The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Interview Conan Owen, CEO, Sir Speedy; Bob Beard: AlbCo Schools Insurance Covers Legal Fees

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Interview Conan Owen, CEO, Sir Speedy Of Central VA Bob Beard: AlbCo Schools Insurance Covers Legal Fees Does Beard Realize AlbCo Insurance Will Yield More Cover-Up? 3.7% Inflation: Can CVille Home Buyers Cope At This Rate? 3.7% Inflation: Can CVille Businesses Cope At This Rate? The Dewberry Deal: What’s Impact On Downtown Mall? The Doyle Hotel $22 Million Deal – What’s Next For CVille? Do You Need To Rent Office Space? Contact Jerry Miller Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Conan Owen, CEO of Sir Speedy of Central VA, joined me live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome to the I Love Sevo Show, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. It's Wednesday afternoon in downtown Charlottesville, and you are watching and listening to the number one media platform in Charleston, Virginia, and we can provide the data for you. We can offer the metrics from Facebook, from YouTube, from Twitter, and from 27 social media and podcasting platforms. They literally count it for you and make it public for people to see.

Today's program is going to be a doozy. Conan Owen is here. He is the CEO of Sir Speedy, Central Virginia, the owner of Sir Speedy of Central Virginia. He's a Darden graduate. He's a connected guy. Hispanic. A lot of people don't know this. Minority-owned, Sir Speedy, Central Virginia.

And a man that is unafraid to voice an opinion, one of my favorite things about Conan. We're going to spend the next 45 minutes speaking with him. We'll talk schools. We'll talk the inflation number that just came out. Did you see it was 3.7%? I just heard, yeah. 3.7% the inflation number. What that means for the Charlottesville homebuyer,

what that means for the Charlottesville area of small business. We're going to talk the Dewberry under contract. It's got a ways to go to the Dewberry, but we'll talk the Dewberry being under contract for $9 million, with a goal of raising $15.5 million of equity and an overall budget of $42 million for 98 micro units, studio apartments on the downtown mall. We're going to talk to Doyle Hotel.

We've got that Doyle team watching routinely, Butch Ross. He's the new owner of the Doyle after a $22 million purchase. We're going to talk anything and everything, small business, finance, money, politics, governance

on today's show. I encourage you to hammer the like button and share the show. Vanessa Parkhill, Patricia McNamee, Tom Stardle, watching the broadcast right now. Malcolm Inge, welcome to the show. I want to give some attention. Why don't we give some attention to the fantastic Sir Speedy in Central Virginia. September was their best month in their 35

year history here in Charlottesville and Central Virginia. He's owned it Conan for four years ago, October 1st. So you do 35 times 12. I need a calculator for that one. That's 400, 420. That's 420 months. Of the 420 months that Sir Speedy has been in operation, the best month was last year. And this is why Conan says that he's incredibly bullish on the Charlottesville ecosystem, because his business is effing performing. I mean, that metric just kind of signs and delivers the vote of confidence for Conan. Anything signage related. I spend my money with Conan, okay?

Our money is where our mouth is. The banners behind us, our client and tenant portfolio is Sir Speedy, Central Virginia. He gets the job done, and he gets the job done right. Conan and Sturispedia Central Virginia. Studio camera two shot Conan, before I ask you about schools, and I know you want to talk more business on the program, I totally get it.

The schools have been driving the narrative. Understandably so. A heavy topic to cover on this show regularly. I sincerely mean this. It's heavy to talk about this every day for me. Why don't we start with open-ended, I call it with Jerry Rackleff scatter shooting, so we don't miss anything.

Anything in the notebook that you want to cover, and then I'll adapt to you, then we'll go to the rundown. Sure. Well, first thing I want to do is a PSA. So we are doing our third annual cards for the troops program. So we have printed holiday greeting cards, and we distribute them for free to organizations around town

that want to scribble a note to our warriors overseas, and they get shipped out the first week of December. We've got Almar County Police involved. Almar County Elementary Schools are doing it. The JAG School spouses, Trump Winery, is setting up us. card signing station, they even contributed some images of the winery in winter. I got some of the coloring, some of the drawings from the Seville coloring book that are either pre-colored or the kids can

color in themselves. And the same author, she's created a Christmas coloring book. So we've got a couple of those images as well. And then some we got of the UVA campus from a photographer called Who With the View. So if you're interested in doing a card signing party, there's going to be some at the Center of Belvedere for the Gary Senise fundraising event. I think it's tomorrow. And a couple other groups are involved. Just reach out to us, and they come by, get as many cards as you want. Just get them back to it by the end of November. I saw some news about the Gary Senise fundraising event.

Gary Sinise, of course, of Forrest Gump fame, I think, most notably. He was Lieutenant Dan. Lieutenant Dan. What's the tie to Charlottesville? I'm not up to speed on this story. I don't think there is one. I think it's just a local Charlottesville realtor, Candice Vanderland, is put together this event at the senior center, and it's a fundraiser for the Gary Sinise Foundation.

Ah, 10-4. Very, very tied to 9-11 and veterans. Understood, understood. Canis Van der Leyen, a yes, royalty partner. She's fantastic. She's a fantastic broker. All right, my friend, we're going to get into the nitty-gritty, lower thirds on screen, first, Almaro County. We talked about this on yesterday's show. Tip of the hat to Daisy Rojas. She looked to fill Allison Spillardy. Spot as the at-large representative. She was not selected by the school board. Instead, they went with David Storm, who surprise, surprise, a fellow Democrat who towed the company line where Daisy Rojas was going to be an outspoken voice of accountability that was going to do the opposite. She goes to this past Thursday school board meeting, has a conversation with Bob Beard, who either moronically, either unaware, makes a flibre.

presumptuous comment of, oh, it's the insurance company that's going to cover all our legal fees in this investigation. It's not the taxpayers. It's no big deal. And she then published that on Facebook because she found that to be either arrogant, flippant, you know, out of touch, whatever the words. And also not true. Yeah. Also not true. My initial analysis was this is going to, of course, drive up the premiums, which Almore County taxpayers fund, you know, through.

It's part of the operating budget. Through our, exactly right. And then I got an incredibly intelligent insider who I'm sworn to secrecy. I cannot utilize this person name, name, who gave me a five-paragraph analysis on what it actually means. And what it actually means is the insurance company who is paying for the investigation and the legal fees associated with the school board's investigation. Remember, the school board picked a law firm that's already representing them in other cases. so it's more friend than foe. That same insurance company is the company that does the payouts come civil suit,

come civil trial time. Which there will be no shortage of. Of course, no short enough. Maybe it's a class action that may come from this. All right. So this individual who swore me to secrecy said, the real story is this, that the insurance company that's paying for the legal fees to create the report on what action is,

happened has reason for the report to yield as little exposure for the school system as possible. That's the storyline. I think you have a personal tie here with your dad. Yeah, my dad was an insurance adjuster for 20 years. And I mean, first of all, they never would have done something like that. You know, it's like the construction company that is getting sued. It's like, no, it's going to be the opposing counsel that's going to be running the investigation or the opposing, you know, the people making the claims are going to be the ones who want to do the investigation, not the people who have a huge financial incentive to minimize

the payout. So that's just warped. But Bob Beard's comment, I mean, arrogant, stupid, totally incensive because it doesn't really matter. It's not our money. So, you know, go do whatever you want, crash a bus, molest a kid, someone else is paying for it. It's like, what kind of arrogant perspective is that on, you know, the people who are supposed to be guarding our children? Like every single member of that school should just resign on principal. The fact that none of them have that they get forced out for stupid administrative reasons is ridiculous. What'd you think of the Dillon Beck getting forced out? I actually saw Jim Dillon Beck this morning and he left comments on my personal Facebook page

and has indicated to me via email Jim Dillenbeck that he's going to come on the I Love Civo show and watches and listens to the show. Would you make of the Dillenbeck storyline? I mean, yeah, did he break a rule that's grounds for termination? sure. But in the grand scheme of things, what he did was actually provide some insight and some transparency when everyone else is stonewalling. So, you know, it's the, you know, you talk about punishing whistleblowers. Here's a perfect case of him getting, you know, the book thrown at him. And he hadn't been on, what, just one year.

Oh, hasn't even been on one year? Yeah. He'd quit at basically the nine-month marker. Yeah, he was elected last November. Yeah. It's just pathetic. But every single member of that school, board should get out. I mean, they're obviously not doing their job because they're the ones who rubber stamp haze's reappointment. It's just an absolute disaster. I mean, even just talking to some people I know in the school district, because when we were talking about this cards for the troops programs, they would you like to get some, the school involved? And they're like, oh, God, we'd love to. It's like, it'd be nice to have some good news. You know, because all, and it's not just the schools where this happened. It's the school system in general. There, the teachers are,

not happy, the staff isn't happy. But also related that is, you know, and you talk about inflation and the economy and affordability, which is the big topic, is like, are we really going to be giving this local schools another 1% on everything we buy? They've done such a great job managing the budget that they have. Do you really trust them that it's going to go to school improvements? And even if it does, that just means they're going to take money that they had budgeted for school improvements and wasted on more administration. just on their performance alone, I wouldn't think about creating them the money on top of the affordability issue because this tax is not going away. Show me one tax that's ever been put on the taxpayers that's ever gone away.

It won't. And certainly not in this area. So you're vehemently opposed to the 1% sales sales. And that's on the docket first Tuesday, November, a referendum with everything else. Do you think it's going to pass? Yes, I do think it's going to pass. thing is, despite a scandal that has rocked Almaro County,

one of the most significant public school scandals and common wealth of Virginia history, a cover-up that we still do not know how extensive the cover-up is. More arrests potentially to follow, I'm being told. Still, Almorea County

voters are going to vote, yes, we both think, to 1% sales tax increase to give money to the people that have put us in this position. But what they're going to say oh well it's for school improvements well like I said that's just going to free up money that they've already budgeted for school improvements to be spent elsewhere in the administration that's

growing much faster than the student population is now granted I do think the student population is going to grow with all of the Charlottesville growth that's coming up obviously it's growing in places where the schools aren't you know some of these commutes that these kids have is is pretty ridiculous but you got to find a different way to fund it putting you know adding another tax it's like, no, you need to tighten your belt and you need to get rid of half of those administrators you hired in the past 10 years and put that money towards your school improvement fund. Real estate values. Do you have a take on what this could do to Albemar County real estate values? We're talking homes. One of the drivers of Albemarle County real estate values, in particular the Western feeder pattern of Almara County was the quality of schools. Does it now impact home values?

I don't know because are the schools in general, you know, is Henley or is Western or is Brownsville, you know, are they directly affected by this scandal other than just, you know, guilt by association? So I don't know how many parents are going to make that decision and not being a parent, I can't really say. But, you know, a lot of people who have their kids in public schools have them because they can't afford private schools. Yeah, I mean, time going to tell. Especially with the housing costs around here, especially out in the western part of the county. The one disagreement that I have with you, and I think you're in analysis here, I've agreed with 100% of, and I often agree with you, often do. There's very few things we disagree upon. But the one thing I do disagree with you on is the enrollment. I think enrollment's going to drop. I think enrollment's going to drop with student body.

And I think enrollment, I think another point that you hit that we have not considered, that's a really good one, is that personnel, morale, teacher morale is at such a low level that qualified and tenured and talented teachers and personnel are going to say enough of this already. I'm going to another employer. I'm going private school. I'm going to go work for UVA because teachers are hireable. Yeah. They're very hireable. And they're going to just get out. So that's going to leave a school system, Almaro County, with lower headcount. Headcount's important because the feds and the state fund the schools based on account and potentially impact the quality of education with personnel, talented, experience, piecing out and doing something else.

No, I think that's definitely a scenario. And it's something, I mean, schools are always talking about how they're understaffed. People don't want to go into education. Well, guess what? You just shot yourself in the foot. Did you have any, did you empathize at all for Jim Dillenbeck? Or do you think Jim Dillenbeck has put himself in this position? Yeah, because, you know, I think a rule like that is really stupid.

I think transparency in a situation like this is absolutely paramount. And, you know, is it a personnel matter to say these people are not in the school? It's like you could have asked your kid. So are any, you know, are there any administer you haven't seen, you know, vice principal, whatever around for, yeah, he's been gone for three weeks and they haven't told us why. You know, is it speculation to say that they're involved in this? I don't know. But at the same time, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, we're paying for this.

We should know what's going on. on. And especially if there is a number of people from a particular school out, regardless of the reason the school should be addressing that, you know, we have several long-term absences and we're working on staffing. They don't have to go into the reasons why, but they need to acknowledge the fact that their kids don't have all of the, whether it's teachers or support staff or administration in place to do the job. And it also comes back to the financial side of things. It's like, are these people on paid leave? You know,

or are you, you know, sort of like the, you know, the cops when there's a officer involved shooting, it's like, well, they're on administrative leave with pay.

It's like, okay, what, does that apply to someone who didn't report a crime? That would be an important thing to know as well because it gets back to, should we be giving them another 1% of our money

if this is the way they spend it? I'd absolutely want to know that. Yeah, I agree. I'd absolutely, I mean, is, is,

uh, are Brody Downs, Aaron Stone on paid leave and anyone else associated with this? Are they just chilling at home watching the price is right and eating bond bonds? Yeah, with Matt Hawks got nearly 300 grand. Conan and owner are gas guys. Seriously, comments continue to come in, put your comments in the feed. I want to talk about the inflation number.

It just came out, 3.7%. Not a good number. Inflation's going in the wrong direction. It is right now, yeah. Okay. It was coming down over the summer, but it's coming back up. You're a Darden graduate. Yep.

You're a money guy. Yep. You run a business. You got debt on your business. Yeah, I got debt on my business. I got increasing consumable costs. You got some probably some floating debt out there. Yeah, got that too.

Okay. This impacts you. Yeah, it does. Okay. It impacts everyone. Where do you want to go on this to start? Then I'll ask specific questions. Yeah, it sucks.

Is there, you know, and you can say, well, it's driven by, you know, oil prices. Well, here's the thing that I don't. get. And this is a much bigger picture issue is if you look back, you're going to reference the Biden and escalated oil during the Biden time. Yeah, the fact that the barrel of oil price was the same as it was at several times during the Biden administration, but right now gas is about 40 cents a gallon more at the same per barrel price. So my big question is what's accounting for that 40%? Because it can't be the fuel it costs to move the fuel to market because they had that back then as well. And you have an answer for that. I know you do. Actually, it's a hunch. Well, I have,

I have a hunch that part of it is because of the cumulative inflation and things like the salaries for the oil workers and, you know, the cost of buying the rigs and the cost of building the pipelines and everything else. All of the inputs to making the infrastructure to make oil move has also gone up in the past five or six years. But that all gets back to, you know, the cumulative of inflation we've had over the past six to eight years. No, it definitely sucks. One thing that is notably absent in the Charlottesville economy that is a bright spot elsewhere in the country is manufacturing.

I mean, we haven't seen it yet. All we've seen is AstraZeneca is going to write a big check and build a big plant, but we haven't seen the direct impact of that. But if you look around the country, you know, manufacturing jobs are up. We're not getting any because we don't have a manufacturing base here. You know, real wages for the blue collar workers are up, but we don't have blue collar workers here. we have, you know, the blue, I guess they're blue collar service workers, if that's such a thing.

That's the thing. But if you look, you know, a lot of the UVA employees and the admin staff and people in food service and hospitality. But if you look at the trades, I mean, the trades are booming this town. There isn't a contractor. I mean, I'm trying to get, trying to repair a sign for a client. And getting electrician is, you know, it's two weeks to get an estimate. And Lord knows how long after that to get to get its schedule. You know, every contractor I know is booked solid.

And you look around town, and that's not changing anytime soon. We do a lot of business brokerage, as you know, and one of the deals we're working upon, and this is not me relaying any information I should not, how the deals, the valuations are tied to SDE seller discretionary earnings. And this particular deal we're working on, which is somewhere between 3 and 4 million. It's got a valuation that is X, but there's multiple parties interested in purchasing. And they're kind of competed against each other because of the demand to get into trades locally. And this particular business has a strong history, has a fleet of vehicles, and has a strong book of business, and has business that's booked well into 2027.

And as a result of that, I mean, good news for my client, the seller, good news for the broker who's commissioned on the number. Right? As a result of that, we were at SDE and we are 20% I've had of SDE because of what you're talking about. No, exactly. And there are some segments in this economy that are definitely growing. And there's a lot of stuff that's counterintuitive. I mean, how much of the summer did you spend? Who would open a restaurant in this economy? Well, I got news for you. You got one across the street. The hideaway, but because one closed. Well, but that was closed years ago. It was closed at the beginning of this year.

At the beginning of this year, Courtney Tyler closed at the beginning of the year. Then you've got the one going into the old, not Omicasi, the one next door, the old. You're talking about where Bonnie and Reed used to be. Yeah, Bonny and Reed. Peter Greiser of Brazos Tacos. He's also closing Brazos Tacos Barrett's Road. Well, that rent is insane. So that's not at positive.

It's a, yeah. So he closed Brazos and he opened downtown mall. But he believes that there's growth in that concept that he's created. Still closed one. Yeah, no. Devil's advocate here. Tonic closed. I never would have put a restaurant with a $5 ticket item in a $20,000 square foot.

Island pad on Barracks Road. Yeah, I mean, that's the most expensive rent district ever, federal realty. It's just like a super dumb concept. Yeah. Three tacos and affordable bar garita in the most expensive rent district makes no sense. That didn't make any sense. Yeah, yeah. But no, but there's a lot of growth.

There are also other businesses we're working with the new. There's a new competitor to Quest Diagnostic called MedSpeed that has got a fleet of 15 vehicles that were branding for them. They're up on the other side of Pantops. So they're coming into the market. The Central Virginia Swim School is getting ready to open that place is really cool. I mean, she's, is that Katie? That's Katie. Katie. She just had twins. She just had twins and she's opening her school next month. Talk about a rock star. Yeah. Yeah, she's killing it. She's got a pool inside a store, inside a storefront. Two pools. Yeah. They're two giant, they're 15 foot long swim spas with decking around it.

So the kids climb up the steps and jump in and get their swim lessons and there's locker rooms and the whole thing. So we're actually working on some of their interior graphics right now. Did you do anything with the Coco's buildout? Not with the build out. We did the illuminated sign out front. That's nice. Yeah, it's a beautiful sign. He's killing it.

Dr. Daniel Halper just made the announcement, the owner of Coco's, that he's doing so much significant business at Coco's that he's now retiring as a medical doctor. Did you see that announcement? I did not. But that's, yeah, but I. Two days ago. Not shocked. Yeah. Not shot.

He said, I never anticipated this demand. I am now closing my medical practice. Imagine if he had been open in the summer. Right? Yeah. Imagine if he had been over in the summer. Yeah. Do you think that's sustainable?

Oh, completely. You do? Completely. Okay. It's not novel. How long before your youngest ages out of Coco's? Long time. Okay.

So that's the point you're making. Yeah. Yeah. Forever. Our three-year-old, it's probably got 10 years there. Yeah. And he's starting to do memberships. He's got birthday parties.

He's got adult. He's talking about doing adult swim and having, you know, the parents come in on evenings. He's able to sell alcohol to them. He's, yeah, I had no doubt. I was just, you know, waiting for him to finally open. Comments are coming in for Conan Owen. First, let's go to Curtis Shaver, front of the program. My favorite photo that we put on screen is Curtis Shavers.

Love Curtis Shaver. I'm groomsman in my wedding, Curtis Shaver. He says, I just saw the. pizza place in the old mono loco is already gone yeah that's been gone yeah popitos they had been gone for a little while yeah they had uh they had a lot of issues um not the least of which was um they kept finding homeless people sleeping inside their tent they also had staffing issues and they had staffing issues and part of it was because they didn't like coming in at noon and shooing the homeless out and cleaning up their leftover shall we say yep yeah yeah that that monoloco is yeah that that that that that that that's spot um

Boy, Mono Loco made some great drinks. Michael Lewis, crushed it there. Since then, it seems to have been cursed. Yep. Mono Loco. I don't know about cursed. I just don't know that... The right operator?

Yeah, it's a combination of the right concept and the right operator. Because it's a nice facility. Because since then, since Michael Lewis closed Monoloco, you've had Mose. Which moved to another location. No, no. Mike and Ashley Abrams had Mose Ivy Road, which we sold their business to Derek Bond, the current owner. They had friends open Mose 2.0 there.

Then you had after Mo's, I believe you had Ouma. After Ouma, you had Pettos. Was there a concept in between? No, it was empty for quite a while. Okay. So Pupitos and now empty again. Comments continue to come in. Well, you know, it's funny, and let me just say one

thing, because I hear this a lot when you, you know, someone says, oh, such and such is closing and they're like, oh, like when they said Popitos are closed. Oh, I wish they'd bring back Bomas, it was so great. It's like, okay, if this place is so great, why didn't you all go there and keep it in business? Well, you take, you took, I like that stance from you.

And I also like the stance from you where you go to bat for the local franchise owner. Because the local franchise owner is local to Charlottesville. While they're waving a corporate flag, they're still local to Charlottesville. You basically call it a locally owned business, which it is. It is a locally owned business. For the most part. Now, granted, there are some like the Paneras here in town. were sold to a group in Denver, which is the largest franchise owner in the country.

Right. It used to be owned by the Jackson family. Kelly Jackson. The Blue Ridge and the Blue Ridge Bread. Yeah. They sold it and they decided to go in the they are chasing the Dave's hot chicken franchises. That's right. All over Virginia. That's right. But for the most part, franchises are locally owned. In fact, one of the ones I'm waiting on to get the county, thank you very much to approve their sign. There's a Molly Maids franchise. Veteran owned, minority owned. His application has been before the county for over a month with zero progress showing on the county website.

On the portal. Yeah. Where's the location? It's on Berkmar. So you have a sign is critical for any business. Yeah. Like so critical. A month of time and no portal movement.

Zero. Zero. That pisses me off. And I have another one that I put in a leak. What are you doing that scenario? There's nothing you can do because they're like, well, you know, we've got a lot of work to, We've got a lot of things to do. It's their zoning department.

It's like, well, then you need to hire more people because businesses cannot, wait, we've got a new business coming. Nelson Scoops in Lovingston is opening in Crozet, and Old Trail. And they're thinking, well, you know, it's going to be a month or two. I was like, let's apply for the sign permit now, because you can't wait. You can't wait until you get your contractor started.

You can't wait because it's taking them forever. It's an insane amount of time. And people talk about, oh, You know, they say, you know, government regulation is one of these, you know, right-wing boogey men that they talk about when they like to, you know, say what's holding down the economy. Well, look, this is perfect example. They also don't, they don't let you put, like, Coco's can't put a now hiring banner

out on 29. Really? Yep. That's insane. Yep. Not allowed. They don't allow the feather flags. Or is one of the members of the board of supervisors are called them banana flags.

Nope. And different entrance corridors have different. Same thing happened with Crozay Crepes. When they opened, they couldn't put a coming soon or a now open or anything out by the roadside. They say, no, it has to be on the building, except the buildings blocked by trees because their great green initiative say you have to plant trees to replace the ones you tore down. But now no one can see the front of your building saying we're now hiring. And the guys in there with his wife running crazy the first six weeks that they're open because they can't get staff. So, you know, government regulation is a very real strong.

stranglehold on small businesses. And people just don't recognize the extent that that happens. Or, you know, building inspectors, you know, we're working with this new golf simulator going in over at Barracks Road called PAR-4. And they're just, and they were asking, it's like, hey, what's the chances we're going to be able to open by the end of the year if there's only one city business inspector, you know, one business building inspector for the city? I was like, that's a good question, but you better start making some noise now.

That's actually a really interesting concept because it's more than just golf. Their simulators also work on baseball and lacrosse. So a perfect, you know, if you've got some aspiring teen athletes, it's not like redline performance at Pantops, which is physical conditioning. This is actually going into a simulator and chucking a lacrosse ball at a target and swinging a baseball bat or throwing a pitch in addition to golf simulation. And they're also going to have a full service bar there. comments are coming in extremely fast for coding.

There's comments coming in from all the topics we've talked about. So when I throw these comments to you, it will require a little adaptability, which you clearly have. The first comment, let's see you there, I'm actually responding to 27 pages here. The first comment is from Tom Stargel, who's a Golden Apple Award winner in response to some of your commentary on Jim Dillenbeck. So then, why did Jim Dillenbeck quit? Why did he not resist and fight with words in deep? like he just issued with his statement. Why did he quit here?

Does that make him a coward? No, because look what you're up against. So you see him as whistle, we've asked this question. Yeah. Whistleblowing hero instead of reckless coward, you say whistleblowing hero. Yeah. Even though he quit. Well, he quit because he realized that he did violate the rules

and look at the people he's up against. Do you really think he stood a chance? No, he never stood a chance. But that was the whole thing he platformed on, though. to be the nice saying voice. He knew he was never going to sway the vote, but he was going to paper the trail.

Yeah, but the alternative was they would have said, okay, well then you're fired. Fired for cause because you violated this and that. See, that's what was going to happen, is the next thing, and he's exactly right. If he did not quit on his own, then they would have fired him for malfeasance.

Right. Because he took, which clearly seemed to be, closed session material, and made it public. But here's the ironic thing. is look what they did with Haas. They asked for his resignation, and if, but they should have done it the other way around. They should have fired him. Yeah. But they didn't. They asked for, they keep asking for resignations, just like grow up here.

And those comments are coming in here. So this is, this is why you ask about, you know, talking about the schools. We get to talk about the schools because that's what the people want here. This is, uh, from YouTube from Fontini Burns. Allison Spillman calls Western Amarral high school students, the Ku Klux, plan and she gets defended by the school board and then Jim Dillon Beck is forced to resign because he provided transparency. Make it make sense. It's the Almar County School Board. I mean, you just made my point for me. It's like she gets defended for doing something truly heinous. Truly heinous. And he gets the boot. For being communicated. For actually standing

up and doing his job, whether it's unpopular and maybe it violated a little policy here or though, but it's just like, you know, the media loves whistleblowers, except, you know, the school board's like, but you're blowing on me, so I don't want to hear it. Yeah, you know, I was talking about this with somebody else. The CIVO Weekly will not publish this, and you know who it is, I won't utilize this person's name, won't publish this individual's commentary and quotes on things because of party affiliation. Yep. Which is wrong. Oh, no, well, it's, you know, you know, the only person who has,

freedom of the press who is the person who owns the press. This is the publisher. That's 100% right. Patrick McAdam says it's transparency when appropriate with Almaral County schools. Hank Martin says this, handsome Hank's photo on screen, Judah. I cannot imagine being a board of supervisor member right now. Any financial vulnerabilities is not covered by insurance will have to be covered by other means. Many asleep as night for the Almar for the Almore County Board of Supervisors. What's the role the board of supervisors play in your opinion? And you live in which district? Are you Samuel Miller? by you. You're an Ivy?

Yeah. Yeah. So you're Samuel Miller. Yeah. Okay. So Bob Beard's your guy. Oh, good. Fred Missal's your guy.

Okay. You know, but yeah, I mean, they report to the board of supervisor, right? But there was no oversight by the school board. You really expect the board of supervisors that are just another rubber stamp of people who think the same way. Are they going to, are they going to have any accountability? But they should be very worried about the financial thing because part of the thing is that if you knew something was going on and there was some kind of a cover up, I don't know that insurance is going to cover you. Because one thing is errors in omissions,

which is generally the legal term for professional liability, but when you knowingly do something, I'm not sure that insurance is going to cover that. You're saying intentional cover-up. Yes. Systemic cover-up. Yeah, it's like if you got a report, if Haas or the principal of Holly Mead got a report about this guy,

and they still kept him on board, they still kept him on his duties, and he went on to do, Well, the principal of Holly Me, they have a documented trail. This came up in the bond hearing where Lawton and Tuff said, here's the email where Joe McCauley, the principal, told Mike Sweeney, please leave your door open, please. So there's clear knowledge that something.

Shady's going on. Shady is going on and they let it happen. I'm not sure that, again, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure that insurance companies are going to cover intentional malfeasance or intentional violation of, you know, the good faith clause. So, yeah, the county should be worried. That's fresh intel. Mike Pruitt sent me this, the Amar County supervisor.

He says, I do not understand the Board of Supervisors to have the power to condition our funding of schools under Virginia Code 22.1 in order to shape school strategy, policy, or actions. The question, what powers do we have in this moment as supervisors has been asked more than once by the supervisors, and he says, I should add, the main power the county has is exactly what it's doing. The board oversees public safety in the county, including the Almore County Police Department, and it is in large part due to the consistent and excellent work of the Almore County Police detectives that most recent tranche of charges were brought forward. So he's basically saying, and Judas Notting as that too, he's basically saying the board of supervisors have no power here outside of funding a really good police department and hoping that funding of the

really good police department yields investigation into what's happening. But they can't hold the money in escrow for schools. Right. But there's also a different power, which is the power of the pulpit, is to stand up there and say, this is disgusting. You people need to quit. Which Sally Duncan has done, and Mike Pruitt finally jumped in the mix. I agree with you. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, it's just like you need to get up there and call them out. It's like, okay, you didn't appoint them. You can't remove them. You can't necessarily withhold

monies. But you can get up there and make a public stink and you should encourage your constituents because the don't the board of supervisors line up with the school board members in terms of their their district same districts yeah okay yeah yeah then whoever it is in the samuel miller district you get up and say someone should you know go tell bob beard fred missile and bob yeah yeah yeah so fred fred should be standing up saying bob you need to pound sand you need to resign and let someone who cares and someone who is a complete knucklehead take over Comments continue to come in.

Deep Throat, number one in the family. Then we'll go to John Blair, Ginny Who, Erica Gustafson. I mean, I can't keep up with the comments right now. Let's go to Deep Throat number one of the family, Judah. Let's see. Seville City, private school participation has risen from 13% to more than 20% for kindergarten through 12th grade over the last decade. Almore County, private school participation has jumped from 13% to 17%.

So a smaller, down there is definitely more room to go for Almore County families to switch from private to switch to private schools from public. Here's my question. What's the capacity remaining in private schools? That's why every private school in Central Virginia has got a CAPX campaign. Well, I mean, the field school is broken ground on their thing over on Barracks, Road. Covenant, Stab, Miller, Blue Ridge. They're all raising money. And what's going to happen with the old field building?

Is that going to be turned over to a new private school concept? That's a great question. That's a great question. Every private school in the area is looking to expand because demands through the roof for enrollment. Yeah. And it's also a lagging factor because the city had so many problems with schools for a couple of years. That's it. Is that it caught up?

So the question is what Almaral County's public schools were better than the cities? So there was more tolerance to stay there. Yeah. What's Al Maro's situation going to be like three years time? Smart guy. 100%. Set it very well. here. Deep throat continues for you.

Okay. On oil versus gasoline, we have a refining squeeze. Crack spreads have gone vertical. Crude flows out of the Gulf have largely recovered, but the Gulf also exported a lot of product. They have a lot of refineries. That has not recovered. Product is much more flammable than crude. Yeah.

Anything you want to touch on that? No, I mean, I think, you know, the Gulf always, you know, they always shut down when there's a hurricane. I think they had a couple of explosions down there, too, that took some refining capacity offline. But then you also look at, you know, places like California, where they can still drill oil, but they haven't built a refinery in California in 40 years. Well, that'll never happen. And it'll never happen.

So now you've got this. California is basically not part of the free union. It's not part of the thinking world. Interestingly, my brother those are there. But he's very sensible. He also adds deep throat. On CPI, it wasn't just headline that was above expectations that, 3.7%. It was also

core. Core excludes energy. So the inflation trend is actually pretty disseminated. It isn't just energy. In 1982, US had, let's see, he keeps getting, he gets very technical here, but he's talking about core inflation versus CPI. Yeah, core inflation

was definitely down over the summer. It's popped back up in this latest report. Ginny Who, her photo on screen, Judah, some rules are meant to be broken when doing what is right is at stake. I would imagine she's saying that Yeah, that's props to Dylan back. Yeah. She also says something we haven't really discussed is the number of hybrid schools that have popped up locally in the last year or so much more affordable and they are gaining serious interest.

Erica Gustafson, who follows us on Twitter, she does a comment often. She is here. When insurance companies cover suits and investigations triggered by policyholders, they stipulate attorneys from their roster on very low hourly billing rates. That's the caliber of attorney in insurance pay. for. So that's some insight right there, that they're getting the bottom of the barrel investigator. You're getting the public defenders of commercial law. They're set up better than me right there. John Blair wants to pushback on us. Jerry and Coden, I will gently push back on the insurance investigation narrative. In every situation that I've dealt with in terms of insurance, the company does an investigation to determine the facts

in order to determine if a payout is an order. Obviously, Mr. Bob Beard's statements are off color and sound callous. However, in a situation like what's facing Almar County public schools, it is pretty customary for the insurer to do a deep investigation. They pay for the legal fees for a defense. They do not want to take a certain defense posture that can blow up in their face if they don't know the entire situation. So in a situation like this, they want to know everything as they anticipate lawsuits coming. Now, that's a different story than public accountability. I can almost guarantee that the public will never, ever see whatever report the insurer, reduces. But again, I want to reiterate that it is fairly normal in a situation like this

for the insurer and its attorneys to do a full investigation in order to try to get a grasp of potential exposure and how best to defend the insured. So what John is saying is they will do an in-depth report, but that in-depth report will be kept behind lock and key. Yeah, and I can see that because they want to know just how big the exposure points. How big the problem is because they're just like, you know, if we don't find this stuff out, and then some parent or some, you know, real attorney goes and investigates and finds dirt that we missed, then it's really going to blow up in our face. Yeah, right.

That's because then they come out and make all these public pronouncements and everything else, and it turns out that they were only telling us half the story. So, yeah, no, I can see that. But it also is just, just from a public relations point of view and a confidence amongst the taxpayer's point of view is, shouldn't you have an independent party find out what the heck went on? Yeah, it's perception management. Yeah, that's what you're saying. Yeah, no, it's like I get it from a financial and risk management point of view,

why the insurance company would do it. But from the real world, they should have a third party going in there and, you know, a couple of former teachers, a couple of current teachers. Or the Attorney General of Virginia. Or the, well, I don't know about him, but. Okay, maybe the U.S. I don't know, does this rise to a federal issue? DoJ.

Does this rise to a federal issue? I don't know. Trump has brought Alamoire County Public Schools into, in Charlottesville City Schools into a number of federal conversations. He has. Federal Executive Institute. Yeah.

mentioning ACPS with CRT and DEI. Yeah. Comments continue to come in for Conan. This is a question that I want to be mindful of. 50 minutes into the show, it flies with you here. At the 3% number inflation, are Seville homebuyers able to cope in this kind of economic environment.

I mean, we got a 30-year fix that is floating with an aid handle. Yeah. And I will say it's not so much the interest rate as it is the list price. Because, you know, it's like, you know, my parents bought their house. It was, I don't know, 12, 13 percent. But it was. But you pushed back on that. But it was a $40,000.

It was a $40,000 house. Okay. So you pushed back on that, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just like I'm less concerned about the interest rate because, you know, when we moved here, we had a six and a half percent 20 years ago. And you gladly did it. Yeah.

But 20 years ago, the price point was... It was half what we are now. So you're 2X? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. And take home pay hasn't 2xed?

No, it has. Over the 20 years. No, it has. Is that fair? Yeah. In most circumstances. Take home pay has not, but if you look at the changing demographics of Charlottesville, the median income has.

The median income has. It's more than 2x. Charlottesville has become much, much more wealthy overall. too shy. So that's also kind of an apples dormant for the people that were here 20 years ago. They've been priced out. In many cases they have. One thing that I think would be really interesting, and this is just my sitting around half drunk thinking about how to make the world a better place. This is that night, not now. He's not saying now. This is that night. No comment. In my mind, mortgages should be like health insurance that they should go with the person, not with the property.

Mortgages should be like health insurance. So, like, health insurance should be you, not the company. And it goes with you wherever you go throughout your life. To me, a mortgage, if I qualify for a mortgage and I want to move and I've got $300,000 left on my mortgage, I should be able to take that existing mortgage and apply it to a new home purchase. That would get pretty complicated. It would, but it would also free up a lot of housing stock because a lot of people aren't moving. Well, you have, you're familiar with the assumable mortgages, right?

Yeah, but. Or you can assume of someone's current mortgage. at their home. Yeah, but it's that person moving. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that's still extremely complicated. Because I'm the one taking it in the shorts with the new higher rate. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're saying the guy that offers his fantastic COVID rate is then going into a new rate structure that's at 8% at home value numbers at all time high. Yeah, exactly. You know, where, whereas I could take. But he also is doing that with massive equity. I mean, how much you don't have to give us an exact number? You have massive equity in your home? Oh, very much. Have you been in the same home for 20 years? For 20 years.

So what do you sit on $500,000 in equity? More or less, yeah. Yeah. Now, you did take, you've mentioned this on the show of not speaking at a turn. You did take a HELOC to buy the business. Yeah. Is that right? Yep.

Yeah. What's the rate on the HELOC? Is it floating? Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, it does, it's prime plus, but we're around the 8 to 10% depending on which tranche we're looking at. Okay. So here's a great question for you. Viewers and listeners will love this, and you're transparent.

You've owned the business for four years. So the rate was much different when you purchased four years ago. Yes. Well, a couple of points. How's the debt service the monthly payment changed over that four-year period of time? Not much. Really? Yeah.

Why is that? Because you've paid down principal so much? Well, it's a five- or ten-year window depending on how you took it out. So there isn't that much. And it's not like a 30-year mortgage. So the debt service is not squeezing. No. Well, obviously, because September was your best month ever.

Yeah. Yeah. But in other circumstances, could you see it squeeze the small business owner? depending on their overall position, yes, without a doubt. What is squeezing the small business owner now besides labor and cost of goods? Because we know labor's expensive. For me, it's not the... And cogs are tied to gas.

I'm not seeing so much the cost of labor as being the issue as it is the availability of labor. You're basically saying people who want to work. Or qualified people to work. Like for me, finding people who have... any experience in the printing and signage industry is it's a very small pool but that's a trainable field it is it is to a certain extent on some aspects of it but you it takes a lot of time to train someone to get up to speed even something like i have someone who's got you know 15 years a graphic design background but teaching them to make print signs and banners you know it there's a lot of

investment there and a lot of mistakes and a lot of consumables that have to be you know, recycled. But it's true of a lot of businesses is they are constrained by their ability to attract people. And part of it is, you know, the gig economy and the whole, you know, I don't want to work that hard. Because, you know, look at all those contractors. They need laborers. They pay pretty well. Even the undocumented folks who work for them make a pretty, you know, they're not working for free.

Right. But I think they're just a lot of people. It's like, well, I don't want to do that. you know it's like what's the name cousin Eddie on Christmas vacation they're holding out for a management yeah yeah well it's like you need a job

it's like you need a job yeah you know your worm farm isn't going to hold you here as he's asking Clark to pay for the dog food in the grocery store yeah yeah that's a great so it's just like you know do people want to work or do they not want to work which at least something we talked about earlier is at one point I was looking to

to replace one of my employees. You hired formerly incarcerated people? I have. Yeah, I've given people, I believe, in second chances, and the person talked a good game and was on their very best behavior for two weeks, and unfortunately they relapsed. What does that mean?

Drugs? Drugs? Yeah. And was that mean showing up to work high, or not showing up work at all? Both, and finding them asleep in my delivery van. There you go. And I would imagine Conan Chick-Hippens that person right there.

Yeah. Is that right? Yes. But I've also hired people who had homes who showed up drunk. So, you know, it's one or the other. But I did have a conversation with the head of the shelter over on Holiday Drive to see it's like, you know, do you have somebody that might be reliable, reasonably trainable, can use a ruler and do some basic functions for us? And he said, you know, I've got one person in mind, maybe a second one. and I thought, okay, well, great. But at the same time, I thought it's like, you've got 70 people living there.

And only two people come to mind as being possible, suitable employees. You know, a lot of people like to say, oh, well, there's so many people who are unemployed who have, or who are employed that are unhoused or so many people are unhoused because they were one paycheck. You know, they're all one paycheck away from homelessness and they lost that paycheck. Well, if that were the case, then you would have a large population of the homeless that would be looking for work and suitable for work. Granted, this is a very small sample size, but it doesn't feel like that's the number. It seems like there are a lot more people who aren't prepared or able to work. I don't know that it's so much an unwillingness to work that is it's more that they're not in a, they're not in a place to consider taking on responsibility.

I mean, is it the lazification? of America? It's a combination of things. Yeah. I think that's part of it. And people will see, well, you know, I can go do, you know, I mean, they just look at the gay economy. I work when I want. Yeah.

Or when I need money for something that I have in mind, I'm not building a career. I'm not saving any money. I'm not looking for advancement. I'm just looking for something to do in between Xbox championships. Xbox championships. Where did you? pool that. Well, yeah, I mean, it's just like they run home and they get on their video game and they,

you know, they join on to Halo or whatever and, you know, and they're like, hey, I won that round and then they go off and deliver some burgers because they need to go pick up pizza for themselves later. And it's just, it's, to me, it's destroying just this entire class, because we're going to find ourselves in 15 or 20 years with an entire class of people who have no real work skills. You don't need any interpersonal skills because I have to do a show up, grab an order, walk up, drop it off. You don't even have to smile or be nice because they already paid the tip in advance in most cases. And they're going to wake up and they're going to be broke. They're going to have no prospects. They're going to have no real work history. And

they're going to say, I need to live. And it's just like, and I got news for you, Social Security was not meant to support people. It was meant to be supplemental income for retirees that you're supposed to say for yourself and people are not doing that. They aren't even in a career where that's even an option. And I love all these people who complain of private equity is the great boogeyman. But it's just like, well, who do you think owns DoorDash and Uber Eats and all of these other people who misclassify their workers as independent contractors get around paying the payroll taxes? The people that attack the small business owner for using AI to create marketing, then do all

their shopping on Amazon. Or post their complaints. that are housed in a web server that is owned by Jeff Bezos. Yeah. And yet they're the ones complain. And doing that complaint posting from their $1,200 iPhone. Yeah, built by child labor in China. Yeah.

That's taking business away from America. But then they talk about how wonderful, oh, isn't that business cool? Look, they do original video content. Well, guess what the data centers are full of? Yeah. They're full of videos. And guess what that business that's doing the original video photo and content is doing, taking their eye off the prize of actually making money on the business.

And that, I mean, it's just, what are we doing here? This is, this is, and this is where Judah's going to cringe here. That's why the Charlottesville subreddit is the drags of society. But it's not just there, but it's, it's this, there's the whole, there's that whole anti-capitalist segment of society. Especially there. Especially there. But it exists, you know, throughout Charlottesville, not just online.

It exists in the universities very strongly. You know, just anything that tears down. the horrible capitalist system is good. Yeah. Well, because so many of those tenure-track professors at UVA, I'm not throwing shade at all of them, I am throwing shade at some of them, can do whatever they want.

There's no accountability. And it really doesn't matter. Well, actually, I'll go on a tangent here, but I think they should abolish tenure because what was tenure originally for? Tell me. Protect academic freedom. Show me one novel, controversial,

countercultural opinion that has come out of a university in the past 20 years. It's all group things. So why do you need to protect the group from each other? Because they all think the same way. No one's going to... But now in the tenures to maintain talent.

To keep talent. It's the golden handcuffs of academics. Is it because they're not the ones doing the teaching? Some of them are. You're saying because they're TAs and they're farming it out whatever grad assistance on the teat of the cow. The real teaching, yeah. Yeah, that's what you're saying.

Yeah. I mean, just look at where, look at how tuition. But the grad assistant doesn't come. without the sex appeal of the professor. But if that's who you're getting FaceTime with, if that's the one who is answering your questions, who are you really learning from? It's fair.

You know, look at how much college tuition has gone up. Absurd. Okay. How much of college salary's gone up? Not anywhere near. So where's that money going? It's going to the university. Same place it's going in Almar County School.

It's buying everything. It's going into administration. It's going into bloat. It's going into bloat. Yeah. So, you know, if anyone is, you know, if you look at who is the most rapacious, greedy, capitalist system out there, it's the university system. And central Virginia. Or any, pretty much any university.

Certainly here locally. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't say it because it's a company town. Well, without question, you're right. Look at the endowment. Yeah. What the endowment is on.

Look at what they're buying. Look at how they're taking the stuff off the tax rolls. Then passing the buck onto us and making it more expensive. Taking it off the tax rolls and being cost advantage. in bidding for the property in the first place. Right. Or stealing it from the schools. Granted, that they got put in a bad spot

with how that was handled. But the Federal Executive Institute. Yeah. Close with this. You're crushing. You're tailor-made for this. I sincerely, you know I sincerely mean that. I know.

And I appreciate that. I appreciate the chance. You have a lot to say. I do. Yeah. 65 minutes in. I need to get, and we have like a hard, and you probably have a couple things

you want to cover here. four or five minutes, a lot to cover here. Yep. Okay. Dewberry Hotel, anywhere you want to go. Sure. Well, I'll take the two hotels at once. Do you very need micro units?

You don't like the studio apartments? I thought you would have loved that as the housing guy. What's the issue that the expense of the rents? I guess my question is who wants them? I think they'll lease. You don't think those $98, $2,000 apartments will lease on the mall? They're smaller than this room. You're right.

They're 450 square feet. It's like living in New York. I don't know why anyone would choose. It's living in like a one and a half times the size of the normal hotel. I don't know why anyone would spend serious money for that product. Because you're on the downtown mall. If you have a six-figure job and you're in your mid-20s or early 30s, and you could stumble from the bars and walk to ACAC.

People aren't drinking anymore. That's fair. Okay, how about the Pietitare? The Pieter for the wealthy UVA alum that's spending astronomical amounts of money in the hotel. In some ways, I think the 98 microunits, compete against the hotels. That's one take I was going to take. Yeah, maybe. But I don't know. I don't

think it's a great location for housing. I don't like the idea. I'm shocked that you're saying that. No, there are a lot better places for housing. No, I get it, but I'm just shocked. This is the first time ever heard you throw? The giant parking lot where they put the city market, like they were going to put towers up there. Keith Wooder was going to do that.

Give me eight stories. This is the first time ever heard you throw shade at housing. I just think it's a bad product. Wow. Is it the price point? It's your dollar per square foot. It's a joke. Yeah. Well, it's a studio. Yeah. I'd personally, if I were a wealthy alumni, I'd rather live in a hotel or buy a condo. I love hotels. Yeah. And speaking of which, the Doyle, looking forward to the Doyle's. 22 million. Yep. Butch Ross. He got a deal. Don't you think he got a steal? Yep. I'll just have to make sure I adjust my quote accordingly

for the signage. Are you doing, do you have the business? Not yet. No. I've already reached out to Butch. Okay. And I know some of the, the, the, the players. that they've already brought in some staff, including some local folks. I'm excited to see what they do with the eatery. I think the sushi concept is going to be great. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. I think the rooftops can come back to what it was when it first opened.

100%. I think the lobby bar, I mean, that's a beautiful. The lobby bar is incredible. What I didn't hear, I didn't hear the whole interview. I don't know what he has planned for the bookstore and art gallery, but I think there's a much better use for that space. It's going to be experiential, live music. vents. Yeah, and the two cute little buildings

that were the cocktail bar? Yeah, well, it's coffee. There was a whiskey bar upstairs and coffee shop He's going to reopen the coffee shop? Yeah. I think that's a great idea. He wants to be the night spot on West Main Street because Black Cow, Public, Connell Divide, and Maya close at 10.

And they also have tiny bar areas. Yeah, and he wants to be the bar, the nightlife bar. So like 10 to last call, 130? Yeah. Which I think is genius. No, I think he's, I think everything I heard, I like the sound of it. Did you think the Doyle previously by Blue Suede Hospitality was just run in piss poor fashion? The concept was wrong for Charlottesne.

So wrong. It was so obvious, right? Yeah. Wasn't it? Yeah, it was, you know, that would have been a fine bootie hotel. And you're a hotel guy. Yeah, no, it was the wrong concept because who comes to Charlottesville? UVA alum's number one.

We want to have our hand held. And they want to know, they want you recognize my name. Pamper. Thank you for coming back, Mr. Miller. So great to see you again. At that price point, kiss their ass. Yeah, because if you look at how the forum does things, if you look at how the graduate does things,

they've got, they understand, the boar's head, of course. Yeah, they understand that Blue Swade was, you know, because they had a property in Miami, and I think they had one in Nashville. That's right. And it's like those things work in those markets. It would have worked in, you know, Northern Virginia, D.C. It wasn't for Charlottesville.

Right. It wouldn't even have worked in Richmond. Yeah, I, I, I, you're, anything, what are we not covering? Shows yours. You have carte lunch. I'd say the last thing is just the whole buying local versus buying online. I've heard you say several times, you know, local is more expensive. That's not always the case.

I also said local is more expensive, but still buy local. That's true. That's true. But I will make the case that local, at least in my experience, isn't always more expensive. In fact, many of our products are cheaper than the pop-up ads I get in my social media feed saying, oh, buy your stickers here, you know, 50 stickers for $35. Well, guess what? We'll give you $100 for $34.

and $200 for $40, but everyone thinks that because it's online, you're getting a deal. Or they hook you in with the feather flag, $35, and then by the time you print on the fabric and add the pole and add the case and add the this and add the shipping, and it's two weeks out, it's the same price as our double-sided flag that'll be here in two days. Well, also, but your case is different. No, but your case is different because you are the decision maker and you're also prioritizing the long-term relationship,

even if that means you have to do a little bit of a law. leader today to get the book of business because you know the book of business is not going to leave well I'm I've that not fair no I've never taken I've never willingly taking a loss on a project okay sometimes in my in my in my not in my no and only because I didn't mistake and when I first when I first started I had a real problem understanding how to price booklets because I couldn't get the math in my head to work but then I lost a few on that but no but the other thing is I also believe in it in fact I will say one thing is is my closing

is one of my customers owns a local pet store. And our invoices come out from our accounting department, which is run by our very fluffy cat, Miss Jane. And at the bottom it says, you know, the sooner you pay me, the sooner I can place the chewy order. And she said to me, it goes, you know. Was this Patty Boda? Okay, yeah.

This is Patty Zeller, right? Yeah, it was Patty. Patty was the former client of art. She's great. And Patty was just like, you know. She got pissed because of the chewy reference. Well, yeah, she said, she just said, that's not cool. Yeah.

I was like, you know, it's one thing if you just don't, you know, I understand if you're not going to buy. And you appreciated Patty's pushback. And I said, okay, I said, first of all, I changed it. Yeah. And I went over and I bought our cat, our latest round of cat food for her. That's awesome. Because she's right. She's right.

You know, I've seen some potential customers of mine go online and, you know, thank their online vendor for their new packaging. And I was just like, why would, you know, it's like, okay, you want to buy online, but to go and publicly thank an online resource. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just like, you know, custom ink doesn't even have an office here anymore. Right. You know, and it wasn't custom Aigo. But, you know, just like everything you can get online, you can find a local person for it.

And yeah, you can say whether it's locally owned, locally owned, but it's a franchise, which means we all pay a certain percentage back to the folks. But they also provide us with a lot of resources that we can reinvest in the community. They're the ones who prefer our advertising material so that I can buy a TV spot if I ever go that route. Partnership with the I Love Seville Network. Yeah. Well, they won't pay me for that. I love C-Vo Network that help yield the best month you've ever had in September.

Yeah, no, I was thrilled. I'm being very straightforward here, and I'm toot my own horn here. I think this is the best advertising possible in the region. It's served me well, without a doubt. In the region. And this year, I've hired three employees. We're up, we've already passed last year's revenue number as of October 7th. You deserve it.

Well, thanks. But I'll tell you, I haven't had this much fun in 20 years. That's awesome. And I sincerely need this. We love going to work every day. There's nothing more that I like than hearing other businesses locally be successful. Oh, I agree. Aerial resupply was one of our early customers.

I knew Mike when someone else was roasting his beans and he was shipping them out of his garage. And we did his labels for him for about six months and he grew so big, so fast that he can now order 10,000 pre-printed labels for each of his varietals. And he hasn't placed a label order from us in two years. And you're happy. I'm thrilled for him, but he's coming back and buying other stuff from us because he needs. needs other stuff to fuel his expansion because he's in Kroger, he's selling online, he's, he's killing it. This guy's killing it. This guy's Conan Owen. And he has become a friend through this network. He has become a voice that's accounted upon locally. He spares no expense,

which I like that about him. He's got a dry humor that you have to grow to love. Is that fair? Yes. You grow to love the dry humor, but it comes from a good place. And he's committed to Charlottesville and Almore on Central Virginia, and it's betterment. And I've seen that firsthand. There's no guy you should be spending money with in any kind of signage, direct mail, marketing, merchandise, hats, uniforms, pamphlets, trifolds, stickers, lanyards, step-and-repeat banners. I covered a lot right there. Then Sir Speedy of Central Virginia. And I am putting my money where my mouth is. So are our tenants. So are our clients. They deliver. Sir Speedy Central Virginia, I sincerely knew that.

Thank you. Thank you. Judah Wickauer behind the camera. That is the Wednesday edition of the I Love's Evil Show. So long. You crush it. Thanks. That was 70 minutes without time.