Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-13-25_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Economist Dr. Mark Skousen joins the show, we talk about Trump Tariff news and Mark has a new book about founding father Benjamin Franklin (a relative) former Sen. Baertschiger explains controversy re Ethics Commission

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clauser Drilling dot com. This is News Talk one oh six three KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Coming up, Dr. Mark Skousen, eighth generation descendant of Benjamin Franklin. So he's a distant, he's a generation descendant. And he has aant of Benjamin Franklin. So he's a distant, well, he's a generation descendant.

And he has a book about Benjamin Franklin, what we can learn about the founding father. He says he's actually one of our more modern founding fathers and given that Dr. Mark Skousen is an economist by trade, we have to ask him about the tariff issues and tariff news and everything else going on and get his overall hot take.

We'll have that coming up here in the next few minutes. Yesterday I was talking about this concern coming out of the Oregon League of Cities saying that the public meeting laws that are going on right now are very, very difficult to comply with to the point where they're not sure that people can actually govern. And Herman Barchinger, of course, a former state Senator, former Josephine County commissioner, is going to talk about that. We're going to dig into this serial communications thing where one person tells another person, tells another person, tells another person.

And, you know, is it true? Oregon league of cities is really upset about this, that everyone's going to be part of an ethics commission Commission in vile a violation of some sort or another and Herman knows of what he speaks we'll discuss that here briefly coming up okay good morning hi who's this welcome pebble in your shoe Tuesday hi Bill this is Vicki from the Apple gate Vicki you know I just kind of want to my pebble is that there is a wonderful place on the coast and it's just right across the bridge from Charles, I mean from Coos Bay and it's

called Charleston and Jim, I mean my husband, and I have been going there for like 20 years and I think it gets like Drowned it out by Brookings and you know a lot of the places down the ground What do you like about Charleston because I've never been to it. Tell me more. There is a wonderful motel and it's right on the marina. They have like 48 rooms. They got pet rooms You can go down to the bay 48 rooms, they got pet rooms. You can go down to the bay, which is just a walk down from the motel, get clams, you can fish, you can go to the box and crab. Yeah, I don't know about the pet room because I don't like the smell of dog in when I go and check in, but I'll digress on that. So you're thinking that, so this is not a pebble in your shoe, though, it is a pearl in your shoe that you want people to know about, right?

It is. And you know, we've known the people that own Captain John's Motel for years. They're so accommodating. I mean, you are literally like a five to ten minute drive from the most beautiful places, Bassendorf Beach, you can fish off the jetty. Okay, all right. So in other words, you're telling me that when I'm looking to decompress, Lyndon and I are looking to decompress, head over to Charleston, you're saying? Right. You need to go. Well, they do have, I think, one little place that you can stay, but Charleston, Place that you can stay but Charleston and there's not a lot of motels there but the Captain John's they are

Awesome, I appreciate the call Thanks for a pearl there from looking for a getaway and Linda and I are going to be heading to the coast here in the next Few weeks after Memorial Day after Memorial Day, but where we tend to like to go We're a big fan of heading out to Smith River. We like it out there at Lucky 7. That's kind of where we like. We ought to talk about our favorite coastal places at some point. Maybe that could be a topic some morning.

All right. Town Hall News is coming up here in just a moment. Dr. Mark Skousen digging into the economy and Benjamin Franklin, was he more than just an old guy partying with the ladies in Paris? I don't know. We'll dig more into that. Come on up. Hey leaders, visit CiscoPump.com. You're hearing the Bill Meyers show on Southern Oregon's Home for Conservative Talk. Mornings on KMED at 99.3 KBXG. Call Bill at 770-5633 at 770-KMED. Here's Bill Meyer.

Paul, the call's for a little bit here because I have economist Dr. Mark Skowzen on. Mark's a pretty interesting guy. He holds the prestigious Dodie Spogli Chair of Free Enterprise at Chapman University, writes incessantly, works in the, work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine. He's on all the channels, Fox, CNBC, C-SPAN, Book TV, and also the founder and producer of FreedomFest. It's the world's largest gathering of free minds. It attracts over 2,000 attendees to his conference. By the way, Dr. Scouser, first off, welcome to the program. Good morning, sir. Welcome. Bill, it's a pleasure to be with you. I grew up in Portland, Oregon,

so I have a little bit of connection to the West Coast. And I have talked with your brother Joel, your brother Joel who does the World Affairs brief from time to time. So you took different directions then in your careers. That be a fair assessment, even though coming from a pretty interesting point of view? Yeah.

I mean, he's more into politics than I am. I'm more into economics and finance. And he's a little bit more pessimistic than I am. I'm a little more optimistic. Okay. So, between the two of you would be an interesting Skousen, right? Kind of an average between the two. We debate all the time, for sure.

I would imagine so. What I'm kind of curious about here, let's go to your economic forecasting, then we got to talk about your Ben Franklin book here in just a moment, because I think it's really, really good stuff that you're talking about. What is your overall impression right now of What is your overall impression right now of tariff mania and the deal with China and all the rest of it? What is your overall take? Because the thing about the money, guys, politics people can give all sorts of opinions, but the money people have to be right or else they lose their clients. It's usually what happens. So I tend to be more trusting of the money types. And what are you thinking? Well, I think Trump was making a major blunder here. He was actually spot on focusing on tax cuts and deregulation and stable money

and all trying to fight inflation, all of that sort of thing. And then he comes out with this harebrained idea, which is really ancient thinking of mercantilism, of basically America first and protectionism and globalization has been bad and putting people out of work and so forth. I mean, it's just bad economics. And we're seeing that he's had to backtrack over and over again because globalization is a very powerful force and it's really hard to reverse what has been happening for a hundred years where more and more we communicate, we work with each other,

we buy and sell on a global basis. And speaking of Ben Franklin, he would agree with me on this because he was a free trader and he actually made the statement, no nation was ever ruined by trade. And that's very different than Trump's constant, we're being ripped off and stuff like that. Well, how are we being ripped off when the goods and services have increased in quantity, quality, and variety over the years? Yes, some jobs and industries are displaced, but that's just part of the natural development of countries.

I mean, do we want to go back to where farming was 90% of the US economy? If you want to go back far enough, then we went to an industrial country and then we progressed to a service economy and a knowledge economy. So, he's just going against what is traditionally progress when it comes to dealing with improving the economy. So, it's really unfortunate. I know he thinks he was elected because of that, of this protectionist policies, but I'm really glad to see he's getting some pushback. Yeah, I looked at this deal or this tentative and we're going to relax the terrorists for 90 days and kick it around. I look at this as more of a negotiating tactic of trying to find out what the

pain level is in order to get someone's attention, but on its face you're not supportive of them, when I understand, of the tariffing nature. I'm talking about a minimum of 10% across the board, when in fact we have a current, or prior to this time, 2% to 3% a long-term decline in tariffs as being a source of revenue. And now he wants to replace tariffs, replace the income tax with tariffs, which I think would be a disastrous policy. So he needs to be criticized for this and the sooner he backs off from it, the better,

and then focuses on corporate tax rate down to 15%. I like that idea. Renewing the tax cuts that he passed in 2017, things like that. And the deregulation that's going on has been very helpful. So there's pluses and minuses that are going on. Right now I'm predicting a kind of a stagflation economy, slow growth, inflation not going away. So he needs to do better. He could learn a lot from

Argentina. I mean, look what Argentina is doing under President Malay. We're seeing a dramatic reduction in government spending. The Republicans are not proposing hardly any tax, any government spending reductions at all. Yeah, I haven't seen many rescissions coming in, or rescissions rather. I agree with you on that one. Here is the challenge that I wonder why, and I think this is one of the reasons why Trump got elected. And I'll just give you, this is a personal example.

I went back to my high school town of Milan, Ohio, which is up by Lake Erie near Sandusky, Ohio. And Sandusky, Ohio used to be a big automobile assembly and parts and various other things. And there's still some of that left. And I went and visited some of my relatives up in Sandusky here, Dr. Skousen, and essentially it's starting to feel more and more kind of like J.D. Vance's book of hillbilly elegy, in which you have a whole bunch of people that used to actually do honest work for honest pay.

And now it just seems to be stumbling off into lower standards of living and in globalized supply chains and methamphetamine and heroin, replacing this kind of a despair. And I do believe that President Trump was elected in part to remedy that, wouldn't you agree? Certainly, I have sympathy toward that situation, but you have to realize that life is full of successes and failures. It's what Clay Christensen at Harvard called creative disruption. That's what happens in life. How many people, including yourself, have had just one job their entire life?

Nobody. I mean, except in Japan where they have permanent employment. Otherwise, people have to make changes. Those who are willing to make changes, they're the ones who don't face this despair that you talk about. And in fact, I'll give you an example, another town in Akron, Ohio that actually, contrary to Detroit and some of these other cities, their city fathers said, hey, the rubber industry is going outside of our country.

Rubber tires are going to be built in Korea. They're going to be built in France. And so we need to make a change. And they made a change. And now it's a technology center and it's a vibrant city. So these are the kinds of things that have to be done in order to us be part of the global economy. We can't look backwards.

We have to look forward. Let's talk about your book here, The Greatest American. And I understand you are an eighth generation descendant of Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin, one of the more interesting founding fathers. Why did you decide to write this other than the fact that you have a dog in the fight in the family tree? Well, that's true. I am a little bit prejudiced when it comes to the title, The Greatest American, although a number of historians have said he is far and above history's most versatile genius. I mean, I came up with a list of 22 careers that he was engaged in at one time

or another, and it's pretty amazing. So yeah, I see Franklin as kind of America's poster child, if you will, for somebody who started with nothing, was poor, but had intelligence, and lived the American dream and became a very successful entrepreneur, printer, scientist, inventor, community organizer, influencer, constitutional. He changed, helped transform our government with the Constitution, signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and very optimistic, always thought America had a great future, even though he personally went through terrible—I mean, lived through runaway inflation, World War II wars, family issues. There's lots of things that he struggled with, as we all do.

So Ken Burns said it right. He said, no him, no us. And so I came up with this book. It's called The Greatest American. And it's really hard to find another American who had the versatility and the influence and the success of Benjamin Franklin. Some people refer to Thomas Jefferson, maybe Thomas Edison. Yeah, and by the way, I grew up in Milan, Ohio, which was his birthplace, so I always think of Thomas Edison as a great American, even though, yeah, he joined

the robber barons later on here, Dr. Yeah, there's always that criticism of the those who may who transform the American economy and the world economy. Edison was really fantastic, but it's somewhat of a narrow focus. And in fact, there's an old saying that to make it you concentrate, to keep it you diversify. You look at most people, even in Franklin's case, he was primarily a printer. But then at age 42, he was so successful as a publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette that he was able to retire at 42. And then he, instead of just being Scrooge McDuck and diving into his gold and just enjoying

life, he decided to get involved with civic activities and help fund a hospital, a local library, the University of Pennsylvania. And he became involved in scientific pursuits, built the Franklin stove so he kept Americans warm and also the lightning rod to protect them from fire from outside. So Bifocals, I mean, he was just an incredibly inventor in inventing useful things and not just coming up with high theory. There's a lot to be said for Franklin as being the first motivational speaker, if you will.

For example, one of the quotes I have in the book, it's incredible the quantity of good that may be done by a country by a single man who will make a business out of it. And that's so true that we have that possibility. I mean, there is this term American dream, and you hear about the American dream, you don't hear about the Asian dream or the Italian dream or the Mexican dream. It's all the American dream. And there's something to be said that Franklin represented symbolized that very idea. Do the historians, and by the way, I'm speaking with Dr. Mark Skousen, and of course,

Benjamin Franklin is an eighth generation, he's an eighth generation descendant of Benjamin Franklin and the book is The Greatest American. Do modern historians kind of focus on the more, I don't know, the partying aspect of him sometimes? I seem to see a lot of articles on Benjamin Franklin talking about partying in Paris with the ladies back in the days as an elderly man. How much of that is true or is that intentional that they kind of want to focus on that instead of what actually was done? Yeah, I have chapter 77 is the chapter, this is the only, I wrote a column for some time for the Franklin Prosperity Report that Newsmax published and that's the basis of this book.

And there was one chapter that, or one column that they said, no, no, we can't publish that. And that was the chapter on Franklin and the ladies and his modern, rather modern views regarding sex and women's rights. He defended women's rights and enjoyed their company not for sex and that sort of thing. Although he obviously was a ladies' man and some critics would call him a womanizer, but he recognized their intellectual interests. And especially in France when he was a widow, widower, his wife Debbie of many years passed away and so when he was eight years as ambassador to France, he did spend quite a bit of time with women who were very much, they had their salons, salons, and they gathered together

for intellectual interests and that sort of thing. He did have one illegitimate child. And so there was some notoriety about him engaging in what he called his engagement with low women is the way he put it in the autobiography. Yes, there is that element, those rumors and so forth. John Adams, for example, was quite critical of Ben Franklin as being a heretic in religion and a womanizer who was not particularly—I mean, he was not impressed at all with the French people. But look at the results with his interest in his love of France, both men and women.

He out of all the colonial commissioners there, he was the only one who raised millions and millions of dollars, or livres, as the French currency was called at the time, for the American cause. Yeah, and if that hadn't been done, our revolution probably would have died on the line, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it have died? In many ways, in fact, if you look at the Battle of Yorktown, half the ships were French, all the uniforms were provided by the French, a third of the soldiers were French and so forth. So there was very much help, and that was Franklin. Franklin engineered all of the French support financially and elsewhere.

He was a phenomenal fundraiser. I have a whole chapter on Franklin as a fundraiser. He invented the matching funds. If you give $100, someone else will donate $100. Never knew that. He's the one that came up with that. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Now, before we take off here, Dr. Skousin, you write in the book that Ben Franklin's greatest fear was that a king would someday rule over us, and of course alluding to a non-check presidency, and yet it would appear that the president's position was almost originally designed as a kingly position. So, are we there right now with the all-powerful executive even though we're seeing President Trump you know continually at odds with the courts and in legal battles over this? What do you think? Yes I think that that was the big warning you know when after the

constitutional convention a woman asked Franklin well what kind of government do we have Mr. Franklin Franklin, or Dr. Franklin? And he said, a republic, if you can keep it. So he was, he, representative government is what was created with the Constitution. You had this balance of power between the legislature and the executive and the judicial. And look what's happened in the first hundred days. You've had a president who has signed over a hundred executive orders and only six bills have come before him to sign in those first hundred days. This is the lowest level that Congress has been involved

in government. Isn't that showing the flaccidness of Congress and Congress not wanting to defend its power? Yes, exactly. And they're not willing, even Senator Rand Paul is one of the few who's tried to get the Republicans to say, listen, we're in charge of Congress. Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution provides for tariffs and duties to be decided by Congress, not by the President. But they gave him this power and the President Trump is taking full advantage of this power and so this is really Congress's fault for their dereliction of duty. And wouldn't you say that Congress's dereliction of duty has also led to the administrative state dominance

of our country these days. Yeah, exactly. And of course, there's an efficiency rule because you have 525 people trying to decide legislation so you can see why they turned it over to the executive to make these kinds of decisions. And it's really too bad. So there's an imbalance of power. Look, Franklin never wanted to see, and nobody really wanted to see, is to have a king, a

monarchy again. Trump's doing a lot of really good things. There's a benevolent dictator, if you will, but at the same time, there's always things that he's going to do wrong where his powers need to be checked. That was the genius of the Constitution. The Greatest American is the name of the book by Dr. Mark Skousen. Mark, it is a pleasure talking with you this morning.

The book is available at all the usual suspects, right? Do you have a website on this too? Yeah, it's actually coming out on May 27th. If people want to buy it early, they can go to ScousenBooks.com and I autograph all the copies. So that would be the source of, if they would like an autographed copy at a discounted price. So that's the place to go, ScousenBooks.com. All right. Dr. Scousen, final question I had before you take off, and I kept you longer than I thought I would. Death of the dollar over exaggerated at this point or not?

Where are you thinking? Well, certainly with Ben Franklin on the $100 bill known as the Franklin, he would hate to see the dollar lose its value. A king dollar is something that I think will be with us because what is the alternative? Are you going to get the euro? I don't think so. You're going to give money to China as a reserve currency? That's not going to happen.

So I think the dollar by default will continue to play a significant role, but that's not to say you shouldn't keep a good position in gold or maybe even Bitcoin as an alternative. Yeah, the cleanest dirty shirt, it will remain there for at least the foreseeable future, right? Well said. Hey, thank you, Dr. Skousen. Good talk. Appreciate it.

Bye-bye. Thank you. Take care. 733 on KMED. Hey there, it's Lisa from Kelly's Automotive Service in Grants Pass in Medford. Thank you. Take care. 733 on KMED. Hey there. It's Lisa from Kelly's Automotive Service in Grants Pass in Medford. I know, air conditioning might not be at the top of your mind right now, but summer is coming.

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SmartCap, Century, and more. Come see Oregon Truck and Auto Authority today and take your efficiency to the next level. This is the Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Got something on your mind? Give Bill a shout at 541-770-5633. All right, I have time for maybe a quick call here. Herman's gonna join me in just a few too.

Steve, you wanted to join me here. You say that Dr. Mark Skousen's an idiot, you said, huh? Well, yeah, he's a globalist because he's saying that globalism is the answer when he's not taking into consideration the currency manipulation and other things that other countries do and theft of intellectual property. If you're in the United States and you come up with an idea and patent it, the Chinese will have it on the market before you can.

And their currency manipulation makes it almost impossible to compete because everything that they sell, you have a 10% loss, you know, if you try to compete with them. Yeah. All right. So this is the battle that we see before us. What level of globalism, right? Well, I guess so. You know, I think the idea of reciprocity is a great idea. I don't know if Donald Trump can make that work, but... Well, we're going to find out one way or the other. Here is the challenge, though. I'm going to continue to bang this gong because it is true. We're going to run trade deficits.

I don't think there's any way we cannot run trade deficits as long as we have the world reserve currency. You have to. There has to be more of the currency out there in order to settle trade. You can't just have it be perfectly balanced. Otherwise, you would just freeze the world economy. Would you agree with me on that much? To an extent, as long as there's enough economic activity to produce wealth, you don't need that trade deficit. It's when there isn't enough economic activity. If you're

not producing enough goods and services, then you run into the problem of deficits. All right. All right. Thank you, Steve. Let me grab another one here. Hi, good morning. then you run into the problem of deficits. All right. Thank you, Steve. Let me grab another one here. Hi, good morning. Hello? Good morning, Bill? Yes.

Yeah, Steve in Sunny Valley. Hey, Steve. I think Steve had some very good points about the globalist tendencies of your last guest. And to add on top of that, I think we should point out that China's products are so cheap because they don't pay their people enough to buy the products. And as a matter of fact, some of those laborers are slaves. Now we fought a big war to get rid of slavery in this country.

And then during the apartheid in South Africa, we did a boycott and embargo on everything produced by South Africa for moral reasons. And I think that is a good reason to maintain high tariffs on China, if nothing else, to dissuade them from their practices of slave labor, the Uyghurs, and the children. And we don't want to encourage that kind of behavior across the world. All right. That's a reasonable point to take there. And thank you, Steve. Appreciate that. 739. We'll catch up on the rest of the news here in just a moment. Herman joins me. The Ethics Commission. Boy, if there's anybody who knows the ethics commission he's uh... dealt with him quite a bit

what is the serial communication that the oregon league of of the cities is all concerned about you stop all this communication among the uh... government people you have to uh... do absolutely every kind of uh... consideration or talk about anything out the public meeting does that make sense will talk about that in more coming up news brought to you by Millett Construction. Former state senator Herman Barachig, we're back on the program.

Herman, you want to throw a few barbs at Dr. Mark Skousen? We had him on a few minutes ago. Like I said, I'll listen and talk to all sides on these economic debates, the globalists, the non-globalists and all that sort of stuff. What are you thinking? Well, like I said several months ago to you, Bill, all this tariff stuff will all sorted out. We've been in tariff wars before. And then you add Donald Trump, the New York developer that goes into every negotiated meeting

with a sledgehammer to soften everybody out before they start talking about the deal. That's just how he does business. And that's what we're seeing. Yeah, and I was looking at what was happening recently with the 145% thinking like, oh boy, that's high. But on the other hand, it's about trying to find the pain point on both sides of this. My friend Matt in Grants Pass was telling me about this yesterday, and I think he's right about it. It's about finding the pain point and then negotiating what in other words you get someone's attention first and then where do we go? Exactly, and that's how he does business and so that so I'll go back to what I said a few months ago and also Okay, our borders have always been going on and they always seem to sort themselves out Alright now I wanted to shift gears here to a story that I was reading here in Southern Oregon.

I think it was Southern Oregon rather. I think it was Willamette Week that actually printed this out. And the League of Oregon Cities is really concerned with the Oregon Ethics Commission. Now, we've been talking a lot about the Ethics Commission because they just ended up increasing the fine on Shemeah Fagan. So for about one third of a month of her weed money when she was working for Lamoda too. So that's the fine they gave her, you know, 3,600 bucks or so. There's, they're trying to be tough, but there is concern about the open meetings law and serial communications and cities are getting kind of concerned thinking that, gosh, there's almost no way that they can operate without getting investigated by

the Ethics Commission here and I was wondering if you could help us understand this as someone who himself has gone through many many many ethics investigations and most of them being dismissed right? Well it's easy to be weaponized and in the case of Josephine County with Commissioner West, Commissioner DeYoung, and myself, we've had ethics violations by one person, J.J. Scofield. He's made the lion's share of them. And they're just erroneous complaints, but the Ethics Commission still has to...

A lot of them were dismissed. So how that works at the ethics commission, the complaint is received, it goes to an investigator, the investigator looks at it. If it's erroneous, just flat erroneous, it'll, the investigator will just recommend to the ethics commission that it be dismissed. That usually goes to an ethics commission board meeting, they dismiss it. The next level is maybe it needs to be investigated more, goes to the ethics commission, the ethics commission says yes or no, it needs to be investigated more. If it doesn't need to be dismissed, if it does need, if they feel it does, then it goes on to the next level. And all of these, you know, you have to, you know, get in the, what do they call that?

The waiting room, you know, you got to make your phone call and then you got to sit in the, what do they call the computer waiting room? I can't remember what it's called. But anyways, so you sit there with your computer or your cell phone for hours and hours until your case comes up. So, you know, every time I have an ethics complaint, I just say, well, there's half a day shot waiting, you know, and then they're always dismissed. Well, it's interesting. So now let's talk about what is serial deliberation? Yeah. And let me just explain the story here that I first heard about this, right?

It was a letter to the Oregon Ethics Commission, League of Oregon Cities lambasting the body's interpretation of a new public meetings law that tightens restrictions on how local elected officials may communicate. The advice being given by the Commission staff is a disturbing misreading of the ORS," writes Patty Mulville, Executive Director at the League of Oregon Cities, in a letter addressed to the Ethics Commission Chair, David Fiskum. It is also patently unrealistic in its application and so far outside the bounds of what any member of the legislature would have intended upon enacting this statute and it has to do with serial communications and I turn it over to you now to explain what that is and what it

means where it goes. Well that means talking to another member of whatever board or committee you're on you talk about. About deliberating to a decision that's where it gets thick and this is what really bothers me so let's. In the ledger let's start with the legislature in the legislature you know your committee are usually five seven nine that's always an odd number because the majority always hold the vote. So a serious deliberation happens all the time in the legislature. You have committee members talking to each other all the time. How are you going to vote?

Why are you going to vote? But it's not a quorum. You have to stay away from a quorum. So if you have five members in a committee, you can't have three of a meeting and talking about deliberating towards a decision. But you could technically have two out of the five, right? Right. Exactly.

Now, where it gets a little sticky with the Board of County Commissioners, there's only three. So if two talk, that's, you could, you know. But it's almost as if you could never ever talk to your fellow commissioners about anything, really is what it looks like. And that's where it's stupid. Where it really needs to go is you can't deliberate, okay? Deliberate means coming to a decision, or you're debating with your other commissioner to try to persuade them to come to decision.

But you know, if I want to walk in somebody's office and I say, Hey, I want to talk to you. Do you have the fact sheet for this issue? Can I get a copy from you or something like that? Or or did Or you could say, did so and so talk to you about this? Did they have any pertinent information? I may contact them. Well, then when you do that, the ethics commission is saying that's serial deliberation through a third party.

Okay? So, yeah. Okay. All right. Is there a, now serial deliberation, the way I was kind of interpreting it is kind of like, all right, let's take a Josephine County Commission. You have Chris Barnett says something to Andres Black. Andres Black then says something to Ron Smith as an example.

And then it kind of goes through the chain, but you're saying the way that they're interpreting this is that even talking to staff could be interpreted as you're deliberating, right? Right, and then I asked myself, so what happens if I do a interview with a newspaper and I say, I'm for this issue, I support it, here's the facts, this is why I support it. They write a whole article, my whole argument of why I support it, and then the other two

commissioners read it. Is that serial deliberation? Yeah, I could see this then. Now, is it actually written, the law written this way, or is it just as the claim from the League of Oregon Cities is, that it's the interpretation of the commission? Here's what we're trying to avoid. Let's start with what we're trying to avoid is in a three commissioner board, two commissioners getting together behind closed doors and saying, hey, I'll vote yes, you vote yes, and we know the other commissioner vote no, and that's how we'll do it. That's what they're trying to get away from, okay? I understand that that's reasonable. Sure. Okay. And it's all about transparency. And despite what Scott Stoddard thinks, which I don't

give a rat's tail what he thinks, I have always been for a transparent government. Okay? So you can have those discussions in an open meeting, just don't have them in a closed meeting. And I used to tell my fellow commissioners, you know, when they would start getting a little bit outside of the bounds, it wasn't really deliberation, but we're probably, I would say,

hey, put it on the agenda. Let's talk about it. Yeah. You're talking about, you're getting too close to talking about policy, in other words, that kind of thing. Exactly. Coming to a conclusion. Okay. And it even, then it started, you know, this whole thing's getting carried away because then it even started, well, you can't even talk about, you know, giving different information. can't even talk about giving different information. So maybe I got a report about something. Should I be able to give that report to the other commissioners about the issue?

So it's just gotten out of hand. I think we need to go back and say, the problem we're trying to address is that we're not coming to a decision outside a public meeting, period. And to be quite honest, you all have to discipline yourself because you got cell phones, you've got all these ways of communicating, and you you got to be careful about that. They'll talk with Pete Hexeth. He knows about that. Oh yeah. Yeah, really. Especially some with me that is fairly ignorant on how to work these machines. I barely can work them. I could make a mistake easily. So back to the basics. Be careful.

it a mistake easily. So back to the basics. Be careful. Don't deliberate outside a public meeting. That way the public can see what your thought process is. Why does Commissioner Behring-Stinger, why does Senator Behring-Stinger feel this way? And that's what it's all about. What has concerned me a bit here, Herman, is I'm always suspicious. I jealously wish to guard the political power and acumen of elected officials. And there has been a trend, of course, to want to have more and more staff. And of course, they call it professionalizing, etc. I understand the appeal of this. My concern about so many issues here is that if you end up having the Ethics Commission focusing really hard on

making sure that there's absolutely no communication, I'm just wondering if we get to the point where it gives staff more problems, or power rather because they essentially come up with a way and this is where you know the staff member thinks that this is where we want to go and nobody on a commission or a board knows anything about it until they just throw it out there you know in the in the next meeting it's like no one can read anything if they're going to get to the point where they criminalize contact with the staff and the in the commissioners and it but it also with the staff and the commissioners. But it also gives the staff more power, doesn't it?

It can. Let's say it can. You know, one of the things in my career, when I've worked with other politicians that have just got into the political business, we would have discussions all the time about the process. How does the process? We're not deliberating on any conclusion on a policy or something. We're talking about how does this work?

How does it go through? We had some ethics complaint from Schofield about always seeing the DeYoung adventure. I'm just giving you a Hypothetical I can't remember all the details the what? But it was more like well, I've seen him in the office talking to you You know Herman was sitting in Dan's office talking to him Mm-hmm That's ethics violate and the assumption is that you're talking about policy or debating something right and they what they don't realize is that That the young and Herman have been friends for over

30 years. They both past presidents of Active Club and were both in the classic cars. Dan especially is in the classic cars. And so I was always picking Dan's brain because he's older, he's got more experience, and I'm always in there, hey, how do I do this and how do I do that kind of stuff? And most of our discussions were about that or he was in the Navy or stuff like that. Yeah, but can't you understand why a JJ Schofield type, or you know, someone looking at this, would make the, would be able to draw the conclusion that it looks bad to be sitting there talking? Well, drawing conclusions without evidence is really dangerous.

Okay. Yeah. But wouldn't it be wise then to keep those conversations out of the office then? You know, if you're going to have a talk about classic cars, you know, you just do that, you know, sitting over a beer or something like that at the, over at the... Well, then they'll say, oh, we've seen them at the bar talking. They say the same thing. Oh, okay.

So you... It doesn't okay. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's kind of a self-disciplined thing. And legislators or commissioners or city councils or whatever have to learn that you have to discipline yourself on what you discuss in a quorum setting. Well, how do you discipline yourself to the point where you avoid the appearance of impropriety, even if no impropriety was conducted?

You can't. Oh. You're right up in an elevator and step out. Oh, you guys are talking about, what were we talking about? You have no idea what we're talking about. I was talking about how squeaky this stupid elevator is. So it's just, like I said, it's kind of like self-certifying. But I will tell you, Bill, if you go across this state or across this

country and you ask the average city council member, commissioner, whatever, what is serial deliberation? I bet you don't get a right answer most of the time. We're going to hear more of it pretty soon though from the looks of it. Yeah. And I'll get now I get another the ethics commission. Commission. So I have one thing left, and that was with the Ethics Commission about disclosing, you know, before I make a decision on an agenda or something, you know, conflict of interest. So in the Senate, we had to go to conflict of interest school.

And it's pretty simple. If you are dealing with an issue that is very restrictive to you, you need to declare a conflict of interest. So let me give you an example. Say I'm, I don't want to say that. Say I'm going to vote to lower taxes. Yeah, I'll use that. I was going to say raise taxes. I'm never going to do that. So I'm going to vote to lower taxes. I don't have, before I take the vote, I don't have to have a conflict of interest because it affects everybody in the state of Oregon. I'm in a class. Okay? Well now the ethics commission more at the local level is saying, well, yeah, but you are going to benefit if you lower taxes or fees. Like your farm could be, the farm that you have as an example could be inadvertently

or more benefited than maybe someone else's property. That kind of thing? Right. So in the Senate, you would be in a class with all the other farmers, but at the local level, all of a sudden, because you own a farm, you know, so this is what we did. This is how crazy that ethics commission is. So I said, Wally, what the hell is going on with the Ethics Commission on conflict of interest? Unless you have a direct conflict, you don't have to say it. You're in a class.

And Wally says, that's really good. So he sent them a letter, and he sent them a letter asking, you know, what are the sideboards on this? What do you want to hear? What can we do? What can we not do? What are the rules? And what did the Ethics Commission say when Wally Hicks ends up sending all this information out looking for clarification? Nothing crickets Crickets, all right So anybody can file a complaint an ethics complaint But the commission will not actually define things and you know and tell people how to stay out of having an ethics problem?

Right. So then we're having a meeting, and we're addressing increases in fees. And at the beginning of the meeting, since we're in this unknown zone of conflict of interest, I make a statement. I say out of abundance of caution, I may have a conflict of interest with setting the fees as I may in the future have to pay some of these fees. So I made that. But you still got in trouble for that, right? Yeah. Debbie Bird said, oh, well, but they still you still got in trouble for that, right? Yeah, Debbie Bird said oh well

That's that's that's too big. So she filed a ethics complaint with the Ethics Commission The investigator says that's too vague. I said, so what is it? I says we haven't even got we've waited six months to get an answer out of your attorneys up there what to say And not say and now you say I broke a rule that you don't even know how to give the definition of the rule. So in some ways it's like Ethics Commission heads you lose, tails the Ethics Commission wins if they're coming after you in some respects, but yet at the same time they sure went soft on Shemeah Fagan, it would seem. Right. So I told them, I said, Hey, you can do all you all you want to be.

You can say, I'm going to appeal it. I'm taking this all the way because I've got a letter asking you guys what I should say. And you have in six months haven't even got back to me of what. So I do the best I can. I say out of abundance, precaution, you know, because at the time, at the time of that meeting, I didn't know what fees. I don't know if I'm going to go to the park. I don't know if I'm going to need development.

I don't know any of this stuff. So, but it's a way for people to harass you. All right. So bottom line, I don't like thinking about this is the Oregon Ethics Commission really just about protecting Democrats and harassing Republicans, for lack of a better term, from the sounds of it, given how many have been filed against you and then dismissed. Don't forget, when we set up the ethics commission, there were four members appointed by the Republican caucuses in the legislature and four members appointed by the Democrat caucuses. So it's four. And then

when Koteck, the most, she is the most partisan politician I ever met in my life. As soon as she gets in office, she adds a ninth member appointed by the governor. Oh, okay. So this goes back to my heads you lose, tails they win kind of mentality. Okay. All right. Oregon, you know? And you know what? The people, especially in the northern part of the state, keep voting for them. That's probably going to be the question that I go to my grave with unanswered is why do the people in the northern part of the state keep voting for these crazy people? Man, it's a bad habit, Herman. It's a bad habit.

Hey, appreciate the call, but thanks for explaining the serial communication and all the rest of this. And is there any juice to get rid of that, the governor's influence on the Ethics Commission? because I think the way it was before with just evenly divided in a partisan basis that would tend to really keep keep things more honest I would think. Well and I'll give you a little homework Bill. Go to the Ethics Commission, look at the board and then read their bios. Okay I'll get back to you on it and next time we talk next Tuesday how about that? See you later.

Alright, thanks Herman. Bye. Alright. This is KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Open phone times now on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. We'll also have a Diner 62, a real American quiz between now and the end of this hour. But happy to take your call on most anything happening in your world.