Campaign 2024 - Brian Welch, Leon County Commissioner, District 4

Preston's visit with Brian Welch, Leon County Commissioner, District 4.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Brian Welch is the incumbent commissioner forthe Leon County Commission in District four that
would be described as the northeastern partof the community. He's running for reelection
and we chatted for a good while. I feel like anybody running for office
ever has scars, and so I'mcurious, after you've done this, you're

(00:30):
doing this again, why'd you decideto run for reelection. Well, you
know, I would say I don'thave scars, really, I mean,
I don't think I have anything thathaunts me. I mean, I have
had a relatively peaceful four years,three and a half years on the Leon
County Commission. Although I will tellyou, you know, everything's new for

(00:56):
me, right So running for officethe first time was new for me.
Running for reelection is new for me. So, you know, I don't
you know, there's been moments inthe last three and a half years that
we're obviously very trying, you know, issues that come up that are polarizing,

(01:18):
things that are you know, thingssaid about you in the public arena
on Twitter that are disconcerting and kindof you know, make you just give
you an unease. But I thinkthat's just the nature of being a policymaker
and being a public figure to theextent that accounting commissioner is a public figure.

(01:42):
So when it comes to why I'mrunning for reelection, it really involves
the fact that you you know,you can't get a whole lot done in
a four year term, and that'sjust the reality of these deals. It's
been startling to me how slow progressis when it comes to government, and

(02:04):
so I think to answer that question, you have to go back to why
I ran for office. And so, you know, I ran for office
in twenty twenty because I felt likethe Northeast specifically was not getting the advocacy
that it deserved, it that itwarranted given its population, given the amount
of voters, given the amount oftaxes that came out of the Northeast.

(02:29):
And so the most salient example ofthat to me was the Northeast Park.
But you could talk about all kindsof infrastructure projects, whether it's Walanie Boulevard,
a Bandonmon Road needing to be widened. You know, all of those
things are examples of you know,I just it begged the question, who

(02:51):
was advocating around that table for thepeople in Northeast Tallahassee of the twelve local
elective officials. And so when Iran, it was to kind of of,
you know, stand up and go, hey, you know, don't
forget about us out here in NortheastTallassee. So I really ran as a
populist for Northeast Tallahassee. And sofast forward to now, you know,

(03:12):
we have all of those projects areon track to be constructed in the next
four years, completed, all right, started to finish, whether we're talking
about Bannerman or Wallauni or the NortheastPark. And so a part of running
for reelection is just, you know, ensuring that the things that you've spent
a lot of time on in thelast three and a half years actually come

(03:35):
to fruition. And I think ifyou look at the conversations that have been
had over the last year, especiallyaround the infrastructure projects, they're kind of
constantly under threat of being undermined bywhat, oh by, by other people's
priorities, whether you're talking about Imean, if you look at blueprint over

(03:58):
the line. I don't want toget right into the weeds with you on
my opening salvo here, but Imean, if you look at blueprint over
the last year, it's been abit of a mess. It's been a
bit of a feeding frenzy. Everybody'strying to go after projects and you know,
move money around and things like that. And I would tell you that
when you live in northeast Tallahassee,that is, if you don't have somebody
that's up there really fighting hard andyou know, you know, being consistent

(04:21):
with how they vote and how theyspeak, those projects are at threat of
being defunded. Let me ask you, do you think that's made more complicated
by the fact that the city doesn'tengage in district representation, something that I've
talked a lot about. Yeah,I mean, I would tell people that
you have five city commissioners and allof them technically represent the northeast. So

(04:47):
I think it becomes a matter ofholding them accountable for that. If constituents
of mine and seventy percent of mydistrict is in the city, all right,
if my constituents feel like the cityis not representing them, they need
to let the city know that,and then they need to hold those folks
accountable in elections. Now, Iwould say that, you know, is

(05:11):
it fair to suggest that we shouldadd seats to the city commission or district,
the city commission. I think thatthose conversations are completely fair. As
a district representative, how can Isit here and say that that's a bad
model, Right, Well, it'sthe only city out of the top twenty
that isn't. Yeah, No,I get it. I mean I get

(05:31):
all the arguments for it. Iunderstand the criticisms of it as well.
But at the same time, Irepresent a district. I am one of
five district representatives in a county.Serius, you were talking about, you
know, Blueprint is a combination forthose that may not fully understand, the
city and the county commission kind ofsit together, yep, and have to

(05:51):
sort out the use of all thatmoney. And for most of us,
we like the Blueprint tax. Wethink it's been very useful. Not big
fan of opening up some of thatfor quote economic development. We should just
be using that for infrastructure as myview. But that said, do you
feel, as the advocate for Districtfour, do you feel as though you

(06:12):
have someone in the city that reallydoes get the Northeast because none of them
live out there. Yeah, Imean that's a hard question to answer.
Do I feel like any of thefive get the Northeast. I don't want
to insult them and say they don'tget the Northeast. I would say that
it's hard to truly understand the needsof an area, the culture of an

(06:36):
area, the people of an area, if you don't live with them,
if you don't live among them.So I think that that residency requirement does
matter. Okay, it does matter. I mean, if you look at
me as a again, a districtedrepresentative, I have to live in my

(06:57):
district. I ran for the countycommission as a populist for my district,
and I think if you look aroundthe county Commissioner Caban is a populist for
Woodville and Fort Braden. Commissioner Proctoris a populist for the south side.
Commissioner minor east you know, eastside or Central, I guess you would

(07:18):
say. And then O'Keefe on theeast side. I think that that's a
good model because people know who tocall when they have an issue, right
and so, and I see themat the grocery store. I teach their
children in a school every day,I have for a long time, and
so there's an accountability factor there thatis important. And I think that so

(07:41):
I would not so when it comesto issues that affect Fort Braden. For
example, I will defer in manycases to Commissioner Caban on that right,
that's his area. Those are thefolks he represents. Now, those folks
can come to me. And Ican give you a good example of that
when when Commissioner Jackson passed very sadlyand unexpectedly, you know, there was

(08:01):
an effort by the county, awell intended effort to name the community center
after him, and the folks inFort Braden did not like that. And
it was in a weird period oftime between Commissioner command being elected and being
taken office, and so a lotof those people called me because I had
built a reputation at that time forbeing and I still would have had that

(08:22):
reputation for me very responsive to peoplecommunicating with me, whether it be social
media or emails or whatever, whichis a pillar of what we want to
do in my office. And sowe took a lot of calls and I
told those folks, listen, Iwill wait till Commissioner Caband takes office and
then let y'all talk to him andfigure that out. But in the meantime,

(08:43):
I'll kind of act as a surrogateand you know, say, hey,
we need to slow down and pumpthe brakes on this little bit,
which was very frustrating because Commissioner Jacksonwas a beloved figure, certainly to me
as an educator, but amongst theI mean, just very well respected guy
on the dais And so you know, ultimately we do defer to each other
on those issues that are very centralto our districts. And when you say

(09:05):
districts, we're talking about neighborhoods andcommunities, right, And so no,
I don't necessarily think that some ofour city commissioners have a total finger on
the pulse of what's going on inKolarena States or Colarn Lakes, right,
And I think that, you know, they should in many cases defer to

(09:26):
me to get that information. Alot of times they do, but you
know, that's just the nature ofdistricting. So yeah, it's a difficult
thing. I just do I thinkthat the northeast would be better served with
a district commissioner or somebody that livedin the district from the city maybe tell
me this. We were talking aboutthe decision to re up go back through

(09:50):
the batting order one more time,at least what you learned in the first
four years that surprised you most.Brian oh Man, Well, you know,
I would say that, and I'vespoken to my predecessor about this too,
you know, which is it's muchmore difficult than you think. Okay,

(10:11):
So as a candidate the first time, you know, it's kind of
easy to go to sort of pokeholes in the defense if you will,
of your predecessors or the other peoplesitting around the table. It's much more
difficult when you're actually sitting around thetable to be objective, because the biggest
disappointment to me has been that mostpeople are not objective. They are subjective.

(10:35):
They are worried about what they seeand what's close to them. And
I tell people all the time,as an elected official, as a policy
maker, I don't have that luxury. I have to be objective. I
have to be fair. I haveto look at the analysis, I have
to look at the professional staff thatwe employ, and I have to take
their information. Then I have totake your information, and I have to
take all this information and I haveto filter it into a position where I

(11:00):
can make a vote or a decisionon it. And in order to do
that I think you have to havea lot of integrity. You have to
have a thick skin. You gotto be able to have people breathing down
your neck who want you to doone thing or the other and you have
to say, well, no,I can't do that, and here's why.
You have to be able to explainthat. And so for me that's

(11:22):
been the most difficult part is youknow, people will just be nasty with
you, you know, and overthings that if you just had the opportunity
to sit and explain to them theinformation that you have that they may not
have, it would make a bigdifference. But people are in this environment,

(11:43):
you know, politically, I've beencalled a bigot, and I've been
called gutless and heartless, and youknow, I've had mails sent to my
house, you know, personal,my personal address, and I hate mail
sent to my house, threatening,passive, aggressive, you know, and
it's like that has been disappointed.But I think that when you make hard
decisions in this business, that's whatyou deal with. One of the things

(12:09):
that's always fascinated me and I've doneI think I calculated about eight thousand interviews
over the course of doing this program, and a bunch of them with want
of the politicians, elected officials andactual One of the things that's interesting to
me is each person's take on howthey view their role. Some view it

(12:30):
as they elected me to represent them. I take in the information. I
do what I think is best.Others say no, I set aside what
I think, and I do mybest to listen to what my constituents want.
And if that means tampering down whatI personally believe on a given issue,

(12:52):
that's what I do. Others forma hybrid of both of those.
How would you describe yours? Well, say that I'm probably you know,
it's I don't know if I'm ahybrid or not. But I mean,
obviously I feel a duty to servethe people that I represent, but I

(13:16):
also feel very strongly that I sharetheir sentiment, so I don't really have
to conflict myself or contort myself ratherto a position that is uncomfortable for me.
And the reality is that the harshestcritics are in the smallest groups.
And so I have fifty thousand constituents, Okay, about forty thousand of them.

(13:41):
Forty five thousand of them vote actuallyvote, So you know, Number
one it's impossible to make all ofthem happy. And so I take information
as much information as I can getfrom all sides of an issue, and
I try to make a decision.That's so, in other words, if
I take a position, it's goingto be a defensible position. The idea

(14:07):
that you're going to take a positionthat one side wants or the other,
I think is a fallacy. You'rejust going to make a decision that you
think is best with the information you'regiven, and then kind of hope that
it makes the most people happy.And I can give you several examples of
that over the last three and ahalf years, and whether you want those
or not, it's up to you. But well, if you want to

(14:30):
share one, absolutely, because Iwas going to ask you if there was
a situation that stands out where youwent into an issue that you knew was
coming up for a vote or discussionand you had a predetermined idea, predetermined
based on information whatever, but thatafter listening to constituents, you changed your
mind. Yeah. I mean Ievolved on a few issues. I think

(14:56):
the biggest evolution I had was ondoke on on the Stadium, which I
think is a great example of thisyou could talk about you know, Wllannie
Boulevards funding or comp plan amendments,or you know, any number of issues.
But the dope Campbell issue was aperfect example where I really did not

(15:20):
have a lot of input from thecommunity on that, from my community in
the Northeast. When I first votedon that, I supported it the first
stop it came to us. Iwas like, it was a great idea.
You know. I looked over I'dtalked to Michael Afford and the FSU
folks a couple of times. Youknow, I was skeptical, but I
went out and toured the stadium.I think I'm the only elected official that

(15:41):
took them up on that went outand walked around with their engineers, and
they showed me all the problems theyhad, And so I thought to myself,
you know, initially and those things, you know, it's like,
hey, this is an idea,do we want to do it or not?
Those those non competitive we now callthem funding programs through economic development money,
And I was like, yeah,why wouldn't we do this right.

(16:02):
FSU's a big part of our community. I think I looked over at Michael
Awford in the meeting and said,you know, he was the athletic director
at the time. I said,mister Ofwford, do we get support from
around the world for FSU athletics.He goes, yeah, we do.
We get checks from people all overthe world. It we'll only make sense
then that we pitch in a littlebit right here locally. Well then you

(16:23):
know that had like three or fourstops that it came to us. Well,
by the time we got to thesecond stop and analysis had come back
from our staff and that analysis andI got beat up over my initial comments.
Okay, I mean I got wornout by the same crowd that wants
to wearry out. And you knowthis is stadium projects are never good for

(16:44):
taxpayers. Blah blah, blah blah. And I got hits with studies and
the same very loud, small crowdspeople were wearing me out about it.
But I was not phased by thatbecause ultimately I was going to lean on
the analysis that we got. ThatAgain, I have to assume that our
staff is objective there they're just youknow, hammers hitting nails. They don't
have an opinion. Really, I'mnot supposed to. And so when that

(17:07):
analysis came back, it eviscerated thatproject. It just laid it bare.
You know, thirty five jobs fortwenty seven million dollars, it was,
and they were like food service jobs. You know. It looked at the
revenue that the the Boosters generated morerevenue annually than the tax in its entirety.

(17:30):
The Boosters had just given twenty milliondollars to their coach to leave,
and now we're asking us for twentymillion dollars. They were going to reduce
the size of the stadium from eightythousand to sixty thousand. So there was
there was a ton of factors andso for me, you know, I
that changed my opinion. Now,again, I wasn't getting a lot of

(17:52):
input from people on the issue otherthan when I when I flipped the I
started getting hammered by the FSU crowd, okay, and a lot of guys
in Garnet coats started showing up tothe meetings and and really that was an
issue that So for me, Ikind of fancy myself fiscally conservative. I

(18:17):
kind of again, I'm trying toreally reflect my community. I really do
think that I reflect my community politically, ideologically, from a values perspective,
all those things and so I votedno. I said I can't do this,
you know, and then it gotreal nasty, and I wrote an
op ed about it, sort oflaying it bare again. I'm being very
objective. I'm not emotional about it. I'm not trying to you know.

(18:38):
It became this fs u's this greedybig entity, and it's trying to steal
this money from people who need it. And I think those narratives obviously serve
a political purpose, and it's unfortunatethat those we see that repeatedly used to
sort of frame an issue kind ofus versus them mentality. I've never taken
that mentality for me. It's justearly objective. And so my support for

(19:03):
or my lack of support for DOAKwas based on just being irresponsible with our
tax dollars. Okay, I meanwe just didn't have, you know,
when you and we had at thesame time done Amazon, which was a
two and a half million dollar allocationfrom the same pot of money which created
one thousand jobs, which we nowknow is created fourteen or fifteen hundred jobs.

(19:26):
And so I mean it was justthe cost per job was paled in
comparison. So it was clear thatFSU's boosters had maybe not foreseen some of
their financial issues that they were goingto have, maybe felt like that this
money was kind of owed to them. Do you think that was that was
amplified by the money that fam yougot. Oh, there's no question.

(19:49):
I mean, when you give themoney to fam you you're gonna have to
give it to FSU and I andyou know that money came first. I
didn't vote for that money. Iwasn't on the board. I would not
have voted for that money at FAMU. And when they came back recently wanting
fifteen million more dollars, I wouldnot have voted for that, which they've
since withdrawn for the same reasons.I mean, it's not political, it's

(20:10):
not personal, it's purely objective.It's just fiscally a bad investment. These
are economic engines that are already burning, they're already creating fires. No one
is going to stop going to FSUfootball games, right Fshu's not moving to
Jacksonville. And so when it endedup happening, my whole point of that
story is to say I voted againstit, and you know after that,

(20:34):
I got many many emails, Imean seriously, many many handfuls several emails
from some of my most conservative constituentswho said, thank you, that was
we didn't think that was a goodidea at all. And so that turned
out to be a very conservative positionfiscally, and I would tell you that

(20:56):
that allocation was incredibly fiscally response irresponsibleat that time. And still, I
mean, you know, the justthe simple math of it, it doesn't
make sense. It doesn't. Youknow, you have a precious amount of
dollars in economic development, which isreally a gift if you use it right.

(21:17):
And you say, we have thatone hundred and twenty million dollars of
the blueprint tax, which should bea big gift to us to use wisely.
But you see what's happened to it. It's become a slush fund and
more or less, and that's unfortunate. But that kind of started with FAM,
you and FSU in the stadium deals. And so I didn't take my

(21:37):
position on that based on popular sentiment, but it turned out that I think
that most of my constituents would agreewith that position. You mentioned the Northeast
Park. Let's let's talk about thatfor a few minutes. First, let's
update when the smoke cleared what's beingbuilt. So the Northeast Park has been
funded at twelve million dollars. Unfortunately, took a six million dollar haircut from

(22:03):
its staff recommended fully objectively analyzed budgetthat was a fully accounted for and revenue
neutral. I'll add that caveat,but it took a haircut, unfortunately.
But the one of these parks gonnabe built. Construction should start sometime before
the end of the year and we'lltake about two years, and it should

(22:23):
be constructed in conjunction with the secondphase of Wilowney Boulevard, which will go
from north of it tent all theway to Roberts and Centerville Road. Right
there at that intersection, you feltreal strongly there needed to be for baseball
fields out there. Yeah, noquestion. And I was among the sum
that said, that's that's absurd.Well, I will tell you that objectively,

(22:47):
it's not absurd. I would tellyou that, uh, you know,
and people kind of pick on mebecause I'm a baseball guy, and
I get it. I get it, but like it really again, I
don't have the luxury of being subjective, Okay. I ran for office partially
over the issue of lack of baseballfacilities. But really that's softball facilities too

(23:11):
in the Northeast. But if youlook at that issue singularly as a sort
of microcosm of shortcomings of the cityof Tallahassee, I will tell you that
that active recreational facilities in this communityseverely lack when you look at other communities
comparably hit. Our kids still playbaseball at Levy Park, Myers Park,

(23:36):
Winthrop Park places built in the fiftiesand sixties, and they drive long distances
to go there. Kids from kolarnhave to drive to Winthrop. That's their
zone. Active recreational park. WinthropPark is in midtown. If you want
to play in the advanced play leaguesfor baseball, you're going to Levy Park
on Tharpe Street or Myers Park inMyers Park. These are forty five minute

(23:57):
drives from Klarnville. That's unacceptable,all right, And so you look around
at other communities, they have madehuge investments in those types of facilities.
So let's talk about the Northeast Park. Well, the Northeast Park exists for
a reason. It was a blueprintproject long before me. As a twenty

(24:18):
year old blueprint project has never receivedfunding, was not prioritized until the twenty
the second round of blueprint the county. There are five county districts. Four
of them have county ballparks. Onedoes not. Again, I say,
who's fighting for the northeast right,Well, that's the grapevine that just stays

(24:41):
alive but never produces fruit. Thatpark has been that thing. So the
county had purchased the property, andI'm gonna tell you more. Do you
want to know about this Northeast parkPreston. The county had purchased that property
in two thousand and six for eighthundred thousand dollars or five hundre thousand dollars.
That property or the proper pretty probablyon Proctor High School proper, the

(25:02):
property on Proctor and Thomasville Road.They purchased it from Celebration Baptist Church in
a in a fire sale really asa placeholder. It's one hundred acres fifty
acres on either side of a dirtroad that's not gonna get paved, nor
should it get paved because because ProctorRoad, that dirt road, section six
miles of Proctor Road would costs thirtymillion dollars to pave and it would become

(25:23):
the Indianapolis five hundred all right,with the high school kids cutting between Centerville
and Thomasville Road. And so HorseshoePlantation owns ten thousand acres adjacent to that
property. They did not want itto be made into any kind of active
recreation because they run dogs and shootguns and hunt as a profit as they

(25:44):
farm. They don't want adjacent properties. So that was not a good location
for that park. And I wouldtell you there was never really an intention
to actively develop it. So whenI got elected, obviously that was a
priority for me that we get theNorth East Park done. So the county
we had an opportunity to Horseshoe offeredto buy the property for what the county

(26:07):
had invested in it, so adollar for dollar exchange, so no money
lost. We took that money andhad the opportunity to buy a property in
Wilaunie directly adjacent to Roberts Elementary School, which was a fifty acre parcel but
high and dry, perfect, reallynice piece of property for the same exact
price. It was a dollar fordollar exchange, so we did that.

(26:29):
We facilitated that transaction. In orderto do that, there had to be
a substantial amendment. At Blueprint wetalk about substantial amendments, right, So
this was a huge, long,year long process. My first year in
office, it was very tedious andhard to get done because those substantial amendments
were hard to get done. Andby doing that we were able to roll

(26:52):
it into the bond that we weretaking out to accelerate projects. And so
the Northeast Park was at the bottomof the list, wasn't supposed to be
instructed until twenty thirty five. Thatwill now be constructed by twenty twenty five.
So accelerated it ten years. Okay, So everything was hunky dory.
We were everybody agrees it's needed.Its need is without question. Okay.

(27:17):
So fast forward, all of asudden we want to pick apart its budgets.
Now I would tell you have wepicked apart any other budgets at this
point on any other projects. Nowthat the dust has settled on the Northeast
Park. No, only one projecthas taken a haircut that the fair Grounds
has tripled in price. Northeast Parktook a cut. Nothing else has taken

(27:41):
a cut. In fact, allthe other projects have gone way up in
price. Northeast Park took a cut. Now, I don't want to get
into why that is. It wouldbe speculation on my point, but there
was one person around the table whoreally pushed for that. Now you can
speculate why that is. I don'tknow. Now to the contents of the

(28:02):
Northeast Park and the criticism over thosecontents. Do you know how many baseball
fields there are in District four ofLeon County baseball fields, I would probably
guess and say fewer than five.Two one of them is at Child's High
School. If not, no,no, no, those aren't available for

(28:22):
public recreational baseball. I'm talking aboutParks Park. Well, I'd be surprised
that there was that many. Mikasookie. There are two in Mikisukie Regional Mixiki
County Park, which is nine milesfrom Roberts Elementary School almost to past Lloyd
out East Okay, all on thecounty line. Veterans Memorial Way out there,
two two Preston. Now Meridian Parkis close but not in District four.

(28:53):
Meridian Park is across the line,and Meridian Park has two dedicated baseball
fields. Now there's four multi usefields at the city. You know those
sort of put the temporary fences up. And so now if you look at
the other county parks, Woodville,Fort, Brayden, chairs they all have

(29:15):
three to six fields populations that palein comparison in terms of use for baseball.
So to put four baseball fields atthe Northeast park was not should not
have been controversial, period. Now, the county designed those fields based on

(29:36):
an objective study that they did basedon a needs assessment that was national,
based on trends what was needed,and they assessment based on national They did
a national needs assessment based on trendsin sports that people are playing, usage,
field space, capacity needs. Basically, they designed those fields around needs
and trends for baseball and softball andmulti use and use of your dollars,

(30:00):
all those things. So they werelarge. I'm sure they distilled that towards
local because I would think that thebaseball programs in the area of high schools,
you know, the feeder programs,whether it's Babe Ruth or Little League
that feed into that would give usa little bit more accurate portrayal of how
many kids are playing ball here.They did that. Okay, they did

(30:21):
all that, so I mean Ican tell you right now there are five.
There are four Little League programs inLeon County in each district except one.
We don't have a Little League programin the northeast. Now, this
is the little league that plays inWilliamsport, right, we don't have one
in the northeast. Okay, yougot a lot of baseball talent, has
no Little League program. Okay,I can't have no chance of playing the

(30:45):
Little League World Series unless they playin one of the other can't play if
you're not districted for those parks,can't play All Stars. I'll give you
an example. Chairs, which isour closest park to say Bradville, and
it's a long way. You know, Chairs had three hundred kids playing in

(31:07):
their program last spring, three hundred. How many of those three hundred do
you think were out of zone andineligible for All Stars? Of the three
hundred participants in the Chairs Little League, tell me one hundred and fifty half
fully half of those kids drove fromBradforville and colarn to play in Chairs County

(31:29):
Little League program. Ineligible for AllStars. Same thing happens in the city.
My kids are they using the fields? I mean, let's take those
hundred and fifty out of the equationthat leaves one hundred and fifty playing in
the chairs league. How often arethose fields in use nightly year round in
the spring Baseball's not played in thefall obviously, but spring, yeah,

(31:53):
and the spring they're used nightly.And so I mean, but again take
that, just look at the citiesprogramming. All the kids in Klarn have
to go to Winthrop to play AllStars, well most of them don't.
They go to Meridian, can't playAll Stars. Same thing, they're district.
There's zoned for the Dizzy Dean WorldSeries. So two fields ain't gonna

(32:16):
cut it. That doesn't even countthe amount of kids that don't play recreational
baseball. They play in the advancedplay leagues, which exists really as booster
run leagues by parents on city facilitiesat Levy Park and Myers Park. And
so what's happened is a lot ofkids just don't play recreational ball. I

(32:36):
mean, significant numbers of kids inour community don't play wreck ball. They
just do travel ball. They pay, they pay to play very expensive,
very expensive, and it's frustrating whenagain you get back to that conversation about
the Northeast where the taxes come from, you know, where you have a

(32:57):
robust community, and I would arguethat like community is built in an active
recreational park, and so we don'thave one. We don't have one in
the Northeast. The Northeast Park willfill that void. Sadly, fifty percent
of it got cut, but youknow, at some point we'll seek to
fund those facilities, either through thelegislature or do you need more land to

(33:19):
do it? Though? No,no, no, no, it was
because I mean, isn't the otherportion of the land that was going to
be devoted to the other two baseballfield's going to be used for other things?
Just vacant? They literally just removethem from the site plan to cut
the budget. So pickleball courts notgoing to happen still there, okay,
so all that was accommodated for.So the Northeast Park as it currently was

(33:42):
approved, will have two full sizebaseball fields which are fully convertible, which
you know people don't understand, butlike those fields will also be softball fields.
They're not just baseball fields. Sowhen baseball plays in the spring,
softball can play in the fall.And that's the way it is. Pretty
much at all these parks. Softballhas a huge problem to no space.

(34:02):
Well yeah, and I mean thissoftball season runs concurrent with baseball. Well,
not those travel not those fast pitchleagues. They kind of exist in
their own little bubbles and they tryto find time to play wherever they can.
So if they get it at thecity, it can be in the
fall, it can be in thespring whenever. But the point is those
are full sized fields with dirt infields, mobile mounds. The mounds can be

(34:24):
moved, the bases can be moved, you can bring the fences in or
out. Also, by creating threehundred foot fields, you can play full
size soccer matches in the outfields ofthose fields. So they're all I mean,
this is all done by design.This is not just random. It's
not like I can go in theroom and say this is what I want.
This is done by professionals, Likewe paid a firm one hundred thousand

(34:45):
dollars or something to professionally design thesethings, and so it'll have. Ultimately
the design was it has I thinkit's four pickleball or three or four pickleball
courts. I think it has nowthree or four and volleyball courts. Uh,
full size basketball sport court, youknow, like I know what I

(35:06):
know the court you're talking about,uh, full size lighted football, soccer
field, and all of the basethe two baseball fields are lighted. The
soccer field, football field is lighted, the pick all the courts are lighted.
Pickleball, tennis or volleyball. Notennis. But I mean this is
also the home to the Brafforville Bucksfootball program, which of all the Pop

(35:28):
Warner programs, I guess which onedoesn't have a home Northeast Tallahassee. So
the Northeast Park will be the homeof the Brafforville Bucks. They will have
a they have to use deer legor Child's Field to even have a team,
which that program is kind of hadkind of waned. Well, now
you see it coming back. They'rerecruiting, they're putting together a whole new
program in anticipation of this. Sothe park will be it is far from

(35:53):
just a baseball facility. Any characterizationof that is patently false. Yeah,
baseball takes up more physical space ina park. Because baseball takes up physical
space, there's also a full sizedfootball field, and in the outfields of
those baseball fields, you can playsoccer. Uh, what's the English sport?

(36:17):
Cricket? Their full sized cricket pitchescricket. I'm sorry, they're designed
there. Do you want to saycroquet? Fine? Whatever, Yeah,
I mean, it's it's a it'sa again. It's a professionally designed,
objectively built, designed, active recreationalarea park. Any characterization of it as

(36:40):
anything else is just not true.It's just not true. We would talk,
we were talking about four baseball fields. Four We have two, and
they are as we discussed way outeast. There are like thirty in some
of the other districts baseball fields becausealahase, well it's not kept up.

(37:01):
It ironically circles back to kind ofwhere we started. The city does not
pay much attention to where a lotof tax dollars come from. It's a
salient issue across the board. Soyou can apply that same logic to Bannerman
Road or to you know, anynumber of development interests about from an infrastructure

(37:22):
standpoint, where the city seemingly annexesabout everything somehow amazingly. And I well,
you know, I don't think thecity is out there consuming property.
I think that and this is justa fact. Ninety nine percent of what
the city consumes is at the requestof people who developed the properties. Well,

(37:44):
because they're giving incentives to do it. Yeah, but I mean the
city obviously, the city wants therevenue from the from the utility. But
you know, those are voluntary annexations. So we get all bent out of
shape about it. A lot oftimes people want to come into the city,
city doesn't want to take them.But in fairness, but those are
voluntary annexations. But the point isthere comes an expectation with that right that

(38:07):
you provide services. Well, andthat's the question that you know, my
listeners, because obviously, I whilewe have managed to survive for twenty three
years in a community that doesn't largelyshare my political beliefs, which means a
lot of people that don't agree withme, listen, right, the reality
is that a large percentage of peoplethat do. They a lot of them

(38:29):
listen from the Northeast. And whatI hear is what are we getting for
our tax dollars? And we're we'repaying for our utility, we're paying for
our emergency services, we're paying forour waste protection. So can we please
get a list of what we're gettingand you're touching on that. I mean,
looks the reason I ran for office, Preston, I mean again,

(38:50):
I ran for office. Oh thesort of moment that inspired me to run
for office. And I've said thisin a public meeting when we were going
through the park thing. This isnothing I'm telling you I've not said before
in public meetings. What's the pointof this. Yeah, I just repeat
myself a lot. That's a partof campaigning, you know, repetition,

(39:12):
you know. And again, I'mnot trying to throw any of my city
colleagues under the bus either. Iwant to be respectful. But at the
same time, I mean, Istood out on a baseball a field at
Roberts Elementary School seven years ago whenmy son, who's twelve nine, was
five six years old, and we'replaying t ball and we're playing in a

(39:32):
city league at Roberts Elementary School,which is in Leon County School's property.
So the city, to its credit, brings programs out to the county and
they just use the schools because theydon't have facilities. The city is not
built facilities, the County's not builtfacilities. And so I'm standing there watching
my and I live in a nicearea, I pay a lot of taxes,

(39:55):
and at that time, you know, eighty the early eighty year old
grandmother has to walk across that fieldto a porta john to go to the
bathroom to watch her great grandson playt ball in a field that is not
no dirt. It's just a backstopand a bunch of beat up grass and
ant piles, and it's just adisaster. And you're paying your forty bucks

(40:20):
or whatever to play a city wreckleague there, which is as close to
my house as you could possibly get. At Roberts Elementary School, And they
do the same thing at gil Christand they do the same thing at Deer
Lake and Klara Lakes Elementary. Sothis is how we run our program.
We use these just Leon County schoolthat are just pe facilities. We PLoP
a porta potty out there, andwe call it. I'm like man.

(40:43):
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, Preston, which is a failed municipality
in every way. Okay, Iplayed in a part a thousand times nicer
than anything you would find in Tallassicin the eighties and Jackson, Missippi.
I played baseball from six years oldto the end of high school in the

(41:04):
same park. We just rote it. We moved from one field up to
the next field, to the nextfield, all in the same park.
And they had these all over Jackson, Mississippi. Right, And so I
thought to myself, what are wedoing here? What is the failure of
our government? And when it comesto this, well, then if you
if you peel back that onion alittle bit, you realize, well,

(41:25):
why hasn't Bannerman Road been widened?Bannerman Road sees a lot of development,
a lot of traffic. It's lookedthe same way since it was built thirty
forty years ago. What are wedoing? What is happening? Where's that
money going? Okay, So thatthe park was just an example of what

(41:47):
became an a lot of neglect interms of tax dollars coming back to the
Northeast for whatever reason, lack ofit being a priority other priorities. So
for me, that became the issuethat I had to address. Right.

(42:08):
I don't care about politics or ideology. I don't care about all the little
games that politicians play. I don'tcare about fundraising. I don't particularly like
it. I care about like Ifigure, what's good for me is good
for everybody, Right, if mykid has that experience, then other people's

(42:30):
kids have that experience. And I'dalready gone through it with my daughters who
quit softball because of that problem,and so that is unacceptable to me.
And so as as I went throughthis as over the last three and a
half years, specifically the Northeast Park, and again I posted all this on
Facebook and social media at the timeI was going through this fight. How

(42:50):
many blueprint dollars have been spent inDistrict four over the last since two thousand
when it was first created. Well, you know the argument that's a that's
a rhetorical question. Do you knowhow many dollars have been spent in Northeast
District four? District four, reallyyou could just say the Northeast zero.

(43:15):
Not one blueprint dollar has ever untila couple of years ago, probably when
we acquired the Northeast Park property.And that's really actually that wasn't blueprint money.
That was counting money that used fromthe other part. So you know,
I mean until the last few yearswhen we started turning dirt at Phase

(43:35):
one of Wallawnie Nothing sidewalks on Mayhanwas as close as you ever got,
not one dollar of a billion dollarswas spent, and now you're a billion
and a half into it. Becausewe've advanced funded all these projects. None
of that money until now has startedcoming back to that. So and I

(43:55):
understand that that's the reason that isis because the knee were bigger elsewhere.
Okay, the first tranch of Blueprintsales tax penny sales tax went mostly to
the south Side and to the bigyou know, widening Capital Circle, those
big projects, those big regional mobilityinfrastructure projects where you're leveraging state money,

(44:15):
and some of it was absolutely theargument was fairly made that it benefited the
entire community, absolutely, and Iagree with it. I mean, think
even Famu Way, which you knowall that that's a beautiful area. I
mean, the Blueprint projects are beautifullydone. I will defend Blueprint's work out
the hilt. And so yet,now when I'm very proud of this,

(44:38):
we have three hundred million dollars ofthat money coming back to the Northeast.
When you talk about one hundred andfifty million for Wallani Boulevard, you talk
about one hundred million for Bannerman Road, you talk about between the Northeast Park
and the Market District Park roughly anotherthirty million. I mean, the Market
District Park is going to cost morethan the Northeast Park. Other example of

(45:00):
whatever you want to say about theNortheast Park, the Market District Park was
approved in the same meeting the NortheastPark was delayed for more money than the
Northeast Park. The Market District Parkis a city park, Northeast Park,
County park. Make what you wantfrom that, but it just speaks to
the hypocripsy saying you're not saying.It just speaks to the hypocrisy of the

(45:22):
argument that it's too much money.The Market District Park is going to cost
fourteen million dollars, and that's athat's five pickleball courts, a green space
going to be beautiful in the MarketDistrict, a great place making element.
It's going to cost more than theactive Recreational Area park off Centerville Road for

(45:42):
baseball teams, softball teams, basketballfootball teams, soccer teams, pickleball activity.
Frustrating, but these are the argumentsyet. I mean, that was
by far the most frustrating period I'vehad to deal with. The biggest fight
I've had to deal with was thepark and it's unfortunate. But again I
would say, you're seeing that moneyreturn now to the district for with these

(46:05):
big projects which are needed that Ihave defended and I've taken heat over.
But I'm not a big fan oflike def I'm not a fan at all
of defunding these projects or reallocating moneyfrom these projects. I have enough deference
to my predecessors to go, look, you guys designed these projects intentionally.

(46:30):
You did it with a lot ofgreat care over many years. So when
we determine that we needed a WillawnieBoulevard going through a Willawne property that has
been in the works for thirty years, Banner min Herd widening, unquestionably needed
airport gateway, I would tell youthat that was a smart decision to create
the airport gateway the way it's designed, with the spur into the innovation park.

(46:53):
That was done intentionally by smart people, people smarter than me. And
so but we the Northeast Park reallystarted, you know, we kicked over
the anthill with those blueprint funds withthe Northeast part. Let's talk about taxation
in general. Sure, a fewyears ago some of us led the fight
insisting that from a technical and legalperspective that when valuations rise, if the

(47:22):
rollback rate is not invoked, it'scalled a tax increase. Yes, and
both the city and the county thankfully, at least for now. We don't
know how long this will last,but at least for now, valuations are
up. The county has decided tohold the milage rate at this point steady.

(47:42):
That means there's a tax increase,and now there's a discussion over what
you as a body the commissioners,want to do related to keeping that millage
as is rolling it back. Iknow that the county administrator, Vince Long.
I have very high regard for Vince. I disagreed with everything he did
during COVID. I think he waswrong, and I think I've been proven

(48:05):
correct about that. That said,I think he does his job exceptionally well
and I hold him in high regard. But what are your thoughts on where
the county should be going there's excessrevenue. Should they roll the rate back?
Should they keep it for the rainyday for when the inevitable valuations come
crumbling down? What are your thoughts, Brian, Well, we had a

(48:27):
discussion about this last week. Idon't know if you paid attention to it.
I paid a little. We hada Tuesday budget workshop and we had
some interesting conversations, you know,I think that. And I would agree
with you wholeheartedly on Vince long.I think he's a fantastic administrator. In
many ways, he's the glue thatkeeps this thing from going off the rails
sometimes, especially when you have somefrankly wild suggestions made by politicians, you

(48:55):
know. And I would say thatpoliticians, and I don't really count myself
as a politician truly. We kindof come and go, you know,
we're kind of like the wind.And but Vin's been there twenty six years,
and I think before him, hispredecessor parwez Alam, who I never
met. I have a great benefit. I never met a lot of these
people. I mean I never Ihave really no connection to any of the

(49:20):
previous. I could not be moreof a surprise outsider, I think,
And so my perspective, I wouldhope is appreciated that from that respect.
But so he was there a longtime, part was and he you know,
ran a good ship. And soI would tell you the county,
I mean, in my experience,is profoundly well run, and that leadership

(49:42):
from the administrative staff. I mean, they are the executive branch of our
government. They execute the laws wecreate. Now that means they have to
do they have to put themselves inweird positions to do what we ask them,
because we ask crazy things sometimes andthey do that. Vince and his
staff that incredibly well. So theylike to tout that they have not raised

(50:05):
the militarate in thirteen years. Well, which is true, they have not
raised the militarate in thirteen years.Now you think about what's happened in the
last thirteen years. You know,you've had COVID, You've had recessions,
ups and downs in the economy,and they've not raised the military. Yet
our valuations have gone up consistently,which means we have extra money in the

(50:28):
coffers. Now. The conversation lastweek really revolved around the fact that those
projections are liquid. Okay, soat our last world we have and they
do a great job with the budget. They bring it to us in January,
you know, a budget that won'tbe finalized until September. They bring
us preliminary projections and so the countyhas a really small three hundred and seventy

(50:53):
seven million dollar budget to the city'sbillion. Okay, so it's a really
small budget, I think about onethousand employees, very efficiently run. I
mean, one of the least expensivegovernments from any county, like size county
in the state. I mean,it's like the smallest cost per citizen,
smallest you know, really small taxbase. So they do a lot with

(51:16):
a little. But we had ourprojection increased ten million dollars from our April
workshop to our last week's June workshop. So in two months, the property
praiser came back said, you guysgot ten million dollars you found Okay,
Well, that money was allocated alickety split, right, and some of

(51:40):
those things are unavoidable, right,We have insurance premium increases and fuel cost
increases. The same inflationary things thatimpact you and me impact county government and
city government. So things cost more, materials cost more, whatever. Well,
the large majority of that, aboutfive million of that nine point whatever

(52:01):
seven million dollars was allocated. Threepoint six million was to our capital projects,
public works, you know, increasingculverts to avoid flood mitigate, to
create flood mitigation by some new tractorsand dump loaders and all those things.
I don't question the county administrator's knowledgeof the needs of our public works department.

(52:22):
I believe that I have. Igive them a lot of deference in
that regard. Right, they tellyou they need a front end loader,
I trust you. I think ourpublic works department is the best in America.
I mean those folks do just lookat the last three or four months
with these storms. They amount ofdebris they've hauled, me, washed out
roads getting repaired in twenty four hours. I mean, they are the best.

(52:43):
Well, there's one point three milliondollars in there for across the board
five percent pay raises to the countyemployees, which which follows the last three
years of two two years of fiveYeah, where you know we've created and
those are recurring expenses, right,So that's stuck in my craw a little
bit. And that sort of createda discussion about rate rollbacks and things like

(53:07):
that, which you know nobody's comfortablewith. That's kind of like the you
know, the don't say that wordrate that phrase rate rollback when you say
nobody's comfortable with, Well, here'sthe reality about that, right, And
and I understand it. You gotgood years and your your revenues are up,
and you got bad years and yourrevenues are down. And so from

(53:30):
the county's perspective, and I understand, if you roll that rate back let's
say two meals, which is whathe proposed in the meeting as just in
this scenario, that'd be five milliondollars. Well, it's gonna be a
lot harder later on to roll thatmilitarrate back up to recover that five million
dollars should you have another massive catastrophicrecession, housing market crash, you know,

(53:53):
COVID whatever. So you understand that, right, it's like going,
well, I'm going to forego theraise I got because I believe the company
needs the money more than me rightnow. But you know, hey,
what if you have a death inthe family or something, you know I'm
saying, So it's like, somy The thing that concerned me about it

(54:17):
philosophically was that we were doing thatacross the board raised. Now keep in
mind, we were already we hadalready funded a merit based raise of zero
to five percent, which was athree percent calculate on a three percent average,
So that one point three million dollarsis the difference in a three percent
average and a five percent average.That's extra money. We didn't have to

(54:37):
do that, okay, And whenyou combine that with the previous two years,
that's almost five million dollars in recurringrevenue we've committed to. Okay,
I can't support that, right becausewhat I what I'm saying to the public
there is, oh, I foundthis money, and I'm going to just

(54:57):
I'm going to Instead of saving it, we could saved it. We have
a fun balance, you know,extra basically savings for a rainy day.
Instead of saving that money, weallocated it in perpetuity, not just a
one time. The three point sixmillion is a one time. We allocated
that one point three million in perpetuity. And just to me, it felt

(55:17):
irresponsible fiscally because you know, Iget it, everybody's experiencing inflation and salaries
are having a hard time keeping up. They can't keep up. But we've
given ten percent over the last twoyears, and this would be another three
percent, so you're talking about thirteenpercent already you would be giving for one

(55:40):
point three million dollars. It's notI mean, that's a respectable amount of
money in a three hundred and seventyseven million dollar budget. But again you're
you're committing it in perpetuity, andthat's the problem. So it was just
that was my issue with it.I obviously supported the budget. I'm going
to support the budget, and Idon't think you you would number one.

(56:01):
I think you'd ever have enough votesto a militarate rollback on that board.
And I would not necessarily be infavor of that, simply because the point
I made, I get it.I understand that it's you can't roll it
back up. It's going to bea thousand times harder to roll it back
up than is to roll it down. And so, but the argument is
always once government levies attax, itnever goes away. Once it's at a

(56:23):
certain level, it never goes down, correct, And so you're not gonna
mean that roll that valuation increase willbe there. I mean unless the economy
crashes. I mean again, revenuesin seven and o eight you know,
went down substantially. They had towipe out their fun balance. Yeah.
The difference to me now, Brian, is we're getting taxed by a Children's

(56:46):
Services Commission that I don't think itwas remotely needed. But that's what people
vote for because they hear about kidsand children, and know, how can
we say no? Right? Andyou know the government can always take when
you and I max out our creditlimits, we're done. But governments don't
ever have that limitation. Well,that's where I feel like restraint has to

(57:08):
be put in somewhere to say,Okay, we're in remarkable inflationary times right
now. We're at a nine plusmonth of housing sitting nationwide, and that
bubble is eventually going to hit here. It's just a matter of when.
And so you know, if youlook at it historically, we're sitting on
an economic time that it's going tohappen. And people right now are going

(57:30):
to pay more because valuations are upin their property tax bill, and we
could maybe lessen that a little bit. Well, I mean, if those
evaluations come down, they'd pay lessin their property tax bill eventually. Yeah,
no doubt, but I mean correctand I'll get it. And I
made those points in the meeting.Yeah, you know, like and again,
you know, like we had toraise our ems MTSU they call it

(57:54):
MSTU Municipal service is taxing you,And I'm learning all kinds of stuff.
We had to raise that this yearlast year in the last budget because we
hadn't done it in twenty years andwe've added eight or nine ambulances. You
know, we raised it a halfa mill or something. So the average
wiminer was like one hundred dollars ayear or something like that, twelve dollars
a month or something. But Iget it. I mean when you add

(58:16):
all that up between waste pros increasesand costs, which again was the you
know, people want to wearry outabout waste Pro and the lowest bitter man.
They were the lowest bidder, likewe could have done more. And
I would say waste Pro has donereally well actually as well. And I
agree there's a backstory to the wholewaste Pro thing. We don't have time
to get it too. But butI you know, I count myself fortunate

(58:39):
to be in the county because I'mnot getting a middleman fee, which is
yeah, I'm in the county aswell. Yeah, I mean it's the
county. We get a fee fromwaste Pro. They pay us a fee.
Obviously that would probably come out oftheir revenues, but they pay us
a fee. But I think weforego for we didn't ask for it in
this contract to keep we pay themdirectly as paying through anything else. Well,

(59:02):
I mean, but again, inall fairness, you have a The
EMS MSTU did go up half ameal. I supported that because I'm going
to support our EMS and our healthfirst responders. Our services fee went up.
Supported that because I'm going to supportfirst responders. Waste pro went up.
Get it. I got an issueright now in Colarna Lakes with the
city and their sewer fee. Iwas just going to ask you about that.

(59:27):
Well, I can tell you thenotice assume you live in Unit one
or two. You can assume correctly. So that's one of those deals where
that's going to come to a publichearing on July ninth at the county.
Do you want to set the overviewof this real quickly? Quickly everybody that's
going to be listening to this becauseis going to be hit with this notice.
But some of us got something inthe mask as quick as I can

(59:49):
describe it, when the county broughtor when when the city brought the sewer
lines out to Unit one and twoin Colarna Lakes twenty years ago, that
agreement was required a fee, amaintenance fee, a fee that you would
have to pay as a homeowner,like a ready fee, ready for service
fee. And so at that time, minunderstanding twenty years ago was that the

(01:00:12):
folks in Colar Lakes wanted the sewerbrought out there. They had failing septic
tanks, it was creating all kindsof problems in their yards. And so
one of my predecessors, Tony Grippa, fought very hard to advocate it very
hard to get this brought out thereat a significant expense to run a sewer
main that far out, and thecity did that. But with the agreement,
I've seen the agreement, it's writtenin stone that you all as homeowners

(01:00:35):
would pay a ready for service feeuntil the point you were ready for service,
and then once you've got your service, you would pay the fee.
You'd pay the service fee and thatwould be that. And so that's what
we're talking about. It's one hundredcurrently, like one hundred and forty four
dollars a year. It's on yourtax bill. You don't probably even notice
it. But the city has decidedthat they have not been raising that as
they should incrementally over the years,and so now they're gonna ham me with

(01:00:59):
a four hundred and forty five fourdollar three hundred dollars increase. Don't quote
me on those numbers. Roughly hundredand forty four is what was in my
notice. Yeah, so it's likeroughly a three hundred dollars increase in the
annual fee for ready for service.The county merely processes that fee. We
don't have any that's determined by cityordinance. So I've got folks calling me

(01:01:22):
and I'm like, call the CityCommission. The City Commission passed the ordinance.
This will come before the County Commissionin a public hearing. I intend
to advocate against it, but well, I think the question really nothing I
can do well the question that I'mbeing asked, you know, I get
the emails from people, and obviouslysome of those mirror maybe what I think.
Sure, the question I'm being askedis, Okay, we're paying a

(01:01:45):
fee to have the water taken out. We pay Talquin a fee for the
water to come in. We paythe city every month for the water to
go out, and now we're beinghit with an additional fee on top of
the fee we've been paying, ontop of the fifteen thousand, ten thousand,
twelve thousand we paid to hook up. Where's our representation. That's the
question that a lot of us areasking, which almost ironically ties us back

(01:02:08):
to where we started part of ourconversation. Full circle, right. I
mean that's again, you know,a lot of the permitting issues, the
development issues that people have there arecity permitting issues, city development. The
county has no jurisdiction over those things. So when you're talking about O corner
of ox Bottom and Thomason, theroad right or whatever. But this is

(01:02:30):
weird because the city doesn't have technicaljurisdiction, but they have legal jurisdiction well,
which is weird. The city ismerely using the county because they have
to statutorily to process the assessment.The county is really just administering. Administering
the assessment. We have to holdthe public hearing in our chambers, but

(01:02:51):
I mean, we have no sayover it. We can't. It's one
of those quo I assume it's goingto be a quasi It's probably not quasi
judicial, but it's one of thosethings where and I have not talk to
the county attorney yet, she's outof town, but I'm gonna talk to
her about it and see, youknow what, what would happen if we
said no as a body, wouldthe city then have to come up with
another calculation. I don't know.It may be one of those deals.

(01:03:14):
You know, in most of thosepublic hearings, we don't You can't really
vote no. They're quasi judicial.If you vote no, then they're going
to appeal it to a judge.You're acting basically as a jury on a
lot of those development decisions, youknow, comp plans or re zonings,
things like that. That's called aquasi judicial proceeding. So you can't vote
no unless you have a real legitimate, defensible, legally defensible position to vote.

(01:03:35):
Know, this may be a situationlike that, But either way,
I'll make the case for the communityand ask the questions that are being asked
of me by folks who know moreabout sewer systems than I do that live
in corn Lakes. But that's Imean whatever. I mean, call your
five city community. Technically all fiveof them are. But you just said

(01:03:58):
call your we don't have one.See there's the rub Well, technically you
have five, but we don't becausewe're not voting in the city. I
don't have a vote in the city, and so do and neither does anybody.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry you're talkingabout Clara Lakes. Yeah, yeah,
well in Colarna Lakes, that's auniquely troubling situation. And we have
that all over the district. Andsee, if I'm practical, I say,

(01:04:19):
okay, if you haven't raised feesfor X number of years, show
us, cause that's fine. I'mopen to being reasonable. Where I start
getting rubbed is okay, I'm payingyou for this, and I'm now paying
you for that, And where's mysay in city? Yeah, that's a
real rub It's a real problem theutility and the fact that the utility can

(01:04:42):
hold so much sway over homeowners taxpayerswithout those taxpayers being able to vote well.
And I would harness you that withthe city openly saying we transfer a
huge dollar amount out of that utilityto run our operations on Jennneral services,
that then does become a taxing mechanismfor sure, de facto for all the

(01:05:05):
people. There's no question. Iwouldn't even. I wouldn't even. I
don't think you have to characterize itthat up to it is no doubt.
But they fight and bristle against thatcharacterization. And I there's no question it
may end up being illegal proceeding.There's no question that is a tax their
roll, you know, and andtheir general fund budget would collapse without that

(01:05:29):
transfer of funds. So oh,there's no question. And so the city,
you know, and that's why they'vebeen able to artificially keep their militarys
suppressed, is because they use theutility as a tax form for people that
you know, this people that theyhave to have that, correct, they
got to have power. And theymay not own a land or own a

(01:05:50):
home or something, but they gotto have that. And so it becomes
a very heavy tak I've got pocketsof it all over my district. Sure,
it's not just way out in CornerLakes. I mean even in an
the interior of the district, Iwould say, like down near I Ten,
in that area, there's little pocketsof people that have city utilities but
don't vote in city elections, aren'tin the city. Before we bring this
in for a landing, I dofeel that it's important just to get your

(01:06:14):
thoughts on this because I've asked everybodysure I've talked to about this issue,
and it's the decision of the citycommissioner Jeremy Mattlow to form a political action
committee the last election cycle. Itkind of hit me weird that he started
attacking his colleagues and openly campaigning forand against. He's spread his wings a

(01:06:38):
little bit. He's now involved himselfin school board races and you know,
promoting one candidate over another. Iknow you've written about about the vitriol the
political orum, yeah, the lackthereof Yeah, And in my mind right

(01:07:00):
now, and I'm not going toask you to comment on specifically Commissioner Mattlow,
because I view his commentary of latebeing the pot calling the kettle black.
You know, you poison the waterhole and now you're mad about it.
But I'm a Republican. I don'thave a dog in this fight.
I mean, I know we're allegedlydoing nonpartisan races, but you also know
it's nothing but partisan. Yeah.I mean, I again, as I

(01:07:24):
said earlier, I really despise politicsand ideology, and I really consider myself
a big time moderate, honestly andtruly. Okay, now, when it
comes to the the provision of serviceat the local level, my race is
non partisan. Those races are nonpartisan. We're supposed to be not partisan.

(01:07:47):
And I would tell you that what'sgoing on at the city particularly transcends
partisanship. It's personal and that isunfortunate. And I think that personal animus
developed before or I was there.I mean, you know, Jeremy's been
there six years now. Well,the county doesn't really have that. No,
it's a safe thing, and largelyit's never had that. And I

(01:08:10):
will go back to because of districts. Yeah, well, I think it's
more than that. I think it'spersonalities. Well, there's no doubt,
but but but districts bring a levelof fairness to the discussion. You get
some things on the table simply becauseyou've got reps in each of the communities.
And you got to look. Youshop out in District four, you
hang out in District four. Iseen at the restaurants in D four.

(01:08:34):
I don't ever see them out therein D four. And my point is
they don't have to face they're whatthey're sewing. Here's another startling little anecdote
for you. When I ran foroffice, I said this a lot,
and I say this again because it'sstill true. Of the twelve local elected
policymakers, how many of them livenorth of Ien. Oh, trust me,

(01:08:55):
I know, yeah, me,So I get it. I get
it. But I think that whatyou're seeing there, and I see it
up close and personal in those meetings, and the general public probably doesn't pay
attention to it is it's very unfortunate. And again it transcends politics. It's
personal. I think that's personalities havea lot to do with that. I

(01:09:18):
had. If you recall when wewere talking about the Northeast Park a year
ago, Commissioner Caban came at mepretty strong, had some real strong words
for me on Northeast Park. Readsome of my social media posts in a
public meeting into the public record whereI was ragging on the mayor. I
could have made that uncomfortable for allof us, right, my county colleague.

(01:09:45):
I chose not to. I chosenot to go after him, right
because I have no interest in goingafter him. It does not serve my
constituents well if I am up therein these petty, petulant, little childlike
fights with my colleagues. So Iput collegiality above all out and I have
slipped, okay, some of mymistakes. I've made some mistakes well my

(01:10:09):
three and a half years though,as an elect official. I've made mistakes.
If you recall, I I textedthat Bill Procter was a coward and
when we were talking about Doak CampbellStadium, huge, huge mistake on my
part. Right got kind of wrappedup in the in the moment, and
it really wasn't me. It wasn'ttrying to be callous so much as this

(01:10:30):
observant. But I had to apologizeto Bill. I wanted to. I
did not want to offend him.I respect him tremendously as the dean of
our commission. And you know thatwas a low moment for me. Okay,
But I mean it gets it getswild in there, man, when
the emotions start flowing and things starthappening, and so I want to give

(01:10:54):
some level of I mean, Irespect all of them, and I try
to maintain that. Unfor fortunately theyhave not been able to maintain that with
themselves, particularly at the city.And so when you talk about getting involved
in other people's races and packs specificallydesigned to try and defeat other people,

(01:11:15):
I would say that is a badpractice. I will not be doing that,
will I don't endorse in local races. I'm not saying I won't,
but I'm at this point if it'sa competitive race, I'm not you know,
getting involved in competitive races with yourcolleagues that sit out no wonder you

(01:11:36):
have dysfunction on your dais you sayreally nasty things about each other in the
political arena that just erodes any abilityto succeed from a policy standpoint. Do
you think it's incumbent upon elected officialscity and county to speak against where that's

(01:11:57):
going. I think that I thinkit's uncumbent on the city, Okay,
and the county again, because thecity is the county. Well, we're
simpatico over there at the county,right, So like, I'm not trying
to make enemies, I'm trying tomake friends. I'm trying to be I'm
trying to have policy successes that improvethe lives of my constituents. And so

(01:12:23):
it's a very fragile egos. Man. You look at some of the problems
that you run into about the NortheastPark. You know, people's egos get
get bruised, they act out inretribution, they get vindictive. I'm not
trying to be involved in that,man. I'm trying to create policy outcomes
that impact my constituents positively. Soyou don't see me at the press conferences,

(01:12:47):
you don't see me in the newspaper, you don't see me grand standing
at all these events. You don'tsee me at political events. You don't
see me at party events. Youknow, you don't see me at any
of that stuff. I don't wantto be involved in that. I just
want to serve my constituents. Andso that just functioned at the city.
That has to be fleshed out byvoters. That's my opinion of that.

(01:13:09):
So yeah, I think that,yeah, it's it's it's bad. I
mean, I've witnessed it only Ionly witnessed it around the blueprint table,
and I think that some of thedysfunction that you see eking over to blueprint
is coming from that side. Soit's difficult. I think everybody over there
is in a very tense situation.Things have eroded substantially to the point where

(01:13:32):
you know they are on I've seensome very bizarre interactions Preston not you know,
behind the mics. Just it's it'svery it's bizarre, man, and
it's unfortunate. And I would sayI think it's very fair to say it
does not serve the community. Well, anything else you want to get out
there before we wrap up. No, I you know, obviously, I

(01:13:55):
appreciate the opportunity to come and speak, and I could talk to you for
hours and hours about all kinds ofthings, and I think that, you
know, at the end of theday, I just want to do a
good job. That's the lens thatI look through every morning. I'm not
trying to I'm not like running forCongress or anything like that. I'm not

(01:14:15):
trying to be something I'm not.I My number one concern in this job
is doing it well. I wakeup every day. I have a great
privilege in this new position relatively,you know, as a county commissioner.
I never expected to be a countycommissioner, but I have the opportunity to
help people every day, which Irelish. That's why I'm a school teacher.

(01:14:41):
I like to impact lives and Ijust want the best for my community,
and so I hope folks appreciate.You know, we have a really
robust outreach. We try to communicatereally effectively. I ran for the county
commission essentially on as I talked aboutthe beginning, being like a real advocate

(01:15:02):
for my constituents in the Northeast,which really my neighbors and friends, and
then secondarily communicating really really well withthem. Those are the two things I
felt like we did not get inin spades and nothing. I think we've
done a really good job of that. My aid and I have done a
really good job of communicating well.We try to make friends, we try

(01:15:25):
to solve problems, and every dayour mottos to just help people. And
so there are all kinds of otherissues we could talk about, big broader
issues, you know, in thecounty and economic development and and you know,
growing a private sector economy and allthose things, and and those are
certainly things I want to talk about. But you know, again, I
I encourage anybody out there that listensto this to reach out to me if

(01:15:50):
they have any questions themselves about anything. I can tell you I am very
proud of every vote I've taken.I can plain and defend any votes I've
taken, every word I've said.I'm very proud of the way we've conducted
ourselves, and I look forward todoing it, you know, as long

(01:16:12):
as the voters will have me.I fully recognize this is that not my
seat. The seat belongs to thecommunity and it is a privilege for me
every day to sit in it.Welch for Leon dot com is the website
you can drill down on some issuesthat he has listed there for you.
You'll also see that he elevates hiselbow very nicely when throwing a baseball and

(01:16:34):
has pretty good rotation. Brian,thanks for the time. Thank you pressing