, on your house, during the term of the loan, you get one rate, and after the loan is paid off, you get a different rate. Yeah. All right.

Well, hey, thanks for letting me know of that. I'm just trying to find out what's the number. If anybody can help me, please help me out. Let me know. What do you really get paid for running a solar farm? If anybody runs a solar farm that it's actually getting paid in cash, what does it cost? All right? Because if I'm thinking seven cents a kilowatt hour, it's 140 grand a year.

And even at 140 grand, if you were to sell it all, it would still take 25 years to pay off. But I guess we feel better about the power rather than paying the 17 or 18 cents for the retail power. I mean, it makes sense, kind of, sort of, maybe. This is the Bill Meyer show. Freddy's Diner has a menu that appeals to everyone in the family. Choose from 13 hearty burgers served with fresh cut fries. Crisp and moist, pressure-fried chicken, hand-dipped fish and chips,

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visit Two DogsFab.com. News brought to you by Millette Construction, specializing in foundation repair and replacement. Get on solid ground. Visit milletconstruction.com. KMED News, here's what's going on. Oil prices up more than 2% this morning over continued tension in the Middle East wars.

President Trump rejecting the latest piece offering from Iran. Even so, the price of gas and diesel in Southern Oregon, has actually gone down a couple of cents over the last week. AAA Oregon reports a gallon of regular is 534 in Grants Pass, 533 in Medford, diesel in Grants Pass, 619 for gallon, a penny more in Medford. A year ago at this time, both gas and diesel, were just a little over $4 a gallon. Meanwhile, a renewable energy project, Oregon's first floating solar power project, was unveiled Friday.

The Daily Courier reports the Medford Irrigation District has more than 1,700 floating solar panels on one of their reservoirs, which is just outside of Jacksonville. The panels generate solar power for the district's pumps, and surplus power can be sold into the grid. Some will go to our area's sewage treatment plant. The panels also help produce evaporation, a plus in this drought year. The project costs $3.8 million. Panels estimated to generate some 2 million kilowatt hours of energy per year.

And a lot of economic development projects in Southern Oregon are designed around getting more tourism dollars flowing here. However, a report in Oregon Live indicates the money coming in from tourism while going up isn't keeping up with inflation. An annual study done for Travel, Oregon says travel to Oregon went up a little more than 1% last year. Sluggish growth at best, visits from Canada and international tourism down sharply since 2019. The study indicates a bounce back by the end of this decade. Bill Meyer, KMED News. This hour of the Bill Meyer show is sponsored by Glacier Heating and Air,

making sense of the heating and air business. Along with pleasant spring weather, you know there's a long hot Rogue Valley summer coming up that can stress your cooling system. Glacier heating and air, your local independent train dealer, reminds you the best time to have your AC system inspected and maintained is before it breaks down. Glacier services and repairs all brands and installs new train cooling systems too. Nothing stops a train. Be prepared for warmer days. Call 664-0942. At Glacier, we're making sense of the heating and air business.

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and they can fix the damage. It's their feeling you'll win, the end. Visit Millec Construction.com. Oregon Truck and Auto Authority is your work truck and van outfit headquarters. For interior shelving packages, partitions, and lighter racks, choose from quality brands like Adrian Steel, Weatherguard, and Holman.

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Call Jared today at 541-772 sold. That's 541-772-7653. Jared Hockinson of Hockinson Realty. Hi, I'm Megan McPherson with the McPherson Insurance Agency, and I'm on KMED. We were talking off and on a bit this hour on the solar power plant, which is floating on a reservoir of Medford Irrigation District. You know, Medford irrigation, talent irrigation, et cetera, and they have thousands of these solar cells floating, which I think is interesting because it does stop or at least inhibit the evaporation so you lose less water in the summertime. time and you generate electricity and you can use it for your pumps, etc.

And they say they're going to sell some of the power to the sewage treatment plant in town. And okay, fine. All right. You can see this. And it's kind of dead space, certainly better than putting up yet another solar farm and covering up the land with this. You put it on water. And I guess they don't have boating on the reservoir or anything like that. So that's what's going on.

You know what? I am kind of curious about, though, if, you know, if you have solar. cells there and you do have to clean them now and again. I'm wondering if there are like little windshield wipers on it or does the solar cell then spray water on it to try to you know clean them?

Because you know when they're on their roof you have to watch out you know the bird poo and everything falls on the solar cells and it has to come off somehow and I'm wondering if it gets sprayed if those solar cells would have you know solar sprayers on it or does the Medford irrigation

district had to go pay some employee a bunch of money to go out there with a squeegee and go over thousands of these. I don't know. But I'm still trying to find out what is the real power rate because supposedly this could generate 2,000 or 2 million, rather, kilowatt hours a year. Now, I imagine that's probably under the best of situations, right? Maybe it's a $6 million, but you usually figure that it's going to be, you know, one-third of that.

And so I'm thinking at retail power, if you were selling that, if Pacific Power were selling that to you, they'd be charging you, you know, 15, 16 cents a kilowatt hour. And so let's see, two million of that. Let me just try it again for numbers. Two million times, times 15. Let me try it again. And it'd be a lot. Be a lot of money. Two million.

If they were doing this to you, yeah. Yeah. be a lot. Figure $300,000 a year. And so the sales themselves cost about $3.8 million. That was the whole project. But my issue with it, though, is that once again, this was a federal tax grant grift. In other words, other people have paid money into the system so that a politically connected

a bunch of people or whatever it is have their project. And, of course, we all sit around and we cluck and we go, isn't this wonderful? Isn't this wonderful? But if it is such a wonderful thing, why can't Medford Irrigation District just do it itself? Why can't Jackson County do it themselves? Why can't Josephine County do it themselves? It always seems to happen only through a grand stream process, usually. And I have an issue with that.

Why should the taxpayers be gifting solar cells to any particular group at all? But I know that I don't understand how politics works because really all it is is about redistributing the grift. I guess. That's about it. Other than that, I still think it's an interesting project, nonetheless. This is KMED and KMEDE HD-EG grants pass. When I'm still trying to find out if you can tell me what is the real cost of the real value of solar cells? If you have a wind power or a solar cell mill and you're selling it into the power grid commercially,

what do they actually pay you? Now I'm not talking about tax breaks or anything else. What is the actual cost? So if they're charging us 15 to 17 cents an hour on the end, what do they pay to put it in? I'm just trying to figure out how to make these projects pencil using real numbers, and it's difficult to find the real number. If anybody knows, please help me out, okay?

Email bill at Billmyershow.com. Do you take safe drinking water for granted? If you have a well for your water, no one's monitoring what's in your water. It's up to you to be sure. that the water you and your family are drinking is safe and free of contaminants. Get your well tested now. Grants Pass Water Lab offers next day results for bacteria tests

and a speedy three to five days for a full reporting that meets all state requirements. Online at GPWaterlab.com, independent and serving the Rogue Valley for over 40 years. This is Bill Meyer, and if you want to save money on your cell phone plan like Linda and I did, we cut our bill in half with Cherise at No Wires Now. That's right, Bill. Come on down to our showroom or call me today. I'll show you how I can save you money and provide you the best local service, featuring the largest selection of TV, internet, and cell phone plans.

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Skypark is your independent agency with providers like Progressive, Safeco, Foremost, and many more. Call Steve for a quote 261-544 or visit Skyparkins. At Skypark, we make insurance easy. You're here in the Bill Myers Show on 1063, KMED. KMED, KMED, H.D1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants pass. Translator K294A.S. Ashland, K290AF, Road River. Thank you to Jay from Josephine County, who writes and says, Bill, Brock gave me an answer on your AI question for a solar-powered farm commercial rate question.

It's around $0.6 per kilowatt hour on average for energy sales to Pacific power under standard avoided cost perpa rates for qualifying facilities, yada, yada. Yada, variations by time of delivery, contract structures in year. All right. Jay, thank you very much. So, four to six cents a kilowatt hour. So on a, let's see, so four cents per kilowatt hour, two million dollars, two million rather kilowatt hours.

This is the maximum that the plant can produce. So for two million kilowatt hours a year, that would be if they sold every single kilowatt hour from that plant floating on the reservoir at four cents a kilowatt hour, that ends up being $80,000. And on the high side, six cents a kilowatt hour, that'd be $120,000. So let's see. It's a $3.8 million project. $3.8 million project.

If you were to sell that power, it would end up costing under $8 million. $80,000, about 50 years to pay it off. Because remember, the federal government in the state, they ended up putting all the grant stream grift on it. We had 50 years to pay for that project if you were just selling the power. Now, at $120,000, that would be maybe $32,33 years to pay it off if you were selling the power at wholesale rates. Now, it's actually quite a benefit for the Medford Irrigation District because they don't have to buy power when they are producing it for themselves. So I get that, but that's kind of like a gift somehow,

a federal government taxpayer gift and grift to M.I.D. Right. And gosh, all we have to do is all get in on the grift and have the federal government and the state government and Energy Trust of Oregon buy it for us. And then we can have a project that if it were done privately would take, what, 50 years to pay off. I'm just saying, okay, about the money, it's always the money. Now, to be fair, though, chances are those power rates are going to go up beyond four cents on the low end and six cents on the high end because reasons. Hi, good morning, KMED, who's this? This is John. Hello, John.

How are you, buddy? Doing well. I wanted to answer your question, though. You say, why don't they do it themselves? And the reason that they don't do it themselves rather than have the taxpayers put up all the money is that they did it themselves. that have to go to the bank to borrow it. Commercial loans are at 9% interest. So you're $3.8 million at 9% interest,

they'd be paying $342,000 a year for interest, not counting repaying the principal. And by the way, and then take that also and consider that you at the maximum, if you were to sell it at maximum rate of $0.6 a kilowatt hour, you'd only be bringing in $120,000 a year, right? Correct. Yeah.

So whoever's doing it is planning on earning less than the banks will give you on a commercial loan. But what a deal here, John, because all you have to do is get the federal government grifters involved with the various places, and then you can get money for free. It's free. And then every 20 to 30 years, you replace everything, the batteries, the solar panels, and that sort of thing. I mean, I did it at Paradise Lodge.

It costs about $250,000 to do it. And you had no choice. You have no grid there. You'd have to do it really that way, wouldn't you? Well, I can use diesel generators, but I didn't want to anymore. Anyway, the whole thing is that, you know, the taxpayer throws all the money out, then they don't have to pay the interest on the money. So they don't have to pay for the money, and that's the only way, you know,

and then Merckley gets to feel good that he's done this, and he makes him, you know, show up and tell us how great he is. But everything about commercial solar, when you look at it logically, without the grift of the tax credits or this, it doesn't pencil, does it? Never. Yeah, that's what I thought. All right. Well, just remember this when we hear all the happy talk, okay?

Thank you very much. Okay. And we'll catch up on the rest of the news here from Fox.