Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 11-14-25_FRIDAY_7AM

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

John Birch Society has always been pretty hard core conservative - Tim Marden from JBS talks the blame of the shutdown, then Pacific Legal Foundation has great news, KOGAP wins prop right case against Medford.

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. Tim Martin joins me. He is the marketing director at the John Birch Society. One of my favorite groups out there that has been proven right, more times than I can imagine, and oh, does conservatism, Inc. hate you guys. Tim, welcome back to the show.

Good to have you on. Morning, sir. Yeah, great to be here. I'm running out of fingers and toes to count the number of times we've been proven and right. Yeah, well, the main thing is that I would say that the John Birch Society, if you were honestly describing it, to me, is it sort of a paleo-conservative way of looking at the world, kind of a pre-internationalist country club Republican kind of way of looking at the world? How would you describe it? I know it's a think tank and so much more you got, you know, going on there.

But tell us a bit about the current makeup of it all. well i think there's i think there's some elements to that and you know a lot of us you know feel like we've got kind of one foot in the conservative one foot in the constitutional and one foot in the libertarian camp and what it really boils down to i think is that we're freedom lovers we're self-independent our motto is you know um smaller government more responsibility and with god's help a better world uh so it's it's kind of all that rolled into one sort of independent of of any party, although we admittedly overlap with the Republicans more often than not. Lately, it seems a little bit more on the not camp, but I think that's fair.

Yeah, how would you describe that reaction with your readers and your members to the government shutdown and who's blaming who and who's cheating who and this and that and the other? Is there a way we can kind of take a bead and get a beat on this, in your opinion? This is downstream of really kind of the uniparty structure that has been sort of created in Washington, D.C. That does not really care so much about Main Street anymore as much as it does about K Street. And the sorts of ant kicking or anhill kicking that we see going on is just trying to play to each other's base, you know, that we pointed them, they pointed us. And we kind of can all go back to our districts and have this two-sided coin that we can kind of point to. But, you know, the administration is making it very hard to like them here recently bombing countries.

You know, there was a significant turnaround in that first weekend when Trump bombed Iran, which I think by Monday morning came kind of to a head where he was kind of pumping the brakes finally. and I really champion Thomas Massey for bringing that to a head. I think there was a lot of people that were behind the scenes saying, you know, what are we doing here? This is the road that we don't want to go down. And as George Washington said, you know, let's have fair trade with everybody. Let's not get into bed with anybody. And all of that kind of chaos creates all this friction.

So if you just strip government down to what it's supposed to be doing, all this other stuff just goes away. What do you think about the fact that the Republican Party seems to be more focused on jettisoning them or primaring the people who were probably the most loyal to the American Constitution and to the American form of government? I'm thinking of the Thomas Massey's, and now he's being termed, you know, a loser. Rand Paul, who I've always enjoyed and always agree on everything that he talks about, but it seems like the people who are the, I guess, the conscience of conservatism, would that be a fair way of looking at it, seem to be the ones most under attack these days, don't you find that interesting?

Well, I think it's the ones with the backbone and the ones that actually have steadfast principles that outlast who is actually sitting in the presidency that are really the ones that matter. And I think politics, particularly in the conservative liberty movement, has matured enough that we're not looking at the person so much. We are dismissing some of the rhetoric and looking at the reality. And those two things tell a very, very different story when you start looking at the body politic in D.C. and in the Beltway, because you have all these NGOs, you know, these NGOs, all the military industrial complex, all that has to be fed. and when you start talking about money, you know, you become slave to the lender and it skews your, not only your decision-making, but it really even skews some of your inputs. You know, I don't think that Trump is getting the best information sometimes, and, you know,

he kind of goes off on his own little tangents. He's had, I think this is like the third or fourth beef that he's had with Thomas Massey, but, I mean, the guy is a stalwart as far as we're concerned. And, you know, at the Birch Society, we interview him all the time, and he's always very, very consistent, scores very high on our Freedom Index, which scores every 535 member of Congress a couple times a year. And, you know, it's hard to argue when you can kind of push back and get away from the headlines, look deeper into the story, all this stuff really comes to fruition. But we need principled people. That's what we want to attract to the John Birch Society. is principled people and support these sort of American principles that, you know, they're badged as America first, but they're really freedom first.

We just happen to be the country that they foster the most in the government system that we were given to make that stuff foster the most. What do you think has been driving the U.S. government away, Tim, from America first, or, you know, which also with a focus on freedom, because it feels like, you know, We were all celebrating November of last year, and yet it's like, okay, now we're back into the system, and now we have to, and now we have to govern. In Congress, it's a slim governing and voting a majority, and I think that's why President Trump, of course, is really irritated at the Rand Paul's and the Thomas Massey's and the Marjorie Taylor Greens, because, you know, it's a numbers game, ultimately, but is what drives what we do today really the fact that, that we're just past that tipping point of really restoring a small kind of democratically represented republic of the old days so to speak how do you see it no i think america's

definitely still possible i don't i don't think we're past the point of no return so to speak what i think we're kind of seeing is the honeymoon period of election cycles is over you know everybody gets spun up for the, for the presidential, but the real rubber meets the road in between the elections, and we cannot fall asleep and get our eye off the ball, but, you know, we get lulled into the excitement and the rhetoric, again, of the election cycle, so they get into the office, the honeymoon period is now, you know, 13 months in the rearview mirror, and now they actually have to kind of get down and do the heavy lifting. And that's where, once they're in office, they get leaned on by the lobbyists,

they get leaned on by the donor class, they get leaned on by the globalists, and those sorts of things, and they start really kind of creeping in there. And let's face it, I mean, they've been doing this a lot longer than even Trump has, and as great as, you know, he likes to think that he is, he's playing with the big boys. and I think 2.0 is better than 1.0, but there's still so many cracks that we kind of see in the Trump armor that some of this bad stuff is creeping through. And it's unfortunate that he kind of lashes out at the Thomas Massey's, the Rand Pauls, the Marjorie Taylor Green. But I can tell you that the base will think much more of them than they will of Trump.

Massey continues to win big in his primaries. So the Trump effect and the Trump shine is kind of worn off because he keeps stubbing his toe, keeps having these kind of self-inflicted wounds, and it's just unfortunate. Yeah, one of those wounds I was talking about with Federation for American Immigration Reform, they had to do with the dust-up with Lori Ingram, and it wasn't that I wanted to focus on, you know, dust-ups or screw-ups, but the thing is, though, it is exposing a real split that is, in some ways getting wider and I'm getting concerned about this

as we go into midterms here Tim because it's obvious that no we don't want the base does not want 600,000 Chinese nationals displacing Americans on college campuses here through H1B visas. We don't want that. He didn't run on it and yet

he's feeling the need that he has to do this so these are real actions and we can't ignore them I guess is what we're looking at here. What is the possible ramifications if we end up, you know, doing everything possible in order to get a trade deal, which I think is what's going on. It's just my opinion, my theory, at least about what's happening here. How do you guys see it at the New American?

Well, we don't think that there is really this, you know, trajectory, I guess, towards war with China, because they build so much of our military equipment. You know, the circuit boards, a lot of the stuff comes from there. So we're not going to bite our nose to spider face, and they know that. So I think what you see on the nightly news, et cetera, is all just theater. So I don't think there's really any big deal there. What I think they're just really trying to do is thread the needle. And sometimes there is no room to thread the needle.

You just need to make a decision, and we fall on the side of what's best for America and what's best for us, because it were painted as this, you know, whatever we don't, isolations, yeah, that's the word I was grasping for, but it's about non-interventionalism. We don't need to go around the world kicking in hills. When we do that, we can see the backlash that happens when things like this happened. And it's the same thing with the trade and economic policy. If we were open to working with people, I mean, a trade deal should be one page. We, you know, like our businesses to do business with your business.

your businesses in your country, but we have disastrous policies like the TPP, which thankfully Trump got us out of, but then he got Reddit back in to the USMCA, which was just as bad as NAFTA, but he had people like Robert Lighthizer around him telling him, oh, USMCA is so much better than the NAFTA agreement. Well, no, it wasn't. It was much, much worse, but I frankly don't think that Trump reads very much. I think he just sort of just kind of listens to the last person that talked with him, and if they had a good pitch, and he's a licensing guy, so if they can put his name on it,

you know, they kind of bolsters his ego a little bit. But he should be much smarter than this, and I just cringe sometimes. Yeah, but by the thing is that arguably he is a master dealmaker. I mean, there's no doubt about this. He has the ability to thread the needle quite well, I think, when he cracks down and concentrates, is there a possibility that all this government shutdown thing has kind of been a distraction that may have driven more of this sort of, well, like I said, I know I'm focusing on these 600,000 Chinese students, but, you know, hey, I don't get it.

You know, that makes no sense when we're talking about trying to bolster American manufacturing and raise wages, but at the same time you import, you know, communists to displace Americans. I don't get that. Well, I've come to realize that if something doesn't really make sense, kind of intuitively, that we're not getting all of the information. I think that's probably the situation here. Okay. I'm talking with Tim Martin.

He's marketing director over at the John Birch Society. And, of course, the New American is your big publication. Now, do you still publish it on paper? Is it only available digitally at this point in time, huh? No, we will not get away from the paper, because at any point the Internet could get it. turned off on us. So we remain a print publication first and foremost, but it is available digitally. You can go to the newamerican.com. You can subscribe. It is a monthly publication,

but it's really an intelligence brief because, as you kind of said in the opening, we've been right a lot, and it's a great way to get ahead of some of this stuff. It kind of peels back the onion and gets really down to the nitty gritty. I noticed that you're focused on AI for this month. Why is that? What is the take there? Well, AI is much more than the chat GPT or the GROC that you see on the X platform. It can really automate a lot of these systems.

It can lead to some of the integrations of digital currency. which are a really, really bad thing for us. And we just don't want people to get dependent on AI. You still need to have need-to-nead-ne conversations. You still really have to interact with people. And sort of putting everything on autopilot can be very, very dangerous for us, you know, just as a culture and as a people group. We want to caution everybody against that because, you know, if you get deep into, you know, the dark enlightenment topics and the, you know, the Peter Thiel's and those sorts of things.

It can get really kind of doom and gloom, and we want to remain positive, you know, for America. And I think that's where we are, where we're going. And it's just a very cautionary tone. I have found AI useful for certain, like researching certain things that I'll want to talk. I'll try to find some statistics, which are more difficult to find on a conventional search sometimes. or buried deep down. But I think where I start to draw the line is when the chatbots seem to want to engage you and said, oh, you're so smart.

That's a really good question. And isn't there? Oh, come on. Well, yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about. You know, I don't want a digital friend. Yeah. Those things can get a little creepy. Let's just face it, they can get a little creepy.

Yeah, well, that's on the front page of the New American this month, the globalist tool for world government, AI. They dig into that and a lot more. I appreciate you coming on, and it's the newamerican.com, new American.com. Hopefully, maybe we'll look back at this time in history in the future here, Tim, and just say, oh, man, we're so worried about things going to hell. We muddled through. I'm hoping, okay? Yeah, yeah, me too.

But get involved with the society, if you have any interest, jvests. dot org we've got all the information there on this and so many other topics so happy to have you and i'll be come back anytime all right thank you tim good talking with you okay be well 728 at km ed 993 kb xg another phone number i would like you to remember because uh not only a good sponsor of mine and uh always want to help out the good sponsors that we have here but uh he's done a lot of good for people here in southern oregon when they have received their insurance renewals and then you just fall out of your chair sometimes when you see the renewal come up, and I've known people that have had

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That's 261-544-4. He works with multiple people, multiple insurance companies, and they help you find the best deal. He has them going to work for you. 261-5-44-4. skypark i ns dot com that's skypark i ns dot com at sky park we make insurance easy storec 732 we'll grab us some calls here before we end up going to news and then we're going to talk about a big win for property owners here in southern oregon from the pacific legal foundation we'll have that story coming up and i think this may be is this vicky good morning yes it is hi bill

I'm so sorry. Oh, no. Vicki, I just, a lot of folks will, and it's not just you, Vicki and I had to say I apologize to her because I was just irritated answering the phone. If you want to get a hold of the show in the morning, you have to call the station line, 7705-633, and a lot of people don't realize that, and they'll just call me, and they'll just go all morning, and it's just, sometimes it just caught me weird, okay, but you're working hard over at the GOP here locally, and I have a feeling you have a great story about signing up for petitions and getting rid of this big tax package that was passed, right?

I do. I really want all the people in the Medford area, Jackson County, to know that we're working very hard. There's two of us, and we're getting all of the volunteers signed up, and we do have the petitions, and there is places that you can start signing. in Jackson County and the Medford area, all of these places are going to be listed, and they want to make sure people write this down. Okay. No-taxor.com. No-taxor.com. That's where you go to find out where you can sign the petition.

And are there going to be a bunch starting today? I mean, what is the timing of this, Vicki? So we weren't sure when we were going to get the petition. So today there is availability only at the Jackson County Republican Party headquarters. That address is 112 North Front Street in Central Point. Okay. So you know that, and are there going to be some more sign-ups this weekend, or is that kind of a work in progress right now? Right now we have everything set up for next week.

Next week is going to be, we're going to have other locations, but primarily the Republican Party. Next Saturday, November 22nd, is really important that all people in Oregon know. That day is the day the petitioners have said, everybody in Oregon signed a petition. Let's do this in one day and get it done. We have to have 100,000 signatures. And so November 22nd is the day we're going to. have the most locations available for people to sign the petitions. All right.

So the Jackson County Republicans, and by the way, Josephine County Republicans have these petitions at their offices, too. So both offices are great places to start, both in Jackson and Josephine County. We know that, okay? Thank you. Perfect. All right. Yes.

And, Bill, can I just let you know for the people that want to sign the petition today, the office hours are only 12 to 4. All right. Very good. Hey, Vicki, thanks a much for the call, okay? Be well. We'll talk again. Thanks, though. Bye now. Let me go to Steve. Steve, what's on your mind this morning? Go ahead. Well, you're talking about the H-1BVs that thing, and the Chinese really have us over a barrel because they have cornered the market on much, on many things. One of them is magnets, of course,

and other is rare earth metals like antimony. And Trump only, we can't build the facilities we need to create all this stuff in one year, and the Chinese know it. So he had to give them something in order to get what he needs to keep us going. So you're thinking that's what this 600,000 H-1B student visas is all about. Okay, you know you could be right about that, Steve. I appreciate the call. a good point. We go to Matt. Matt, good to have you on here, too. Welcome. What are you

thinking? Hey, I think Steve's right on that, by the way, Steve. Good call, buddy. Yeah. But needless to say, you know, then he need, maybe he needs to explain that then, you know, about the, about the H-1Bs, because it's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, Matt. You can understand that. Me too. I'm not the exception. I think I'm the role, just like you and Steve. Oh, good, good. What's on your mind, though? Well, really quick on the metal stuff, never underestimate the ability of a government to talk a market down or talk a market up. There's a stock I followed. It's an antimony, and it had a massive run, like 4,000 percent. It got up to 20 bucks from about a dollar here going back to, oh, 20, 23, 2024.

But anyway, it's falling all the way back to $8, and it's found. So just the idea of Trump saying that, hey, we're looking at these, you know, rare earth minerals and we're going to be working on this stuff, a lot of times that's enough to cause these things to sell off. But to my point this morning, I'm looking at a letter from two days ago from Governor Greg Abbott of Texas. The NASDAQ is expanding its footprint in Texas to begin trading much more in 2026. and there he has a quote in here you see if I can find it really quick So it says Texas is attracted more than 325 corporate headquarters as the eighth largest economy in the world

and home to Fortune 500 headquarters Texas also has the largest financial services workforce in the United States now You know what that is telling me that means the money the financial centers are starting to shift, aren't they? What they basically said is they could see the way New York City was going. And by the way, it's all their fault. Wall Street always had enough money to support candidates,

whether they be Democrats or Republicans who weren't Marxists. They always had the money and resources to support it. But they kind of, you know, they kept hanging on, hanging on, hanging on. But going back a couple of years now, they've left New York. And I just heard yesterday, I didn't get a chance to read the article, but I heard that the royal family in Qatar now owns more property in London than the freaking king of England. Once again, England is no longer for the English, which that's a problem, don't you think? So, yeah, and so Wall Street is waved goodbye. Excuse me, well, yeah, we'll call it Wall Street. Wall Street's waved goodbye to New York City. They're waving goodbye. They're in the rearview mirror now. It's official.

and the U.K. has lost. Meanwhile here, we're seeing that same kind of mentality. They had 669 workers announced laid off from Intel yesterday, adding to what they had already announced. So the shift is occurring, whether, I mean, capital goes where it's going to be treated well, and it's not treated well in Oregon, is it? No, it's not.

And honestly, Intel and Nike, I mean, you know, their gymnasium is called, what, the Matt Center or something like that? Yeah. He named it after his son, I believe, he passed away in a scuba accident. But how long, you just can't stay where the money doesn't treat you, right? I'm going to do some math for you. I hope maybe I can get it done this weekend. I'm going to look at what the country would look like if every person who voted for

Trump in all the blue states were to move to red states. I'll tell you what. Let's talk about that on Monday for sure, okay? I got a roll right now, Matt, but I'd love to kick that around, as always. Do a little work. All right. See you then. Right.

Okay. All right. We'll continue that conversation here in just a little bit. By the way, after news, though, I have to get this story on. This is a great story about what happened with the Court of Appeals in a Medford property rights case. We'll tell you about it coming up. News brought to you by Millette Construction, specializing in foundation repair and replacement. Get on solid ground.

Visit Millet Construction.com. From the KMED News Center, here's what's going on. Cheryl King of Medford was sent to drilling.com. Hi, this is Lisa, the Hughes Lumbergirl, and I'm on 106.7, KMED. I have so much fun when I can actually report a good turnaround in a property rights case here. When you get a great outcome, it's a wonderful thing for everybody. City of Medford may not be real happy about that, but that's beside the point. And Brian Hodges joins me.

is a senior attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, pacificlegal.org. Brian, we had mentioned this briefly a few weeks ago that there was a big case out in front of the Ninth Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals, and this involved the City of Medford and COGAP Enterprises. Could you explain a little bit of what happened, please? Yeah, well, you know, with this case involves is the common practice, if you want to use your property, you have to go to City Hall and ask for a permit. Everybody knows that. I mean, whether you're building a debt or a subdivision, because the local government controls

how the permit will be issued, it provides an opportunity for them to impose what are called exactions or permit conditions. Oftentimes, these are, you know, just small details to make your improvements match the neighborhood or meet city code. Okay, so that would be something like, you consider it reasonable in which they'll say something like, okay, we want to make sure that you plant a couple of trees in the front, you know, things like that, that sort of stuff, those sort of rules? Well, yeah, or, you know, maintain fence height, that sort of thing.

Okay. But there comes a time when they just ask for too much. And that's what the COGAP case is about. CoGAP enterprises, it's a family business that you use. to run a sawmill down in Medford, you know, that when the timber industry dried up, they eventually decided that they were going to develop the property, provide, you know, much-needed housing, a mixed retail housing, and for 20 years, they built out this area of Medford, provided roads, miles and miles of roads.

Yeah, it's Stuart Meadows, right? Stuart Meadows is the property that we know we're talking about. So, been doing this for years, and yeah, we're certainly familiar with that. But what did the city of Medford want that CoGAP did not want to give? Yeah, at the end of the day. So we're at the tail end of the development. CoGAP asked for a minor revision, basically just switch uses in one building to another. Something that the city agreed would result in no increase in traffic. And yet the city wanted CoGAP to give up a portion of his property to build a new street, Myers Lane,

across its property, build a bridge, and improve the street to a commercial-grade street in order to serve other developments that are anticipated to the west of Stuart Meadows. Okay. You have to build somebody else's bridge, in other words. Yeah, yeah. And it's just, I mean, you're part of the town, but it's a road too far. They've provided so much infrastructure through the 20-year process of developing You know, this last ask, which would cost approximately $700,000, $750,000 was just too much.

And so they challenged it under there's a constitutional doctrine established, actually, the city of Tigard, in the case Dolan v. City of Tiger, that says that the government can demand that you mitigate the impacts of your development, but they can't use your permit, hold your permit hospital. in order to force you to just give them more, just continue to give, pay for new infrastructure, pay for a new sports facility or something like that. So they sued under that doctrine, and specifically it's called the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, and it requires what's called rough proportionality. The city offered no evidence that the proposed revision would result. in any impact that would need this road. This strictly was just something that the city was hoping they would do,

so it would make it easier for the next development west of Stewart Meadows. And so I guess that west of Stewart Meadows, those people wouldn't have to pay to put it in. Were they just looking at this almost like a matter of convenience then to build out infrastructure? Well, it was a matter of convenience because they wanted, they decided, you know, while this development, while Stuart Meadows was being developed, they decided that, oh, we want another road. Unfortunately, it runs straight through Kogap's property.

So rather than condemning the property, which is the lawful way, you know, exercising eminent domain and paying Kogat for the value of the street that they condemn, they thought they could just take it because, you know, they've been demanding roads and concessions for 20 years. Yeah, yeah, it's a nice development. you got there. You want that poignant. Well, you know, you've got to do, build us a road. Build us a road and a bridge. You don't mind?

Capish? Yeah, we know how that. Okay. Is that an unusual? Is that an unusual ask from that the city of Medford was making or just something very common that is just having to be smacked down by people like you? Oh, well, it's very common. Oftentimes the asks

are small enough that it doesn't pencil out for developers to challenge it. And, you know, oftentimes it's just seen as the price of doing business but when it gets too big it's or when you ask from the wrong person then it becomes a problem and then we get involved what happens now with co-gap do they get money from the city of metford or can they just get their permit now without having to pay the 700,000 dollars or does the city of metford then have to pay Pacific legal foundation perhaps for taking this case on how does this work? What is the ask and the structure of a settlement?

Well, there's no settlement on the table at this point. The Ninth Circuit ruled in our favor, and it's directing the federal district court to enter judgment in favor of COGAP. This was brought under an Oregon statute that allows for recovery of attorney fees, and it also sought damages for, you know, damages caused by the demand. So it's going to have to go back to trial court and determine what those damages are going to look like, pay the attorney fees for having to fight this all the way up. And this has been several years that it took in order to get a court to look at the record and say, well, you didn't make any effort to show that this demand is sufficiently related

to any impact, any development impacts. All right. Now, so we don't know. It's still kind of up in the air at this point. Could the City of Medford appeal to a higher authority or to a higher court, or is this the end of it, you think? They could. They could ask the Ninth Circuit to convene an en banc of large panel to review the case.

They could petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, but I just don't see this. This case involves, it's more involving an application of the constitutional doctrine to the fact. So it doesn't seem to present issues that would warrant their appeal, their further appeal. Brian Hodges, once again, is a senior attorney for the PLF, the Pacific Legal Foundation. And is this something which is a precedent-setting case in which other courts would then look at this and say, well, yeah, look at this deal. you know, Kogap, the city of Medford, you gotta, gotta, we don't want to go there. Where is this just a, just an affirmation of settled precedent from the past? How do you see it?

Well, it's, it's an affirmation of settled precedent, but at that same time, it becomes it becomes very advisory or cautionary in that it shows that these common practices and the sloppiness with which government is making these sorts of demands is not going to go unnoticed and will expose the community to liability, both an attorney fees and damages. Isn't the challenge that we're facing here is that if you're a really small person or you're not a person of means, a city or a county or some other governmental entity will usually win and just run roughshod over you because you're thinking you just have no

way of taking this to court for most people, like it's building your home, your own personal home. You're just trying to build a single-family home, that kind of thing. Is that a fair way of looking at the world today? Yeah, and that's really where, you know, developers, thankfully, you usually have a team and they can, you know, put on a defense. For the small time, like, a single-family home builder, yeah, this becomes a problem because, you know, how are you going to pay attorney's fees and a, you know, $30,000, $50,000 impact fee, that's just too much money. Sometimes people just have to give up in order to get their home. And that's why the Constitution applies so strongly in this circumstance, because the government

is in very real terms using its permit power authority to extort money and land from people. what is next what do you think comes after this now what comes after this case well we're we're litigating um these are called exactions cases we're litigating exactions cases all around the country um you know this comes on the heels of our supreme court victory last year uh coming out of california uh it was a case called sheets the county of el dorado that got rid of for a long time states, courts were not applying this constitutional doctrine when there is something like an impact fee schedule that's legislatively approved. They've just been rubber stamping those sorts of demands. The U.S. Supreme Court in Sheets opened up the courtroom doors to people challenging

those sorts of fees. And frankly, in the 30 years that those weren't being held subject to heightened constitutional review, they've exploded to the point that you see, like I mentioned, like $50,000 traffic fee on a single-family home. Right. Yeah. I wanted to ask about something. I don't know if you can speak to this today, Brian. By the way, Pacific Legal Foundation Senior Attorney Brian Hodges, something that I've been

noticing here that the way that cities have been going about funding themselves quite often in the cities in Oregon. And was due to a Supreme Court case or a case that was settled out of Jacksonville a number of years ago. I don't know if you're familiar with this one or not. I don't even have the name of the particular deal. But it had to do with how cities are now realizing that nobody wants to raise their property taxes any longer. So what they do is that whatever you have to have to be able to live, whether it's, you know, utilities, water, gas, whatever, you have utility fees and lots of utility fees. And this is turned into like almost the government funding mechanism of choice.

And I've been kind of concerned about this. You know, you'll have in Jacksonville as an example, you'll, this one business I know pays $600 a month, and a lot of that is public safety fees and park fees and everything else before one drop of water comes out of it. And you almost have no ability to challenge these after these fees have been approved by the courts. Do you think that's something that could be ripe for a revisit?

at some point? Are you familiar with the concept of fees being put on everything you need that have nothing to do? They do the job of taxes, but they're not deductible like taxes, and they're not called taxes. Are you familiar with that? Yeah, I'm familiar with that. And that is associated with the impact fees. The courts categorize the fees very strictly. So impact fees are those that are imposed on a permit that are designed to mitigate or purport to mitigate for development impact, and so it's a one-time fee. Those are subject to the constitutional doctrine that I was discussing. Yeah, what about the whole idea which to get a water, you know, you have a water bill in your town

and you have to pay, you know, $40 a month on top of that for paying for the fire department and then paying for the police department and all these other things that are unconnected with it? They are not connected with the water service, that sort of thing. Yeah, that raises a different issue that hasn't been very well developed in the courts, but even user fees are supposed to be subject to an equivalency requirement so that they don't, you know, turn into basically what you're describing, just the, you know, we'll dump all these expenses here, we'll call it a user fee, and that way we'll get around, you know, voter revolt by imposing higher tax.

Yeah, the job of taxes, but they're not taxes, you know, legally here. And I don't think that anyone's going to be able to hold their government accountable, you know, as long as this happens because all they have to do is have the city council. We just raise it 50% plus one. There you go. Boom, there's the fee. And that's what all the city, all the cities do it now. You know, it's what they do. Yeah.

And, you know, the reason why those sorts of projects or government infrastructure are supposed to be funded by taxes is because, you know, voters are supposed to hold their representatives accountable. And if they continue to raise taxes to fund projects that don't have public support, they're going to be voted out. But with user fees, like you just said, with the increases being, you know, set by city council or, you know, or agencies, it really is so far away from the public view that it is, it becomes anti-democratic. Looks like we're going to have to do some work on that in the legal side. I don't know who's going to do it, but I'll tell you, when you need a good legal legal,

Pacific Legal Foundation is certainly the place to go to it. It's nonprofit, right? You just raise money and you do other things. People help you out. And then you hire attorneys. That's how it works, right? Well, we have a full staff of attorneys. We're nonprofit.

We don't charge attorney fees. In the right cases, we represent individuals free of charge. with the hopes that we're going to set precedent that's going to help other property owners, other homeowners. I really appreciate you being on. Brian Hodges once again, Pacific Legal Foundation, senior attorney. Find out more about this PacificLegal.org. Great job on the Medford case. We'll have you back. Take care, Brian. Good luck. All right. Thank you. Shade before 8, KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Mefford, KBXG Grants Pass.