Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 12-09-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Catching up on the news to start, Michael Johnson joins from the SLAVIC GOSPEL ASSOCIATION - $25 donations will help Ukranian families stay warm this winter - the HEAT and HOPE initiative SGA dot org on the web. Thoughts on recall and Jo Co resignations

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Good morning and happy, well, happy pebble in your shoe Tuesday. All right, you got a pebble in your shoe. Boulder in your boot, go ahead and call 770-KMED. By the way, my email is Bill at Billmyershow.com.

Let me talk with some people involved with getting aid to Ukraine, In spite of what's been going on with the war between Russia and Ukraine, the real issue has been people suffering on the ground, and there's some folks that are working on that from the Christian side of ministries. So we'll have a little conversation with them here in the next few minutes. And I also have a reporter coming on at 7-10 who actually had a chance to interview the assassin. The recent potential assassin, the one, well, the bomber, the pipe bomber, the pipe bomber's mother. Yeah. And it was an interesting conversation, and I'll talk with her at 7-10. Just ended up by getting that in the last night got that pitch to me.

I said, boy, you bet. You bet I'll talk to this person. We'll see what mom has to say, even though the pipe bomber, the alleged pipe bomber has confessed to it or admitted placing it. So I don't know. We'll just have a conversation. But I just want to let you know that's some of what we have coming up this morning. And we also have Governor Kotech and Dan Rayfield.

What a one-two leftist punch. We'll talk about that with a former state senator Herman Berchiger and a lot more. By the way, I just wanted you to know that it is possible. It is possible for city councils to resist the gang. green grifting of turning the roads into nonsense like what the city of Medford did a number of years ago by taking the grant stream funding to pave downtown Main Street. But then you had to put the multimodal crap in there. You know, the bolsters or whatever they call those things and making the road just ridiculous. And I know that they did that survey recently.

Well, what would you like us to do with this? And, okay, well, Most people said put it back to the way it was. They weren't upset with the way Main Street was laid out in the first place in downtown Medford. But I just wanted to bring your attention. This is a story a couple weeks ago from the Baker City Herald. Baker City officials are considering changing the traffic configuration on Main Street downtown from two travel lanes in each direction to one and adding a center turn lane and bike lanes in all the other. sort of nonsense that Tina Kotex, Oregon ends up fest tuning on them. Of course, I've added that part

on it. But the change won't happen before the summer of 2026. Well, the Baker City Council on Monday night, November 17th, actually tabled that recommendation from city staff. And see, this is where this stuff always comes from. The city staff comes forward because, you know, the road diet. So the city staff brought forward the road diet, and the city council said, no. I just wanted to make sure that Medford City Council and Ashland City Council and Grants Pass City Council and Central Point City Council and Eagle Point City Council can just understand and just take an example from Baker City City Council that it is possible to say no to road diets. You can say no to road diets and various other eco-greeny, comie nonsense. You just have to vote no. The proposal to alter the striping, they say, between Campbell Street and Auburn Lane,

they're going through this one. City staff citing a presentation from the Oregon Department of Transportation during a public meeting. All you have to. to know is that if the Oregon Department of Transportation is giving you a presentation, contending that the restriping would make Main Street safer for pedestrians and drivers, it's a scam. It is a scam. It's always about the multimodal. You're doing 20 miles an hour most of the time through these downtowns anyway. Knock it off. This is all about the multimodal push. And the multimodal push, and the multimodal push, you're doing 20 miles an hour most of the time through these downtowns anyway. Knock it off. You're

means that nobody gets to go through your downtown all that easily. There's supposed to be a lot of nonsense and, gosh, as much mixing it up of the traffic that we, well, in other words, as if the bicyclists, the bicyclists who are taking up in these plans, usually about one-fourth, maybe even more of the roadway, if you have a bike lane on each side, because, you know, you're only going 20 miles an hour, but you can't separate them out. You've got to have separate bike lanes. you know how that works here the bike lanes used if they're used much at all are probably news what three months out of the year maybe four months out of the year that kind of thing

all right we'll go on the high side maybe five all right so you have a handful of bicyclists that are taking valuable real estate on the main drag and you're going to hand it over to people who are hardly ever there is just absolute nonsense sense. Because remember, we have winter. And a lot of people, you know, the ecotourism, those folks, they don't like to go out there and do that during the wintertime. It's rainy and it's cold.

And it's Oregon, so it's hilly a lot of times too, although our downtown Main Street is not hilly. But I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew about this story of Baker City because Baker City discovered that he could actually vote no on a road diet, and for that they get the real American salute. Now, if only our other city councils here in Southern Oregon could remember the lesson. Oh, I remember. We could actually vote no on this proposal being brought to you by the Rhodes Department.

Oh, and the presentation on safety from the Oregon Department of Transportation. Okay. So, congratulations to Baker City for the city council. actually discovering they can vote no on the gang green ODOT-inspired communist, European, whatever it is, road diet, whatever you want to call it, as they want to turn us into Paris 1922. That's their whole point about downtown. They don't want for us to be able to travel as we wish. It wishes to be travel as they wish, and it's usually the Spandex Mafia types.

So anyway, that's wonderful news. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with Spandex Mafia. having bike lanes in downtown doesn't have to be the main drag put it on the next side street what's the problem with that it's just astounding this this conceit well we deserve just as much we deserve our little private highways and in metford that means that well the bums have a way to uh to take their stolen bicycle and ride it up in downtown as they go from from place to place for state provided services so there we go that's a pebble in my shoe And fortunately, Baker City is not part of that.

All right. There is another green story here. I've got to share that for you here just a minute. I'll do that in a bit. First things first, though, your calls on Pebble and your shoe Tuesday. Good morning. This is Bill. Hello, who is this?

Good morning, Bill. Tom here. Tom. How are you doing this morning? All right. You know, I've heard you talk about Main Street for, I don't know, a couple of years now. And for the first time I had an occasion to finally drive down Main Street, I was astounded how stupid that layout is. I mean, I knew that the Medford City Council, if there's a way to make a wrong decision, that's the one they go for.

But I was astounded by absolutely how stupid and how dangerous that is, because you have all these road hazards right out in the middle. of the street and so forth. You don't know when a car is going to be coming at you from the side. I mean, it was nuts. And so I wanted to talk about why this thing would happen in the first place. And the reason why is, you know, they've got the money. It's all about the money. It's always about the money. And all you have to do is be a Oregon Department of Transportation traffic planner. And of course, they've been ordered by Governor Kotech and Governor Brown there. There's the multimodal push. The idea is that every street, no matter what it is, is supposed to be able to, you know, if you have four lanes, well, you're going to be two lanes. And if you have

two lanes, you're going to be one lane at some point, with the rest of it given to bicycles, usually, bicycles, which are very seldom on those roads. That's just what they've been pushing. And so, Medford, if I recall correctly, what happened with Main Street is that it was a several hundred thousand dollars in a state grant to pave downtown, but in order to pave downtown, to repave downtown at state expense, in other words, other state taxpayers ended up paying for downtown Medford's paving, then we had to end up going with that nonsense plan that you just referenced. You're bringing up what I really think needs to happen. I know you don't like me to. talk on the big scale of things. But really, most of our taxes should be collected and spent locally. We need to abolish the IRS and we need to have most of our taxes, not going to Europe and Ukraine and Gaza and so forth. It really needs to be collected and spent locally and that the local people, us, citizens, should vote on the tax rate and how much we're going to.

to be taxed. And when we're taxed locally like this, we know where these so-called, well, I can't even think of a good name for them, the city council people, the government. We know where they park their cars. We know where they sleep at night. And we have a lot more control over where this money's gone. But the further way we send our money, the less control we have over it. We have no control of our destiny for this reason, for our futures because of this. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. I would much rather have a high city tax and a high county tax and a lesser state tax and a relatively minuscule federal tax if the federal government was actually conforming to its enumerated powers. But it is not

for a long, long time. It is so far stretched out of shape. And so we send everything to Washington, D.C., which then comes back in grant stream funding and are all sitting there applying for grants, when we should be taxing ourselves here and spending for the services that we wish here, not about Washington, D.C., and frankly not what Salem wants to have us spending. That's the way I would look at it. Yeah, basically the IRS has enabled the federal government to take away power from both the states and the citizenry to where we don't have any control of our destiny. And that's the terrible thing about it.

Well, I think that was by design, Tom. I really do. Well, of course it was. And I say the 16th Amendment did far more damage to even state's rights. And the 17th Amendment that took away, you know, the senators vote and so forth, put it. And so anyway, I think looking at downtown Medford, Main Street like that is a real pause for a reflection. How the hell did this crap get

out on our street? And I wanted to make sure that people understand. I understand why the councils do those kind of things. 700, 800,000, whatever it is. We're being conned. Well, there probably wasn't much, though, sitting in the caddy, in the kitty

that year to pave the roads. Road construction and paving is very expensive. But this is how... But this is how... I know. being had. I know, but this is how they end up getting their undue influence to push their various agendas, their anti-human agendas. It's time for a tax revolt against this whole damn tax structure that we have in this country because it's killing the country. And we're losing our ability to control our daily lives because we're sending all our life energy to

run amok federal government, and we need to pull that power back from them back to us. And it starts with the money here. Thank you very much, Tom. Good call. 7-70K-M-A-D. Go to, I think this may be Vicky. Maybe not. Hi, who's this?

This is Vicki. See, this is serious. And when I recognize your phone number, you know, you're a regular, okay? What's going on? Yeah, I'm part of the morning crew. Yeah, I've had an occasion where I've had to drive down. and Bill, the bicyclists go across the street, but they don't ride with traffic. They're on the sidewalks.

I know. So I don't know what the bike lane is, what the purpose of the bike lane is, because I've went down quite a few times, not only that, but the 20 mile an hour, I'm going 20 miles an hour because I don't need a $200-something ticket, and people are zooming past me. So they have cameras on the stop lights. So how many people are getting charged $250-something when they're passing me going, you know, 30? Well, I would imagine they are. You know, the funny thing is actually it was passed.

I was actually passed by someone on a bicycle doing faster than 21 time. I wonder if the bicyclist got ticketed. I imagine not. Probably not. You know, they... It was one of those. electric bikes. You know, everyone has to have any bike now? Well, they go

55, 60 miles an hour. I mean, they're, when they stopped making regular bicycles and people had to actually pedal to get somewhere, they should make different rules for those electric bikes because they are dangerous. I mean,

you could hit somebody with one of those, a pedestrian crossing the street, and you could do major damage if you're going, say, like, on 99. I've seen them zooming down 99, so fast that it's like, oh, my God, I'm going 50, and here's some guy next to me. Maybe the electric bike should just be considered a variant of the motorcycle. Yeah, I think it should.

I think they should be required to wear a helmet. I think they should have to abide by the rules and not zip-zap out in and out of traffic. Like, they're on a, you know, well, they're dangerous. Yeah, well, that's a heck of a pebble. That's a pebble that more than one person has written me about, Vicki. Appreciate that, too. 770563 thanks for making it so there's a pebble change the rules on the e-bikes too on top of that what's on your mind this is the bill mire show if you've been diagnosed with moderate to severe

plaquesiris 629 at kmED ed mr x is here hey ed good hear from you you wanted to comment on the well tom was saying that he wanted to change the taxation of the state of the system and i kind of like that idea that's kind of a big one you had a different suggestion to try to get more of our power back? Go ahead. Well, I've been talking about it for a long time, Bill. And, you know, if we break it down logically, okay, you start talking tax revolt, you start, you know, this is big, heavy-duty actions that aren't really the causation of the problem that we have. The causation of the problem we have is the intrusion and involvement of people

in the background through the university system collaboration with ODOT, in forwarding an agenda that sits legislatively enacted. And the reality to it is they spend a lot of money. It's our money. It's everybody's money. But the reality is it came out of road taxes and a combination, possibly, of property taxes. Because Oregon is, you know, we don't have a sales tax.

and the variety of taxes that we have the input from it comes from road taxes and property taxes. Now, our property taxes are collected locally. They're sent to Salem, and then they're redistributed. But the reality is ODOT overspent $5 billion. Now, we look at the control factor here, and it's a common-sense thing. Okay, so how do you grab control of that in 30 seconds? Tell me how you grab control of that. Well, first off, we have to get publicly involved when they have a public meeting. We have to go, and we have to start saying no. We have to start citing the law that says you can't do that.

This is a consensus-based process that's an intrusion into the lawful protection that we have of the right for transportation, the right to be able to drive across town without risking life and limb. You know, these intersections are dangerous downtown. You can't hardly cross the street. read and see the traffic that's coming for no use. And it's ultimately there to restrict your ability to go downtown. But that is the entire purpose. Well, that's the whole purpose of the multimodal design, in my opinion. Right. And so the option is we have to get involved. We have to start paying attention when there's a meeting, when there's public input. And we have to start announcing

your consensus model in this is hereby rejected all of those. Do you realize, though, that most of the people, when you go there and you talk about the consensus model, they're going to say, what the hell are you talking about, Ed? Not the people involved, the people that are, they know, and I've talked to them. I've gone, and I've talked to them, and they know, they know how it came about, and they're usually funded with grants. I mean, there's so much money that's wasted in this. But yet they fund study.

You know, years ago, we did shows. We talked about the parking situation. They were reducing the parking downtown. Why? Why would you reduce parking in an economic area that needs the business? And you reduce parking. This is like an absurdity for what? To park them in the middle of the street so that you can use non-existent transportation modes

where people that aren't paying for it. I mean, this whole thing is just so ridiculous, but it has to be fought at the ground level. It's not about creating a huge tax revolt. The IRS had nothing to do with anything that happened downtown. I disagree. I disagree a bit with you on that, a bit here, because ultimately the printing and the creation of credit into existence

brings a huge, huge, a cudgel from the federal government which then goes through the state, which then goes through the state university system, which then filters into downtown, we send money there, we send control and power, you know, there, and then beg for scraps back. And that's essentially what the city council did with that downtown plan. It depends upon the source of the grant stream bill that they're using for that particular thing. I agree with you. I spoke literally out of frustration.

But the reality to it is in the IRS, my, in the, involvement in it, it comes down to the administration that's in power in Washington. Right. Okay, right now the grant streams have dried up for it. Okay, but... And I consider that a good thing. I consider that a good thing. Yeah, I do.

I do, too. But the reality to it is if you track the money, which I have for years, as you know, the reality comes down to the involvement of the state of Oregon through ODOT, sourcing these funds and whatever they can. And ultimately, they now want us to do it. This is Tina Kotech signing this thing that now she's under, you know, everybody signed a petition to try to throw this law out. This is the stupidity to keep going forward with something that doesn't work, but yet to adhere to the policies that were enacted legislatively to support sustainable development. And you look at it and it's like, okay, your vision of sustainable development,

is what I argue with. If you want to sit down and involve the people that are being governed in this creation of what they consider sustainable, well, first, we have to be able to travel. We have to be able to go to work. We have to be able to go to a doctor's appointment. And we have to be able to generate actual economic activity to pay for the so-called sustainability. All right. Ed, point well taken.

And I don't know. Do you think that, I honestly think that most of the, you know, I honestly think that most of, Oregonians have, at this point, are kind of defeatist about it, that, all right, they do a stupid survey, and they know the city council usually is going to ignore it? Well, I admire what you said. You gave an example. It takes one effort, bill, to start a momentum. Okay, if a boulder is sitting, and don't moving, if you give it a push or give it an extra

amount of energy to push it in one direction or the other, it can move. And now Baker City has started that momentum. So I'm going to use Baker City as the example that, yes, you can say no to the nonsense, okay? All right. Yes, right. All right. Ed, appreciate the call, and no to the nonsense. Maybe that should be our – we should copyright that.

All right. Ed, appreciate the call. Got a roll. Okay, 636 at KMED, okay? Stephen Westfall Roofing is growing. Now proudly serving Brookings, Gold Beach, and the entire southern Oregon coast. The 6. First News at 10. Because local news and weather matters.

This is the Bill Meyer Show on 1063, KMED. 639. Michael Johnson joins me right now. He's the president of the Slavic Gospel Association. I've never had the opportunity of talking with him until this time. But it has to do with what's going on in Ukraine. I know that we have peace talk, supposedly, between Ukraine and Russia that are being worked on right now. but a big problem here.

Michael, let's just talk about it. It's the issue on the ground of what's happening this winter. Is that the case? Yes, yes, yeah. So just real quick about our ministry, we've been around since 1934. We're connected to roughly 6,000 Baptist evangelical churches across the former Soviet Union.

Specifically in Ukraine, we have access to about 2,500 churches. And many, as you sort of read the news about what's been happening over there, The Russians have been very ardent in destroying the infrastructure in Ukraine, you know, power plants, heating facilities, and so on and so forth. So the majority of the population is without heat. And so we have a program that we call Heat and Hope. We coordinate. We have a warehouse and administrative offices in Ukraine, and we're able to get resources to those churches so that they can meet both the physical and the spiritual needs of the people in the country, in the country. And so those churches, we've been

helping them to turn them into centers of heat and hope. So the families, when they're freezing in their homes, they can come to church. They can spend the night there if need be. They can receive food and humanitarian aid. And usually there's an opportunity for them to hear the gospel as well, as a result of this outreach. Yeah, but I was wondering here, what is the religious makeup of Ukraine if you were to, you know, break it down by various sects and faith? Well, I would say that throughout the former Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church, and also there's the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, they're pretty prevalent in those countries.

And so, but the evangelicals, the Baptist churches were established back in the, the early 1800s. And, you know, there was a revival that they were a catalyst in the 1800s then in early 1900s. The communists came in. They started persecuting all the Christians, and that happened through the dark years leading to the early, leading to 1990s or so. And that's when the wall came down. That's when religious freedom came back to those countries, and the evangelical churches in Ukraine have been thriving. And Ukraine is considered the buckle of the Bible Belt throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet countries. I was not aware of that. That's why I asked, because I was thinking, okay, I thought maybe evangelicals would be

relative rarity in Ukraine. I was just thinking, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, So it's been a great partnership with us. We support their theological training. We sponsor hundreds of church planters, national church planters, and then we equip them to meet both physical and spiritual needs of the people throughout the countries. Very good. I'm kind of curious how you actually deliver that on the ground, because from what I understand, by the way, I'm speaking with Michael Johnson.

He's the president of the Slavic Gospel Association. What's the website where people can go to donate for this cause again, Michael? SGA.org slash heat and hope. Okay, SGA.org slash heat and hope. I'll make sure and put that up here. But I know that you've been out supplying firewood, coal. And, yeah, a lot of coal burning is still going on there. Yeah.

Yeah, blankets and warm clothes. And it's just pretty brutal winters there, from what I understand, isn't it? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, the winters are pretty brutal there. I mean, Ukraine isn't as bad as Siberia, but, yeah, the winters can be very harsh there. And, you know, compounded by the fact that many of these people are living in homes that aren't heated is adding to the problem. And so the churches view this as an opportunity to reach out to them with the love of Christ and with resources to help them make it through the winter.

How are you negotiating the governmental issues? And when I say the governmental issues, both sides of this conflict, Russia and, you know, Ukraine, pretty corrupt governments. Do you kind of have to work with that or work around it? How do you end up threading that needle? Because a lot of people on both sides of this have, shall we say, the Swiss bank accounts as it goes, you know, or things in the Cayman Islands. We know about this kind of thing like, hey, we'll let you work here as long as you give us a cut of the action, or are you able to do it pretty freely through the church system? Yeah, we have not had a problem with that.

That's good. Our issue is that, you know, because we have, like, we work in Russia, we have offices in Moscow, we work in Kiev, we work in Ukraine, we work in Minsk, Belarus, and so, you know, we can trace every dollar that comes from the donor through our organization to the point in time when it's distributed in those countries. So, you know, so we don't, we don't really have any problem because the government views what we're doing very positively, even though we're not an Orthodox denomination. Right. They see the way in which we're meeting humanitarian needs in those countries, and for us, you know, we're looked upon by the government.

It's pretty favorable, even in the case of Russia. Okay. I'm glad to hear that. It really is. in because, from what I understand, even though we're in peace talks right now, it's talking about Russia, Ukraine, President Trump, United States, all, you know, involved with this. And I imagine European Union, too. The attacks are coming hard on Ukraine's energy every day right now. What, 40% of the power stations destroyed? Yeah, roughly, if not more.

That's what we're hearing. Yeah, it's a pretty rough situation. And we're talking about an area in which there's either very little power, or do you have power for a little bit of the day? How does that actually work there when you? Yeah, usually there's enough power to, you know, schedule its deployment, if you will. And so people are alerted that, you know, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, you'll have it for three hours, you know, kind of situations like that were sort of scheduled.

But that doesn't take away of the fact that these people are going to sleep at night without the heat in their homes. And so, and again, we're doing everything we can. And in most cases, you know, in every case, all the resources are being distributed through the churches. And right now, really, there's a revival taking place in Ukraine because of the acts of mercy of these churches all throughout the country. So the act is called Heat and Hope. This is what the operation is, Heat and Hope. And it's from the Slavic Gospel Association, SGA.org, forward slash heat and hope.

you just, can you text to it? Do you have to, you know, just, you know, credit card? SGA.org. There's a landing page that describes the whole program and the various giving options that people have to give. And again, you know, all of it flows through us to the churches and then ultimately to the people on the ground who are suffering during this time. Yeah. You know, the worst that we've had to deal with here in southern Oregon, and we'll complain, too, is when our power is out because we've had wildfire issues, and, of course, you'll get storms in the winter, and the power will be out for several hours, sometimes several days. How would you like it for several months, right? That kind of thing? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's what they're enduring right now. So firewood. And the winters are long. The winters are long in those countries. Yeah, indeed. Firewood, cold, blankets, warm clothes. It's all getting some.

applied through heat and hope. So SGA.org slash heat and hope. Michael, I really appreciate the take on it. God bless you at your work because it just takes good people going out there trying to help the folks. I appreciate what you're doing. Michael Johnson is the president of the Slavic Gospel Association. Again, SGA.org. This is the Bill Myers Show. Whether you're You're here in the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. And if you wanted to call the show 770563-3-3-770KMED, pebbled in your shoe Tuesday. It's good to hear from Michael Johnson there with trying to get just heat and firewood in places like Ukraine

with the Slavic Gospel Association. Here it is, I'm Slavic, and I didn't even know such a group existed, which is why, okay, yeah, I'll talk with him. I'm also glad to know that the government's okay and not trying to take a cut of it because I've got to tell you. I know I try to stay away from this whole thing with Ukraine and Russia because the way I'm kind of looking at it is I do, it is my belief. And I know some people may disagree with me on this one. It is my belief that we've certainly had our fingers in this Ukrainian pie for quite some time. and had something to do with our interference in elections in that particular area.

And Russia, of course, has its interests. I'm not real happy with what they're doing right now. I know President Trump is not real happy with what they're doing right now, actually cranking up the bombing. But all I'm looking at at this point is the human cost of what is going on there with people freezing and just no fuel and very little power. All right, speaking of people of faith, the Reverend David LaBarbera, he calls the show quite often.

It also writes me quite often. If you could keep him in your prayers today, he wrote me this morning, and he says, I will be having my sixth surgery in 12 months this morning. Here you tomorrow, hopefully. And anyway, keep him in your thoughts and prayers. A lot going on. Everyone is struggling with different things.

I suppose. All right. Some of the other news. Chris Barnett is going to be undergoing a recall election. That is going to be official. Now in the hand of the Josephine County voters yesterday, that deadline into the passing. Andreas Bleck ended up resigning. So I guess there will be some appointment.

Now, Commissioner Ron Smith ended up putting out something. Let me see if I can find it. Somebody text message that. to me yesterday. Yeah. And he said that he is not going to, okay, well, this is it. I'm just going to read from his statement from Commissioner Ron Smith. This past week has been one of the most challenging since I took office as your county commissioner with the resignation of one and a fast approaching recall vote for another. I have been inundated with phone calls, emails, and pressure from every direction, intimidated, bullied, belittled, threatened, and pushed

to participate in backroom deals. Let me be clear, I will not break the law, bend the rules, or make any decision outside of full public transparency. I am genuinely tired of being asked due to so. It raises serious questions about the motives and ethics about those making such requests. It speaks to a troubling culture

that has taken root in local politics. Some of the conversations I've had this week have been very revealing of certain individuals' character at one point, I asked a few callers what they believed was the most important attribute in a candidate for public office. After long pauses and no answer, I suggested honesty. Surprisingly, for some honesty, wasn't it important at all? It left me with the disturbing impression that a crook is acceptable as long as he's their crook. Oh, that's interesting. I've now been threatened with recall by both left and the right. I've been pressured to make backroom

deals to satisfy personal agendas but if you know me you know i don't bow to bullying after much thought i have come to an unavoidable conclusion no matter whom i personally appoint to fill the commissioner's vacancy some will claim it was a backroom deal that perception alone would damage public trust in the credibility of the process for that reason i have chosen to recuse myself entirely from the appointment process and allow our county's other elected officials to make the decision. These officials are just as accountable

to the voters as I am. Many have served this county faithfully for decades. If we cannot trust them to make an honest and informed choice, then we have far deeper problems than a single board vacancy. commissioner ron smith so you're taking yourself out of this you're taking yourself out of the judgment of this because of the fear you mean you you've made a good case that you're doing this that you're that you are only going to do the right thing for josephine county that you're doing this out in the open and you want everything to be transparent why would you not take part in

this. Why? That doesn't make sense to me. In fact, that makes, well, in my view, I'm just giving you my opinion, folks, to me, it reminds me of taking a dive. Like, I don't want to have anything to do with this, because the process we're bringing in a new commissioner, you You know, you can vote on this, but now you'll turn it over to what somehow Sheriff Dave Daniel is more qualified than someone who's on the county commission or is more honest or more for, I don't know if he is. I'm just saying just an example, you know, the other elected officials or Wally Hicks or all the rest. I don't get that. I really don't. Why wouldn't you be part of this?

They're probably going to recall you anyway. If that's what this is about, if it's just fear of recall, chances there are, you know, fear of recall in Josephine County is real enough. You might as well stand in some truth right now and be involved in that process that I've looked at it. And I think that with all these people, you've already said that there's a lot of undue influence people trying to go around in the various back doors. Why wouldn't you just stand in your truth and say, hey, I'm not doing a back to the ordeal? I would vote for this particular person as a replacement for Andres Black. They apply and you vote. This idea of taking a dive, do you think it will protect you?

Will taking a dive and not voting for a county commissioner replacement protect you? I think the group of hissy-fitters in Josephine County are going to come after you one way or the other. I don't know if you can please the hissy-fitters in Josephine County enough. I would, of course, I'm not in the position. Maybe I would feel differently if I were the county commissioner and under that kind of pressure. I'm not just, I'm going to turn it over. You're turning it over to other people. It's still other elected officials.

They're no different than you. They're all elected officials. people who were brought in by the people. And you are one of those elected officials. I don't understand that. Maybe if somebody in Josephine County does understand that, they can explain it to me. That makes no sense to me this morning.

But happy to take your calls on other things going on this morning, too. It is 658 in change. This is the Bill Meyer show on KMED and 993 KBXG.