Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-04-26_THURSDAY_7AM

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

06-04-26_THURSDAY_7AM

This hour of the Bill Myers 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 Klausurrilling.com. A couple minutes after 7 o'clock, Peter, you're here, and you wanted to share a transgender experience of what a friend of yours in the family did an adoption. I'd like to get the other side of that story, too, in which it appeared to actually be successful, I guess, is how you're saying? successful as I've ever heard. And it seems like, as I said to you, I've shared this with your audience years ago. And this guy's an ex-Vietnam guy, and they went back and did service work

and say, oh, we got to adopt a kid. And I've always thought that that trauma of kids being yanked out of their home and given to somebody else has got to be traumatizing. And, and And I was curious with the doctor, you know, whether statistically kids that are adopted have a way higher rate of, you know, this sort of is. You know, I'm going to try to drop him an email on that. I do have some email contact with Dr. Maselli and see, because he, like I said, he knows so much of this, you know, up and down and backwards and forward. but when did your friend's child or the adopted? She was, when I remember I'm saying when our kids were, you know, around 10. And I remember we did meet with them once in Colorado and kind of came together.

And it was interesting to see how this little girl, she wanted nothing to do with my daughters. and she just wanted to play with the other boys there and they're playing like war games. And it really, you know, it's been such a strong, your audience didn't hear me say this to you earlier, that he's one of the few examples of what I think of being somewhat normal, and he's a high achiever. He's a nice guy. He pumps on. He looks like he's buff, all this stuff. So he went through the transition.

at what age do you know? Just curious. Well, he at 10, he said to his parents, he said, well, you stop putting these damn dresses on me. I don't want to wear dresses. And he has, and I don't know exactly what age he started taking hormones, but he hasn't had any kind of surgeries, thank God. But I realize, you know, he's still on these hormones for the rest of his life. And it seems like, oh, my God, what a pain in the neck.

And amazed that he, you know, I think it's credit to his awesome parents because he's had a couple girlfriends and they don't seem to, you know, it seems like they've been sort of long, you know, they haven't been fly-by-night relationships. Interesting. Yeah, it would be, you know, it would be interesting to find out if, you know, trauma of adoption or being abandoned or something if there seems to be some connection on some of this. I couldn't really speak to that, but I'll tell you what I will. I'll drop a note to the doctor and maybe I can get back to you on that, Peter, but that's an interesting story. I'm glad to hear that there's some people it's okay. I'm hearing way too many, though, that are having a problem and then a few, just a few years down the road or regretting it. And then, of course,

the medical system doesn't want to deal with you if you want to transition back because, well, you know, that's bad. Yeah, you're not mentally ill if you want to transition, but you are mentally ill if you're trying to transition back, I guess. Appreciate the call, though. Really appreciate that, Peter. Thanks. We'll check Fox News and a bunch more here.

And then we're going to talk with Mark Kirby. Mark Kirby is on the Josephine County Budget Committee. And today is their big budget meeting. It's the final one that they're getting before the county commission ends up voting on this. and he's trying to raise the alarm, says that they could be operating, possibly operating on bad information. We'll kick that around next. This is Insurance Agent A. Hey.

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I'm Theresa Crowley, Fox News. President Trump says a peace deal with Iran might not happen or it may this weekend and defines the ceasefire is when you're shooting more moderately. Fox is Griff Jenkins. Despite Iranian reports that peace talks have ceased, the president says talks are actually going pretty well and that a deal may soon be The negotiation itself has gone very well, actually. Very well. Mr. President.

If it happens, and it might not happen, who knows? But if it happens, it could happen like over the weekend. Meanwhile, in a sign of growing GOP frustrations on Capitol Hill, four House Republicans joined Democrats in passing a war powers resolution, rebuking the president's war in Iran. That now heads to the Senate. But if it passes in the Senate, you can bet that it will be vetoed at the president's death. And meet the president's veto pen. California still counting primary votes from Tuesday.

Republican governor frontrunner, Steve Hilton, says therein lies the problem. This election system that they've created here is just another monument to their uselessness, another version of high-speed rail. Fox says Madeline Rivera says Republicans Hilton and L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt are still holding leads with their agenda for change. The latest numbers from the Associated Press show Hilton with about 28% of the vote, Democrat Hawks. Xavier Bacera is in second place of nearly 26 percent, and fellow Democrat Tom Steyer is in third place with roughly 20 percent. But millions of votes still need to be counted, which, of course, could change the results. And part of the delay is because so many people in California vote by mail, and those ballots, of course, take longer to receive, verify, and count. Hilton is frustrated.

So the uncounted ballots could lean Democratic, but Hilton thinks he'll maintain his lead because people are hungry for change. The account could take weeks in all. America's listening to Fox News. If you want unlimited talk text and data on a crazy fast network, big wireless will sell it to you right now for as little as $70 a month, or you can buy it from Pure Talk for half of that. I'm talking about unlimited talk text and unlimited data for just $3499 a month. Stop paying the big guys twice what you need to.

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I'm Julie Denny with the Oregon Department of Transportation in Southwest Oregon. Throughout the region, we're working on projects to improve safety. You may see new pavement in some areas, but we're also installing safety features to help prevent deadly crashes. And we're making it easier to get around no matter how you travel. Please help us out by using caution when traveling through work zones. Slow down and don't drive when you're distracted or impaired. A message from ODOT. Morning weather is sponsored by Advanced Air and Bryant,

doing whatever it takes to deliver intelligent heating and cooling solutions and award-winning service. Visit MyAdvancedair.com. I'm Meteorologist Bobby J for NBC5. Cooler start for this Thursday morning today, topping off around 83, plenty of sunshine. We'll drop the 50 overnight, breezy, and a high. High of 80 Friday, breezy Saturday, but dropping to 72, 77 on Sunday, chance of rain into the start of next week.

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and savings like never before only at your local coastal. Coastal Farm is just what the country needs. to serve you with savings, so shop until June 9th at Coastland. The Bill Meyer Show on Southern Oregon's home for conservative talk. News Talk 1063 KMED. Call Bill at 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. Now more with Bill Meyer. Want to do a deeper dive on what's going on with our government. It's spending everywhere you go. And talking about it off and on a lot this week, whether it was police salaries in the city of Central Point. What could be going on in Jackson County?

What's going on in Josephine County? And the challenges of taxes that go up 3% a year and expenses that Zoom way past that, well, that's sustainable. And I wanted to focus on Joe County in this particular segment here with Mark Kirby. Mark Kirby is a member of the Josephine County Budget Committee. Hello, Mark. Pleasure. Good having you on. Good morning, Bill.

Thanks for having me on. Mark, tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be on the Budget Committee. I just want to find out what your bona fides are, so to speak. Well, Bill, I am a certified public accountant. I have a master's in taxation. I've spent a number of years in public accounting. I've spent the last 30-plus years in corporate world. leading teams, building budgets, and working on corporate governance.

So in that time, I've also worked on a couple of other public entities and worked on their budgets, predominantly school districts. So that's really my background. All right. And you're also a forensic accountant. Is that the case? At least someone told me you were a forensic accountant. I'm not sure where they got that from.

you know, my forte has not been forensic accounting. Oh, okay. But part of being an accountant is, you know, being an auditor and digging into things and, you know, making sense of records and making sure that they indeed are what they say they are. All right. Well, duly corrected then, but thank you for that. But great to have you on to talk about this. And, you know, a lot of times when you start talking about money and especially when you talk about big numbers and budgets and government, you know, eyes can glaze over. but this is really, really important stuff,

especially in the Josephine County, which has had real challenges. It's a smaller county. There's a lot of land to patrol, but the tax base is small and the expenses are high. You know, it's just the way it's, and everyone's trying to tough it out right now. And I spoke yesterday with a county commissioner,

Colleen Martin, about it, and couldn't really give me many specifics, but you're on the budget committee. And from what I understand, And you're kind of concerned of where it's going. Is that a fair assessment of what you're thinking about this process and what's been happening so far? Well, my concern is really sustainability, like you mentioned a moment ago.

The county currently for the 2026, 27 fiscal year, is looking at a budget of almost $189 million. dollars. That really masks where my concern is because the discretionary money, the money that the county commissioners really have say over is a much smaller number. It's much closer to about 18 million. The rest of that money is all grants or committed money from tax levies and things like that. Or it could be like money that comes through from the Oregon Health Authority that has to go through the county health department, that kind of thing? I was going to say money that comes in from the state that can only go to roads and bridges

or money from the tax levy that can only go to the sheriff's department, things of that nature. So the discretionary funding is really only about $18 million. There's not a lot of wiggle room there. That's really all you have to spend to run the government office, the day-to-day business office of the county. to dive right into where my real concern is, in one of the budget workshops that the county commissioners had, I believe it was Colin Martin said, you know, hey, let's look out into the future and let's see if there's a fiscal cliff out there. Is there a financial cliff out there where, you know, we don't want to go over the edge and run into a problem? And she said, you know, if that indeed is out there, we should perhaps pull back now and start. to plan for it. I completely agree with that. You know, you want to know where you're going to end up. So in the county budget, there's a five-year projection of what this year's budget will look like over the next, you know, the future four years beyond that. And it's a projection. It's not an actual budget. It's not an actual forecast where you determine what you think the expenses really are.

It's just a mathematical exercise where you assume what revenue growth is going to be, and you assume what expense growth is going to be, what your cost are going to increase, and you do a mathematical calculation and push out a projection for four years, or for four additional years. And where I got concerned was when I was told that the assumptions that are part of that are that revenues will go up 1% a year, and that expenses will only increase at a 3% rate per year. Huh.

Okay. Now, now I only want to math and government school here, Mark, but if revenue goes up, if the money coming in goes up 1%, and expenses are only going up 3%, that still means you're in the hole, isn't it? That means over time it's eventually going to catch up with you and you will end up in the hole. But as you and I both know, Bill, you know, the economic environment we are in,

expenses are going up faster than 3% a year. Pacific power is pushed for an 8.6% increase. Fuel costs have gone up tremendously. You know, if gas has gone from $4 to $5, that's a 25% increase. And even within the county information that they gave us as part of the Budget Committee, they show that their insurance costs are going up 17% next year. If you look at their labor schedules, you know, where they have step and column agreements with the various unions on, you know,

every year you're going to see a step increase for years of service of X percent. And a COLA on top of that cost of living adjustment, you know, all of those increases are, you know, at a minimum 4% to, in some cases, up to 12% a year. So I think 3% is a terribly small number that doesn't truly reflect the rate at which future costs are going to increase. So you believe the county commission then is operating on a faulty assumption? Fair? Fair enough there? I believe, well, again, I'm looking at sustainability.

I really want the county to do well as we all do. You know, we live here. We're going to have to either face, you know, a future with less government services or higher taxes if we get this wrong. What I'm the worst thing we can do as accounting is assume that everything looks great. And then for example, hire more employees, specifically right. now, you know, the sheriff's department has requested a number of more deputies for patrol. I think, you know, law enforcement is one of the cornerstone tenets of why government exists, and I really want to give them that money.

But the worst thing we can do is give them the money and then next year figure out, hey, oops, we made a bad assumption. We need you to get rid of those employees you just hired. I don't want to do that to them. It's not fair to the employees, not fair to the leadership there. And it also makes it hard to hire deputies in the future, too, if they see, you know, people coming and going back and forth, right? That sort of thing. Absolutely true.

Absolutely true. So I did, I reworked the math on the projection schedule that was provided by the county. And I used some of my own numbers that I derived from their budget information, you know, payroll and, you know, the benefits. increases and that sort of thing. And whereas the county budget as forecast that was put, excuse me, can't talk this morning, the projection that was presented shows everything's great. You know, it looks at first glance like revenues are good, expenses are good, reserves are going to increase over the next couple of years.

It really looks positive. But if you apply a more realistic rate of increase to costs to the county, that picture changes very quickly and very dramatically. What do you think, Mark, by the way, I'm speaking with Mark Kirby, and he's a certified public accountant, and he's a member of the Josephine County Budget Committee. Mark, what do you think is a more realistic, real-world projection number to be using? If the county is assuming 3% increase in expenses,

which feels a little low, given what we're even seeing in our grocery bills, and our fuel bills and our power bills and our, you know, everything else. What do you think is a better number? What's more appropriate, you think? Well, for example, labor from the county's own, you know, tables, you know, step-in-callum tables, depending on what department you're in and how many years of service you have, your annual increase could be between six and 12 percent. Man.

I wanted to be fair and not get into an argument, you know, making it look like that was picking worst case scenario. So I simply am going to use 7.5% towards the low end. Okay. But rather than worry about, you know, what the number truly is, it indicates a trend, right? What does my trend really look like? Am I still going to be okay? Or does my growth in expenses grow geometrically to the point where this isn't sustainable? And that's really the outcome of what I found. is those expenses grow so fast that in, you know, three years out or so, we could have a problem.

And I'm not saying we're going to have a problem. I just want to make sure I help the commissioners, the budget committee, and the county identify where that fiscal cliff is so that we can start to avoid it now. Would you then, in your professional opinion as a certified public accountant, should we be doing something as radical in Josephine County as freezing, hiring even right now, in spite of the fact that the sheriff's dep, the sheriffs would like more deputies and everybody would like more people and, gosh, we'd like this and that and a dog and a pony or whatever. What do you think? Well, I completely understand where you're going at this.

And, you know, it's hard to say which direction, where we should look at to find the money for this. What I do know and what I'm sure you'll agree with is the rate of taxation has got to be equal to the rate of government spending. So if we see that expenses are outstripping revenues, then you've got two choices. You can either cut in various things where it will hurt the least, or you're going to have to raise taxes. That will ultimately fall on the commissioners. And I want you to realize that the budget committee is really an advisory committee. We don't have a say we can advise the commissioners.

So even though the commissioners are on the budget committee, the budget committee doesn't dictate where this will ultimately go. It is the call of the commissioners. Yeah, that's true. You're It is. It is. But I view my position as a representative of the people of the county of Josephine, and I want to make sure that the governing body, the commissioners, have the best information possible so that they can make the best decisions possible. So again, I just want to highlight here's what I found, and I think there's a potential cliff out there. And as I think we all know, the sooner we act to avoid the cliff, the easier it will be to do. If we drive down the road thinking there is no cliff out there and then all of a sudden it's right in front of you, it's a lot harder to avoid.

Yeah, you're a lot better off cinching your, or shall we say, lowering your expectations right now rather than trying to, you know, take a meat cleaver two, three years down the road. Is that a good way of looking at it? that's absolutely my thought yes okay again so in they're assuming three percent increases in expenses that sounds awfully low even just with regular people's home expenses then do you think it's more in that neighborhood of realistically four or five five or six six or seven and of course labor is probably your biggest you know part of that 18 million dollar budget for Josephine County? Well, there are 400 employees in Josephine County,

and there are requests to add more in this budget. That's a significant factor in what we're looking at. And I think that that will increase at a rate of, you know, in excess of 6%. I know that electricity is up 6%. I know that fuels up, you know, let's call it, you know, 10% or more, insurance is up 17% according to their own records. I think on average, your day-to-day expenses, non-labor, are probably up close to 9, 10% a year.

And what about the contributions for the public employee retirement system, Mark? How is that looking? Those will also go up because those are driven by how many dollars you run through payroll. So as your employees earn more, then those benefits, the purrs, and things of that nature must also go up. And quite frankly, your benefits in the county are probably right around 70% of what someone's salary is. In, you know, out in the corporate world, that tends to be about a third, 33%. In the county, if you're a county employee, it's quite a bit more expensive to have. employee. Okay. So 3% is not going to work if we're actually being honest with one another.

And I think you're hoping that everyone's going to be honest about where we really are. Rather than looking at pie in the sky, is that what you're thinking? It's like, hey, man, I'm going to tell you, it's looking pretty stormy clouds out there with the money coming in, right? That's what we're looking at. Right. I'm going to have to have a conversation with that. this morning about, yes, I see your projection. I see that you show reserves growing and things you're rosy, but the reality is different, and here's where I think it is.

And I think you've got a couple of years to make some adjustments before you run into the brick wall, so to speak. And, you know, we may as well start now. That way we don't get to the final year, and all of a sudden we have these draconian and dramatic things like layoffs and the sort of thing that makes the news. Let's manage this more proactively. Okay, fair enough. Mark, I think this is going to be a really interesting meeting at 9 o'clock this morning, and a lot of people are going to be paying attention. Do you know if that streamed? Is that

meeting streamed? Because I can't go to the meeting. I'd like to watch it. I believe it is. Okay, all right. I believe it is. And it's recorded as well. Okay, very good. Mark Kirby, I appreciate the candor and something tells me. you're not going to be welcome at the Christmas parties, you know? That is probably a fact. However, you know, I really feel I need to do the right time. Yeah, well, I appreciate that. And, yeah, we need more of that of truth-telling about this.

Mark Kirby, thanks for the take on it. And we'll see what happens this morning if, you know, who's listening or if you're ignored or what happens next, okay? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, Bill. Thank you very much. Mark Kirby, once again, certified public accountant, and he's a member of the Joseph

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life lock or lifelock.com use the promo code back at lifelock.com this is news talk 1063 kmED and you're waking up with the bill mire's show happy take your calls interesting talk there with mark kirby on the josephine county budget Committee. And frankly, I think that there are a lot of governmental agencies that are going to be having similar kind of conversations. Okay, this is what you think's coming in. Here's what's reality. Now, Jay, Jay Meredith from Joe County. Now, you're, yeah, you have a different take on it, though. I'd love to get your take on it, the alternative. Go right ahead. Yeah, thanks, Bill, for taking my call. And, yeah, Mr. Kirby is doing a great job on the Budget

Committee this year. He's asking a lot of great questions. And I'm, I'm probably one of the few rare people that has watched every minute of the budget committee meetings. I've watched all of the county commissioner meetings and budget meetings for about 14 years. And boy, are your eyes glazed over, huh? Well, it's in a nerdy kind of way. I guess it's kind of fun for me. I served, sounds like Mr. Kirby's got a, you know, he's, I'm a CPA. He's probably, it sounds like he's got a little bit more experience on the course.

side of things. I've spent about half of my career in corporate and about half of my career in government. Well, give me your hot take on where you differ, though, at this point, okay? Yeah, so the problem is the county, the county finance staff, they have to, during the budget process, there's, it's either a charter rule or a internal policy rule that requires them to do a five-year projection. And the five-year projection, has always used assumptions that are really not realistic. And so the five-year projection is basically just wrong. But a lot of commissioners and budget committee members,

they look at that five-year projection and they're like, well, this doesn't look good. How can we, you know, how can we afford to hire some more staff when this five-year projection says that, you know, we're headed towards, you know, some challenging times? Well, that bottom line is that five-year projection is it's not accurate because it doesn't factor in some really critical things that it should. And I've argued this with some people in the past. So what are you thinking now?

My thing is, though, is if they're assuming 3% increases in expenses, though, I mean, that would just be generally speaking nonsense in today's world. Am I right or wrong about that? Yeah, well, I think they're underestimating what the increases in expenses will be. be, I think they're also probably underestimating what the increases in revenue will be as well. Oh, really? How's that? I'd like to hear that. How do you think they're underestimating income? That's interesting. I want to hear that other side of that. What do you think? Well, I think all of the major assumptions could use some tweaking or perhaps even major changes. But the, so property taxes are, you know, those go up. Three percent a year, roughly. Two to four percent per year because

you get 3% under the state measure limitation, plus you get, you know, any increase in assessed value on new buildings that happen, you know, throughout the previous year. So if they're projecting revenues to only go up 1%, well, that's probably underestimating revenue increases. But the big, the really big deal that gets, that nobody takes into account, at least to the extent that they should is the five-year projection basically assumes that they spend 100% of their budgets. Well, they never spend 100% of their budgets. Back when I was the finance director for the city of grants passed for 10 years between 2010 to 2020, we had to, you know, when I did

longer-term projections, we had to assume, okay, how much under budget are they going to be? Because they're always under budget. Legally, they have to be under budget. And there's always staff turnover throughout an average year. And that staff turnover ends up turning into budgetary savings. Okay. I guess what I, well, let me just ask you this then, because I'm running short on time, Jay. I'm very sorry, but, you know, I don't have a half hour to geek with you on this. I'd like it at some point. But if, do you want to plan, though? Do you want to actually plan your spending this year the next year, you know, based on the hope that you're not going to spend your budget or that we never spend all of our money or, you know, and things like that. You know, is that the way to plan?

Well, it is because they never, never spend full budgets and there's always staff turnover. In an agency that has 400 employees, there's always staff turnover. There's always people that retire. And when they retire, the new employees come in at a lower pay rate than the outgoing employees typically. So there are a bunch of things that are just not factored into that five-year projection. And quite frankly, the budget that has been put forward for the next year, there's a very big surplus in the general fund. Well, I'll tell you what, it should be an interesting meeting this morning. I know you'll be there, right?

Well, I am going to watch it. Okay, all right. All right. Well, thanks for giving us an alternative view of that. Okay. I appreciate that. 770K-M-E-D. I'll grab one more call here before the rest of the news here,

and then it's open phones on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. I always enjoy that. And Matt's here. Hello, Matt. I was talking to you about stocks yesterday, but what's on your mind today about this? Well, this budget stuff is tough. I mean, making projections is tough.

It's brutal. So I can kind of sympathize. But I talked to the sheriff a few years back, and I asked him, I said, do you, like, arrest new people? every day or every other day, or you're kind of like arresting the same people over and over again. And he said, I'm pretty much arresting the same people over and over again. And I wonder if anybody's done a cost-benefit analysis and said, you know what, we've arrested

this guy four times in the last year. Maybe we just need to lock this guy up and not let him out. Is it cheaper to keep this guy locked up than it is to continue to chase him around the county and arrest him over and over and over again? And in that case, if it was, and I don't know, But if it was, maybe the sheriff doesn't need more deputies. Maybe what we need is more help with lockup in that regard or more facilities or something. And so a tougher sentencing stature or status than from the DA. Of course, the DA, like the commissioner was talking about yesterday, district attorney's office is short on prosecutors.

They're trying to attract more. Did you hear that yesterday? Well, I'm wondering if the money is, well, maybe it's more expensive to hire a prosecutor because they're attorneys. I don't know. I don't know what the number is, but I've wondered that since that, you know, the sheriff made that comment to me that, and not only that, I mean, the quality of life here, of course, would skyrocket because you wouldn't be dealing with the same thieves and criminals over and over and over again in your neighborhood. You know, you might see them once or twice a year and then bang, they're gone for two or three years. Now, we would have, we would also have fewer of those really great Josephine County car chase stories, which seem to, you know, everybody always tries, everybody always runs in Josephine County. You notice that? They always try to believe. where I live. I'm not, I'm my kidding. I was going to the gym to work out, and this guy comes flying around the corner in this crappy little Honda. He haulsed bused down fish hatchery. He goes

up Cheney Creek Road into the mountains, on the gravel in this little Honda, this beat up thing. And so the next day, I happen to see one of the deputies in my area, and I waved him down. And I said, did you guys catch that guy? He goes, no. He drove all the way up there. He got chased by two SUVs. And he says, he jumped out of the car. and disappeared in the woods. And I just wonder, I'm like, this guy, first of all, I've seen this guy in his Honda at the little corner store. Yeah.

I mean, I've seen this guy everywhere. And I'm like, so eventually they end up arresting him. I had a domestic dispute in my driveway over the weekend. And I'm wondering how many times that guy gets picked up. Hmm. So the frequent flyers, you know, I bet we can hear the same story from the Jackson County sheriffs, Josephine County sheriffs, Douglas County sheriffs. 90% of your work is with, you know, 5 to 10% of the dirt bags.

Isn't that the number we're hearing? I think Janine Piro said in D.C., 2% of the people commit 90% of the crime. Wow. Why aren't we locking them up and leaving them there and just making everybody's life better? So that was my comment on the budget. Might be cheaper. And, you know, the thing is, though, when the current commission is projecting big surpluses, though, I'm just a little suspicious of that in this current economic situation.

Are you or not? It just sounds weird. I don't believe it. Yeah. Every time I hear the word surplus, last time we heard that with the Fed, it was back when Clinton was president. Yeah. All right. So anyway, that was kind of my cake.

The only other thing I really had is I just think, and I'm sure they're going this, but somebody's going to have to sit down and say, you know, diversification is like one of the things I, you know, I base all my investments on. I'm just wondering if some of the diversification needs to happen in the counties across the country is how much stuff can we put on the homeowner to take care of and just assume they're going to do it the right way and then not have the county do it. I just, I wonder how many things we pay for and, you know, where the county, when you look at it, the first guy you were talking to talked about law enforcement,

but that's one of the primary functions of government. I agree with them 1,000% on that. And I'm just wondering, okay, great, but how many other things are they doing that we can either farm out or we just don't need to be doing? All right. Very good. Matt, appreciate the call, as always, on conspiracy theory Thursday. Happy to take your call to 743. And this is KMED, KBXG.

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Get on solid ground. Visit Millet Construction.com for a free consultation. News brought to you by Millette Construction, specializing in foundation repair and replacement. Get on solid ground. Visit Millet Construction.com. KMED News, here's what's going on. We now know more about a Tuesday homicide near Welch and West Jackson. Jackson Street in Medford that left one woman dead from severe head wounds and a suspect now in the

Jackson County Jail. Medford police say the victim was 43-year-old Nicole Marie Dominguez. The suspect, 19-year-old Daria San Angelou, has been charged with second-degree murder. The victim and the suspect reportedly knew one another. Area businesses were helpful to police providing surveillance video, which led to identifying Santangelo as the alleged suspect. He'll be arraigned tomorrow afternoon in Jackson County Circuit Court. Ashland City Council could be reached. into residents' pockets in order to fight wildfire. NBC 5 reporting, the council voted 5 to 1 this week to consider a new community wildfire resiliency bond. The money would go to hardening a number of vulnerable homes in the city against wildfire. A consultant presented three scenarios to the

council suggesting a five-year, $48 million bond, and that would raise the monthly wildfire reduction fee that residents pay from $7 to $33 a month. It's more than $300 extra each year. The city will form a working group and look at various options and present it to the council later. And voters will not have the chance to vote on whether to bring back federal tax breaks for car loan interests and business assets on their state taxes after a referendum campaign led by conservative anti-tax operatives fizzled out. According to Oregon Capital Chronicle, they managed to collect nearly 80,000 signatures to refer the measure, but it wasn't enough to make the ballot. Bill Meyer, KMED News. This hour of the Bill Meyer show is sponsored by Glacier

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Hi, I'm Randy with Diner 62, and I'm on Kemi D. have a 9-or-62 quiz. Probably coming up in the next few minutes here, too. Just listen. I will tell you when to call. 7705-633. If you wanted to join in for a conspiracy theory Thursday, Sunny David in Phoenix, Sunny, David, good to hear from you.

And it's a sunny day. Life is good. There are surpluses everywhere as far as the eye could see. And don't worry, those fuel tanks are not emptying at the oil refineries. everything is fine. There's just, there's magic dust that's getting cleaned up in Iran, and the magic oil is going to be appearing out on the West Coast. We're all fine. We're all fine.

Oh, my God. Tears are coming out of my eyes. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, I feel much better now. Yeah. Sonny, what's on your mind this morning? I had to tweak you when you come on because you're such a sonny guy, you know.

Well, it works, though, because that's how. My line of reasoning is right along that. I'll say that's where the problem is. Oh, okay. Anyways, going this whole, you know, Tuesday, and even today, you know, our friend, you know, talking about maybe keeping them locked up. The sheriff can arrest them, but if the judge doesn't sentence them to 10 years in the penitentiary, they're right back out on the street. So it's not what the sheriff is what the judges do. That's number one.

It could be even the statute stopping them from being able to sentence them harder, right? Yeah. So that's part of the problem right there. So God bless the sheriffs. But anyways, they have an impossible job. We don't want to pay for more deputies. We don't need any more deputies. And then we complain that they're not rounding them all up.

So, you know, it's a lose, lose. It's whack-a-mole. Yeah, but I would also say, though, it's also be honest, in thinly populated areas like Jackson in Josephine County, Josephine County to a greater extent, you know, I don't think you could tax yourself enough to, you know, to have a cop on every corner there. It just can't. Well, but once upon a time, some guy like that I think they wore powdered wigs back then. So this is old stuff.

So it's so last year. Our government's only only for a moral and just people. In other words, you can have enough cops. If people don't govern themselves, it's self-government. If you can't parent yourself, say, you know, I really shouldn't, you know, do certain things, you know. There's no way, so we get what we get. Well, as an example, I'll give you a perfect example. You know, they have a, in fact, I'm going to have a homeless expert tomorrow, Michelle Steve,

who has done successful homeless transition shelters in California back in the day. And, you know, new studies came out this week. there's talking about that overall in the United States, homelessness went down 3%. So it's actually getting better everywhere else, but not in Oregon. Oregon is going up. And it's kind of going to what you're talking about. What are we doing? Well, we don't have shame.

There's no judgment. And you're dealing with a mental illness rather than a moral problem that you need your butt kicked to get back in gear. But I want to get to my conspiracy before. I run out of time. Oh, well, please. If you got a conspiracy, man, there, you go ahead, Sonny, David. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. It's going on about 35 years, so give or take, I need wiggle room because my tiny little brain. I'm not as smart as everybody. So going on about 35 years in Jackson County, it was said for a new jail,

it started with 36 million. It went up to about 42 million. And everybody, was apoplectic over it. Well, now a new jail costs about as much as an aircraft carrier. So we could have already had the jail. So first of all, first of all, I don't know what they're supposed, that guy that murdered that gal. He's getting a rain tomorrow. I'm hoping I don't have anything to do.

I'd like to go down there and sit in the court and watch it. I love the court watch. People should go down and really get to see this. I mean, it's amazing what's going on. But anyways, it's fun. It's entertainment, you know? I mean, if you don't have TV, go on down and watch arraignments and trials and stuff. But, you know, you just gave me an idea, though.

You know, we're complaining about the cost of the jail in Jackson County, right? You know, nobody knows because what? Are we at $4,500 million, whatever it is right now? You're probably talking about, that's why the sheriff doesn't want to talk about. They're probably talking actually. actually, if you get realistic about all the things that new jail requires and laws and everything, you're probably talking about $240 million. Oh, okay.

So why don't we just get a decommissioned aircraft carrier? Just put them out there. Should bring it up to Columbia and park. The shipyards are closed because park is pocket. No, no, just make it a penal, a penal boat off the coast, right? This is right. You know, there's nowhere to go. You can't swim.

I know. I'm just having a little fun with you. We're paying for the Ghost Fleet in San Pablo Bay down in San Francisco. There you go. They're just costing $50 million a year to have them sitting there. God bless you, Sonny, David. Thanks for the call. Did we get the whole conspiracy out? I just want to make sure, right?

Okay, he's gone. Good. Hi, KMED. Good morning. Hi, Bill. This, Tim. I called for two reasons in the Diner 62 quiz. But the other thing I was thinking, I was at that one meeting with Ron Smith,

Colleen Robertson, Harry Richardson. Yeah, by the way, it's got Colleen Martin. Colleen Martin. Colleen Martin, yeah. All the department heads for the county were in there, and they got everything they asked for without much question. Really? And they were all smiling, just kind of nodding their head.

Yep, we'll give you the employees. So I think it was like 18 to 20 employees, new employees. And then at the very end of the meeting, Ron Smith, he said, yeah, we've done it. we've elected 23 new employees or 20 or whatever the number was. It was a pretty high number. And it was like there was no discretion, no questioning, how we're going to pay for it. And it seemed like you get these new employees in your business. And when you're not there, they're giving away the store.

And I saw that. I didn't take a lot to figure that one out. And I just realized that we've been pretty well betrayed the people that voted for Ron Smith. and he sold us out. I hate to mince words, but he sold us out. And these two people that got in, I think, are more, they weren't really knowledgeable about. Maybe Martin was, but, you know, there was no questioning of how they were going to pay for it. I would think these types of decisions take time and study and just look into really, where's the bottom line?

How are worse the money? Yeah. Well, that budget meeting is going to be 9 o'clock this. morning and the final call is the board. This is the challenge though and I would figure that you know whether it's Ron Smith, Colleen, Gary, whoever is on the board, whoever's on the board, there's probably at least two years before you can even find your legislative behind with two hands. There's a learning curve there. And that was the mistake I think with recall central. I think Josephine County, of course, being pushed by, there is a lot of infighting in there.

That has caused a lot of problems, and now you have three newbies. Meanwhile, but there's nothing, nothing replaces his experience. It just doesn't. I agree. I'm a hundred percent agreement that. I just think that one of the commissioners, Ron Smith, didn't do his job, refused to do it, and he didn't keep his promises to the people. and, you know, I called him up on his at his office, and he was really upset with me for just asking the question. But I recommended Herman Bart Chager because he had the experience. Herman wasn't going to stay in there. He just wanted to help with the experience.

And then John West, too, I recommended him. Yeah, but they don't want the experience right now. I think that... No, they don't. You know, well, Ron was right, though, when he talked about the scum club in which essentially we have the natives are in charge of the inmates, I guess. are kind of running the asylum right now. At least it looks that way from my view being from the outside. So there we go.

I agree. Now, you wanted to do the Niners 62 quiz. You want to hang on? All right. Yes, I do. So I'm going to put you on hold. And we will take three more callers and get you in for the Diner 62 real American quiz. We have, this is a weird question.

It's about presidential bones. Presidential bones. I've never had a question. about presidential bones. But I'll give you a shot at that. 7705-633-7-70 K-M-E-D. And Diner 62, if you haven't played this in the last or won it in the last 60 days, you can win it next. Ham steak so old-fashioned to challenge the sausage to a duel.

Try it with eggs at Diner 62. The Outdoor Report is every Friday morning just past seven on the Bill Meyer show. The Outdoor Report on KMED and the Jukex 993 covers recreational opportunities and is powered by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority. Gear up your rig for work or play off Highlish Road on Airway Drive. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack, but not with ZipRecruiter. Its powerful technology actively finds and invites qualified candidates to apply to your job.

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800 939 2525. That's 800 939 2525. 800 939 2525. The Bill Myers Show is on. News Talk 1063, KMED. All right. Diner 62 Real American Quiz. Who are we going to take first? I'm just going to go over here and run. Let's let me go to Peter. Peter, you're going to be the first one up this morning. How you doing? Oh, boy. Give me a first shot.

I thought I was going to get fourth shot. Oh, you did, huh? Well, we'll see. I got Tim and David and Kathy, you know, I'm going to have to just nail it. Yeah, Peter, you might, okay? Now, this is a question I saved from May that we never had a chance to get to, all right? So, former President James Garfield's spine was put on display for the final day. It was May 21st, 2000, okay?

But the bones of President James Garfield's spine were on display for a final. Channel Day at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. I didn't even know, Peter, that they would go out there and display the bones of former presidents, okay? But the exhibit featured medical oddities. That's an odd one, right? And it featured President Garfield's spine that showed exactly where one of the two Assessons bullets had passed through it, July of 1881. The first bullet grazed Garfield's arm, the second lodged below his pancreas. Now, Alexander Graham Bell, who was one of Garfield's physicians at the time, tried to use an early version of a metal detector to find the second bullet, but failed.

Now, Garfield ultimately died of complications from his wound. How long did he live after being shot for the win, Peter? Was it A, 20 days, B, 40 days, C, 60 days, D, 80 days, or E, 100 days? What do you say? Yeah, I'll take the third one. 60 days right there in the middle. I'm sorry. Yeah, didn't do it, but maybe for next time.

All right. Okay, Tim, your turn here. Okay. All right, so it's not 60 days. How long did Garfield live afterwards before expiring? 20, 40, 80, or 100 days? What do you say? I would just guess 80.

You would guess 80. And you got it right. Garfield died of complications, 80 days, after being shot. By the way, Garfield's spine is not the only presidential body part to have been part of an interest at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. The museum also owns some of Lincoln's skull and President Eisenhower's gallstones. Yay.

This kind of cracks me up to think that, yeah, here's the gallstones that someone took out there. But there's also a museum in Philadelphia that keeps a tumor that was taken out of President Grover Cleveland. John F. Kennedy's brain, which was removed during his autopsy, did disappear. That's never been found, though, just so you know, Tim. So we're going to send you to diner, 62, one way or the other. Hang on. Let me get your name and addressed and all that kind of stuff. This is KMED and KMED, H.D. H.E.1. Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants pass.

Translator K290A.F. Rogue River, K-294A.S. Ashland. Fox News is next. Nils Gravilius, Private Detective from L.A. is going to be joining me. We're going to be talking LA crime. We're going to be talking about the bank, shoot them up in Bakersfield too.