Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 10-17-25_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

10-17-25_FRIDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer 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 Klausordrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Delighting to have you here on Find Your Phone Friday, 7705633 to join in. We've got a lot going on today. A lot going on today. Brad Hicks is going to drop by a little bit later this morning.

He's going to be, well, he's not his. He is running, rather, for Senate District 3, State Senate. and this is a big, big deal that has been held for a number of years now by state senator Jeff Golden, who is arguably finding himself in a more embattled position where I guess maybe even the Democrats are tired of his stuff. I don't know what I'm hearing from behind the scenes, but this could be a big game changer, at least getting to a little more balance in Oregon politics. So we'll talk with Brad about that race coming up.

he'll be dropping by around 7.30. And also the folks that are involved with the 15-238 voting yes on it, the creek side quarter of the pack. They'll be in here this morning. I'm not exactly sure who is showing up, but they are supposedly going to be showing up and talking about it. Last night they had the big town hall meeting, and listener Logan writes me and says, Bill, it was a packed house last night, but it was really no town hall forum. They made you write the questions on a note card.

They got to sift through the ones they wanted asked. At one point, Counselor Kevin Stein says, we don't really use the south part of Hawthorne Park, at which point I shouted out, because it's full of homeless people. It was just a sales pitch by Nick Card. Well, we'll see.

You know, there are very reasonable reasons why people want to try to revitalize a downtown Medford. I understand why they're trying to go to it, but it seems like the one pill that, or the one cure, the one pharmaceutical, that financial pharmaceutical that the city of Medford always goes into is to try to push it into either sports tourism or the, you know, kind of like the conference kind of business. And like I mentioned before, I wonder if we're trying to get into another conference business type thing. It's been this goal of trying to get a conference center and hotel combination going on for a long, long time. This is one of the biggest more ambitious attempts that they're trying to make happen with the beginning of this 15-238 passage if the voters were to go along with this. The challenge, as I've mentioned a few days ago, though, is that even supporters of conference businesses are talking about how it's just cratering. Earlier in the year, they were saying, hey, look at this.

to be going. Business is looking to be good in the conference center and et cetera, et cetera, and then even people who are supportive of it, it involved in it saying it's down 15, 20 percent and not looking to be necessarily in a growth spurt. So are we looking to get into the hot new conference center thing, which is not a hot new situation? And actually, the conference business has been having problems over the years,

unless you're a place like a Las Vegas in which there's, a lot else going on besides just coming and doing your conference, that kind of thing. And I don't know, maybe they have a secret sauce plan that I'm not aware of. I don't like coming on the air and just saying, hey, you know, I'm just not a big fan of this thing, but they have tended to go to this. This has been the deal, and it's going to help us. I was just looking at some of the financials in the financial report, which give me pause in which the talk is to make this project financially viable is that they're looking at 75% occupancy of rooms that would be costing $230 a night, roughly speaking, if I'm reading the financial projections. and that looks like a really ambitious or a very positive maybe pie in the sky kind of thing.

I'm not sure. I don't know. I'm just telling you that given that even right now, our hotel motel occupancy with the current crop of hotels is usually around 68% or less, depending on how the economy is going. and then this would need at least 75% to pencil, and they'd be very expensive. Of course, maybe it would be very expensive, and because they're very expensive, you get, you know, wealthier, more high-end premium kind of events coming to town. Like I said, I'm open to being sold on it. I think my big concern is the ball stadium, because I believe if I understand things correctly,

and that's just it, we don't really have contracts or anything to analyze. on this sort of push right now. It's really the only question we're being asked is not if you would like to have the Eugene Emeralds come, not if you want to have this Creekside quarter to come. Technically, what you're doing is just giving permission to the Medford City Council to raise the hotel motel taxes, the TLT, you'll see that transient lodging tax, from 11% to 13%. So we're going to make it more expensive to stay in Airbnbs and hotels and motel. here in southern Oregon, and then a portion of this gets siphoned off, and it looks like it is

supposed to be for probably seed money for the stadium. Now, it's true when they say that this is not an increase in your property tax. It is not an increase on income tax. It's not a utility fee. It's not right now. It's very true. They're not doing this. Everything that the proponents are claiming is true.

However, what I get concerned about is that the stadium would be owned and operated by the city of Medford, the way I'm reading the information, which has been released out there. And I am concerned where they want to locate it, and the fact that it's a 68 game a year kind of thing for the Eugene Emeralds, even the Eugene Emeralds say that they're not going to be able to make a lot of money until about 20 years in. The plan is that, yeah, we'll be profitable then about 20 years in. Who the heck knows what's going to be going on here in Southern Oregon 20 years from now?

We may have President Mondanami for all we know. God, I hope not. But you know what I'm getting at? It's a pretty pie in the sky sort of thing. So they're swinging hard. And the general consensus that I get from folks talking around town is that they think it is an absolutely horrible place to have a ball field or a ball stadium. and that there are less expensive options over on the south side of Medford. But the thing is, this whole Creekside Quarter is about Creekside Quarter,

not just about having a baseball team here. So it's almost as if they're trying to shoehorn the baseball stadium in in order to support the rest of Creekside Quarter. That's the way it's looking at this point. And maybe it would be okay. Maybe the fears about traffic and the parking availability, Although in the information on the Creekside Quarter website, they're talking about, yes, a parking will be required, et cetera, et cetera, for all of the hotels and the other businesses that are involved in this one. But at the same time, aren't we supposed to be doing these climate-friendly, equitable communities in which everything's supposed to be a walkable, no-car future?

In betcha, we're supposed to be whisked in our Johnny Cab RVTD driverless buses, you know, someday to whisk us. to our climate-friendly, equitable communities where we have our sustainable soy burgers, you know, fed to us in sustainable cafes and things. I'm being a little bit sarcastic, but you know that Vision 2040 thing kind of gets me irritated. But anyway, we'll talk with him coming up at after 8 o'clock and see if we can get a little bit. But remember, the only question we're really being asked right now is if we can raise the taxes. So if you decide if the city council can be trusted raising the taxes and doing the right? thing, fine. And then you would probably vote yes if you're a little less trusting of it. Fine. You'd probably end up voting no. And I was wondering just how much money we're talking about

because more than one person said, well, how much transit lodging tax do we have coming in here right now? And it was a good question. So I went hunting around and finally got a recent report from Travel Medford, and it said fiscal year 24-25 is, this is from a few months ago, is tracking to surpass budget for a fifth consecutive year. So apparently the money has been just rolling into the city. The 2025-20206 projections, and they're budgeting for $6.5 million a year in total transit lodging tax, the city of Medford would collect about five million from what I'm saying. They get 75% of the net TLT. Travel Metford collects about 1.6 million of that, which is 25. So it must be a 75-25 split. And they are figuring that

this year into next year is going to have a 3% proposed increase and looking pretty good and talking about hiring more people, et cetera, et cetera. So Travel Metford is is guardedly optimistic. So a lot of questions about this, though. And I still think, and I'm still wondering, though, who is responsible if the ball team situation doesn't really work out? You can bring the team in and, okay, Eugene Emeralds are here, they play, they're not making money for a while, okay, 20 years in or something like that. What happens if it goes away? are we then stuck with, you know, a nice ball, a nice ball stadium, I guess, with no ball team. But even then, they're only talking about 68 games a year, roughly speaking.

Can you pay for it with that? Okay, well, we're going to have, we're going to have other events there, like concerts and stuff. Okay, we do have winter. It is open air. We also have the Expo. We also have Britt. We also have indoor venues, such as the Holly Theater. And, of course, the Craterian, the Craterian Ginger Rogers.

We have all these things. I don't know. I don't know. But there's a big push on this, for sure. And we'll have good conversation about it this morning. I hope you join me. And if you have a question you'd like, probably better to email it rather than trying to go to live calls during that, if you could. So just email Bill at Billmyershow.com.

Other things going on this morning at you today. and it's a human bean coffee. Coffee for a cure kicking off today. So if you're looking for a good cup of coffee, 100% of their sales at these various human bean locations that are taking part, it gets donated to local breast cancer foundations and programs. Very good. So it's the 18th year they've been doing that.

Good for human being. 624. Other news going on too. We'll catch up on some of those headlines also on the Bill Meyer show. 7705-633. By the way, no king. No Kings Version 2 is going on this weekend. We'll be talking with some folks that are kind of looking into who is bankrolling No Kings 2.

And yeah, it's going to be in southern Oregon also. We'll tell you about that in about 10 or so. For 95 years, Parr has been the Pacific Northwest trusted source for building homes. Family owned and rooted in our communities. This is News Talk 1063, KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. No Kings 2 protests going on. Yep, we got out here in Oregon, Southern Oregon,

Medford, Ashland, Grant's Pass, I guess 11 o'clock, they're going to be, you know, going over to some of the intersections and doing their traditional Oregon district to indivisible hissy-fitting. But an interesting question that some people have been looking into is that who's paying or bankrolling for a lot of this weekend's, well, grassroots? Who's paying for the grassroots? I guess that's the question.

Jason Isaac joins me. He's the CEO of the American Energy Institute. His site, by the way, American Energy Institute.com. Jason, welcome to the show. And, boy, you take a look at the partners of the No Kings, too. And there's an interesting pattern that you can discern there. What did you find out, huh? Yeah, a lot of communists, a lot of unions.

I see Bernie Sanders campaign is on the list of supporters for this event. coming up. And then the climate alarmists are certainly jumping on the bandwagon as well. It's absolutely laughable, just the name of this protest, no kings. You've got the Democrats, certainly leading the effort here, groups like Greenpeace, but it was the Democrats that removed their previous king and anointed a new candidate to fill the place in the last election. Without a single vote being cast, they put Kamala Harris on ballots across the country, her is their appointed king, if you will, but now they're protesting no kings. It's just so funny. And I quite honestly, I take a little bit of offense to this. As I testified in front of Congress one time, I introduced people, and I say I'm Jason Isaac, and I live a high-carbon lifestyle. And I think the rest of the world should, too. And it was a Democrat from Maryland, Jamie Raskin who wagged this finger at me and called me the carbon king. So I got anointed the carbon king by a Democrat, and now they want to have a no-kings protest. I feel a little threatened.

Oh, okay. Well, hopefully you'll be able to survive the weekend here. The Carbon King, though, what a great nickname, Carbon King. You know, the bottom line of this all, and what has concerned me, is that it has almost just become, it's almost become settled narrative that carbon somehow is bad, and yet we're carbon-based life forms, we're carbon-based planet. we have had incredibly higher levels of airborne carbon dioxide level than right now. In fact, right now, you know, what, about 400 parts per million is tiny when you look back at the history going back tens of thousands, millions of years, hundreds of thousands of years. And, you know, back when we were much greener, much more jungle-like, it was a very high carbon dioxide level at that point. And somehow that's sort of what that's considered killing the planet now. I don't understand it.

I really don't, Jason. It's just a gas that's necessary for life on Earth has been demonized for decades. And people have been led to believe that it's bad and we've got to decarbonize. And you're right. I was wearing a shirt yesterday. I've got bumper stickers that say carbon is life. Well, I hope I'm challenging people's critical thinking because it's carbon-based life form like you said. but decarbonization is the opposite of that.

It's death. It's dangerous. It's deadly. It's dumb. It's a political agenda. I'm meant to control every aspect of our lives. And there's groups like 350 that are trying to get our concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere down to 350 parts per million. Well, that happens throughout the year because it fluctuates as the growing seasons change.

So our CO2 in the atmosphere is constantly changing. But what they do is they measure it from Hawaii and they look at the highest point in the year. And they say, oh, that's where we are in the atmosphere. atmosphere, and then a few months later, it'll drop off significantly. So the so-called science is nothing but a cult meant to control every aspect of our lives. And that's why, again, I tell people, live a high-carbon lifestyle, embrace the high-carbon lifestyle, because the billion of us on the planet that actually get affordable, reliable energy have high CO2 per capita emissions, and that's a good thing. Shouldn't the other 7 billion people on the planet get to live and

take for granted what we do, turning on running water and electricity. No, no, no, they're supposed to live in their mud huts with the sustainable lifestyle. That's what we, you know, wish to essentially doom the rest of the world for. But in all seriousness, though, you know, the thing is, though, you know, the high carbon fuels for the most part, though, are kind of unloved at the moment, wouldn't you say? I mean, I'm looking at the price of crude oil, what was it, 62, 63, you know, a barrel. pretty low. Isn't that indicative that we're actually making the switch, or is it indicative of economic problems? I don't know. How do you see it? Well, we're producing records amount of oil here in the United States, and that's good for the consumers. And I love the organization that I get

to lead that have board members and companies that are in the energy production business and oil, gas, coal, and nuclear. And they're okay with me advocating for policies that reduce the cost of energy because they know what that does for the American consumer and they know what it does to eliminate poverty around the world. So energy poverty is poverty. And if you can get more people access to affordable and reliable energy, you're going to save and lengthen their lives. Now, Jason, I agree with you, but I'm concerned that there seems to be a marked effort right now to flood the world with, let's say, oil. And it gets to the point where it's, maybe it's about destroying the U.S. fracking industry, right? Because if you get a lot below $70 a barrel and fracking

doesn't pencil in the United States of America, don't you see maybe an actual attack on the energy system right now with the flooding going on? Oh, absolutely. The Russians and Saudis, the OPEC have tried this in the past and failed miserably. It's crippled their economies because they can't produce oil as efficiently as we can here in the United States. So, you know, I might, I say bring it. You're going to flood the market with oil, it's going to hurt them while we have to deal with some temporary pains. But again, we produce it more efficiently and more responsibly than anywhere else in the planet. They wish they had the technology that we have. They wish they had the innovation that we have. But this is what happens in a capitalist society. You get that innovation.

And for them, it's government-controlled. And so they certainly don't have it. They don't have any innovation. They don't have any incentive to innovate and become more efficient. So, yeah, They continue to attack us by flooding the market with oil. They're selling cheap oil to China. China's really storing about 2 million barrels per day off of the market. But for the first time ever, and this is the big threat, this is what has been funding this climate alarmist agenda for decades is the Chinese Communist Party. They're exporting energy for the first time ever, diesel, home heating oil, jet fuel.

They've never exported energy. They've always been a consumer, but they've been building cheap, reliable, coal-powered, generation to fuel and really power, their refining capacity, which they've also been expanding. So we're supposed to have chaotic and intermittent, you know, so-called sustainable power around here. Meanwhile, China keeps the lights on and the factory is humming with coal, right? That's what we're dealing with. No Kings rally wants is they want us to be dependent on wind and solar that's dependent on Chinese supply change and subsidies and isn't affordable and it's not reliable.

It just drives up the cost and really destroys massive amounts of habitat. Is there any link between No King's Day funding and perhaps even CCP? Do we have any of that going on, to your knowledge? Certainly some of the organizations that are involved in support and the effort have received either money from U.S. aid in the past. So they're not only receiving dollars from the Chinese Communist Party through groups like Energy Foundation, China, which has recently really renamed their organization, American Energy Foundation. But, yeah, this was a CCP-funded organization, a nonprofit here in the United States. But what's been great about the last nine months of this administration is uncovering the blatant abuse of taxpayer dollars through U.S. aid going into nonprofits here in the United States,

certainly not into foreign efforts to drive people out of poverty. It's quite the contrary. It's gone to American interest to drive people into poverty and dependency. You can see how the Chinese Communist Party could actually see a good trade advantage to, all right, let's fund the climate, you know, the climate weanies, right, and have them go out there in protest on No Kings Day and say no oil, no coal, no nuclear, no nothing like that. Then they end up buying subsidized windmills from the CCP from China, right? That tends to be most of the source of this then. And they also have us hurting our own domestic energy supply, right? It's kind of a win-win the way China would look at this, so naturally they would fund the radicals.

Yeah, and I've got a great economist on my team, Tricia Curtis, and she calls the win-win is where the Chinese win twice. And it's really that's exactly what's been happening. They've been building out more affordable, reliable energy, funding the movement here in the United States to drive up a dependency on them for intermittent, unreliable electric generation. And they've done a great job in Germany as well. Germany is deindustrializing. They've become completely dependent on Russia's natural gas. Oh, I saw there. There was also, wasn't there that one town just the other day that voted to move the climate goals forward another five years to like 2040 instead of 2045? And it's just, it's like they signed their own industrial death warrant in that town. I forget

it's over in Germany. I read that. Yeah, it's just appalling how, and it's gone. I mean, they're lost. They have completely been destroyed, and President Trump said this at the U.N. General Assembly, like, if you continue down this path of the green new scam, your country is going to fail, and Germany is failing. The highest electricity rates on the planet. Freezing deaths are on the rise because people can't afford to heat their homes. They are deindustrializing. BASF, a world-leading chemical manufacturing company, is moving operations from Germany to China. That's the energy transition. It's taking it away from prosperous Western worlds. and moving it to China, where they could care less about human rights or the environment. It's happening in the United Kingdom. Jason, this is a Western... Jason, this is a Western suicide that you're talking about. You know, this is not, the Chinese taking you down. This is, you know, Western people voting for it, and they're volunteering to walk into the

abattoir. Why don't they see it? I don't get it. You're absolutely right. I mean, it's happening in California, where we have the second highest electricity rates in the United States, and they battle back and forth between the northeast, the United States, for expensive energy, but they're getting rid of what's working and replacing it with stuff that doesn't work. So I think slowly, but surely some people are waking up. I think they

certainly woke up during the last election here in the United States and put President Trump back in office because that was the issue. Let's get rid of these political agendas, decarbonization, ESG, DEI, these things that weren't democratically put in place. They've been put in place by kings at financial institutions, by CEOs of woke companies driving up the cost. So again, the hypocrisy with the no-king things, they've been letting kings dictate policy here in the United States for decades. And now we have a democratically elected president and his administration and members of Congress that are actually fighting. back and giving the people a voice. Okay, man, I'll have to tell you.

So when we see the No Kings folks that are out this weekend, could we just drive by and say, hey, how you doing? How do you like your communist dupes helping you, your old communist dupes? Is that how we should approach it? I mean, I want to be polite, though. You know, there's a part of me that says they just don't know what they're talking about, but they're going to get news coverage. You know that.

It's, you know, a spectacle. Anytime the spectacles there, the news people will be. Yeah, it's another train wreck of, bad policy and so the media is going to be there and showing, you know, in some cases that several people showing up, I'm just grateful that they're using fossil fuels to get to their no-kings protest. I mean, whether they're taking public transportation, they're driving their EVs, you know, those are all made possible and powered by fossil fuels and hydrocarbons. So, yeah, it's just great. There should be good sales this weekend for fuel, and that's good

for the environment. That's good for economic prosperity. I'm certainly, they're probably going and deny the fact that they're doing that, but they are. They're helping the American industry. But you're telling me here, because I've been concerned, because I'm looking at things from the investment side of it, I get very concerned when I see the price of oil go down to the point, not that I don't mind cheap oil, but when it gets to the point where investment capital doesn't go in there

to make sure that we continue to have supplies, because I know you can have the green weanies and the No Kings types that are going out there saying, We don't want oil. We don't want the big corporations. We don't want the big oil corporations, you know, like the Bernie Sanders types. But it is still, it does stuff that renewable energy doesn't have. It just can't do it.

Renewable energy is not going to be out there and be the feedstock for farming and for fertilizers and for agricultural chemicals, for plastics, for medical supplies, all these other things. And I get concern when there's this attack on the industry that drives it to the point where it's starved of investment capital. Is that any concern of yours over at American Energy Institute? Yeah, it's short-lived, though. So we see the demand is going to continue to increase significantly as we bring manufacturing back into the United States. Those are heavy industrial users of hydrocarbons. When we see the AI and the data centers that are being built as quickly as they can possibly be built, that's going to require a ton of electricity that will primarily come from natural gas.

We're seeing coal-powered plants that were scheduled to shut down early retirement so they could virtue signal they're decarbonizing. Those are staying online. So the production of coal is actually increasing in the United States' production and utilization of coal, which is a good thing. We use pollution control technology. We're world leaders in clean air in this country. That's something that would be great if China would do, but they don't care about the environment.

Speaking of coal, though, what is... the future of coal? Because if you really looked at the, you know, the huge, huge elephant in the room when it comes to energy, it's the incredible amount of energy underground in coal deposits. And yet, you know, in the past, it was difficult to burn relatively cleanly. You had to have a lot of scrubbers. Sometimes that was expensive. Are we getting better at that? Or is nobody even paying attention to coal at this point? No, I know. Coal is definitely making a comeback. And we have, we have really proven the process of producing and using coal, again, more responsibly anywhere on the planet, and we're doing it while becoming clean, world leaders in clean air.

So, yes, the baghouses and the scrubbers, the pollution control technology that we utilize here in the United States is second to none. And so coal is great. There's actually minerals and rare earth that are in the ash that are captured in the baghouses of scrubbers. There's a 60 times higher concentration in neidemium, which is a material that's used in magnets, which is used in electric vehicle motors. So now you don't have to go destroy land to get this material. You can actually get it from the garbage, if you will, from a coal-fired power plant.

That's another reason why we need to be using more coal, because you actually get something useful on the back end. There's more ash that's used to make concrete lighter and stronger and less expensive. That's good for maintenance. And there's a shortage of that right now. On the natural gas side, as we get regulations decreased to not be as burdensome as they have been in the past, we're going to see more pipelines being built in this country to move natural gas to market. It's appalling over half of the fertilizer plants in the EU are offline right now. So the EU is going to continue to suffer.

They're going to see higher food costs, higher electricity costs. And as you said, it's all by their own votes. I mean, this is what they are doing to themselves. they're committing suicide, but when you start to lose the fertilizer plants that are helped producing the food in a small area. I mean, that's existential stuff that you're talking about. It really is. These are societal shutdown kind of tipping points. That's what has gotten me so concerned about even in Oregon we had this war on natural gas.

I mean, 10, 15 years ago, they were crowing, you know, the green weanies were crowing. Hey, look at those RVTD, the transit district, one of the transit districts. Look at our clean natural gas powered buses. And you know, something, they were clean, natural powered buses. They still are clean natural gas powered buses. But, oh, it's not clean enough now because of carbon. It's like it's never clean enough. It's never sustainable enough.

It's like the only thing that is sustainable, apparently, is living in a mud hut and walking in your climate-friendly equitable community. And it just, I don't know, maybe at some point they'll figure, it out, maybe when they're thrown out of their home. I don't know. Here, Jason, what do you think is the end game on this? Yeah, and I wish more municipalities were looking at natural gas for their transportation fleet. It's less expensive. It's 100-produced in the United States, the emissions. You don't need all the emissions control technology on vehicles when you're burning natural gas. And boy, I'll tell you, you don't have to change the oil very often in those

diesels either because it's a lot cleaner, you know, in the diesel process, too. It's amazing. You're absolutely right, but no, they're looking at electric vehicles, which there's 40,000 kids in the Congo today, between the ages of 4 and 13, that are mining cobalt in Chinese-owned and controlled mines to make electric vehicles. I mean, it's just absolutely absurd. There was a law that was passed in Arizona that said that if the state were going to procure electric vehicles, they had to procure them from buyers that certified their vehicles weren't made with child or slave labor, and their Democrat governor vetoed the bill. So they're okay buying electric vehicles that are made with child and slave labor. I think that's kind of appalling, but I know that American energy in this country and really North America is produced using adults, working people, not children. And so we need to be using more of that energy. American Energy Institute.com. You can find out more about Jason Isaac's group.

He's the CEO of that. Onward and upward. And I'm hoping that you're talking about this dip in investment in actual. energy that works and is available is not going to be going on for much longer because I am concerned. I mean, it's not that I don't like cheap gas, but, of course, even when the oil is 61 bucks a barrel or whatever it is, gasoline is still $4 a gallon. But this is Oregon, after all, and that explains a lot of that.

It's certainly not $4 a gallon in Texas, and that's a good thing. Yeah, all right, hey, Jason. But, yeah, the investment is a concern. It certainly is, and we need to get more infrastructure built and get more product market. All right. Appreciate the call. And thanks for explaining a little bit of the funding behind No Kings 2. We can't wait. All right. We'll see you. Have a great weekend. Take care, Jason. Jason Isaac. It is 654 KMED, KBXG. Local Coastal. The Bill Myers Show is on. News Talk 1063, KMED.

They had all that serious news, all that serious talk. So now it's time for some silly talk. Silly talk's okay. Dad joke of the day. Those are sponsored. sponsored by Two Dogs, Two Dogs Fabrication. It's on Brian Way off Sage Road in Metford. Actually, Two Dogs Fabricating, whatever it is. And I'm going to tell a dad joke here right now. Randy submitted this one. Did you know French fries aren't really from France?

They're cooked in Greece. I smiled at that one. Thank you, Randy. I appreciate that, by the way. Two Dogs Fabricating, by the way, has built their business on custom fabricating. They have a new line of Horizon heavy-duty equipment trailers available and all sorts of sizes, 10, 12, 14, 20-foot links. They'll transform your truck and trailer into the ultimate work rig.

And if you need something fabricated, they're the fabricating experts, okay, two dogs. Two DogsFab.com. You can submit your dad joke, too, all right? And while we're at it, some emails of the day, too, since I'm in my email software, I might as well. A lot of people have been writing this morning, and for the last couple of days. Emails of the day are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson in Central Point Family Dentistry. Central Point Family Dentistry.com.

Great place that has an in-house lab now, and it is so convenient. You want to get a tab, I'm sorry, a crown. You want to get a crown, even though we're supposed to be no kings. You can still get a crown over at Dr. Steve at central point family dentistry.com. And in-house lab, and they could do it to you in like one day, you get there, get your tooth all prepped, and they take the pictures, and they put it in the lab, and about that. 30 minutes out at Pops, it's really cool. Work really well, too, okay?

And, pardon me, Central Point Family Dentistry.com. I was getting my sponsorships mixed up, a little bit of operator error there. A lot of people writing about the Creekside development here. And Bob Hayworth writes in, Bill, my question to the Dreamers is, how long would these areas be torn apart with construction, making traversing Jackson Street between Central and Crater Lake Avenue? Impossible. Access to Medford Center?

I see possible closure of Riverside from Main Street to Jackson also. I don't know. Maybe we can talk about that, Bob. Appreciate the question. We'll put that in there. A de-engineer says, Bill, sports people makes people dumber. Medford doesn't need to get any dumber. What?

Going and watching sports makes us dumber. I don't know about that. Everybody needs a distraction and some entertainment. Sports ball, as you term, it's not my bag. not my thing. I've never cared much about it, but I know a lot of other people really get a lot of enjoyment out of it, and so I don't want to reign on their particular parades either, okay? But, you know, in fact, I've known incredibly intelligent people who are also monster sports fans. It's okay. Viva little difference. I like to sit and work in my garage and work on electronic

projects. Other people like to watch football or baseball or something like that. You know, that's good, Okay. Darren and Tammy write me this morning. Pebble in my shoe, actually from yesterday, Phil, we cannot believe the full court press on Measure 15-238. What a waste of Medford taxpayer money? This would cause terrible traffic problems in the city and would not bring the tourism. The city says it will. And it is not fair to Medford hotels. Travelers were more likely stay in Central Point due to the increased cost. I can't believe the digital imprint propaganda to get this past. Well, I was looking up most of the funding of this, though, of this pack is coming from the Eugene Emeralds. On Orstar, Eugene Emeralds kicked in, I think it was $50,000 seed money for this particular event, this special election, okay?

And a Vista kicked in some, and there was a $5,000 donation from another group, MJ Communications. I think that's what it is. I'm just doing that off the top of my head. So they're really looking at this as key to getting the baseball team coming into town. Jerry the Bull writes me, Bill, I chuckled a little bit when I heard your guest talking the other day about gold speculation in the market. The government has been printing paper for decades and all it takes is a little logic and simple math to get an idea of why gold has been rising and where it could potentially end up. I call that wisdom, not speculation. About 20 years ago, the late gold trader, Jim Sinclair, known as Mr. Gold, said gold would rise to 1650 when it was 250 to 300.

Less than 10 years later, he was proven correct. It actually went above his forecast. Today, at $37 trillion in U.S. foreign debt, his number would be approximately $33,000 an ounce of gold. Obviously, this is, in my opinion, not a guarantee based on what I'm hearing, but he was laughed at when he forecasted 1650, and I'm sure he would be mocked today also. currently at 42, 4, $4,300, and rising, I think we could say that the barbaric relic pet rock known as gold is doing okay when compared to other markets. I'm not planning my life around a much higher gold price,

but still I wouldn't be surprised if it happens. Jerry, it's a very thoughtful way of looking at that. And finally, Mark Johnson writes from the Grants Pass area, and he was saying that a cost of living raise for the city of Grants Pass employees in 2026, That's not an unreasonable request. I was having a lot of talk about this, but they were talking about some huge raises up there, Mark. But Mark continues,

one should be careful with comparing manager salaries from U.S. wide studies. Much of that data fails to account that the various comparable municipalities are actually bankrupt. So used to be that the mill rats, the production workers, made three times minimum wage. You work at the local plywood plant. you'd be, you'll have, you should be making $45 an hour. You're actually making $22 to $32 an hour right now, still running seven miles of panels of shift. Plus, I have a neighbor, teacher at Grants Pass High School,

bought a used trade-in car from Roe Motors, could have got it cheaper someplace else that I quote, Roe Motors supports Grants Pass. Personally, I have way more cash and time deposits at Evergreen than I probably should. I could do better at Vanguard. All my people support the local bank, and so do I.

And he also muses, a county sheriff makes 20,000 less the year than a city police officer. You know, that's an interesting stat there. Yeah. Are the city police overpaid or the county sheriff's underpaid there? Mark, what are you thinking? Email bill at Billmyershow.com. This is KMED and KMED HD HD1, Eagle Point Medford, KBXG Grants Pass. Fox News coming up, Mr. Outdoors joins me, and we'll have the outdoor report.

and also, how about an honor to the late Kiss guitarist, the founder of that Ace Freely, died yesterday, ages 74, ended up by getting injured from a couple of falls, and I guess something takes you out. Not exactly a rock and wall way to go, but we'll talk about that with Greg coming up.