Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 08-07-25_THURSDAY_8AM

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

08-07-25_THURSDAY_8AM

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Appreciate you being here. It's Conspiracy Theory Thursday, but we're just looking at the conspiracies that may have brought challenges to the state of Oregon. Earlier, I was, in fact, I'll be talking with State Senator Noel Robinson about this upcoming push to raise taxes. We'll be doing that after 8.30. but I wanted to talk with Dr. Eric Fruits.

Dr. Eric Fruits, an interesting guy. I have talked with him off and on over the years, and it's good to have you back. Doctor, welcome to the show. Good morning. Hey, great to be back. Thanks for having me. Doctor, where are you hanging out now?

Is it a think tank or a kind of business? Where are you? What's your environment like these days? Well, we don't like the word thing tank. It's a public policy research institute called the International Center for Law and Economics where I do a lot of work involving competition issues, and telecommunications issues, but I still live in Portland, Oregon, and so I'm paying attention to what's going on in our state.

Okay, glad you know that. I was reading OregonCatalyst.com the other day, and you had a piece in it, and I wanted to talk with you about it. It is seven dire economic warnings for Oregon. I think it's all kind of related to like when I'm going to talk with Senator Noah Robinson about what I was talking with Kevin Starritt about a couple of hours ago. They're going to have a special session later this month to raise taxes again, but it seems to be next to impossible to get any reform going on in Oregon government.

And what got you onto this path about the economic warnings for Oregon because it's important stuff? Well, I started thinking more and more about it, and I'm getting more and more worried that we may be getting past the point of no return. You know, for years, we were talking about, you know, what do we need to do to turn the state around? And I'm really worried that maybe the ship has sailed already because You're seeing people who have essentially given up on using the ballot box.

They're trying to elect better leaders, better legislators, better governors. And we've been doing this for more than 20 years, and things just keep getting worse. And you're starting to see, especially up here in the Portland region, people have just decided the ballot box doesn't work, then the moving man might, right? And so you have people leaving the Portland region, people leaving Oregon. population is stagnant statewide, but is declining in Multnomah County, and I think part of it is people have just checked out, and then put against that the backdrop of all the woes going on in Washington County with Intel. I mean, they've had 5,400 jobs lost since last August,

and there's rumors that there's going to be more coming toward the end of this year. And when you have 5,400 jobs, those are not 5,400 minimum wage jobs up in the northern part, right? No. These are people who are making, some of them making $200,000 or more, right? And when they lose their jobs in Intel, it's going to be hard for them to find a job in Oregon to replace that job. They're going to leave. And once they leave, they're not going to look back. Because I think one of the things that we fool ourselves about in Oregon is just how wonderful the natural beauty is. And why wouldn't anyone want to live here? Well, it turns out the entire country is full of places of natural beauty. And once you leave, people are going to say, hey, you know what, this is a really nice place. I remember years ago when Louisiana Pacific moved their headquarters in Nashville, people were saying, why would anyone move to Nashville? Then you go to Nashville and you talk to people there and like, this is the best place in the world. Right.

You know, and so it's easy for us to laugh or make fun of other parts of the country, but the people who are living there really like it. And, you know, you can live in a place with mountains, with oceans that don't have the dysfunction that this state has, right? It's not just the taxes, right? If you're thinking about moving to Oregon, you say, well, gee, what do I really need? I need good schools. Oh, we don't have good schools. I'd like to have a short commute. Oh, gee, our commutes are getting longer. And so there's a lot, there's just so many things. It's not just the taxes. It's the lack of government services, the lack of educational attainment that I think are

really turning people off of the state. Do you think that Oregon ended up, Dr. Fruits, just believing its own press or its own image? And in some ways, kind of like the American Empire, too, to a certain extent, which has been under stress for a long time. When you believe your own press releases and then things are corroding beneath the surface? Well, yes, I moved up to Oregon about 20 years ago. When I got here, I mean, you open up a magazine or a newspaper, and you would see. Oregon is always on in Portland, you know, one of the best places to live, most livable city, most livable state, right? And it was true. I mean, that was true then. And I think what happened

is our policymakers kind of took that as like a winning lottery ticket. And rather than investing it in trying to grow those earnings, they decided to just draw it down and decide, well, you know, things are so great, so wonderful here. You know, we can add some more taxes and make life a little bit more miserable. We can't delay, maintain our roads a little bit longer, make things a little bit more miserable. We can forget about trying to improve educational attainment, make things a little bit more miserable. But you do that little by little by little over 20 years, and all of a sudden you wake up and say, what was I doing with my life? But did was, you said that we don't have to worry about educational attainment, but isn't it a little more serious than we're not worried about

educational attainment, it seems to me that our policymakers really brought in pure ideologues in the educational system in which we were more worried about whether you're using your pronouns or whether you have LGBTQ and transgender books in the school library that nobody can question. Isn't that something which is kind of left unsaid? It's not just like it didn't just happen because of neglectment? Wasn't it an actual policy? Well, that's part of it, but that's, you know, that's just the latest fad, right? You roll back the clock 10 years, and I remember there's a big deal. Some legislator got to be in her bonnet and decide that, oh, we have an obesity epidemic. And so we need to have more physical education time in schools. And so they mandated

physical education requirements. Well, there's only so many hours in the day. When you put in more if there's ed requirements, you're taking away from the reading and writing and arithmetic that people really need. And I don't think it's made a dent in childhood fitness or obesity by having those extra hours of kicking a ball around. You know, and it's just, what happens, education is one of the worst industries in the sense that it is so, it chases fat, right? You have a new fad that comes in.

They decide we're going to put all our resources to that, and they do that for a couple years, and then there's a new fad that they chase. So they never know whether what they've done actually works. They just keep chasing the newest shiny thing, right? Was it kind of like how now, after decades of failure in getting children to read in Oregon schools, they're now looking at phonics, or at least examining another way of reading or looking at that? Now you've got me on something here, because what drives me nuts, you know, I'm in my 50s. I grew up learning phonics, and then they switched over this new thing. They call it full language, right? And now they've rediscovered phonics, but the generation of teachers are treating it like they just discovered it.

Like, oh, there's this new way of learning how to read. It's called phonics. And only now they call it the science of reading. It's like, it did. Yeah. Well, my, you know, I've said this, Dr. Fruits, I've said this before. My mother did not go to college, right? But somehow she figured out the science of reading being a high school graduate in

1964 and just taught me to read by sounding out the words with phonics. Right. At home, all right? Yes. Yes. Yes. But my youngest son taught himself to read by just doing bonnics. I don't know how he did it, but he did it. Yeah. And, you know, but again, it's all that fad chasing on the educational part. And I think the problem is that right now, and it's been true for 15, 20 years,

is we just don't have serious people making policy anymore. In fact, they don't want to actually enact policy. They want to write policy, but they never want to do it, right? So whenever there's a crisis, homelessness, right? We've been talking about homelessness since the late 1980s in Oregon. And, you know, what do we do? Oh, we're going to have a blue ribbon commission. We're going to have a task force.

And then you get these PowerPoints and big reports. And then when it comes time for the rubber to hit the road, they decide, oh, you know, we're just going to hand out tents and tarts. Okay. And this is an article that is on Oregon Catalyst.com from Dr. Eric Fruits, who's with me this morning, seven dire economic warnings for Oregon. And so this has been really over about the last 20 years, really, that the major corrosion has been occurring. But we had the warning signs even earlier, like you mentioned. Yeah, I mean, you know, I noticed it from the past 20 years. And again, living in Portland, you know, I tend to think of Vera Katz, who used to be speakers. the house as being, you know, that was kind of the peak of Portland. And after she was gone,

because despite how much I wasn't a big fan of her policies, she actually seemed to really care about doing things to make the city better. And we've just lost that kind of, not just vision, but also the ability to turn that vision into actual practice. Eric, is it as simple as something where the Western welfare state, including Oregon's welfare state and the various services and the resources, you know, the bureaucraties that you always hear, has it exhausted itself? Is it that simple or something different or something greater? I think it has, and I think even people on the left should be upset about this because if you roll back the clock, even just 10 years ago, you had that education comprised about

40%, about 40% of the general fund spending of the legislature. And human services, in other words, Medicaid was about 25%. Now, today, those numbers have flipped. We spend more now on giving out health care to, not just poor people, just giving out health care. We spend more on that than we do on education. Oh, boy. I think even, I think if Democrats sat down and saw that, they'd say, wait, I think maybe we've got some misplaced priorities here. And so, you know, when you've got 60% of Oregon's children are getting some sort of government

health care, that's 60%, more than half. And that's considered a good. That's considered a success story. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I used to joke that, you know, the difference between the right and the left is that the right says how many people can we get off of welfare. The left says how many people can we get on to welfare? And I think that's where we are now. And the problem is, you know, like Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with spending other people's money is eventually runs out. Sure. You know, we haven't even – oh, go ahead. No, I was just – I was just concurring with you. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. If you look out here with the one big beautiful bill, it's going to blow a hole in Oregon's budget.

It's going to reduce tax revenues because of the tax breaks, right? That means more money in your pocket, but less money in Salem's. And the big beautiful bill made huge reforms to food stamps and to Medicaid. They're going to blow a couple billion more dollars whole on the spending side in the state. If Governor Kotech is worried about this transportation bill, she's chasing after the wrong animal here, she is going to have a huge, huge fiscal crisis in the next year or so that needs to be addressed right away, and it needs to be addressed in a way that doesn't raise taxes. So I think that's going to be a big problem.

I think the next legislative session, you are probably going to see some big fights among, the Democrats because they'll still have a super majority. They're the only ones who really matter, it seems, in Salem. And they're going to have to make tough choices that they don't want to make. Do even the Democrats realize they just can't raise taxes on a declining population income? I don't even think they want to have that discussion. That's the problem now. Across the state, policymakers are just, they're like the ostriches sticking their head in the sand.

they don't want to hear the bad news. They think it, they always think it will all blow over, right? Because as bad as COVID was for you and me being locked in our houses and stuff like that, for people in government, COVID was awesome, right? Oh, it was a great time. Work at home, no accountability? Cool, right? And so much money flowing in from the feds.

I mean, these state local governments were flush, and that money's gone, and now it's shrinking. And I don't think they really don't want to have to face that, because they're going to have to make tough decisions, and you don't get reelected making tough decisions. That's the reality. Seven dire economic warnings for Oregon. You can find this on Oregoncatalyst.com. I will put a link up to this. Dr. Fruits, is there a possibility that Trump and the administration, the current Maloo in D.C., blowing a hole in Oregon's budget? Ultimately, do you think it will sharpen the minds to the point where we will get a higher class of policymaker

that is a serious person because we'll have to have a serious person involved? What do you think? I've been hoping for that for 20 years, right? Every time there's a gubernatorial election, right? I'm told this is the time that we might get a Republican or a serious person. in the governor's mansion. I mean, what blows me away is if you look, roll back the clock, the last governor who had any

business experience was Vic Atea, and he's been out of office for more than 40 years. Right? Ever since then, it's just been essentially professional politicians who have occupied the governor's mansion. And I think not only do they not really understand business, I think in some, since they're, if not hostile, they're at least ambivalent. You know, they just think that, oh, gee, there are those business people out there. As I write my article, remember back in the early 2000s, Washington County was so worried

that their county was growing too fast that they imposed a head tax on Intel, that if their employment got over a certain amount, they had to pay like $1,500 per person. and has a penalty for hiring too many people. I think now Washington would be one of the kids. Oh, they would kill. They would kill to bring those people back. All right. Dr. Fruits, I appreciate the take on it, but it is going to take the rise of serious people, because you're right.

We have serious people running Oregon, but they're serious ideologues, and that's the difference. And ideologues are not what this place needs for sure. Appreciate the take on it. And, well, hey, you know. don't have to worry about those skyrocketing commercial real estate values in Portland. Didn't that one towering building up there, forget what it was? Yeah, Big Pink. Yeah, Big Pink.

Yeah, didn't it get sold for $0.10 cents on the dollar? I think is what it was. 20 cents on the dollar. He made the point. I mean, that's huge. And you think about how that's going to ripple through, right? Because that new owner is going to walk down to the county and say, I want to get my property taxes adjusted. And once they get their adjustment, you know, every other person.

Everybody else is going to want their property tax adjusted downward too. All right. Interesting take on it. Doctor, thanks for the call. Great having you on the program this morning. You'd be well. Thanks. Be on.

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American Rent Your Garage, we are United Through Service. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063, KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Dr. Eric Fruitts was talking about the real challenges that are in store for Oregon, and we have former state senator Ellen DeBore. Hello, Alan. Welcome back. Good to having you on. Thank you. How are you this morning? Doing great. Wanted to get you to weigh in on this. You wanted to have a comment? I'd love to hear it. Go ahead. Well, I wanted to get your take from your guest.

but I'll give it to you in a few seconds. So we're going to read a lot about Oregon's going to have a $1 billion shortfall in the next two years due to Trump's tax plan. Do you know where the $1 billion is going right into the pockets, about half of it to Oregonians and the other half to corporations in Oregon because of the tax cut? That's right. So it's just money that is not going into the state, though, and the state had planned, I think, or banked on that tax bill not being approved. Is that pretty much what the plan was? Yeah, plus now Oregon citizens and corporations can decide where the billions go, whether to pay or benefit for employees or to buy food and other costs. because this tax plan that Trump has passed really is going to help lower middle income a lot.

And that's shown to half a billion dollars going in the next two years. Oh, and I agree. I guess, though, the way that the state of Oregon will tend to look at this, though, is that it has less to work with, though, and that's always the crisis. I mean, you were in the state senate, you know, right? You know how that works. well how much taxes will they gain from the increased expenditures and profits that Oregonians are going to have to pay the extra income they're getting oh so you're thinking

that it will ultimately come back is that kind of what I'm hearing then well 10% of it will okay um I think what Eric was talking about though is that in the in the big beautiful bill with the Trump tax cuts over all the take from the income tax goes down because of the exemptions and such that are renewed that the state of Oregon wasn't planning on having to deal with. I think that's what he was getting at here, Senator. Well, the Oregon Taxpayers Association put out a flyer that is amazing to read where if you're a worker getting tips, you're going to get that tax free for up to $30,000. Right.

Can you imagine the pay raise they just got? Oh, absolutely. But state of Oregon doesn't care about the worker getting a pay raise, does it? Well, I'd much rather spend the money. In the same articles, there was a guy that just went to jail for, I think, 10 years because of the, let me see, it's the environmental charge. creating pollution. So he

ripped the state off for $1.5 million which they gave him for having charging cars, chargers. And he put him in. And the state paid him. This is all in the news. And the chargers that he was getting tax credits

on were laying in his backyard. So So there's your environmental tax credit in the state. Yeah, I remember vaguely, I didn't see that article or look deeply into it. A point well taken here, Senator. I appreciate the call. One way or the other, though, do you think it would be good?

I'm going to talk with State Senator Noel Robinson here in just a moment. And do you think it's a good idea for the Republicans to provide quorum for the special session coming up? What's your opinion on that? Well, I can't believe that the governor. wouldn't issue the tax plan out for the transportation and get the agreement by the Republicans and Democrats before she even calls a special session. So it's literally a meeting one day, get the vote she already has, let everybody understand what the program is. And it's certainly funny, too, that the first thing they're going to cut is no filing. I mean, get real.

Well, that's the extortion tactic. You understand. understand that well, I'm sure. Former State Senator DeBoer, I appreciate the call. Thanks for making that, okay? We'll be right back here. State Senator Noah Robinson, because I still want to get to the bottom of what do they know and what don't they know. They're going to be doing this. It's going to be a three weeks from tomorrow, and nobody knows anything. Still. This hour of the Bill Myers Show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services, visit Fontana Roofing Services.com. Jay Austin and Company, Goldhen, Silver Buyers, and Ashland and grads pass.

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Don't miss the summer of savings going on right now at Kia Medford. Click kiya Medford.com. Hi, I'm Steve Potter, Body Shop Manager of Lithia Body and Paint, and I'm on 106.7, KMED. Always proud to have a state senator Noah Robinson back on the program.

Noah, glad we were able to get you on a better cell phone in a better situation. We tried this morning with Kevin Starr. I just couldn't put it out together. Welcome back. How are things? Yeah, well, thank you, and I'm very sorry that didn't work. I didn't realize there'd be no reception where I was.

Yeah, but as well, we live and die by that sometimes, you know. Hey, I wanted to dig into this because I talked with State Representative Emily McIntyre yesterday, and we also got some information from State Representative of Dwayne Yunker. This upcoming special session, it's, August 29th, and some people are saying it was one day, now we're talking about it being five or six days, and what Representative McIntyre was telling me, because I asked her, well, why don't you all just stay out? And this way, these huge tax increases that ODOT wants, you

know, for the transportation plan, and for doing the snow plows and everything else, and also the big fee increases on the title and registration for cars. everything like that, you know, don't help them. And what she told me was that, now this is what she said, that legislative counsel told her or told the Republicans, that even if the session doesn't gavel in, that they would still count you as an absence. Can you confirm this?

Have you seen this information? I'm trying to dig into the bottom, and nobody seems to know anything about it. Well, I have not seen that legislative ruling. I am not surprised that they would say that. I think we should just go for it anyway. Why show up and let them raise tax bill and everybody because we're afraid that they'll ding us this way? But as we know, they don't follow the law.

You know, when they kicked 10 senators out, the law that was passed didn't say it. It actually had, it was admittedly an error, but the letter of the law said it would be the next session. And, you know, they said, well, we'll decide what voter intent is. Yeah. So the lawyers just decide what they want to do, and everyone's nervous. Yeah, they very well could just make it sick and say that it counts. So I agree. I don't see why it should.

There's no session, in effect, if we haven't gaveled in, I don't see how you can have an excused absence when there's no session. Okay, so you agree with me on this because I'm just looking at this. If the session does not exist, there's nothing to be non-excused for. You know, it's what I'm getting wet. That's right. That's logic. I mean, that's logic.

Normal people would say that's logical. It doesn't make sense. This is very different from the constitutionally required session early this year. Okay. Well, so do we know exactly what the deal is at this point? Do you know? Has there been a bill brought out? Well, we don't.

And you know, that was the funny thing. All during session, last session, the final deal, it was two weeks before they even had anything they talked to us about. Right now, it's sort of a. that they're going to raise the gas tax, raise vehicle registration fees, we don't know what else. And that's just rumor. We really don't know. All we know is that they intend to raise taxes to pay for ODOT without even looking into why ODOT is spending so much money, and maybe we could save the money there because we're spending money on things I think we don't need. Now, why haven't, or why hasn't ODOT been called to account? And I know that Republicans didn't

Republicans want to audit it at this point to figure out where the money was going first? It should be audited, and it's worse than that, because you look at the cost of the project. So I take the Abernathy Bridge, everyone looks at that one, went from a couple hundred million up to, I think we're over 800 million. Go look at the bridge. It's not that big. They're getting taken on these projects by construction companies that are plugged in, partly because they put so many requirements on it. And you have the union requirements, the project labor agreement, so you have to use union labor. They put so many regulations on that only a few companies can do the project, and then the

companies are part of the deal just jacking the price up. But the prices for the maintenance and the road construction that we need around the state are ridiculous. They're obviously out of sight, but to dig into them in detail and find out why is something as far as I know nobody has done, but it should be done before we just send them more money and say, hey, you guys are short, let's just fill in the hole by raising taxes. are advocating, then, you would say the best thing to do is to not allow or not go there at all, right? That's what you would say.

I would say I wouldn't raise taxes a bit until we know why all these projects cost too much money and everything's been thoroughly audited because I'm quite sure that we could save more than enough money to fill the hole. And that's the best thing to do. This is tax money we're talking about. This is not some private company making a ridiculous deal. A private company wouldn't do this. Why do you believe then? Because the story, now, I don't know, are the Republican leaders actively negotiating to provide quorum, or in other words, will this be a fait accompli that they will do it anyway? What do you know so far, Senator? As far as I know, there's not enough interest in denying quorum. I don't think that's possible. I do think the session, right now, the plan is for the session to be dragged out for a week for five or six days because they have to. A day has to pass between the first readings and the second readings. And right now, Republicans have refused to suspend the Constitution and allow them to do it all in one day.

And that's the current plan because nobody's happy with what they're doing. If it does drag on for five or six days, is there a possibility that it might not pass, where even some Democrats will say no to the tax increases, which is what happened during the regular session near the end, isn't it? That's exactly right. And that is the advantage of dragging it out for five or six days. because you advertise what's going on. At some point, you know, during the first day, we should see the actual bill. We can see what's actually in it.

We tell everyone what's going on. We tell them what the tax increases are. We tell them that we should be auditing things and looking at where the money is going first. That's exactly the advantage of dragging it out. It isn't just to be hard to get along with, so I don't see why we should be easy to get along with them doing this to us. But it is so that we can tell people what's in the bill and have time to think about it. All right. I would prefer that you just all deny quorum.

but the fact that if you're not going to suspend the rules, that's good, because the longer it drags out, the more people, I mean, it's very cynical, in my opinion here, Senator, to have scheduled this special session to raise billions in taxes on Labor Day weekend when no one's paying attention, right? I mean, that's a lot of people have noticed not only that, but they're raising taxes on Labor on Labor Day weekend. All right. Well, I suppose that whatever Oregon wants to tax. more. It wants to have less of, so I suppose it wants less labor here, Senator. That's all I can say. All right. That's exactly right.

All right. So quorum will be provided. I can be disappointed on this one. But do you think that they can hold tight on not suspending the rules at the very least? So that way there could be more pushback on that. As far as I know, I think

they're holding tight. You do know the way these things work. If the Democrats come in with some concession, it's change the bill. And you know what they do. They try to make a deal. Yeah. And some deals you couldn't blame them for if they really cut way back if you're looking at it. But I prefer not to do that sort of thing. I don't like deals. I think we're better off just to look at something. When you, when you, the Democrats propose a big tax increase and you say, okay, we'll make it easier for you if you do half as much. Then we do that this year. Then we, next, you know,

next time we make another step forward. I think it's better to be open, transparent. I don't like the spending the rules in the Constitution, period, those were put there for a reason. Yeah. It wasn't just so that we can negotiate with them. It was because the legislatures were supposed to have time to think about it, to hear from the citizens, and to not just ram through whatever somebody in a back room decided to do. Well, I am feeling better the fact that it looks like it's not going to be a one day, because I knew that if it was a one-day session on Labor Day weekend,

the Democrats wanting to raise these taxes would just essentially get all they want, with very little cost. And frankly, at least we'll get a chance to hash this out. That's better news, okay? Senator, thanks for the take, and we'll see you when you get back in market, okay? You'd be well. Okay, I'll do that. I'm sorry not to be on earlier, but nice to catch up, and thank you very much.

All right, indeed. Senator Noel Robinson, State Senator Noah Robinson. It is 11 before 9-770-5633. Diner 62 Real American Quiz. Oh, man, they still had that half-ham special, which is absolutely delicious. 1115, Monday through Friday during the morning show. You have all your hearty breakfast and lunchtime favorites and amazing salads, too. Wonderful food.

Let's get you in here with a bit of U.S. military history from today, and it was back in 2002. A little bit of history ended up being found and brought up. So if you haven't played this in the last 60 days, or he haven't won it, rather, in the last 60 days, You can win it next. 7705-633-7-7-0-K-M-E-D. And we'll play this next. Multiple choice, by the way.

Review has been rated immature for all audiences except metal roof enthusiasts and small children. In the not-too-distance sun-bake future, in a world where leafy debris and pine needles collect on unsuspecting homeowners' roofs, where just one, seemingly harmless airborne ember, could cause a catastrophic fire. Two unassuming technicians.

He's talking about us. Embark on an epic journey to fabricate and install fire-resistant metal roofs on southern Oregon buildings. Heroes will rise, fire hazards will fall. This is awesome. This summer, call the metal roofing division at Fontana Roofing and witness the sheer... So what do you think? So what's like we're superhero firefighters except without the supernatural powers, form-fitting costumes in inherent danger? Exactly.

Can we drive big, shiny red trucks? Maybe in the sequel. For an epic fire-resistant roof, call Fontanarroofing's metal roof division. Visit fontanarroofing services.com. Are you living with dry AMD? If so, you could be on the road to geographic atrophy or GA, a condition that leads to retinal cell death and permanent vision loss.

But with Iservay, you can... Slow it down and get it going slower. Iservey slows GA progression by targeting... a key source of retinal cell death, which may help preserve your vision longer. Izervey, or Avacencaptit Pagel, is a prescription eye injection used to treat GA. Don't take it if you have an infection or active swelling in or around your eye. Iservey can cause eye infection, retinal detachment, or increased risk of wet AMD. Iservey may temporarily increase eye pressure.

Your vision may be impaired after an eye injection or exam. Don't delay. Ask your doctor about Ieserva today. Visit iserva.com. That's I-Z-E-R-V-A-Y-A-Y.com. Paid for by Estella's Pharma. 852 and change. It's now time for the Diner-62 Real American Quiz. $20 gift certificate for Diner-62 is up here right now, 7705-633-770 K-M-E-D. And our first contested this morning is Nicole. Hey, Nicole. How you do you do? this morning. Good morning. Doing well. Thank you. All right. Great to have you on here. And we do have

some open lines if you wanted to join in. It was this week in history, Tuesday, August 5th, 2002, Nicole. The divers recovered the USS monitors turret. The rusty iron gun turret of the monitor broke from the water into the daylight for the first time at 140 years. And this ironclad was raised from the floor of the Atlantic where it had rested since it went down in a storm. off of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, during the Civil War. Divers had been working for six weeks to bring it to the surface. Now, nine months prior, the monitor had been part of a revolution in naval warfare. In March of 1862, it dabbled to a standstill with CSS Virginia,

originally the Merrimack in one of the most famous moments in naval history. First time two ironclads faced each other, okay? Anyway, as the USS Rhode Island was towing the ironclad around the rough waters of Cape Hatteras when it sank. And as the monitor pitched and swayed in the rough seas, the caulking around the gun turret pulled loose and then water leaked in. And then the question for the wind this morning, Nicole, is how many sailors ended up dying in the sinking of the monitor? Could you tell me? Was it nobody died? Four died? Eight, twelve, or sixteen? What do you say? I'm going to go with four? You're going to go with four? Four died. No, it wasn't fat. I appreciate

to try and be in a good sport about it, though. We'll go to the next call. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Hello. Hi, who's this?

This is Jerry. All right, Jerry. Zero, eight, twelve, or sixteen. How many sailors died in the sinking of the monitor back in the day? 16. Sixteen. Survey says. Jerry, I'm glad you swooped in.

Yeah, during the night, the monitor's commander, J.P. Bankhead, signaled the Rhode Island that he wished to abandon ship after realizing the ship would sink. Wooden side wheeler pulled as close as safety allowed and lifeboats were lowered to retrieve the crew. Many of the sailors were rescued, but some men were terrified to go onto the deck in such rough seas. The ironcladge pump stopped working in the ship sank before 16 could be rescued. The remains of the two of these sailors were discovered by divers during the bringing up of the monitor in 2012. So there we go. And Jerry, we're going to send you to 9 or 62.

Hang on. We'll get your name and we're going to have some fun. I know that. This is the Bill Meyer show. An official message from Medicare. I'm saving money on my Medicare prescriptions. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low.

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If you have direct TV or cable TV, call me today to see how I can save you money. Plus, I'll lower your internet and cell phone bills. And those offers in the mail from DISH, you can go through No Wires Now for those. Call me at 541-680-5875. Call Cherise like I did or visit their showroom off Biddle Road in Metford, no wires now.com. Restrictions apply. Call for details. Internet and cell phone service not provided by Dish. 8.56 and Change on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. If you got a quick call, we can take it, but I'm

going to have mostly probably wrapping up with the emails of the day, which are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson, Central Point Family Dentistry, Central Point Family Dentistry.com. And if you don't have dental insurance, they have a dental plan, which I think works pretty well. It works like insurance, but lower costs, better benefits. You can find out more. Central Point Family Dentistry.com. Get your appointment today. It's on Freeman Way next to the Mazadlan Mexican restaurant. And we're going to give an email of the day to three. Okay. Here it is. I'm trying to read the emails of the day and the email. Oh, there we go. There we go. And the email wouldn't come up. That doesn't work well. But this has to do, $3.99.

writing about the conversation yesterday on what the city of Grants Pass is trying to do, actually hire some more police or fire. Bill, the council looking to hire more police and fire is absolutely ridiculous. First, the national average for staffing police, which includes patrol, admin, detectives, and office staff is about one and a half positions per capita. I believe the state average is perhaps higher. We don't have the numbers handy right this moment, but did question the Grants Pass city manager recently on some other program, and he agreed that the numbers sound about correct.

We cited that the need to hire more police does not necessarily prevent crime. Grants Pass ranks ninth or eleventh in the state for the amount of crime. Ontario, Woodburn, Portland, Cous Bay, Roseburg, and Medford. Grants Pass seemed to have 1.85 staff per capita, and the need to hire five or six more would increase that to two per capita. There isn't a city in the northwest that has that high of a ratio. In other words, you say we're already kind of high on labor in Grants Pass even right now, huh? Continuing with his email, contrasting Grants Pass' population to current police staffing to these other cities doesn't add up to justify the need to hire more police.

As an example, Roseburg Corvallis, Coos Bay, and other cities with like populations amounts to Grants Pass seem to survive just fine, not seeking to cry to the public to hire more police. The facts we presented to Mr. Kubik showed the grants pass as 88 total police, whereas other cities were around 60 to 70. Further, the council and city manager tried to impose the food and beverage tax on proprietors that are still trying to recover from COVID. Why not sharpen your pencil, grants pass police? The council previous and present have created a debacle with the homelessness by the ever-changing decisions and so-called solutions. Hey, I really appreciate you writing about that, and it sounds like it's definitely another way of looking. looking at this, my main concern was, I think the Grants Pass police are looking to, or Grants past City Council rather, is thinking that they need more because of the increase in calls.

But I haven't seen a lot of that call, though, is due to the homelessness issue. And then having more police will not necessarily take care of that problem, I guess. Is that where you were going? My main concern about this $3.99 has been that it feels like a sketchy time to be wanting to take any kind of chances with city and government finance all right we'll talk more tomorrow email bill at bill myers show dot com thanks again southern organs placed at talk km ed and km ed hd1 eagle point metford a bicostal media station it's nine o'clock at km ed breaking news this hour from town hall i'm john scott