September 25, 2025 • 33 mins
TTune in here to this Thursday's edition of Breaking With Brett Jensen!
Breaking Brett Jensen kicks the show off by talking about the upcoming one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene and the powerful stories that came out of last year’s devastating storm. He shares his firsthand experience covering the aftermath from the ground, including exclusive access to restricted areas like Lake Lure, Bat Cave, and Broad River.
Brett recounts the community resilience he witnessed, from volunteer fire departments to makeshift supply centers set up by locals. He previews his plans to retrace those steps, visit the same locations, and reconnect with the people he met during that time—offering updates on recovery, lingering damage, and unfulfilled state promises.
Jensen also dives into the political fallout surrounding the newly passed “Iryna Zarutska Crime Bill,” focusing on the controversial response from a state senator representing District 42. Despite campaigning on public safety and distancing herself from “crazy Democrats,” she refused to vote on the bill after a death penalty amendment was added - mirroring a pattern of dodging other high-profile votes on issues like ICE cooperation, transgender inmate care, and defining biological sex.
Listen here for all of this and more on Breaking With Brett Jensen.
To be the first to hear about Breaking Brett Jensen's exclusives and more follow him on X @Brett_Jensen!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hi oh, let's go hi oh, let's go oh, Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
God not three WBT Brett Jenson here with you on
this What do we got? Thursday Night edition of Breaking
with Brett Jenson. Always takes me a second to figure
out what day it is Thursday Night edition of Breaking
with Brett Jensen. As we are going up until seven
o'clock tonight, twell phone numbers as always to get in
on the show seven oh four, five, seven eleven ten.
(00:55):
That is also the WBT text line driven a course
by Liberty Buick GMC. Everyone follow me on x at
Brett Underscore Jensen for all the latest and breaking news
in and around the Charlotte area. Okay, so tomorrow and
actually we will start some of this today. We'll start
talking about it some today, but tomorrow, you know, hurricane
(01:19):
hits you actually the twenty seventh, but which is Saturday,
but many places are remembering the hurricane. Tomorrow and Saturday
and Monday, your local news coverage will be flooded with
the one year anniversary of Hurricane Helen. Every local television station,
(01:39):
I guarantee you is going to be doing a buttload
of all that stuff. And last year if you Remember
I was able to get behind the scenes behind the
roadblocks at Lake Lore and go up on Lake Lord.
I put those photos out there that became really well
known photos. Like all these national media outlets responded to
(02:03):
me asking me if they could use my photos because
I put them on X which is why I tell
you to follow me on X and the videos. And
but you know, other media outlets, like I know WBTV
couldn't get up there. And the reason I know that
is because they point blank told me, yeah, we couldn't
get up there. So why ago, why didn't you guys
(02:24):
go to Lake Lord. Oh, well, we tried. We couldn't
get past. Oh I got past the roadblocks. Okay, same
thing with Broad River and bat Cave. I got past
the roadblocks and I walked and talked to a lot
of people and everything else there. Remember, I went up
to the Back Cave Broad River area halfway and Route
(02:44):
nine halfway between Black Mountain and Back Cave, and I
went there and I spoke to the fire department chief,
the volunteer fire department chief, and I did my show
from a man's front yard for two hours where we
did a town hall and about forty fifty people showed
up and including a ninety something year old woman who
(03:04):
had walked a third of a mile in the dark
to be part of it and tell her story, and
I interviewed her live on air, over ninety years old.
And that was the first night when I did my show.
That night, I want to say it was either October seventeenth,
eighteenth seventeenth, something like. I can't remember the exact day,
but that was the day. That was the first night.
(03:26):
Temperatures were going to get below forty the first night,
and most of them still did not have electricity yet,
because when you're in such a remote area, they're going
to take care of Ashville first and then start moving
out from Ashville. So all that happened to year ago. Well,
(03:48):
tomorrow I'm going to retrace a lot of my steps
from a year ago. I'm going to go to Lake
Lore to the exact same house, in the exact same
deck where I took those photos. I'm going to go
through Chimney Rock as far as they'll let me, hopefully
(04:09):
they'll let me go all the way through. I'm going
to go into bat Cave, through Bat Cave, go over
those makeshift bridges that were there that helicopters were landing
on and off taken off from when a two lane
road was barely now a one lane road because of
all the mud slides and everything being washed into the
(04:31):
Broad River. And I'm going to go by the fire
station and on Saturday, the Broad River Volunteer Fire Department
is having and a remembrance Day because Saturday will be
one year to the day, and so Saturday they're having
remembrance Day. And it's not a celebration, although it should
be a celebration of life, of how many people are
(04:51):
still living and what they were able to accomplish over
the last year. And then from there, I'm gonna work
my way up and I'm going to stop at the
front yard of the man who I had a show there,
did my show Life from his yard because they had
the starlink thanks to Elon Musk setting out the starlinks
(05:13):
and Broad River Volunteer Fire Department got some of them,
and one of them that they handed it to was
the man that I did my show from. He's also
the same man that had that makeshift convenience store in
his front yard that I talked about so many times
that was completely free you needed baking soda they had it.
You need a baking powder, they had it. You need
a baby formula, they had it, cat food, dog food.
(05:34):
I think there was even bird feed there at some point.
So all the neighbors, they came together, donated stuff. And
because some neighbors may not have stuff, other neighbors may
have an abundance of stuff. So I reached out to
Andy Crestman last night. Andy was my man, my guy.
(05:57):
I hate this term boots on the ground. I absolutely
hate that term. I actually truly loathe that term. But
he was my guy there. He was my contact, he
was my liaison, and he lives up there, and I
talked to him last night. I told him I was
coming up and he said that. I asked him, I said,
(06:17):
is there a way to get in contact with that
man where we did the show from his front yard?
And He's like, no, I don't have his number, And
so I said, that's fine. I'm just going to show up.
True story. I'm just going to show up, drive up there.
I'm just gonna knock on his front door. Like back
in the old days. When I say old days, seventies, eighties, nineties,
(06:39):
even the early two thousands, when people would just randomly
knock on your door because they were selling something or
they were looking for somebody. So I'm just going to
knock on his door and see if he's there and
go from there. So anyways, that's uh, that's what's going
(07:00):
on tomorrow. I will be doing my show from the
Mountains tomorrow. Now. I assume the service will be okay,
and what we'll do is just in case to make
sure like what happened last night doesn't happen tomorrow night
in terms of technical difficulties. There will be some stuff
(07:21):
ready to go for Isaac just to hit play with
interviews and stuff like that. So we'll have all kinds
of stuff tomorrow. I'm gonna have as a matter of fact.
Earlier today, so I did a nice interview with Andy.
He was on my show a couple of times. I
did an interview with him last night because he's not
going to be in town because he and his wife
left today for their anniversary. Can you imagine Hurricane Helene
(07:45):
hit on his anniversary last year, and so he and
his wife decided to go out of town for their anniversary.
So he and I did a nice phone interview last night.
Earlier today, I met in person with Brian Taylor, the
North Kinta State fire marshal who's in charge of all
(08:06):
fire departments in North Carolina basically, and had a nice
long interview with him about the response and things that happened,
and how services kept getting denied by the state, promises
were made but never kept by the state, so a
(08:29):
lot of stuff, and how it was basically civilians that
saved all those people up there, not the state, not
the federal government in FEMA, unlike one of these female
reporters would have you think here in Charlotte female TV reporters,
I should be specific that FEMA was a godsend? How'd
(08:50):
that work out? FEMA? Anyways? So I'm always going to
bring that up. I mean, she had the audacity to
put me out on Twitter during that covers last year
and saying that me and all my peace and sources
were dead wrong and I had no idea what I
was talking about. Yeah, how'd that work out? Who wound
up right on that one? Okay, let me know if
you ever need lessons on how to be a report,
(09:11):
I'd be more happy to let you know. But I
do charge. Just asked Isaac. I charged Isaac ten Bucks
a day just to be in the same room with me.
So anyways, and I hope you guys know I'm kidding.
So anyways, so that's gonna be going on. So I'm
gonna be in the mountains all day tomorrow talking to
(09:31):
the same people, trying to talk to the same people
that I spoke to a year ago, and like I said,
of already doing some more interviews. So over the next
couple of days, we're gonna have a lot of stuff
going on concerning Hurricane Heleen and just everything that happened
when it hit on September twenty seventh. September twenty seventh,
which is this Saturday, but it will be it hit
(09:52):
last year Friday. So a lot going on, and a
lot to prepare for it, a lot to talk to
I'm really interested and to see how things are going
on there. And he told me, he said, look, roads
are still washed out, there's still a lot of issues.
Electricity will go out just randomly three hours at a time.
Sometimes we're still having issues. So again we'll talk about
(10:15):
all that as I go forward tomorrow to give you,
like I said, making all the trucks through all the
places that I went a year ago. Welcome back to
(10:39):
breaking with Fred Jensen on this Tuesday night, excuse me,
Thursday night, Thursday night, Thursday night.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
So the other day, as you're well aware, the North
Kina House and the Senate past the arena, Zeruska's crime
built and it involves a lot of things in terms
of making it harder for people to get out of
jail on Lobel and nobil and all kinds of stuff. Right,
and then Phil Berger, I think it was Phil Burger,
(11:10):
but somebody to senate through in the amendment about trying
to reactivate kickstart the death penalty. And you heard my
comments last night about one particular state senator in District
forty two that walked out even though she was so
abruptly opposed to the death penalty, even though her husband
(11:34):
has been law enforcement for about thirty years, and even
though she said she's not a crazy Democrat, that was
literally her platform, I'm not a crazy Democrat, which in
and of itselfs let you know, lets you know that
democrats are crazy when one of your own says, I'm
not one of the crazy Democrats. Okay, but yet, but yet,
(11:58):
even though safety is her crime and safety she didn't vote.
She refused to vote. She took like walked out, did
not vote the first couple of times of making sheriff's
cooperate with Ice, and then she had no choice and
she voted against the veto override. The House passes it,
sheriff must cooperate with Ice, goes to Stein, he vetoes,
(12:22):
it goes back to the Senate in the House, and
she's like, no, she voted against the overide. She voted
against the bill. So she claims public safety, but she
voted against the bill. She also apparently has no problems
(12:45):
having state funds provide for transgender care of inmates or children,
because that was one of the bills. Oh, and also
defining what a woman is. And I assume she's a woman.
I assume, and I know what happens when you assume, right,
We all know the same. But she uh, she voted
(13:13):
she voted no onto stopping the care for transgenders, meaning
she did not want that bill to pass, which would
have stopped the care of transgenders with state funds. She
voted against this. She voted against stopping it. S also
didn't want to She also voted against defining what a
(13:34):
woman is even though I assume she is one in theory,
she is one. And then when it came time to
vote for Arina Zeriska's bill, she when they threw in
the death penalty amendment, she walked out and no other
Democrats walked out also, but she walked out, and then
(13:57):
she went on Instagram posted a video just raising kine
about it, but did not vote against it, did not
vote against it, just didn't vote. Like so, you don't
vote one way or the other and then you come
out in a video raising hell about it. Excuse me?
So I assume when Josh Stein, if Josh Stein Vita
(14:19):
is this, which I assume you will, then she's going
to be forced with another vote or is she going
to take a walk like she has on all the
other controversial bills. We'll see, We'll see. The only time
she's voted is when it came to trying to prevent
a VITA override on these controversial bills. Well, the bill
now sits with Josh Stein. The arena's a risk of bill,
(14:41):
and Stein was on CNN earlier today, right, and there's
a lot of things going on with this bill, including
the kickstarting of the death penalty death penalty. Someone has
been put to death North count in nineteen years because
the company that makes all the chemicals suit all these
and said, we didn't make these chemicals for you to
(15:03):
use them this way. Stop. And many states have been
tied up in lawsuits ever since. South Carolina finally reintroduced
it by giving inmates the choice of multiple things and
how to die. Somebody just chose the firing squad. So
South Caroline is already doing it. So this bill would
introduce things such as that give the inmates choice on
(15:23):
how they would like to meet their demise. But it
is the arena's the risk of bill, and it's an
effort to you know, also, like I said, restart the
death penalty, and it's basically to make sure people with
(15:46):
psychiatric needs have them or are able to be made
aware of that situation to the judges. So again, this
is a lot of things going on, and Josh Stein
said this and today with his interview in Cenan her
(16:10):
death is an absolute travesty, horrific. What we need to
do is make sure that in response, we are going
to take measures to keep our community safe. Okay, so far,
so good. People need a place to go where they're
having a schizophrenic attack, if they are at risk to themselves,
(16:33):
if they are risk to other people, we need someplace
for them to go. Okay, I mean that's fine, that's fine.
But he said he's reviewing the situation and basically has
it determined if he's going to sign it or if
he's going to view to it. And he said, I'm
(16:53):
reviewing it as we speak. It's a complicated bill. But
here's the thing that that young woman was a lie,
was a light I met with her family. She was
a special person. She was friendly to everyone she came
in contact with, and it says, you know, what we
need to do is make sure that in response, we're
gonna take measures to keep our community safer. We need
(17:16):
a lot more police who are well trained in our communities,
proactively on the ground, engaging with people to promote safety.
And again people will point out the dude was arrested
fourteen times. The police were doing their job. It's everyone
else above the police that did not do their job.
And it was also the city's fault for not trying
to keep her safe by not having people on the
(17:36):
light rail to check tickets. You only need twenty people
that's it. Twenty look out, many officers are out there
directing traffic on panther game days. You need twenty at
any one time on the light where there are ten
trains and each train has two cars, one person per car,
that's twenty people. Because that's twenty cars, and you can
(17:57):
have the same person who was responsible for safety also
checking tickets. The city, the city government ran by the Democrats,
obviously city council mayor vi laws. They failed Arena. They
failed all this safety. All the other people that have
been robbed and beaten on the light rail or the
buses are shot. The city has failed them. And that's
(18:18):
why you hear mayor vile laws. Maybe one against renaming
that light rail station after Arena Zaritska, because it will
only be a reminder of her biggest failure of her
entire life period, the biggest. Well, there might been another failure,
but i'll leave personal personal stuff alone. This was her
(18:39):
biggest professional failure of her entire life, of her seventy
something years of living. So all right, when we come back.
Of course, she doesn't want to be reminded by Arina Zeruitzka,
who would especially if you fail her and you you
could have literally prevented the loss of her life, going
(19:09):
back to breaking with Brett Jensen on this Thursday night again.
So No. Four ten. That is also the WBT text line,
driven of course by Liberty Buick gmc. Okay, So we
do this every year. I want to say we've done
it three years, so I think this will be year
four if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong, but
I think that's accurate. It's taught October Fest. Yeah, I
(19:33):
know this is at least year four, at least because
I remember the first year I did it. I did
it in my old place, sitting on the balcony, smoking
a cigar and drinking a bourbon. That was the first
time I did it. And then I know Bo came
by the house last year and we did it live
(19:54):
from my rooftop last year, once again with me smoking
a I think I've smoked a cigar every single time
I've done it. But but again it's uh, we're doing
that again. It's going to be every Saturday and Sunday
starting in October at six o'clock. Now, I know a
lot of you may not be around Saturday on at
(20:16):
six o'clock. I get it, and some of you may
be more interested in football than listening to people from WBT.
I don't know why, but okay, but the good news
is it's going to be recorded, right and so and
(20:37):
so this is all going to be recorded, and so
it will be posted on our Facebook page. It will
be posted on our Facebook page. So I guess maybe
year five, I guess it is. Yeah, maybe where we
started doing it as a whole host, as a whole group.
(20:58):
But still oh so again, yeah, I guess it was
like but again, all this is gonna be life. So
here's the thing. It's all gonna be posted. If you
miss it, then you can go back to the Facebook
page and see it. Now, we would prefer that you
obviously join us live so you can interact with us.
(21:18):
And because this is us away from the studio, we're
not going to talk politics at least I'm not. I'm not.
I do that five days a week here and a
lot of times interviewing people elsewhere where we're talking news
and politics. This is completely different, at least that's the
way I view it. I view it. Hey, this is
a chance to actually see us and talk to us,
(21:39):
and you can message us. You don't have to wait
on hold for maybe thirty minutes. You just fire a
message with your keyboard. We get it instantaneously. Now obviously
you can do that with a WBT text line now,
but we get instantaneous response. We get that. That's what
we get now, right, So that's why these have always
(22:02):
been good. And I understand it's a weekend. I get it.
I get it, you know, but let's be honest. Six
o'clock on a school night, which is Sundays. Sundays are
school nights. Odds are you're going to be home, So
there's a there's really you got the football on the
big screen TV, and you got us on your cell
(22:25):
phone or your iPad. It's called multitasking. You can do that.
It's very very simple, very easy. So again hopefully you'll
be able to join us. But it is starting again,
starting on Saturday and Sunday every every weekend through October. Mine,
(22:45):
i believe is October twelfth, and I'll be with us
a Sunday and I'll be with I believe Vince Cochley,
if I'm not mistaken. I'm looking forward to that. People
don't realize this about Vince because you hear him on
air Vince has a wicked sense of humor. Now he's
very professional and buttoned up, unlike me when he's on
radio and on air like I'm all over the place,
(23:07):
like you understand that you know who I am. I'm
a bad hair day, That's what I am. I'm a
bad hair day. Vince Cokeley has is like perfectly cropped
hair with all the moose and all the hairspray so
it doesn't move in the wind. He's buttoned up, and
I'm a bad hair day in a hurricane. That's me.
(23:27):
But Vince like he every time I talk to him,
he makes me laugh so hard. And I always try
to like goat him just a little bit, just to like, okay,
say something Vince, like say something like I always try
to poke him just a little bit because he makes
me laugh. He really does make me laugh. I've always
(23:48):
said Vince. Not only is Vince Cokeley the most mysterious
person at WBT, by far, the most mysterious person, but
I also think he's the most under rate a person
at B two. Like I love talking to Vince Cokeley, Brett,
how are you doing, sir? I love talking to Vince Cokeley.
(24:10):
Love it. And now I get to spend an hour
with him, and I don't want to talk politics, because
we do that five days a week. I just want
to talk about life in US and whatever it is
you guys. When I remember one time, I think it
was the first year, maybe twenty twenty, yeah, I guess
it was twenty twenty during the pandemic when we started
doing this and somebody asked, like, what's our favorite pizza
(24:34):
places in town? And I had that at the get go.
I knew exactly. It's like Hawthorne's New York Pizza and
Porta Finos. No ips, ends or butts, boom boom boom
like stuff like that. Just just normal human stuff where
we get a chance to get away from our work life,
which is consumed with politics and news and usually all
(24:56):
of it's bad. On occasion, you'll get good news. On
occasion you'll get good politic news political news, but by
and large it's generally not good news. So this is
a chance to get away from it and to be
normal with you guys. Although maybe that's why it's such
a train wreck on on air, because I'm always trying
(25:16):
to be normal, or the way I am on air,
the way I am off air. So but again, I
am really looking forward to this. Again, mine's gonna be
October twelfth, but everyone's going to be doing this every Saturday,
every Sunday. Excuse me, every Saturday, every Sunday at six pm.
I know, Isaac, my voice just cracked like Peter Brady.
I know, I understand, I understand. All right, So this
(25:38):
is gonna be the fifth year that we've been doing this.
Looking forward to doing this. Like I said, I am
excited that I'm going to be with the one and
only the most mysterious man in in all of radio,
Vince Cokeley. All Right, so we'll get into Wegmans. Wegmans
has a cult following, like truly a cult following. Well,
they had a ground break in the other day in
(25:59):
our very own Billock was out there, and we're going
to talk about that because Wegmans. I'm telling you, you
think Publics has a cult, which you see Wegmans in
that situation. So I'll talk about that when we return.
My name is Bret Jenson. You're listening to Breaking with
Brett Jenson. Welcome back to Breaking with Brett Jensen. Okay,
Wegmans they had groundbreaking down in the Valentine area Wegmans
(26:22):
such as such a cult following that. One of my
best friends, actually my very best friend, lives down at
Fort Mill and he's like, oh my god, they got
out they're building a Wegmans. I told him this past weekend.
He goes, yeah, and he said, well, I'll be doing
my grocery stopping, so We'll be driving from Fort Mill
into Balentine to do grocery shopping. Like that's how obsessed
(26:42):
people are when it comes to Wegmans. And here's the
Wegmans groundbreaking audio captured by Ed Billock the other day.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Good morning.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Want to welcome everyone to the groundbreaking of Wegmans and Valentine.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Are really excited you're here, and it's this day is
saying a long day, I mean to say the least.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
These discussions very quietly have been taking place for over
eight years between Northwood and Wegmans, and a lot of persistence,
a lot of collaboration, a lot of creativity in the process.
And I want to just thank a few people very
quickly in that regard, our head of Development, Clifton Kobel.
(27:21):
It's got as persistent about getting Wegmans here as Dan
Aikin had a real estafe for.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Wegmans and his team.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Tyree s Bryan in the background, Tim Dollands er, he's
not here today. There he is, okay, hiding there behind
the chaise. So these three people, along with the Wegman's family.
Wegmans is a family owned business. It's a great business.
They're always at the top of the great place to work,
surveys and things like that.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
But in dealing with them, Clifton and.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
I saw very clearly the culture that they have, you know,
treating people well, being good community stewards. We're very, very
excited about that, and I want to thank all of
them for doing that. I especially want to thank the
Wegman's family for their vision and their commitment to Valentine.
It's very significant. They are very very thorough as you
might have sort of concluded after eight years of discussions,
(28:09):
and that wasn't easy. But we're very happy that this
is the first location in Charlotte that they picked Valentine.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
It's going to be great for the community. We're very
glad you're here.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
I also want to thank City Council and Ed Driggs
and County Commissioner Susan Rodriguez McDowell.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
He are here on the front row and will speak
in a moment.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
We would not have been able to build any of this,
or Wegmans would not have been able to build any
of this.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Had we not had their support.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
We own all of Valentine roughly, it's almost five hundred
and thirty five acres, and at the time that these
discussions began, we did not have retail in titlements that
would allow Wegmans to build a grocery store of this size.
So we had a big rezoning in twenty twenty, and
we had the support of both Ed and Susan throughout
the process. That Mayor was great, very supportive, many others.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
But we always laid.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Out this site and we planned accordingly with the traffic
mitigation and everything to make sure that we were neutral
to positive on the impact. Randy Goddard, our traffic consultant
here in the front, had an eighteen page traffic study
to make sure that this was all right, and I
think if anything, we probably over improved it.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
When you say Cliffin, so.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And so, we're very very grateful for their contributions, and
I know that there'll be many more iterations of Valentine
in the future where that collaboration between the city, the
county and Northwood will be very critical.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
So thank you.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Before before I turned it over to Ed, Wegmans wanted
to give me a wanted me to give a quick
run a show, real fast. So we're gonna hear from
Ed and Susan. They'll then turn it over to the
Wegman's leadership team. We'll do the groundbreaking, we'll do some photos,
and then I can see there's a lot of press here.
Wegmans will be available to all of y'all to you
answer any questions or anything that you have. So well,
(29:57):
hopefully it's warming up, so we'll hopefully have you out
of here in about thirty minutes of the most.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
So again, thank you. And it's my privilege and honor
to introduce my friend Ed Drags. Thank you. Good morning everyone.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
I'm learning that black was definitely not the color to
wear today and a ninety degrees day here, But I
just want to say thank you to John and Ed
and Susan.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
This has been a fantastic partnership.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
As John mentioned, we started looking in the Charlotte area
probably around ten years ago now and we've been having
on and off again conversations with them for about eight years,
and it's really due to John in Clifton's patience with us.
I'm going to say that we were able to work
through this, so we're truly appreciative of that partnership. Without that,
(30:43):
we honestly wouldn't be here today, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I'm also.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
Would really like to thank the dozens and dozens of
people there are too many to name really, that have
helped us get here over the last two years. Everything
from our outside council to our interior does eying teams.
We have dozens and dozens of consultants who have been
working tirelessly for the last two years to make sure
that we have every grocery innovation that we could possibly
(31:11):
think of incorporated into the plans of this store. So
when we open in about a year, you will have
a truly world class shopping experience.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
So I'm just really excited to.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Be here today to be able to bring that to you.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
Today's really just step number one in a twelve month
process for us. We spend roughly ten months building and
another eight or so eight to twelve with our operations team.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Getting ready for opening.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
And though we don't have a date to announce right now,
I'm certainly more than thrilled to be inviting you all
back here in roughly twelve months to welcome you in
as customers. So again, I just want to say thank
you to all of you for coming out showing us
the support. I am going to now hand it over
to one of Charlotte's newest residents and our store manager,
(32:01):
Patrick McGinnis.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Pat good After, Good morning everybody, thanks for being here today.
My name is Patrick McGinnis. Susan ed Dan John, Thank
you so much. Just to share a little bit about
me quickly. I've been with Wegmans twenty five years. I
moved numerous times. Really it's all because of an organization
(32:24):
that I work with, focusing on people and working with
the community. It's an awesome, an honoring experience to stand
in front of.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
You today and I just want to say thanks for
being here.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I have a check for the Second Harvest Food Bank
of Metrolina that we like to make a presentation for
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
All right, So that's the breaking, the groundbreaking of Wegmans.
Do yourself a favor. Go to YouTube search Wegmans CBS
Sunday Morning, not too long ago. A few months ago,
they talked about why Wegmans is so popular and why
all the workers love working there and why it's so
good and everyone loves it. Real quick, James Comy, in
case you missed it, has been indicted. The former FBI
director has been indicted on two charges, obstruction of justice
(33:12):
and making false statements. I'm sure TJ may have a
little bit more about that, because this is all kind
of brand new, but anyways, I'll see you guys tomorrow
from the mountains. My name is Brett Jensen, and you've
been listening to Breaking with Brett Jenson.
Hi oh, let's go hi oh, let's go oh, Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
God not three WBT Brett Jenson here with you on
this What do we got? Thursday Night edition of Breaking
with Brett Jenson. Always takes me a second to figure
out what day it is Thursday Night edition of Breaking
with Brett Jensen. As we are going up until seven
o'clock tonight, twell phone numbers as always to get in
on the show seven oh four, five, seven eleven ten.
(00:55):
That is also the WBT text line driven a course
by Liberty Buick GMC. Everyone follow me on x at
Brett Underscore Jensen for all the latest and breaking news
in and around the Charlotte area. Okay, so tomorrow and
actually we will start some of this today. We'll start
talking about it some today, but tomorrow, you know, hurricane
(01:19):
hits you actually the twenty seventh, but which is Saturday,
but many places are remembering the hurricane. Tomorrow and Saturday
and Monday, your local news coverage will be flooded with
the one year anniversary of Hurricane Helen. Every local television station,
(01:39):
I guarantee you is going to be doing a buttload
of all that stuff. And last year if you Remember
I was able to get behind the scenes behind the
roadblocks at Lake Lore and go up on Lake Lord.
I put those photos out there that became really well
known photos. Like all these national media outlets responded to
(02:03):
me asking me if they could use my photos because
I put them on X which is why I tell
you to follow me on X and the videos. And
but you know, other media outlets, like I know WBTV
couldn't get up there. And the reason I know that
is because they point blank told me, yeah, we couldn't
get up there. So why ago, why didn't you guys
(02:24):
go to Lake Lord. Oh, well, we tried. We couldn't
get past. Oh I got past the roadblocks. Okay, same
thing with Broad River and bat Cave. I got past
the roadblocks and I walked and talked to a lot
of people and everything else there. Remember, I went up
to the Back Cave Broad River area halfway and Route
(02:44):
nine halfway between Black Mountain and Back Cave, and I
went there and I spoke to the fire department chief,
the volunteer fire department chief, and I did my show
from a man's front yard for two hours where we
did a town hall and about forty fifty people showed
up and including a ninety something year old woman who
(03:04):
had walked a third of a mile in the dark
to be part of it and tell her story, and
I interviewed her live on air, over ninety years old.
And that was the first night when I did my show.
That night, I want to say it was either October seventeenth,
eighteenth seventeenth, something like. I can't remember the exact day,
but that was the day. That was the first night.
(03:26):
Temperatures were going to get below forty the first night,
and most of them still did not have electricity yet,
because when you're in such a remote area, they're going
to take care of Ashville first and then start moving
out from Ashville. So all that happened to year ago. Well,
(03:48):
tomorrow I'm going to retrace a lot of my steps
from a year ago. I'm going to go to Lake
Lore to the exact same house, in the exact same
deck where I took those photos. I'm going to go
through Chimney Rock as far as they'll let me, hopefully
(04:09):
they'll let me go all the way through. I'm going
to go into bat Cave, through Bat Cave, go over
those makeshift bridges that were there that helicopters were landing
on and off taken off from when a two lane
road was barely now a one lane road because of
all the mud slides and everything being washed into the
(04:31):
Broad River. And I'm going to go by the fire
station and on Saturday, the Broad River Volunteer Fire Department
is having and a remembrance Day because Saturday will be
one year to the day, and so Saturday they're having
remembrance Day. And it's not a celebration, although it should
be a celebration of life, of how many people are
(04:51):
still living and what they were able to accomplish over
the last year. And then from there, I'm gonna work
my way up and I'm going to stop at the
front yard of the man who I had a show there,
did my show Life from his yard because they had
the starlink thanks to Elon Musk setting out the starlinks
(05:13):
and Broad River Volunteer Fire Department got some of them,
and one of them that they handed it to was
the man that I did my show from. He's also
the same man that had that makeshift convenience store in
his front yard that I talked about so many times
that was completely free you needed baking soda they had it.
You need a baking powder, they had it. You need
a baby formula, they had it, cat food, dog food.
(05:34):
I think there was even bird feed there at some point.
So all the neighbors, they came together, donated stuff. And
because some neighbors may not have stuff, other neighbors may
have an abundance of stuff. So I reached out to
Andy Crestman last night. Andy was my man, my guy.
(05:57):
I hate this term boots on the ground. I absolutely
hate that term. I actually truly loathe that term. But
he was my guy there. He was my contact, he
was my liaison, and he lives up there, and I
talked to him last night. I told him I was
coming up and he said that. I asked him, I said,
(06:17):
is there a way to get in contact with that
man where we did the show from his front yard?
And He's like, no, I don't have his number, And
so I said, that's fine. I'm just going to show up.
True story. I'm just going to show up, drive up there.
I'm just gonna knock on his front door. Like back
in the old days. When I say old days, seventies, eighties, nineties,
(06:39):
even the early two thousands, when people would just randomly
knock on your door because they were selling something or
they were looking for somebody. So I'm just going to
knock on his door and see if he's there and
go from there. So anyways, that's uh, that's what's going
(07:00):
on tomorrow. I will be doing my show from the
Mountains tomorrow. Now. I assume the service will be okay,
and what we'll do is just in case to make
sure like what happened last night doesn't happen tomorrow night
in terms of technical difficulties. There will be some stuff
(07:21):
ready to go for Isaac just to hit play with
interviews and stuff like that. So we'll have all kinds
of stuff tomorrow. I'm gonna have as a matter of fact.
Earlier today, so I did a nice interview with Andy.
He was on my show a couple of times. I
did an interview with him last night because he's not
going to be in town because he and his wife
left today for their anniversary. Can you imagine Hurricane Helene
(07:45):
hit on his anniversary last year, and so he and
his wife decided to go out of town for their anniversary.
So he and I did a nice phone interview last night.
Earlier today, I met in person with Brian Taylor, the
North Kinta State fire marshal who's in charge of all
(08:06):
fire departments in North Carolina basically, and had a nice
long interview with him about the response and things that happened,
and how services kept getting denied by the state, promises
were made but never kept by the state, so a
(08:29):
lot of stuff, and how it was basically civilians that
saved all those people up there, not the state, not
the federal government in FEMA, unlike one of these female
reporters would have you think here in Charlotte female TV reporters,
I should be specific that FEMA was a godsend? How'd
(08:50):
that work out? FEMA? Anyways? So I'm always going to
bring that up. I mean, she had the audacity to
put me out on Twitter during that covers last year
and saying that me and all my peace and sources
were dead wrong and I had no idea what I
was talking about. Yeah, how'd that work out? Who wound
up right on that one? Okay, let me know if
you ever need lessons on how to be a report,
(09:11):
I'd be more happy to let you know. But I
do charge. Just asked Isaac. I charged Isaac ten Bucks
a day just to be in the same room with me.
So anyways, and I hope you guys know I'm kidding.
So anyways, so that's gonna be going on. So I'm
gonna be in the mountains all day tomorrow talking to
(09:31):
the same people, trying to talk to the same people
that I spoke to a year ago, and like I said,
of already doing some more interviews. So over the next
couple of days, we're gonna have a lot of stuff
going on concerning Hurricane Heleen and just everything that happened
when it hit on September twenty seventh. September twenty seventh,
which is this Saturday, but it will be it hit
(09:52):
last year Friday. So a lot going on, and a
lot to prepare for it, a lot to talk to
I'm really interested and to see how things are going
on there. And he told me, he said, look, roads
are still washed out, there's still a lot of issues.
Electricity will go out just randomly three hours at a time.
Sometimes we're still having issues. So again we'll talk about
(10:15):
all that as I go forward tomorrow to give you,
like I said, making all the trucks through all the
places that I went a year ago. Welcome back to
(10:39):
breaking with Fred Jensen on this Tuesday night, excuse me,
Thursday night, Thursday night, Thursday night.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
So the other day, as you're well aware, the North
Kina House and the Senate past the arena, Zeruska's crime
built and it involves a lot of things in terms
of making it harder for people to get out of
jail on Lobel and nobil and all kinds of stuff. Right,
and then Phil Berger, I think it was Phil Burger,
(11:10):
but somebody to senate through in the amendment about trying
to reactivate kickstart the death penalty. And you heard my
comments last night about one particular state senator in District
forty two that walked out even though she was so
abruptly opposed to the death penalty, even though her husband
(11:34):
has been law enforcement for about thirty years, and even
though she said she's not a crazy Democrat, that was
literally her platform, I'm not a crazy Democrat, which in
and of itselfs let you know, lets you know that
democrats are crazy when one of your own says, I'm
not one of the crazy Democrats. Okay, but yet, but yet,
(11:58):
even though safety is her crime and safety she didn't vote.
She refused to vote. She took like walked out, did
not vote the first couple of times of making sheriff's
cooperate with Ice, and then she had no choice and
she voted against the veto override. The House passes it,
sheriff must cooperate with Ice, goes to Stein, he vetoes,
(12:22):
it goes back to the Senate in the House, and
she's like, no, she voted against the overide. She voted
against the bill. So she claims public safety, but she
voted against the bill. She also apparently has no problems
(12:45):
having state funds provide for transgender care of inmates or children,
because that was one of the bills. Oh, and also
defining what a woman is. And I assume she's a woman.
I assume, and I know what happens when you assume, right,
We all know the same. But she uh, she voted
(13:13):
she voted no onto stopping the care for transgenders, meaning
she did not want that bill to pass, which would
have stopped the care of transgenders with state funds. She
voted against this. She voted against stopping it. S also
didn't want to She also voted against defining what a
(13:34):
woman is even though I assume she is one in theory,
she is one. And then when it came time to
vote for Arina Zeriska's bill, she when they threw in
the death penalty amendment, she walked out and no other
Democrats walked out also, but she walked out, and then
(13:57):
she went on Instagram posted a video just raising kine
about it, but did not vote against it, did not
vote against it, just didn't vote. Like so, you don't
vote one way or the other and then you come
out in a video raising hell about it. Excuse me?
So I assume when Josh Stein, if Josh Stein Vita
(14:19):
is this, which I assume you will, then she's going
to be forced with another vote or is she going
to take a walk like she has on all the
other controversial bills. We'll see, We'll see. The only time
she's voted is when it came to trying to prevent
a VITA override on these controversial bills. Well, the bill
now sits with Josh Stein. The arena's a risk of bill,
(14:41):
and Stein was on CNN earlier today, right, and there's
a lot of things going on with this bill, including
the kickstarting of the death penalty death penalty. Someone has
been put to death North count in nineteen years because
the company that makes all the chemicals suit all these
and said, we didn't make these chemicals for you to
(15:03):
use them this way. Stop. And many states have been
tied up in lawsuits ever since. South Carolina finally reintroduced
it by giving inmates the choice of multiple things and
how to die. Somebody just chose the firing squad. So
South Caroline is already doing it. So this bill would
introduce things such as that give the inmates choice on
(15:23):
how they would like to meet their demise. But it
is the arena's the risk of bill, and it's an
effort to you know, also, like I said, restart the
death penalty, and it's basically to make sure people with
(15:46):
psychiatric needs have them or are able to be made
aware of that situation to the judges. So again, this
is a lot of things going on, and Josh Stein
said this and today with his interview in Cenan her
(16:10):
death is an absolute travesty, horrific. What we need to
do is make sure that in response, we are going
to take measures to keep our community safe. Okay, so far,
so good. People need a place to go where they're
having a schizophrenic attack, if they are at risk to themselves,
(16:33):
if they are risk to other people, we need someplace
for them to go. Okay, I mean that's fine, that's fine.
But he said he's reviewing the situation and basically has
it determined if he's going to sign it or if
he's going to view to it. And he said, I'm
(16:53):
reviewing it as we speak. It's a complicated bill. But
here's the thing that that young woman was a lie,
was a light I met with her family. She was
a special person. She was friendly to everyone she came
in contact with, and it says, you know, what we
need to do is make sure that in response, we're
gonna take measures to keep our community safer. We need
(17:16):
a lot more police who are well trained in our communities,
proactively on the ground, engaging with people to promote safety.
And again people will point out the dude was arrested
fourteen times. The police were doing their job. It's everyone
else above the police that did not do their job.
And it was also the city's fault for not trying
to keep her safe by not having people on the
(17:36):
light rail to check tickets. You only need twenty people
that's it. Twenty look out, many officers are out there
directing traffic on panther game days. You need twenty at
any one time on the light where there are ten
trains and each train has two cars, one person per car,
that's twenty people. Because that's twenty cars, and you can
(17:57):
have the same person who was responsible for safety also
checking tickets. The city, the city government ran by the Democrats,
obviously city council mayor vi laws. They failed Arena. They
failed all this safety. All the other people that have
been robbed and beaten on the light rail or the
buses are shot. The city has failed them. And that's
(18:18):
why you hear mayor vile laws. Maybe one against renaming
that light rail station after Arena Zaritska, because it will
only be a reminder of her biggest failure of her
entire life period, the biggest. Well, there might been another failure,
but i'll leave personal personal stuff alone. This was her
(18:39):
biggest professional failure of her entire life, of her seventy
something years of living. So all right, when we come back.
Of course, she doesn't want to be reminded by Arina Zeruitzka,
who would especially if you fail her and you you
could have literally prevented the loss of her life, going
(19:09):
back to breaking with Brett Jensen on this Thursday night again.
So No. Four ten. That is also the WBT text line,
driven of course by Liberty Buick gmc. Okay, So we
do this every year. I want to say we've done
it three years, so I think this will be year
four if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong, but
I think that's accurate. It's taught October Fest. Yeah, I
(19:33):
know this is at least year four, at least because
I remember the first year I did it. I did
it in my old place, sitting on the balcony, smoking
a cigar and drinking a bourbon. That was the first
time I did it. And then I know Bo came
by the house last year and we did it live
(19:54):
from my rooftop last year, once again with me smoking
a I think I've smoked a cigar every single time
I've done it. But but again it's uh, we're doing
that again. It's going to be every Saturday and Sunday
starting in October at six o'clock. Now, I know a
lot of you may not be around Saturday on at
(20:16):
six o'clock. I get it, and some of you may
be more interested in football than listening to people from WBT.
I don't know why, but okay, but the good news
is it's going to be recorded, right and so and
(20:37):
so this is all going to be recorded, and so
it will be posted on our Facebook page. It will
be posted on our Facebook page. So I guess maybe
year five, I guess it is. Yeah, maybe where we
started doing it as a whole host, as a whole group.
(20:58):
But still oh so again, yeah, I guess it was
like but again, all this is gonna be life. So
here's the thing. It's all gonna be posted. If you
miss it, then you can go back to the Facebook
page and see it. Now, we would prefer that you
obviously join us live so you can interact with us.
(21:18):
And because this is us away from the studio, we're
not going to talk politics at least I'm not. I'm not.
I do that five days a week here and a
lot of times interviewing people elsewhere where we're talking news
and politics. This is completely different, at least that's the
way I view it. I view it. Hey, this is
a chance to actually see us and talk to us,
(21:39):
and you can message us. You don't have to wait
on hold for maybe thirty minutes. You just fire a
message with your keyboard. We get it instantaneously. Now obviously
you can do that with a WBT text line now,
but we get instantaneous response. We get that. That's what
we get now, right, So that's why these have always
(22:02):
been good. And I understand it's a weekend. I get it.
I get it, you know, but let's be honest. Six
o'clock on a school night, which is Sundays. Sundays are
school nights. Odds are you're going to be home, So
there's a there's really you got the football on the
big screen TV, and you got us on your cell
(22:25):
phone or your iPad. It's called multitasking. You can do that.
It's very very simple, very easy. So again hopefully you'll
be able to join us. But it is starting again,
starting on Saturday and Sunday every every weekend through October. Mine,
(22:45):
i believe is October twelfth, and I'll be with us
a Sunday and I'll be with I believe Vince Cochley,
if I'm not mistaken. I'm looking forward to that. People
don't realize this about Vince because you hear him on
air Vince has a wicked sense of humor. Now he's
very professional and buttoned up, unlike me when he's on
radio and on air like I'm all over the place,
(23:07):
like you understand that you know who I am. I'm
a bad hair day, That's what I am. I'm a
bad hair day. Vince Cokeley has is like perfectly cropped
hair with all the moose and all the hairspray so
it doesn't move in the wind. He's buttoned up, and
I'm a bad hair day in a hurricane. That's me.
(23:27):
But Vince like he every time I talk to him,
he makes me laugh so hard. And I always try
to like goat him just a little bit, just to like, okay,
say something Vince, like say something like I always try
to poke him just a little bit because he makes
me laugh. He really does make me laugh. I've always
(23:48):
said Vince. Not only is Vince Cokeley the most mysterious
person at WBT, by far, the most mysterious person, but
I also think he's the most under rate a person
at B two. Like I love talking to Vince Cokeley, Brett,
how are you doing, sir? I love talking to Vince Cokeley.
(24:10):
Love it. And now I get to spend an hour
with him, and I don't want to talk politics, because
we do that five days a week. I just want
to talk about life in US and whatever it is
you guys. When I remember one time, I think it
was the first year, maybe twenty twenty, yeah, I guess
it was twenty twenty during the pandemic when we started
doing this and somebody asked, like, what's our favorite pizza
(24:34):
places in town? And I had that at the get go.
I knew exactly. It's like Hawthorne's New York Pizza and
Porta Finos. No ips, ends or butts, boom boom boom
like stuff like that. Just just normal human stuff where
we get a chance to get away from our work life,
which is consumed with politics and news and usually all
(24:56):
of it's bad. On occasion, you'll get good news. On
occasion you'll get good politic news political news, but by
and large it's generally not good news. So this is
a chance to get away from it and to be
normal with you guys. Although maybe that's why it's such
a train wreck on on air, because I'm always trying
(25:16):
to be normal, or the way I am on air,
the way I am off air. So but again, I
am really looking forward to this. Again, mine's gonna be
October twelfth, but everyone's going to be doing this every Saturday,
every Sunday. Excuse me, every Saturday, every Sunday at six pm.
I know, Isaac, my voice just cracked like Peter Brady.
I know, I understand, I understand. All right, So this
(25:38):
is gonna be the fifth year that we've been doing this.
Looking forward to doing this. Like I said, I am
excited that I'm going to be with the one and
only the most mysterious man in in all of radio,
Vince Cokeley. All Right, so we'll get into Wegmans. Wegmans
has a cult following, like truly a cult following. Well,
they had a ground break in the other day in
(25:59):
our very own Billock was out there, and we're going
to talk about that because Wegmans. I'm telling you, you
think Publics has a cult, which you see Wegmans in
that situation. So I'll talk about that when we return.
My name is Bret Jenson. You're listening to Breaking with
Brett Jenson. Welcome back to Breaking with Brett Jensen. Okay,
Wegmans they had groundbreaking down in the Valentine area Wegmans
(26:22):
such as such a cult following that. One of my
best friends, actually my very best friend, lives down at
Fort Mill and he's like, oh my god, they got
out they're building a Wegmans. I told him this past weekend.
He goes, yeah, and he said, well, I'll be doing
my grocery stopping, so We'll be driving from Fort Mill
into Balentine to do grocery shopping. Like that's how obsessed
(26:42):
people are when it comes to Wegmans. And here's the
Wegmans groundbreaking audio captured by Ed Billock the other day.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Good morning.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
Want to welcome everyone to the groundbreaking of Wegmans and Valentine.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Are really excited you're here, and it's this day is
saying a long day, I mean to say the least.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
These discussions very quietly have been taking place for over
eight years between Northwood and Wegmans, and a lot of persistence,
a lot of collaboration, a lot of creativity in the process.
And I want to just thank a few people very
quickly in that regard, our head of Development, Clifton Kobel.
(27:21):
It's got as persistent about getting Wegmans here as Dan
Aikin had a real estafe for.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Wegmans and his team.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Tyree s Bryan in the background, Tim Dollands er, he's
not here today. There he is, okay, hiding there behind
the chaise. So these three people, along with the Wegman's family.
Wegmans is a family owned business. It's a great business.
They're always at the top of the great place to work,
surveys and things like that.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
But in dealing with them, Clifton and.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
I saw very clearly the culture that they have, you know,
treating people well, being good community stewards. We're very, very
excited about that, and I want to thank all of
them for doing that. I especially want to thank the
Wegman's family for their vision and their commitment to Valentine.
It's very significant. They are very very thorough as you
might have sort of concluded after eight years of discussions,
(28:09):
and that wasn't easy. But we're very happy that this
is the first location in Charlotte that they picked Valentine.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
It's going to be great for the community. We're very
glad you're here.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
I also want to thank City Council and Ed Driggs
and County Commissioner Susan Rodriguez McDowell.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
He are here on the front row and will speak
in a moment.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
We would not have been able to build any of this,
or Wegmans would not have been able to build any
of this.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Had we not had their support.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
We own all of Valentine roughly, it's almost five hundred
and thirty five acres, and at the time that these
discussions began, we did not have retail in titlements that
would allow Wegmans to build a grocery store of this size.
So we had a big rezoning in twenty twenty, and
we had the support of both Ed and Susan throughout
the process. That Mayor was great, very supportive, many others.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
But we always laid.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Out this site and we planned accordingly with the traffic
mitigation and everything to make sure that we were neutral
to positive on the impact. Randy Goddard, our traffic consultant
here in the front, had an eighteen page traffic study
to make sure that this was all right, and I
think if anything, we probably over improved it.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
When you say Cliffin, so.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And so, we're very very grateful for their contributions, and
I know that there'll be many more iterations of Valentine
in the future where that collaboration between the city, the
county and Northwood will be very critical.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
So thank you.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Before before I turned it over to Ed, Wegmans wanted
to give me a wanted me to give a quick
run a show, real fast. So we're gonna hear from
Ed and Susan. They'll then turn it over to the
Wegman's leadership team. We'll do the groundbreaking, we'll do some photos,
and then I can see there's a lot of press here.
Wegmans will be available to all of y'all to you
answer any questions or anything that you have. So well,
(29:57):
hopefully it's warming up, so we'll hopefully have you out
of here in about thirty minutes of the most.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
So again, thank you. And it's my privilege and honor
to introduce my friend Ed Drags. Thank you. Good morning everyone.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
I'm learning that black was definitely not the color to
wear today and a ninety degrees day here, But I
just want to say thank you to John and Ed
and Susan.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
This has been a fantastic partnership.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
As John mentioned, we started looking in the Charlotte area
probably around ten years ago now and we've been having
on and off again conversations with them for about eight years,
and it's really due to John in Clifton's patience with us.
I'm going to say that we were able to work
through this, so we're truly appreciative of that partnership. Without that,
(30:43):
we honestly wouldn't be here today, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I'm also.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
Would really like to thank the dozens and dozens of
people there are too many to name really, that have
helped us get here over the last two years. Everything
from our outside council to our interior does eying teams.
We have dozens and dozens of consultants who have been
working tirelessly for the last two years to make sure
that we have every grocery innovation that we could possibly
(31:11):
think of incorporated into the plans of this store. So
when we open in about a year, you will have
a truly world class shopping experience.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
So I'm just really excited to.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Be here today to be able to bring that to you.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
Today's really just step number one in a twelve month
process for us. We spend roughly ten months building and
another eight or so eight to twelve with our operations team.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Getting ready for opening.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
And though we don't have a date to announce right now,
I'm certainly more than thrilled to be inviting you all
back here in roughly twelve months to welcome you in
as customers. So again, I just want to say thank
you to all of you for coming out showing us
the support. I am going to now hand it over
to one of Charlotte's newest residents and our store manager,
(32:01):
Patrick McGinnis.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Pat good After, Good morning everybody, thanks for being here today.
My name is Patrick McGinnis. Susan ed Dan John, Thank
you so much. Just to share a little bit about
me quickly. I've been with Wegmans twenty five years. I
moved numerous times. Really it's all because of an organization
(32:24):
that I work with, focusing on people and working with
the community. It's an awesome, an honoring experience to stand
in front of.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
You today and I just want to say thanks for
being here.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I have a check for the Second Harvest Food Bank
of Metrolina that we like to make a presentation for
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
All right, So that's the breaking, the groundbreaking of Wegmans.
Do yourself a favor. Go to YouTube search Wegmans CBS
Sunday Morning, not too long ago. A few months ago,
they talked about why Wegmans is so popular and why
all the workers love working there and why it's so
good and everyone loves it. Real quick, James Comy, in
case you missed it, has been indicted. The former FBI
director has been indicted on two charges, obstruction of justice
(33:12):
and making false statements. I'm sure TJ may have a
little bit more about that, because this is all kind
of brand new, but anyways, I'll see you guys tomorrow
from the mountains. My name is Brett Jensen, and you've
been listening to Breaking with Brett Jenson.
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