Pod Save America - Introducing Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Chapter 1: Bug’s Plan. It’s 2014. Adelanto is a bankrupt city in the California desert known for its massive detention centers and not much else. Then, a stranger comes to town with a wild idea to make Adelanto great again: Become the first city in Southern California to legalize commercial weed cultivation. Subscribe to Dreamtown to hear episode two right now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey everyone, we're so excited to introduce Krikka's newest limited series, Dreamtown, the story of Adelanto. Dreamtown is the zany true story of a down-on-its-luck town in California's high desert, and the scrappy, sometimes morally dubious cast of characters determined to reinvent it. In 2014, the city of Adelanto was so broke, there was talk of dissolving it completely. Then, a stranger came to town with a wild idea to make Adelanto great again. Weed. And it worked for a while, until, spectacularly, it didn't. great limited series from Cricket. If you loved Mother Country Radical,

you'll love this one. It's fantastic. And we just wanted to share this first episode of Dreamtown with you here on the Pod Save America feed. If you like it, you can subscribe to Dreamtown right now to hear episode two and new episodes each week

wherever you get your podcasts. In the beginning, all this was underwater. Then, about a hundred million years ago, the water receded, and these 56 square miles of desert land appeared. Eventually, humans appeared too. A Native American tribe called the Van U. They discovered this part of the Mojave River Valley, and they called it home. Then, a period of violence and conflict.

In 1542, the Spaniards showed up and claimed authority over the land and its people. But, as you will soon see, when it comes to this place, things don't often turn out the way people expect them to. Other Europeans showed up and told the Spaniards that this land was theirs. They said it was God's will, of course. Blood was shed. Treaties were made and broken. Borders were drawn and redrawn. More violence. Eventually, the dust settled, and these 56 square miles were nestled inside a much bigger piece of land with a new name. California. Then in the early 1900s, a new plan. An American inventor by the name of E. H. Richardson purchased the land with the money he'd made from one of his inventions, an electric clothes iron. He'd come up with a whole

bunch of gadgets. He called them the L-series. L was short for electric. The El Perco was an electric coffee pot. The El Tosto, a toaster. The El Eggo, it was an egg cooker. When the inventor first stood on his new land, he gazed upon a sea of Joshua trees and creosote bushes ringed by mountains and envisioned a remarkable city unlike any other. He would build it from scratch. He knew exactly who should live there. All the poor soldiers returning from the Great War. He figured he could sell one acre

plus to these men whose lungs had been ravaged by mustard gas on the front lines. Wide open spaces and dry desert air was just what they needed to heal. Curious thing though, Richardson's dreams never came true Turns out soldiers didn't want to live in the middle of nowhere So, despite his big plans Richardson didn't leave much of a legacy in this desert But he did give his new home a new name Adelanto

That's a Spanish word that means progress. But Adelanto didn't see much of that. About 50 years later, in 1970, the population had only grown to about 2,000 people. Still, these people had new dreams for this place they called home. They wanted to make it an official bonafide city. Even though the organization in charge of all that kind of stuff told Atalanta they shouldn't become a city at all. Well, they went ahead and made themselves into a city anyway. Now, some might say that was a foolish thing to do. Now, some might say that was a foolish thing to do. But the citizens of Atalanta looked at this place and went all in on a bet with terrible odds.

Things went as you might expect. That bet didn't pay out. Atalanta never could pay its bills. And by 2014, things got real bad. There was even talk of ending Atalanto's short life as a city. But then, a new man showed up with a big idea how to save the town. I suppose that's where our story begins. From Crooked Media, this is Dreamtown, the story of Adelanto.

I'm David Weinberg. Chapter 1, Bug's Plan. Adelanto, California, a small city in the high desert, is split down the middle by Highway 395. And when you drive into town, you're greeted by a huge sign with Adelanto's motto, the city with unlimited possibilities. When I see the sign, I often think about this quote by Richard Misrach, a photographer who spent much of his life in this desert.

He said, the human struggle, the successes and failures, the use and abuse, both noble and foolish, are readily apparent in the desert. It is a simple, if incomprehensible, equation. The world is as terrible as it is beautiful. But when you look more closely, it is as beautiful as it is beautiful. But when you look more closely, it is as beautiful as it is terrible.

I've been a reporter covering Southern California for the past decade, and I've spent a lot of time in Adelanto, a city that's often referred to as a bedroom community. Hardly any of the roughly 30,000 residents work in the city. There aren't many jobs in town. There's not much of anything, really. A handful of industrial businesses, some prisons, a few local restaurants, some liquor stores and churches,

and one grocery store. And that's about it. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot to love about Adelanto. But only if you appreciate emptiness. And heat. And high winds. And the slow pace of small-town desert life.

I didn't like it. This is Stevonna Evans. She moved here from Riverside, California when she was 10 years old. You know, typical kid. Had to leave all my friends and come to this city that appeared to have nothing to do. To come here where there was pretty much nothing, everything was kind of far away. Riverside, where Stivana came from, sits inside the Inland Empire, a gargantuan sprawl of cities and suburbs in Southern California

that is home to more than 4 million people. But when Stivana arrived in Atalanta, there were just under 7,000 people living in the city. It was a big change. What did you do for fun as a 10-year-old in Atalanta? Well, we rode our bikes a lot. There was a big dirt hill. We used to fork, which was fun. Whoever started it would go to Costco and buy a pack of forks, literal like plastic forks. And we would fork one person's yard, literally with hundreds of forks. So they'd come out and their yard would be all jacked up. And then they'd have the forks to go to the next house.

And we'd just... boring life, I guess. I don't know. Since its founding, Adelanto's population had been overwhelmingly white. When Stivana and her family, who are black, moved to the high desert in the mid-90s, they were part of a larger demographic shift, not just in Adelanto,

but in exurbs and suburbs all over the country. People of color, who were priced out of bigger cities, found themselves migrating to smaller, more remote towns like Adelanto. As a result, these towns that were once mostly white became more diverse. You know, for me, it's, you know,

the negative connotation that people have when they talk about Adelanto. It's out of ghetto and all these negative things. And it's like, I've lived here forever and I've never had any of these problems that you speak of. So let's keep it real. One of the reasons Adelanto hasn't always had the best reputation is that it was known as a prison town. On the off chance that you have heard of Adelanto, it's probably because of the immigration detention center there, which is often referred to as Adelanto.

It's the state's largest. there, which is often referred to as Adelanto. It's the state's largest. Plus, the city has a correctional facility and a federal prison just outside the city limits. Every time a new prison was built in Adelanto, there were high hopes that it would bring enough good jobs and tax revenue to keep the city afloat. But by and large, those prisons have not delivered on that promise. Research has shown that most small towns end up worse off economically after they build a prison. Atalanta is a city where people come here to sleep. They have their house, they sleep here. But they drive out of the city for work, they come back, they pick up their kids.

If their kids are involved in sports, whatever, they may do that around town. But then if they want to eat, they're going to Victorville. They're not live, working, and playing here. There is no movie theater in Adelanto. No gyms, no department store or rec center for the kids to hang out in. As the former mayor, Kerry Thomas, said, you can't buy a pair of shoes in Adelanto. One issue that I've always had with Adelanto is

we've watched the cities around us grow and develop and prosper. And so watching the cities around us, Apple Valley, Hesperia, bloom, blossom, freaking blow up. And Atalanto is still the same. You know, we can count, in the time I've been here, I can count four developments that have happened. That's the Stater Brothers Shopping Center. We got the Family Dollar, Family Dollar General, which whoop-de-doo, right? And the Cactus Shopping Center. That's it. So why is everybody else blowing up, but we're not? Once Stevonnie got older, she could have moved to any of those more prosperous towns just down the road. But she didn't. She got used to the slower pace of things,

came to appreciate the lack of traffic, the neighbors and local spots she knew well. When she was a teenager, she got a job at a local fast food restaurant in the neighboring town of Victorville and later moved on to a job in retail at Staples, a job she loved, even though it meant commuting out of Atalanto. But leaving the city for work or to shop, that's the price you pay to live in an affordable city in an expensive state. And later, Stivana would make a career change

that would have an impact on the entire city. A city that many people believe should never have existed in the first place. It is a small population to be considered like a city in California. This is Brooke Self, a reporter who covered Adelanto for the Victor Valley Daily Press. And if you dig into the history of the city, there was this commission board called LAFCO in California

that I guess approved the incorporation of cities. And they had recommended that Adelanto not even become a city. They didn't think there was enough tax revenue there, enough population. And LAFCO wasn't wrong. By 2014, Adelanto had a massive deficit and not a lot of prospects for generating tax revenue. Like a lot of places around the country, tax revenue. Like a lot of places around the country, Adelanto had been hit hard by the 2008 recession. It was a city made up of mostly single-family homes that had taken a huge hit during the subprime mortgage crisis and was struggling to recover. Nearly a quarter of the city's staff had recently been laid off, and city leaders had begun steps to file from municipal bankruptcy. That was the kind of the atmosphere that was there in City Hall.

They fired almost, I don't know how many people. They started firing, firing, firing. And it was like, you know what? This is crazy. I mean, that city can't afford anything. Rachel Carranza worked in City Hall at this time. In the wake of all these firings, there was talk around town about dissolving the city entirely, closing City Hall, laying off all

the employees, and letting the county take it over. There simply wasn't enough revenue coming in to keep the city afloat. And there didn't seem to be any hope in sight. They were just in such a state of desperation with their deficit that they didn't really have a lot of options. In fact, ever since it was founded, the city of Adelanto has struggled financially. There was just never enough money coming in to cover the city's expenses. It was just a lack of vision, a lack of actually planning for the future, and that's what the problem was in the city. This is Jermaine Wright, It was just a lack of vision, a lack of actually planning for the future,

and that's what the problem was in the city. This is Jermaine Wright, a retired pastor who was the only Black member of the city council at the time. He had a shaved head, a mustache, and a penchant for three-piece suits. Reporters knew that he was always good for a colorful quote, and he seemed to relish having his name in the local paper. Jermaine was one of Adelanto's four city council members. In addition to the council, Adelanto also had a mayor, and it was these five officials who presided over the town

and got to vote when the council met to make decisions. Are you from Adelanto? No, I'm originally from L.A. County. I was born and raised down in the Monrovia-Dewardee area in L.A. County. And then I spent 10 years in Michigan. I moved here in 2009. What brought you to Atalanta? My wife.

We were finishing up our time and pastoring in Michigan I told her we want to go home to California she came to Atalanto first and because she has a friend that lives here in Atalanto she looked around she found a place to stay in Atalanto

when she first said we're moving to Atalanto I'm like where is that? she explained to me where it was at and I'm like oh okay is that? She explained to me where it was at, and I'm like, oh, okay. As soon as he moved to Adelanto, Jermaine jumped right into public service. He ran for a spot on the school board and for a seat on the city council, and won both. One of the big issues back in 2012 was the city budget.

The city of Adelanto, when it was incorporated, did not have a large enough tax base to actually make it work. And they never did anything to actually get a tax base to move forward. As a city council member, Germain had some success leaning into Adelanto's prison industry. He renegotiated the city's contract with GeoGroup, the private company that owns

the immigration detention facility. He got the city a few more cents per prisoner per day. But the new revenue the city squeezed out of the private prison company was a drop in the bucket compared to what was needed to balance the city's budget. So in 2014, Germain decided that in order to fix things properly, he needed more than just a city council seat.

He would run for mayor, which wasn't necessarily a risky move on his part. If he won, he'd become mayor. If he lost, he would remain a city council member. And it was in the midst of his mayoral campaign that Germain met the man who would challenge both the future of Adelanto politics and eventually be a part of a scheme that would change Germain's life forever.

This chance encounter happened when Germermaine was driving near his home, and he noticed a white guy with long gray hair and a big scraggly beard. And this stranger was messing with one of Jermaine's campaign signs. So Jermaine pulled over to investigate. I'm like, who are you? And he's like, oh, I'm Johnny Buttwater.. I'm like, who are you? And he's like, oh, I'm Johnny Bud Woodard. And I'm like, okay. And he just looked like, to me, an old hippie.

Johnny Bug Woodard Jr. told Jermaine that he was running for city council in the upcoming election. There were two seats up for grabs, and Bug had his sights on one of them. When they met that day, Bug claimed he was putting up one of his own campaign signs when he noticed that Jermaine's sign was broken, and he was simply being a good Samaritan by fixing it for him. Yeah, I think I was fixing his sign, maybe. We came up to each other. He was on the campaign trail, I'm on the campaign trail.

Bug was relatively new to politics. This was his first run for office, though he had been a board member of the High Desert Tea Party. As Bug and Jermaine got to talking, Bug laid out his political platform, which was pretty radical for the time. Bug had taken a look at the city's dire financial troubles and realized that something needed to be done. And then I decided, you know what, let's do a little research on this. I got on old Google. I did a little Googling and I found out the secret.

The secret, according to Bug, via Google, was marijuana. Specifically, marijuana cultivation. And at this time, that was a radical idea. No city in Southern California had ever legalized commercial weed cultivation. According to Bug, it would be a way for Adelanto to get into the black without having to cut spending or increase taxes, like the other council members at the time were proposing. But Germain was against the plan. Well, I'm a retired pastor, so on the Christian side, I had a real hard time with the doctrine that I've gone through throughout my life.

As much as Germain was against Bugg's plan, he wasn't all that worried because he felt that Bugg's chances of winning were slim at best. Yes, California voters had legalized marijuana for medicinal use 20 years prior, but commercial cultivation and recreational use were still illegal in the state. And the reality is that the vast majority of cities and counties in California, including relatively conservative Adelanto, did not want pot being grown or sold in their community. It would take a pretty savvy political operator to pull off Bug's plan in this part of the state. And Jermaine's first impression of Bug was that he did not have the political knowledge or skill

to make that happen. I remember he goes, you ain't got a chance in hell now. It's good luck. I went, well, good luck to you too, Jermaine. Good luck to you too, Jermaine. Sometimes, out here in the West, a stranger comes to town and saves the city

from whatever peril is threatening the townspeople. And sometimes, a stranger comes to town disguised as a savior, but turns out to be just another grifter. Bug and Germaine represented two very different ways of doing things. Germaine was a part of the Old Guard, the regime that was in power at the time. And the general consensus among the Old Guard

was that the way to save Adelanto from bankruptcy was to raise taxes. And the proposal they put forth was an 8% tax increase on utilities. Bug, on the other hand, was like, why raise everybody's taxes and just balance the budget when we could get rich growing pot on land that nobody's using.

It seemed like a no-brainer to Bug, but he was not prepared for the shitstorm that he was about to stir up. That's after the break. One thing I'm always curious about when I meet people in Adelanto is how they ended up here. This was a question I asked Bug when we met.

And it turns out his move to the high desert was driven by two things, cheap housing and spite. I ended up in Atalanta on a challenge from a very rude, obnoxious lender that said, oh my God, you only have $800 a month coming in. You can't afford anything in California. You might as well forget that. Maybe you're lucky if you can go rent someplace. Well, I couldn't believe how snobby you were. When that guy was that rude, screw that dude.

I said, let's go see what we find. At the time, Bug was living in a 66 Chevy van. I lived in the van in the barn out back because me and my ex, we had a little falling out. I formed rock bands. I managed rock bands. We played in the local nightclubs there. You know, it was one of our happy times.

None of Bug's bands ever made it big, but he did manage some pretty promising acts. Maximum Force was one of the hottest bands in San Luis Obispo. We were all loadies back then, you know? It's like part of the status quo. It was a normal way of life, you know? Bug says he doesn't smoke weed these days.

But back in the day, he was a big partier. And doing drugs was just part of the lifestyle. That's how he earned the nickname Bug. He had some friends who sold weed. And he got a tip that they were about to be ra part of the lifestyle. That's how he earned the nickname Bug. He had some friends who sold weed, and he got a tip that they were about to be raided by the cops. So I frankly gave him a little heads up. Anyways, they told my whole circle of friends, hey, the guy's name is Bug,

because the bug in that phone, man, has saved our butt. So back to the story of how Bug ended up in Adelanto. Despite his happy times living inside a van, inside a barn, he and his girlfriend decided that they wanted to buy a house. That's when they talked to that lender who told them they couldn't afford anything in California. Eventually, they ended up in Adelanto. I said, we like that house. So I go back to my lender, a bonehead by the name of Winston.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, the house was ours. Bug was moving from the laid-back city of Pismo Beach, where it wasn't uncommon to smell weed drifting through the air, to Adelanto, a small desert town where the political climate was very different. Here's reporter Brooke Self again. The high desert in general is very politically conservative. Like, California is a blue state,

but the high desert is very red. Pro-guns, pro-military. Since then, the high desert has become less red. But back then, Bug had his work cut out for him in terms of campaigning on a platform like the one he was proposing. And Brooke says the reactions to Bug, among her colleagues at the paper, were all pretty much the same. What is this guy doing? Like, he's kind of a joke.

What was this guy doing? Bug's campaign didn't seem to make a lot of sense. His values and political leanings were a little all over the place. Even though he was pro-weed, which was an arguably progressive stance to take at the time, he was an active member of the High Desert Tea Party. He was a guy who loved to go grocery shopping with a firearm proudly displayed on his hip. And it was clear that he was a staunch conservative, at least in that way. I used to direct traffic with my car being on my back and my 357 on my side. Direct traffic

right on into the cocky bull over here, which is long gone now. I stand up for what's right. My Second Amendment rights are very important. Without the Second Amendment, believe me, you don't have any other rights. You read the Constitution, you find out the real true meaning of the Constitution. The Second Amendment is in place to protect all the other rights that are given to us by God. So many of B Bug's political views were very much in line with Republicans, but his stance on marijuana was not.

Republicans were largely responsible for the anti-marijuana policies in California and the nation. But Bug believed that his pro-pot campaign would attract a new generation of young conservatives who would propel him to victory in a town that had long been dominated by conservative politicians. But when an organization of young Republicans

reached out to help Bug fundraise, he turned them down. They asked if I needed a pack or anything like that, and I said, you know, I got a few bucks socked away. I said, you know, I think I can just handle it on my own. Bug decided he would spend his own money, but no more than $1,000 on his campaign. I own my own printing company,

so I can print my own signs for wholesale. And I said, if I can do it, I can pull it off with $1,000, that's fine. If I can't, at least I try to do something. Bug says he ended up spending about $700 total on his campaign. And the climax, if you could call it that, of the campaign for city council came in the form of a debate hosted at the local high school.

Here is reporter Brooke Self again. The debate was set in the newly built Atalanta High School. I remember the red curtains kind of felt like high school musical or something. And the candidates all sat on the stage in a long table. It was September 2014, two and a half months out from the election. And the debate was not a particularly hot ticket. I mean, honestly, it's such a small town. There weren't very many people in the audience.

It was like their family members and like a few kind of quirky people in the public who would always complain about the same thing. Two of the four seats on the city council were up for grabs. There were five candidates running for these two seats. Two incumbents running for re-election, a guy who had previously been a planning commissioner, a former mayor of Adelanto, and Bug, the

political newcomer of the group, and a noticeable latecomer to the debate. Bug still remembers how the press described his arrival. A guy walks in late, he's got on a Hawaiian shirt, he's got this big silly

straw cowboy hat on, and I swear that was a beer he was holding in his hand. No, it was a monster energy drink. But Bug did confirm that he was indeed wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a straw cowboy hat.

He sat there listening as the other candidates laid out their plans to save the city. They ranged from the unoriginal, building yet another prison, to the aforementioned tax increase on utilities. And it was at this moment that Bug sensed an opportunity. When it came to my turn to speak, I just let him have it. I said, these things, you guys are failing. I said, I think it's time to talk about marijuana. Oh, my God.

I was in the school, the high school, you know, and all the teachers were there going, oh, no, not that. You know, then all of a sudden I let it out of the bag. I got beat up real bad by the press. After the debate, it was up to the citizens to cast their votes. And in the Adelanto City Council election of 2014, just 10% of the residents bothered to show up to the polls, which is a shame because local government has a really big impact

on your life. Also, the stakes were very high in this election. Depending on what happened, it could mean the difference between the city prospering or throwing in the towel and calling it quits. And when all the votes were tallied, Bug, the political newcomer, the gun-wielding weed guy, had won a seat on the council. I won by the senior vote. I thought I was going to win by the younger vote. I thought I was going to teach these kids how to go out and vote because they're voting for weed. And by golly, they still sat on their ass pretty much. I think it was by 26 votes I won. It was actually 24 votes. That was Bug's margin

of victory. I'm going to give you a few more numbers here because they're bonkers. 676 people voted for Bug. That's only 2% of Adelanto's total population. He'd spent about $700 on his campaign, which comes out to a little over $1 per vote, enough to put him on a city council in charge of a budget of roughly $13 million. In the election for mayor that year, Jermaine Wright wasn't as lucky as Bug. The winner against the incumbent

mayor, Kerry Thomas, was Rich Kerr, a retired Marine who worked as a cell tower technician. Jermaine remained on the city council. So, to save Adelanto from the brink of bankruptcy, the ex-Marine, the former preacher, and the right-wing hippie would have to work together.

This was a huge change in the political tide of Adelanto. Both incumbents lost their city council seats, and the incumbent mayor lost. The old guard had been replaced by a new majority. lost their city council seats and the incumbent mayor lost, the old guard had been replaced by a new majority. And this new council was about to take Adelanto in a different direction. The city was about to blow up in a very big way. I don't think anyone expected just how crazy things would get in the months and years ahead.

The money that would pour into this small desert town. The celebrities, professional athletes, a Russian oligarch, and eventually, the FBI. I seen that duffel bag of money come in, and it didn't go to the bank. And I knew that cannabis was going to become just absolutely a fucking battleground for the wealthy. It's a story about what happens when people with a half-baked idea suddenly find themselves in power. The wheels are in motion.

Ain't nobody getting in the way. You know, I don't care if you're the sheriff. I don't care if you're the governor. I don't care who you are. And the unintended consequences of a modern day gold rush. To developing news, the FBI served several search warrants this morning in Adelanto. According to the Victor Valley Daily Press, agents raided city hall and the mayor's home. And of picking up the pieces when everything comes crashing down.

What is the city budget like these days? You funny! So, it is just a bunch of made up numbers that they pulled from God knows where and put into a book and called it a budget. And I'm like, what the hell? Who approved this? So, it's deep. That's this season

on Dreamtown. The story of Adelanto Adelanto is an original podcast from Crooked Media it's hosted, written, and executive produced by me, David Weinberg. Nick White is our story editor. Angel Carreras is our associate producer. Sound design, mix, and mastering by Brendan Baker of Phenomaphon. Our theme song is by Icarus himself. And our original score is by Eric Phillips.

Fact-checking by Amy Tardif. Additional production help from Inez Maza, Sydney Rapp, and Kobe Copeland. Thanks to Betsy Zyko for narrating portions of the show. From Crooked Media, our executive producers are Sarah Geissmer, Katie Long, and Mary Knopf. With special thanks to Allison Falzetta, Lyra Smith, Andrew Leland, Richard Parks III, Shaka Mali, and Katya Epikina.