Newly crowned "Queen RINO" And City Budgets: What Actually Matters in Local Government

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was vocal in protecting the right of the
delegates, you know, to boo, tocheer, to do what they feel is
necessary, because there were alot of grievances with Governor
Cox.
Yeah there still is.
But strategy wise, that is notthe right strategy as delegates
that we should be taking.
Booing our governor off thestage From the Blue Form Media

(00:31):
Studios.
This is the 435.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah.
If you're looking for a nicecup of coffee and you're in
downtown St George FS Coffee Co,that's where you're going to
want to stop.
It's right there on the cornerof Tabernacle and Main Street in
downtown St George.
So if you've got a bicycle,ride it on down there and grab a
drip coffee and tell them the435 guys sent you.
How does it feel to be thequeen rhino?

(00:56):
You've been crowned the queenof the rhinos.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm really having this identity crisis because
it's like overnight I went fromthe extreme right wing
conspiracy theorist to a Satanworshipping establishment rhino.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, that's right, you are Satan worshipping.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's the craziest thing, it's so crazy, how fast,
hilarious narrative and likesentiment just swings in, just
like a brief moment over asingular election yeah, it's not
.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Are we going right now?
By the way?

Speaker 3 (01:34):
let's go oh, okay, I was like so yeah, we were
talking about that the other daylike it's interesting that, um,
I guess politicians, but justany, whether you're a city
council person, the president,whatever, like one singular deal
can make people think thatyou're like totally crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
But it's not.
This is the most frustratingthing is that one single deal
can change the conversationaround that individual, so it's
not like people all of a suddenstart believing this, like
nobody actually believes that.
But it's this, it's in the gamein the election race.
There's these things that yousay in order to try to sway

(02:20):
opinion of a really small groupof individuals.
For the delegate race right,because the state delegates I
think there's only like 800, 800state oh no, there's 4 000 4
000 state delegates.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
State delegates right , yeah, and then 2600 showed up,
but there's 4 000 statedelegates only 2600 showed up,
huh yes, so a low percentageshowed up, which actually would
have likely favored Lyman overAxson having a smaller number
show up, but obviously we knowAxson still won.

(02:51):
But you're right, it's thebranding that people try to do
heavily during an election cycle, and I think people lose sight
of the Ronald Reagan approach ofhey, if someone agrees with me
80% of the time they're myfriend, not my 20% enemy, right?
And so that was reallyeye-opening for me just to see

(03:12):
firsthand now how, wow, likewithout even having a
conversation with me, most ofthese people have my phone
number, like they can easilycontact me if they want to know
all of my reasons for supportingrob axon over phil lyman, right
, like, like, it's not a secret.
I'm an open book.
I'm happy to talk to anyone,right, and I put a lot of it out

(03:34):
there on social media too.
But instead it's so much easier, and especially if people
aren't truly seeking the truthor truly seeking to build and
have positive progress, if theirmotivation is actually more
just to have an audience yeahand their own personal agenda
versus truth.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
It's a lot easier just to throw out these
derogatory terms of labelingpeople because then they catch,
or establishment, but then theycatch, it catches momentum right
and then all of a suddenthere's a pile-on effect where
everybody piles in a mobmentality exactly, and that's
what gets the, that's whattriggers the, the, the thread
online and everybody piles intothat, and so then.

(04:16):
So when we think about theseindividual you know races
watching, because it makes mefeel nervous about the caucus
system, right, I had williebillings on just a couple weeks
ago and we talked about how dowe improve the, the delegate
process and the caucus.
Yeah, we talked about sb54 alittle bit yeah and so and this
is where, um, it seemed like thethe far right was attacking

(04:39):
axon for not doing enoughagainst sb54.
What's your perspective on that?
What, how, how did that justnot hold water for you?
And maybe it did hold water foryou, but it wasn't the
determining factor on supportingRob over Phil.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
So my motivation is truly always to seek the truth,
and I will stand with whoever isdoing the right thing,
regardless of what side they'reon Right, and so I try not to,
and we can all be guilty of thisat times, and so I try not to.
And we can all be guilty of thisat times, but I try not to fall
into that.
That tribalism of oh, this fitsmy bias.
So I'm just going to go hereand believe everything this side

(05:14):
says, because what so oftenpeople don't realize on both
sides is they're doing the exactsame thing.
They want to criticize thisside for putting out all of this
false information and fake news.
It happens every bit as much onthe right as it does on the
left now I always say the onelike the extreme.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
One percent on the right and the left are the same
people they are.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yes, yeah, two sides, yep, two sides of the same coin
, for sure I just want to bloweverything up yeah pretty much.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
I just want to see the world burn well, yeah, I
mean, but that's not also it.
Right?
I think there's individualtopics, there's individual
issues, because the vastmajority of americans this is
even outside the republicanparty are, um, like single item
voters.
Right, because of this onething.
That's why I'm going to votethis direction when it's way
more nuanced than that.

(06:03):
And then, as a politician, youhave to figure figure out, okay,
what are those one issue itemsthat the biggest portion of
people are voting on, and thenappeal to that base.
Right?
I can't help but think, like howTrump operates in this way.
Right Is that he's picked thethings that are the biggest
single issue items forindividuals and then he plays to

(06:24):
those pieces where, as you getcloser to local government,
those individual issues becomeso much more difficult to manage
because you have a smaller poolof individuals that actually
end up voting Right.
But we're trying to play thesame politics that Trump's
playing at the national stage,at the local and the state level
, and it doesn't always play outthe same way as the way he's

(06:46):
playing, because these singleissues get blown up.
Do you think the sp54 was thesingle issue that phil was
running on and that washighlighted?

Speaker 1 (06:56):
the single issue that it appeared that that camp was
running on is their attempt tomimic and mirror the election
the convention between lymanversus cox yeah because we all
know cox is not popular amongstthe delegates and lyman won by
nearly 68 percent againstspencer cox, and so campaign

(07:18):
strategy wise.
If I'm in their shoes, I'massuming they're probably
thinking hey we're going to runthe same strategy.
Rob as Cox, which is absolutelyfalse.
Right, Rob is not Cox.
But if they can do that, thenthey can attempt to mirror those
results.
Thankfully it didn't happenthat way.
A lot of us saw through.

(07:39):
It was close, but a lot of ussaw through that Rob is not Cox
and many of us who supportedLyman for governor.
I was a loud supporter forLyman up through the primary
election because I'm verydisenfranchised at a lot of the
decisions and policies thatSpencer Cox has done and felt

(08:00):
that we needed a change there.
Now, just because I saw that weneeded that change doesn't mean
that I'm now going to supportevery single thing that Phil
Lyman does, and he's made a lotof decisions and game calls that
I don't agree with like extremelapses in judgment, in my
opinion.
And so it's okay for us to beable to look at the facts and

(08:24):
realize that, hey, I'm going tosupport a different candidate
and you know, strategy wise, interms of SB 54, I actually do
really care about repealing thatprocess because I do think the
caucus convention system, whileit does have flaws I think it's
funny when people call it thispure system there's absolutely

(08:44):
room for corruption in thecaucus convention system.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
We're talking politics.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
So I understand honestly why SB 54 came about.
I get it, but in terms of whichis superior?
I like the fact that the caucusconvention system gives a
greater ability for someone offthe street, a grassroots
candidate like you and I, to beable to go in and have a greater
chance without having themillions of dollars funding us.

(09:12):
It gives us a greater potentialto get people like that into
public office and I like thatabout the caucus convention
system.
So, with that, my opinion wasif Phil Lyman would have been in
, because of the multiple lapsesin judgment that I've seen from
the past and the bridges thathave been burned there I mean

(09:34):
really in terms of any workingrelationship with the legislator
or the executive branch, whichyou need to have those things
when you are the chair of theRepublican Party it's simply not
there with Lyman.
Therefore, rob, who hasactually taken some very
meaningful steps to preserve thecaucus convention system he is
the first chair since SB 54 wasimplemented 10 years ago to

(09:58):
actually change bylaws.
To fund our convention nominees.
Nearly $250,000 went to ourconvention winners.
30 out of 34 of thoseconvention winners went on to
win their primary.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, that was actually what I was just
thinking in my head.
I was like I can't remember thenumber somebody had posted
about how many of the conventionwinners actually went on to win
their races and win theirprimaries.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
The vast majority 80, almost 89%.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Is that typical though?

Speaker 1 (10:25):
So I don't know I haven't looked back at past
percentages.
I've been involved in caucussince 2020 was really when I
first realized the need to getinvolved.
But I do know that Rob has donemore for the caucus convention
system than any other chairsince the implementation of SB
54.
Other chair since theimplementation of SB 54.

(10:47):
And I also know that we do havesome strategies going on to
help repeal that process thathad Lyman got in, I think those
would have been off the table.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Well, and I think it's interesting to me because
when I had Governor Cox on and Italked about his convention
speech, right, I didn't see thisepisode, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Didn't see this episode.
Oh my gosh.
I waited to the end.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
I waited to the end to talk about that one because I
didn't want him to.
I wanted him to feelcomfortable and I did want to
ask him a few tougher questionsjust to get his take on it.
But he even says he's like.
I regretted saying it in theway that I did.
I was like, well, because Iactually found it hilarious.
I found it hilarious because hecomes in knowing that he wasn't
going to.
He wasn't going to compete, hehad chosen not to compete in

(11:30):
that avenue and so when he gotup there he said his piece.
He said this is where I seethere's problems with the
convention system and I couldn'tdisagree with him.
And then, seeing what played out, right, I'm like well, the
radical right, this is where, ifthis had gone the other way and
Phil wins, it's just givingmore fodder to that feeling that
the convention system doesn'trepresent the broad base of the

(11:52):
Republican Party throughout thestate.
And because of that narrative,that campaign strategy that they
took against Rob, it was let'srun the same playbook we did
against cox, rather thanactually put what's phil's
record versus rob's record andthen really put it out there,
and that's how the narrativescan get spun and that's where

(12:12):
the trust erodes.
Right, if, if I'm a, if I'm acasual which truthfully I would
say I'm like a casual observerof it.
I do my best to keep up all thetime, but I also have a
bazillion other things going on,right?
So if, if I was retired andthis is all that I was doing was
following politics then, or ifI got paid to do this, right, if

(12:33):
that was the case, I'd probablypay attention a little bit
tighter.
But from the casual observer I'mlooking at the infighting
that's happening.
I'm like I don't trust thissystem.
I wouldn't trust this systemand some of the delegates that
are out there and saying thethings that they're saying.
It erodes the trust in it.
And when I was talking toWillie, you know his strategy at
the Washington County level iswe have to bring the trust back
into that caucus system.
Right, we have to be able toeducate the local population to

(12:56):
where they vote for delegatesthat they actually believe
represent them and then allowthose delegates to go put forth
what they believe.
And when we see these argumentsbeing played out, it erodes
that convention system.
So I think it's good that Robwent one, because I think he
does represent a broader base ofthe Republican Party.

(13:17):
But one thing I talked about iswith Cox, going back to what he
was saying.
He's like I spent so much timetime over the last, you know, a
couple of election cycles tryingto bridge the gap between the
left and the right.
He said I haven't put enoughattention on the right and the
right and it's something that hehas said that he wants to to
change.
Whether he does that or not, atthe end of the day that's

(13:38):
what's going to get him elected.
Is that left to right isplaying that middle moderate
level because Salt Lake has sucha big voting base and he's
right there in the thick of theblue dot, and so I can see how
it's going to be a struggle forhim to bridge the right and the
right.
But I think Rob has a betteropportunity to bridge that right
in the right then.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Well, yeah, because he is.
Rob is a true conservative.
Anyone who looks at his actualtrack record and experience, he
is a true conservative.
So this false narrative thatwas made to his convention
speech, you know that brush,broad brush of labeling all of

(14:29):
us delegates who were there allday long until midnight, you
know as these extremists, and soI'm glad to hear that he
regretted using that, thatterminology, because you know
now, actually, he said he hadtwo speeches.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
He said he had two speeches throughout one.
And then he's like nope,because of that, the the energy
in the room when he got up youcould tell he was like and he,
he's always been a fighter.
Like he's never been one tojust back down from an argument,
like he's always been a fighter, which is why he is in the
position that he is.
He's got a lot of energy, hehas a lot of energy and so you
know, I could see how he waslike OK, I'm going to go this

(15:06):
way or this way, feel the roomand you could, you could feel
that energy go.
And he's like I'm just going tofight this, this one out.
And he says he, he regretsdoing that.
So it's, it's interesting inpolitics you get sucked into
those.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, Well, and to be fair, I did not boo because I
don't think that that's you knowthe right venue to do that.
However I did, I was vocal inprotecting the right of the
delegates, you know, to boo, tocheer, to do what they feel is
necessary.
Because there were a lot ofgrievances with Governor Cox
yeah, there still is butstrategy wise, that is not the

(15:41):
right strategy as delegates thatwe should be taking Right,
booing our governor off thestage Like it's just not.
It's not going to get usanywhere and that's.
I've learned a lot over theselast four years of being
involved in politics and that'sone thing that I've really come
to appreciate and understand.
And, looking back, I'm kind ofmortified at even looking at

(16:02):
some of my own past behavior offalling into that trap of
labeling people and boxing theminto certain categories that,
just simply weren't fair.
Sometimes it's effective, butoverall it's really not, because
I think more people, especiallyhere in Utah, are drawn to
positivity, are drawn to light.
Yes, we can still be truthful,even if it's, you know,

(16:25):
sometimes hard truths.
But it's learning to do it in away that brings people in and
doesn't shut people out, and soit's been a learning experience
for me to recognize and reflectinward of.
I never want to be like thatagain or treat people in that
way again, and if we truly careabout moving the ball forward in

(16:48):
a positive direction, we haveto be able to work with people
that we disagree with.
We have to be able to have thattrust to do that.
It's just, if we're constantlyyelling from the sidelines, what
does that actually accomplish?
Nothing.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
There's a couple different ways we can go through
this.
I want to know whatspecifically maybe you've said
or done strategy wise, but lessimportant, I would say, moving
forward.
I've always called, you know,4d chess.
Right now I've heard thisconversation about Trump all the
time, but really, when it comesto the political landscape and
managing government, even at thelocal and the state level, is

(17:26):
that coalition building?
And this was actually thecenter point of the conversation
I want to have with GovernorCox.
So we went through a book thathe recommended by Yuval Levine
and it talks about the foundingfathers and like how do you get
back to the Constitution?
His, his, basically the premiseof the book is the Constitution
can save us.
We have to go back to theConstitution and he points out

(17:49):
the Wilsonian generation of thebureaucratic state and the
erosion of legislative powersand giving more to the executive
branch, and he talks about howwe have to balance that out.
He takes issue with the 435members of Congress, how we've
limited this smaller group ofindividuals based off population
size.
He thinks we should add seatsto it, which has lots of

(18:10):
different unintendedconsequences that he doesn't
quite address in the book, buthe dives deep into it.
It's one Cox wrote a forewordto, so he was along the way with
writing this book.
And so I'm thinking of Cox asthis liberal you know, liberal
rhino that everybody calls himand then he's like adamant about
how, like no, the constitutioncan save us.
And at the state level there'smore nuance.

(18:31):
There there's the federalgovernment and then the state
level.
There's far more nuance.
He has to represent, as theexecutive, a hundred percent of
Utah.
He can't just represent theRepublicans, he's got to
represent the Republicans andthe Democrats and help try to
lead that all together as one.
And it's difficult for anexecutive to do that.
It's much easier as alegislator to do that, because

(18:52):
they just have to representtheir small group of individuals
that elected them in, which aretypically just one side of the
aisle.
But as a governor I think he'sdone and honestly I got to tip
my hat to him is that he's made,uh, some, some decisions that I
think are poor decisions,pandering to the left, but
overall I think he's appealed tothe right, at least the middle

(19:13):
right, in a way that's kept himreally popular across the state
right.
And so, thinking of youindividually, that uh,
complexity at the city councillevel, like, have you learned
that that collaboration it's farmore gray than it is black and
black and white, or do you feellike you have to represent this,
this right side of the aisle,then danielle's over here on the

(19:35):
left side, right, and thenbecause I, I actually love, I
love that right and I got a lotof heat for, uh, honestly, like
being in both of your camps.
Like how could you be in boththeir camps?
It's like because the citycouncil we need, we need to have
the whole we got to have adiverse group of council members
that I want Danielle to arguewith Michelle Tanner, because
without Danielle there's no oneto balance out Michelle, and

(19:55):
then it's vice versa, right, isthat?
Nobody's going to balance outDanielle without a Michelle
Tanner?
I really like that dynamic atthe city council level.
And then I get a bunch of heatbeing like oh well, you're, you
know, you're a rhino or you'renot, you're an extremist.
It's like I guess, I guess, butI I think there's, there's good
, there's a lot of building thatcan happen in those, those
moments.
Do you do?

Speaker 1 (20:15):
you agree with that, and yes, and a couple of things
on that.
Quick thought on spencer cox.
What I really want to see fromhim still is I would just love
to see an apology, because weall make mistakes, and by
apology I'm reverting back toCOVID, because that's my hot

(20:36):
button issue still, becausethat's what made me enter
politics and feel like I had toto protect my children's freedom
and liberty was going back tothe mask mandates, going back to
Well, you basically got fired.
Well, yeah, so him both, SpencerCox and Deidre vocally said
that they supported businessesmandating the covid shot onto

(21:01):
their employees.
Right, covid shot onto theiremployees.
So here's myself as thebreadwinner, working mom of my
family, breastfeeding a baby atthe time Shots have not even
been tested in that group.
I've already had COVID in themedical field.
I'm a nurse practitioner in theemergency department and you
are going to go out andencourage my employer to say

(21:24):
that I can't provide for myfamily without getting this
experimental shot that at thetime, already had data showing
that it was potentiallydangerous and not effective and
not effective.
Did not stop the spread, did notstop contraction and you are
going to go out on recordtelling employers to do that to
Utahns.
I want an apology for that Like, and you know, call it petty,

(21:47):
call it what it is.
I will say he does not liverent free in my brain, though,
like some of these people, Imean it just blows my mind how
many people just cannot stoptalking about him.
I'm like, does he really keepyou up at night?
Because I'm really not thatworried about Spencer Cox, like
I've moved on.
But because I'm really not thatworried about Spencer Cox, like
I've moved on, but anyway itjust as you were talking about,
you know, kind of giving himpraise and I'm not saying he

(22:08):
hasn't done some good things,but I think this is a good point
.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
The good point for if he's serious about bridging the
gap between, or bridging theright from the right there is a
good way to do it, to where itdoesn't really abandon his left
base right.
It doesn't do that because Ithink at this stage the left
base knows now.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Yeah, Well, I mean there's a small percentage of
them, but they're all going tohide from it, right, because
that that erodes their coalitionthat they built to that point,
though it's, you know, in theback of their heads they're
going to know and it's not goingto, you know, it's not going to
alleviate their support of him.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, it's not.
It's not going to abandon thatbase for him.
It could be a small step inthat direction.
But even in trying to get himdown here, uh from and this
isn't from him or anybodyrepresenting him, but people
that know him individually isthat he he'd like to come down
to saint george and come to aplace to where there's like
actual, like, uh constructiveconversation.

(23:01):
So he, every time he comes down, though he's like he gets, he
gets hammered.
Every time he comes down,though, he's like he gets, he
gets hammered every time hecomes down.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
So he did that, though during I'm calling it his
apology tour, even though Iwasn't invited to this.
But he did this during theelection and I happen to be
friends with one of the peoplewho helped organize the location
and the event when he came downhere during the election and
she specifically told his teamhey, I think you should have

(23:25):
Michelle Tanner there and I canbe respectful.
It's like I can some wayssympathize with him now that
I've seen that firsthand some ofthe vitriol and you know, and I
feel bad that he's experiencedsome of that truly.
But also it's like I feel likeI'm a reasonable person and I'm
willing to work with anyone,regardless of how much we

(23:45):
disagree on issues.
And I really wanted thatopportunity to be able to sit
down and talk to him about someof these things and things we
can do moving forward, but histeam would not allow me to be
there.
I've even reached out to hischief of staff, his scheduler,
since then, and said I'd love anopportunity to meet and it's
just never happened.
So, hey, I welcome thatopportunity because, although

(24:11):
him and I, you know, obviouslydon't align on everything and
I've probably have been one ofthe top five vocal people in the
state of Utah, on pointing outsome of my frustrations.
You know I've kind of moved onin some ways.
I'm not going to dwell onthings, but anyway, I just think
that there's new battles.
There's always going to bebattles and things we need to
focus on, and here at the citylevel I mean, that's my role
here on the city council.

(24:32):
Back to your question isabsolutely we have to work
together.
We have a five member counciland me as a single member.
I can be super passionate aboutan issue.
I can't get jacked on as asingle member if I don't have
the trust of the other votingmembers, If we can't have the

(24:53):
dialogue that needs to be had tomove the ball forward.
I can have the greatest ideasall day long.
It's going to be totallyineffective if I can't
effectively work with people,and so that is something that
I've learned a ton over theselast four years now almost being
in office is how to have thoserelationships work together,

(25:15):
build that mutual trust, andwe've made some serious strides,
for sure, in that department,and I do feel, feel like overall
we are working really welltogether and actually, you know,
daniel larkin and I actuallyare aligned on a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
They're probably the case on most stuff.
Yeah, you know, I mean the, thecity council, truthfully, like
the issues are like prettyboring right, yeah, land use.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
It's like 70 land use .

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, it's a lot of land use but we got stuck in the
last couple of elections.
We got stuck in some stuff thatjust doesn't matter, right,
like the, the, oh man, the dragqueens, that was so masterfully
done.
The drag queen thing, oh mygosh, like as Satan, as Satan's
powers go, like that one's whereit's like dude, he's been
practicing that one for a while.

(26:01):
He rolled that one out and hewas like excellent, right, like
the, mr Burns, like it.
Just, it was so perfect for usto get so sidetracked on stuff
that has so little to do with.
It's such a marginal issue withsociety and this is something I
brought up in St George word ofmouth people getting upset
about a business not doingsomething that you know it's,

(26:25):
you know ideological followersfelt like that business should
be doing, and it's like we getso caught up in stuff that
actually doesn't matter, rightand so, and so it's been kind of
calm.
I feel like over the lastprobably three years, where
there hasn't been stuff that'sbeen brought up that's outside
of the scope of city council,which allowed you guys to
actually put work forward.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Well, and here's the thing is there was a lot of
tumultuous we'll just say Iguess I'll just use that word
tumultuous activities that firstyear or so that I was in, and
some of that I probably wouldhave strategically done
differently.

(27:04):
But I will say, in some ways itwas actually really good that
some of those things did happen,because it's really helped the
city moving forward, even thoughit was like a difficult, bumpy,
tumultuous transition in someways.
You know, when it comes to thebudget process, when it comes to
the truth and taxation issueand even the drag show you know

(27:27):
scenario as well, which again, Ithink was blown up way more
than it needed to be as far as,like, our culture here of being
a family friendly environment.
That is important, I think, atall levels of government.
But the way that the media,which we all know, you know, if
the media can get a headline andthe more divisive it is, the

(27:47):
bigger it's going to be and thebigger story it is, and so it
was unfortunate the way that itgot so heavily spun and the
false narratives that were outthere.
None of us on the city levelmyself included, you know have
anything against the LGBTcommunity.
Like even though that's how itwas painted, right, as you know,
here's these bigots here andthey're trying to box this

(28:08):
community out, and that's simplyjust not what it was.
It was just hey.
Let's all follow the same.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
How do we use public spaces in the most rational,
reasonable way for the vastmajority of the people in town?
Right, and we set rules aroundthat and that we got to follow
the rules.
And that's where, when, when,excuse me administrators make
mistakes, whether it's throughpermitting or whether it's the
city manager, and some processesaren't, you know, executed the

(28:36):
way they're written into thatlegislation, right, there's
going to be mistakes made, right, and we're going to always make
mistakes, and there's going tobe a new one that comes up
anytime now, right, becauseelections around the corner, so
there'll be a new one that getsspun up.
But we've been dwelling onstuff like Dixie Forever.
Right, it's like the changingof the college.
We get so wrapped around thatthe politicians have to find

(28:58):
these specific littleideological tags that they have
to adhere to or they're dead toeverybody else.
Everything else they have tosay is just purity test.
These purity tests, yeah,exactly.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
I know and I think I may have offended some people.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
I like that Purity test, the purity test.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
I may have offended some people the other day
because you know someone hadbrought up the flag, you know
the Utah flag issue and hey, Iwas not a proponent of the new
flag.
But my reasoning for not beinga proponent of the new flag was
simply just a fiscal issue ofwhy are we throwing money into,

(29:33):
like designing a new flag, Likewhat's wrong with our old flag?
It wasn't this purity of likethey're coming in and it's
they're doing this, like I.
Like I can sympathize some whofelt that way, but for me, like
it wasn't my issue, I mean Istill was in favor of those who
wanted to, you know, do thesignatures to try to let it go

(29:55):
to a vote.
Like great, let that happen andit failed, you know.
But someone the other day waskind of on me about not being
vocal about enough, enough aboutthe flag and I'm just like of
all of the issues there are inthe world and in the state of
utah and in the city, that'sjust not even close to the top

(30:16):
of my priority list of even whatI want my thought process to be
.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
On, like sorry, it's just not and part of part of me
is like, as a localrepresentative, be like.
You have state legislatorsright here, go yell at them
Right.
I can.
I can say all day long to themand I can yell it out in the
public and try to rile up peopleto.
You know, push against it, butat the end of the day, the state
legislators are the ones weshould be looking to is like
what are you guys doing Well inour legislature?

Speaker 1 (30:41):
our legislators voted against.
Our local delegation votedagainst it.
Now, on the city level, if itwere solely up to me on what
flag we heat for voting in favorof the name change, because
this is in his words, I think hevoted against it.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
He voted against it.
But and then made a change yes,to allow the Dixie campus to
remain.
He was trading, he was, he wasdoing political trading, which
is a requirement to operateRight.
Remain, he was trading, he wasdoing political trading, which
is a requirement to operateright.
I think at this stage you'verealized, oh, there has to be
some kind of trading going on orstuff just doesn't get done.
And the ability to change thename.
Later he was able to keep thatin the bill for the ability to

(31:39):
change the name, like if thisdoesn't work out and Utah Tech
becomes a disaster, that theyhave the option to change it
back.
Right, wasn't this?
The door closes.
And then no, there's no otherway to go back to where it was.
He traded his vote when heultimately ended up voting for
it was to keep dixie campus onthere on the sign as part of its
heritage, to hold on to thatand then also to be able to, in

(32:02):
the future, be able to change itif, if at all, that was
possible, if there was some kindof sentiment change, right.
So he traded those things andthen, as a politician, you can
get beat up for saying, oh nowthis purity test is like, well,
you should have just said no andthen just stood on that and
planted your flag and but thenthere's no.
You have to work together.
That's that's the whole pointof the legislative body, but I,

(32:22):
I still, I still get wrapped up,and I talked jordan hess about
this on the episodes a coupleepisodes ago about naming Utahns
.
What was it the law?
That the definition of acitizen of Utah was like a Utahn
and then it had to be spelled aspecific way.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Wasn't that one of the bills it was like should the
word include H or something?
Yeah, something so dumb,something so stupid.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
That's one of the bills that they're having to go
vote on, and it just gets sofrustrating that we get caught
up in that but, so many so manylegislators, we get wrapped
around the axle about thesenon-important issues yeah, well,
and I think like I can totallyunderstand the issue as far as
the concern of cancel culture,right like that's why I was a
and still am a huge supporter ofthe name Dixie, like great.

(33:10):
If it were solely up to me, yeah, I'd change it all back to
Dixie, because I think it wasdeceptive the way they went
about it.
They should have just beenupfront and honest.
So there were a lot of issuesthere.
So I definitely understand thatfrustration and, you know,
concern that it was beingpainted falsely.
You know it's not a racist termin this area.
We all know that, those of uswho have been here a long time.

(33:31):
So, like I, truly sympathizewith that.
But also I understand that wealso have to get the work done
and we also have to move forwardand keep going.
And yeah, sure, if theopportunity comes to repeal it
and go back to the name Dixie,great.
But yeah, I mean, I don't thinkit's got to be the single
purity issue test.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, we.
It's.
One of the things that I'd loveto see us get get away from is
this branding in this idea wherepolitics and the economy go
together, which is part of YuvalLevin's book, where we've
shifted to where, all of asudden, politics has a field in
economics where before 1900,because of the income tax, when

(34:11):
we started levying into incometaxes and changing revenue into
the government from business allof a sudden this whole shift
comes right and Trump's talked alittle bit about it, but it's
such this difficult thingintertwined now where economics
and government are blendingtogether, which the flag is a
byproduct of that.
Right, it's a branding issue,right?

(34:33):
So I had Brad Plotho on theepisode.
He's one of the he's marketingand growth at Intergalactic
Chief growth officer orsomething.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Chief growth officer, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Because they're scaling right, that business is
growing quickly.
Chief growth officer orsomething?
Chief growth officer?
Yeah, because they're scalingright, that business is growing
quickly.
And he's the one who helped.
He led the team that helpedrebrand UVU, which for decades
UVU was like a community college, that was like not important,
and now it's grown to be one ofthe biggest.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
It was UVSC Utah Valley State College.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, and now because of that branding right, we've
seen that that branding changesand then in my mind it was a
clear what can we do at utahtech what they've done at uvu?
Can we rebrand it and and reachthis, you know a group to kind
of solidify the university asthis anchor within southern utah
, which, if I just looked at itfrom that perspective, I'm like,
yeah, let's do it yeah I thinkthat's great.

(35:22):
It's great for the community,it's great for educating the uh,
the younger um population.
Here.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
We want to raise the bar so they get better jobs
right, better quality studentyeah, within in the local
business more students, betterathletics, right, I mean they've
moved up quite a bit infootball and basketball which I
hate all that stuff, conferencesand stuff but ultimately it's a
branding.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
It's a branding strategy, but they didn't.
They didn't talk about reallythey.
They skewed it in this way thatdixie was negatively hurting it
, rather than saying OK as faras recruiting goes.
Yeah, as far as recruiting goes.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Well, they still haven't produced the Cicero
report that they claim was liketheir whole basis for making
these decisions, even though thecourts have ordered them to
release this information.
Yeah, and so it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
So, but?
But the reality is like they'retrying to rebrand it so it
could be a d1 college, that theycan grow it and make it, make
it similar to what uvu's done.
That's my just what they'retrying to do, all the reasons
behind it and and whether wefeel like that's right or wrong,
it doesn't really matter atthis point.
Anyway, right, and so, um,going back to, you are running
for relection at the citycouncil, right?

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Is that.
This is the very you don't haveto say, publicly saying I am
running for reelection.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
This is it.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
This is it you did it on the 435 podcast.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
I didn't even plan that out, sweet I didn't either.
Well, so so, knowing knowingthat you have the election
coming up, I'm thinking abouthow do we move forward when you
look forward in the future.
We've talked a little bit aboutthe budget because they're
getting ready to release the 26budget at the local level.
Let's take a step up to thestate level.

(36:57):
When you look at what are thepriority issues within the state
, have you followed that statepolitics and the GOP politics
portion of it?
But what do you see as somethings that are drawing your
attention?
I get lost in federal stuff allthe time, so like it's hard for
me to follow state too muchbecause it's easy to get just
caught up in what's going onfederally.
But from your perspective, ifyou take a macro approach to the

(37:18):
state of Utah, what do youthink are going to be big issues
and conversation pieces overthe next four years?

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, I mean statewide.
Actually I am very optimisticand I know that the crowd
there's a crowd online right nowwho are very pessimistic and
but you know, especially seeing,ok, rob Axson just got
reelected as the GOP chair,which I think is a great thing,
a great step in continuedtrajectory up, because already
since he's been in we've had apositive trajectory.

(37:50):
And it's interesting because thenarrative out there that people
keep saying is oh, utah's movedleft, Utah's moved left, utah's
moved left.
But if you actually look at thedata, that initial information
that was being put out thatshowed that Utah not as many
Utahns voted for Donald Trumpthis time as last time, that was
actually put out early beforeall the mail-in ballots and all

(38:14):
of that were actually tallied.
So actually looking atpercentages, now, that did not
go down, it actually went upslightly the number of people
who voted for Donald Trump.
And then, if you look at thestatewide races from last year
to almost every single race theperson who was put in was either
about the same in terms ofideology or went more to the

(38:36):
right.
So I just don't really fallinto that narrative of we're
slipping.
Utah so doomed.
Now, you know, are thereconcerns as far as, for instance
, this Utah Supreme Court rulingjust this last year that now
allows ballot initiatives to bea constitutional republic, which

(38:57):
means we representatives can'tmake any changes to that?
That's a little scary andthat's where you've seen in

(39:30):
other states, george Sorosfunded initiatives come in
purposely because they love this.
It's easy to brand somethingand market something to the
public to where.
You know, like you were sayingearlier, a lot of us are busy
raising our families, runningbusinesses, working.
You know, nine to five, likewe're busy.
We don't all have time to dothe deep dive on some of these
things, and so when we get ourballots in the mail which is

(39:52):
another issue, but when we getour ballots, it's like it's easy
sometimes if something oh, ohyeah, you mean a high-speed rail
, a high-speed rail to Vegas.
Hell, yeah, yeah, right you know, and then the legislator can't
make any changes to that.
So there are some concerns tooif we don't really watch that as

(40:16):
well.
And you know, hopefully we'reable to get something passed.
They tried to do it already ina special session, which didn't
happen, so it was blocked by thecourt.
So hopefully we are able tomake some changes so that that
doesn't occur, because I thinkthat could be a big issue.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
And I think, looking at how it's affected California
ballot initiatives.
I've from living there for 10years voting in California.
You know the geo bond locally.
I just as soon as I saw it, I'mlike I see where this goes.
I've seen in California wherethere's six different bond
initiatives on the ballot andthey all get passed.

(40:54):
It's like you don't manage thebudget.
How do I know that we canactually afford this?
Just because it's sitting hereon this piece of paper, saying
that we can do it, doesn't meanwe can actually do it right.
And it puts us into positionswhere is this the most
financially and fiscallyresponsible use of government
funds?
And?
And so that's why I was opposedto the.

(41:16):
The go bond, um, one of twoways.
One I didn't feel like, uh, themessaging, I don't have to get
into this.
I I don't think.
I don't think it's up to the.
I think it's a mistake for themob to be spending tax dollars.
That's why we haverepresentatives, that's why most
of them are attorneys, that'swhy we have the courts to be
able to fight these things out.

(41:36):
When the legislators pass abill, we have the courts the
ability to challenge thosethings, but if you put this
initiative out.
So even the courts can't.
There's no way in this ballotinitiative.
Is that what you're saying?
Is the court voted on?
Is that if it's a ballotinitiative and it becomes law,
that's it, can't change it?

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yep, our legislator, does not have the power, like,
for instance, when can thegovernor do something about it?
No.
So when the voters decided, forinstance, a Medicaid expansion,
and that passed, you know a fewyears back, a Medicaid
expansion, and that passed, youknow a few years back.
Well, budget wise, thelegislator had to look and make
some changes so that it wouldmake sense in the budget, right
yeah, if that same ballotinitiative were to pass now, we

(42:16):
would be screwed on the statebudget because the legislator
now, like their hands, are tiedby the judicial branch to make
those decisions.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
So that's a big problem, yeah, and but yeah, I
mean, speaking of budgets.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
that's one thing at the city level where we have
made some tremendousimprovements.
So you know, when I first gotin and I tell the story all the
time because you know I'm new topolitics at this point I had
never sat in a budget meetingbefore.
And you know, I'm just comingfrom the medical field and I'm
sitting in this meeting and I'mfeeling like why am I sitting in

(42:55):
a sales pitch, like city staffis up there and they've got this
from the city from the citystaff and they've got this cup
of coffee on the screen, like weare going to increase taxes
because we want to fund our lawenforcement and there's just no
way we can do it.
But it's just the cost of a cupof coffee a month to everyone.
We, everyone, can afford that.

(43:16):
It's no big deal.
And I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa,like my flags are going up all
over the place like um, actuallyshow me the scenario of not
increasing taxes.
And how do we fund properlyfund our public safety without
raising taxes?
And I was literally told when Isat down by someone who's no

(43:38):
longer there that they couldn'tpresent that for me, that this
is just the way it is andthere's not going to be any
presenting alternative options.
And for me that's an issuebecause I am elected by the
people to represent them.
Yeah, not for the unelectedbureaucrats to tell me what to
do.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Right.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
And so it was a little tumultuous.
You know, you probably rememberduring that time there was a
lot of people saying, oh,michelle Tanner just doesn't
want to fund our law enforcementand you know, our budget's just
going to completely implode andwe're going to have to lay
people off and it's going to bea big deal.
We're not going to be able tohire police officers, and it's
going to be effective publicsafety we won't be able to give

(44:21):
them their raises, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera.
And I called BS on it.
I said, no, I don't thinkthat's right.
In fact, I think what we needto do is reprioritize the budget
.
You know, line item number oneshould be funding our public
safety, because if anything'sthe proper role of government,
it's to protect life, libertyand property, which is exactly

(44:41):
what they're doing.
So, hey, let's shift somethings around in the budget and
then, if we get down to somelower priority items that truly
we can't fund, well, then maybewe need to go out to the public
and ask them if it's worth themraising their taxes to fund the
golf course clubhouse remodel,or whatever.
It is right that probablyshouldn't be funded over our

(45:02):
public safety right.
Sorry, but Craig our publicsafety right?
The answer is no, sorry, butCraig, and so it's actually
really good, though, that wewent through that vigorous
process.
We had healthy debate, and youknow it went from that first
budget hearing I was the onlyone who voted against it to the
second budget hearing.
The public showed up, they madetheir opinion and it got voted

(45:27):
down four to one, and I willtell you, since that time, our
entire budget process hasshifted to where I'm no longer
sitting in a sales pitch.
When I'm sitting there, in fact, we are all coming together
collaboratively, as a citycouncil, as mayor, as city
manager.
We have a phenomenal citymanager and we have great staff

(45:47):
too, so I don't mean thatderogatory, by any way, when I
say unelected bureaucrats.
We need them.
We need them to execute thewill of the people.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Well, we teach people how to do their jobs right.
So if we've taught them rightfor two decades that this is how
it goes right.
Or let's say, let's say 10years, right, you have bureauc,
have bureaucrat, you knowbureaucratic individuals at the
city is like we've done it thisway for 10 years.
Why are we?
Why should we change it?
This is like 10 times moredifficult, right, and they're
going to push back on thosethings, but we're going to teach
them how, how the processshould go.

(46:16):
And when there's significantpushback and you got to change
it, well, it's painful, but wegot to do it, yeah, and to their
credit.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah, like appropriate changes.
And you know, now the processhas been great.
We are able to sit down, we alltalk about what the priorities
should be and then you know, ofcourse, as a single member,
nothing can happen.
So as long as at least three ofus agrees on an item, that gets
moved in the agenda and it'sbeen appropriately prioritized

(46:44):
now.
And so I've actually been reallyimpressed that, for instance,
in this year's budget, whichwe're just starting to get into,
we haven't had the publichearings for that yet, but
actually for the first timeother than COVID, because they
did, you know, free some fundsduring COVID there was some
concerns that first year therewhich actually ended up, we were
booming and not diminishing byany stretch.

(47:07):
But yeah, in the last at least15, 20 years that I went back in
budgets a couple of months ago,this is the first time that we
have actually decreased thebudget from the prior year.
Nice, so, and yes, a lot ofthat, our new city hall, some of
those projects will be wrappingup, which helps.

(47:28):
But there's also some thingsthat make it bigger, because we
now have a self-funded healthinsurance plan and that gets
counted twice in the budget,which I think is somewhere
around 14 million.
So you think that gets countedtwice, whereas that wasn't
getting counted twice before.
So there are some other thingsthat make it look bigger.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Why do you mean it gets counted twice?

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Well, because you have the fund itself that has to
be counted in the budget but,then also where it's distributed
, has to be counted as part ofthe budget too, and so you end
up double counting it in termsof the overall total, whereas
before, when it was, you know,outsourced, it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Generally speaking, though, on the on the insurance,
longourced it wasn't.
But generally speaking, though,on the on the insurance, long
term it's supposed to save moremoney than.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
Right, yeah, and I mean our rates were increasing
astronomically every year before, and there is still some of
that, you know, because now,depending on what the claims are
like, there might be one yearwhere there's not a lot of
claims and we actually save alot of money.
There might be another yearwhere there's heavier claims and
we're paying out more.
So it is definitely, you know,an up and down, but overall that

(48:33):
trajectory, I believe, will besaving money overall in the long
haul.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
I was listening to the work and working meeting and
they were talking about how,like, ok, in the range, when we
project out how many claimsthere's going to be expensive
years and there's gonna be lessexpensive years.
And it seems like we're on thehigh end of this.
This could just be, right outof the gate, an expensive year
based off of what claims came infrom the city People tripping
and falling on public sidewalksand stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Cancers like stuff, stuff like that's like expensive
stuff.
Yeah, right, so it has a cancerclaim or something like that.
The city is on the hook forthat because we're self-insured,
right?
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Which, going back to the proper role of government,
is like.
I don't necessarily thinkthere's anything wrong with that
.
It's like the city managing itthe best, where we're not at the
at the mercy of an insuranceorganization that can raise
rates whenever they want.
But self-funding it, managingit ourself, is a lot more work.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
I listen to the whole thing.
I was like, oh my gosh I can'tbelieve it and to be clear,
though there is still a thirdparty that oversees it.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
It's not city staff overseeing it right, like that
helps um, like facilitate shop,like understand, like the ins
and outs the insurance.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, like we didn't have to hire 17 people to no,
look over the numbers and stillselect health, and it's still
select health insurance, gotcha.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Yeah, yeah, thanks Intermountain.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
So if you want to check out, I got so much to say,
I know we could both getstarted with that freaking
monopoly.
Yes, we could.
I know.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Okay, if you want to check out there is a proposed
budget online 2025-2026 budgetproposal online sgcityorg.
And then if you go todepartments and city budget,
it's right there, city budget,you can see the chart.
I, I got it here.
We're not going to dive into itbecause you haven't adopted,
you guys haven't voted on it yet, but the public comment uh

(50:24):
period will happen in june,correct?
So if if the budget I knowthere's a bunch of you budget
nerds out there listening tothis podcast that are like, oh,
let me get at it well I can.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
It's like 180 pages long too.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Well it's 400, over 400 pages long, and but so
here's the.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Danielle texts me.
She's like I got to go to call.
She went up to collab just so.
She's like I just need to getmy mind.
I got to get away so I couldget into this and have no
distractions.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Oh, I've been carrying the 400 and whatever
pages around with me everywhereI go the last couple of weeks.
So, yeah, there's, and I I willsay I have been through every
page.
Now there is a lot ofinformation and I would just say
to the public I mean, if thereare concerns, like, show us what
areas you would like to seeimproved, because every single

(51:07):
one of us are willing to listento the public.
Like I don't know any one of uswho doesn't want to hear
feedback from the public.
Now these blanket oh, you guysare just robbing us and
constantly raising taxes and youknow the budget is way too high
.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Like, okay, show us yeah, where, which is
interesting because I always goback to like um, you know the
police department, I've got abrother-in-law in the police
department.
I think of.
You know the fire department.
Stuff like that, like a firetruck, is like a million dollars
, right, and as we grow we'regonna need more fire trucks,

(51:50):
right?
So I look at, we'll just stopgrowing, jeff if we just stop
growing, we wouldn't have to weshould just stop issuing
building permits?

Speaker 2 (51:56):
yeah, we should.
We don't have any water.
Jeff, we're out of water.
I don't care what williebilling said.
He said we have a lot of water.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
I don't believe him yeah, are we going down that?

Speaker 2 (52:07):
hole do we want to go down?
We're not going down that hole.
If you look at so, looking atthe tax, I think it's percent of
the revenue we're taking inversus what we're spending.
Are we spending it in the rightthings?
Some city council members lasttime during the last election
were saying we've had an auditas to how well we're spending it
.
Like we have this much moneyand are we accounting for every

(52:28):
dollar in and dollar out andwe've gotten awards for that.
The city does a great job.
Making sure there's theaccounting of the money in and
money out is really good, buthow we spend it is what the
issue was and the argument was,and there's no way to audit that
Well.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
So here's the thing From the people.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Here's the thing is since that process I told you
about with the truth andtaxation when we went through
all of that, we have fullyfunded and exceeded that
five-year public safety planthat they were saying that we
could not fund without raisingtaxes.
That has been fully funded todate, and then some it's

(53:02):
exceeded that amount that we hadin that initial thing, and so,
priority-wise, I think that weare in alignment pretty much
with where we should be in termsof priorities.
Does that mean there's notalways room for improvement?
I think there's always room forimprovement and everything, and
so you know.
That's why it's.
It's there for the public tosee.

(53:22):
Now, in terms of auditing, itis a state law that our budget
is audited every year because wehave to have a balanced budget,
and so, yeah, we always passthat with flying colors.
Now, one new thing that we areimplementing that's part of this
new budget is I'm just callingit like the doge of St George

(53:43):
City because it's a governmentefficiency.
Actually, our budget team,which I love Robert, he's over
our budget.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
He does a phenomenal job.
Army of Robs.
Yes, I know, the only thingbetter than one Rob is two Right
, we got.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Rob Axson, rob McFarlane, rob Myers yeah, it's
great, robs are great.
So, anyway, they are going todo some trainings, go to some of
these trainings on governmentefficiency so that we make sure
that we are spending it in themost efficient way that we can,
because there's always room forimprovement for sure.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
So, thinking about, I have the tendency to say are we
looking forward enough?
Are we as city officials, arewe projecting out far enough
ahead knowing that, okay, we'regoing to have growth?
We can't stop building permits.
We can't cut out 20% of oureconomic driver in construction,
40%.
Well, it depends on how youlook at it.

(54:40):
The labor and statistics I didthat on, I pulled up the latest
labor and statistics trades andconstruction.
If you add those two up, it's29% of our local economy.
So trades would say is a partof construction, construction
being this, this bucket,construction's 11%.
Trades and other things fit inthere as 18%.

(55:00):
But so maybe, yeah, we'll splitthe difference, let's say 30%.
There's a range 30% of oureconomy is driven based off of
that growth, that construction.
Which we have available land.
People can do what they wantwith their private land.
Right, if I have, you know, 10acres of alfalfa field and I
want to turn that into houses,they can do that.

(55:20):
That's part of what they'reallowed to do.
Is freedom of property?
Right, they get it.
They have their own propertyrights.
Does that affect the city in alot of different ways?
Yes, it does.
However, are we looking?
Do we look at this budget froma how can we start looking
forward to rainy days, or do weneed to put things utilities?
I was listening to a podcastabout Fayetteville, louisiana,

(55:44):
and how-, lafayette, lafayette,lafayette, fayetteville is
Arkansas.
That's Arkansas.
Yeah, yeah, razorbacks, yeah,yeah, lafayette, lafayette,
lafayette.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
That's Arkansas.
Yeah, yeah, razorbacks.
Yeah yeah, lafayette, lafayette, lafayette.
If you're from Louisiana, it's.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Lafayette.
So they didn't prepare forflood stuff right, and so they
built all these new roads andall this affordable housing and
that was like the big bannerover, you know, basically from
2012 until 2015.
Like that was their big bannerand then this flood came and
flooded out all of theseaffordable housing, you know,
units and developments, and theydidn't have proper flood
control.
Do you do?

(56:15):
You think I believe that wehave a lot of really good people
when it comes to managingutilities and things like that,
but do we really take a secondto look forward and say what
does it look like in 510 years?
Because I know the general plan.
We're just finalizing the 20year general plan.
How's that process been andwhere, maybe where do you find
where we're not doing enough atand where are we doing really
good at?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
and some of the other things going on.
Is you know how is this goingto affect the economy moving
forward?
Hopefully it's a positive andnot a negative, but he takes the
conservative approach.

(56:59):
And overall as a council and ascitizens, I think most of us
would also agree with that, andso it's reflecting the will of
the people of taking thatconservative approach is, you
know, let's not overextendourselves for next year and then
the economy tanks like, let'splan for it, you know, not
increasing like we anticipate itprobably will, but we're not

(57:20):
going to plan the budget as ifit's going to Right, and so I
think, overall, we are reallygood at doing that.
And then, yeah, looking forwardto, there is state law that
prohibits the amount to have an,say, a rainy day fund and
things like that, which we arein compliance with that and
meeting those thresholds.
So I think we're in a strongposition overall as a city.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Yeah, what do you think we should be planning
forward on?

Speaker 1 (57:45):
So there will come to a point where I mean, you see
right now, where I mean everysingle stretch of land that
possibly can be built on isbeing built on In.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
St George for sure.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
In St George, right, and now it's getting into some
of the more difficult areas tobuild on near hillsides and on
top of hills and things likethat and so there will become a
time where we are closer tobuild out and, like we talked
about, like so much of oureconomy being driven by
construction.
It's like what does that looklike when this is slowing down,

(58:22):
which inevitably will happen atsome point?
And so I think it's good thatwe have a diversified economy
coming in with, say, tech Ridgeyou know I'll give Tech Ridge a
shout out.
I think it's awesome that wehave those types of companies
and job opportunities here,because there will need to be a
transition at some point, youknow.

(58:42):
Will there always be someconstruction?
Sure, but not to the extentthat we have right now.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
So I'm concerned a little bit with energy
infrastructure.
I feel like I know I've hadLaura Mangum on Laurie Mangum
Laurie and she ran St GeorgePower as a liaison to the city
and really helped that utilitybecome one of the better utility

(59:11):
systems in Southern Utah andreally Utah in general.
And she planned out before sheretired, she planned out this 10
year plan to where she couldreally stabilize those power
bills with natural gas and someof these other things.
And my concern is the citiesaround St George haven't really
planned for that and I can'thelp but think is electricity

(59:31):
and the usage of electricity onthe radar.
Is anybody talking about?
Hey, you know, five, 10 yearsfrom now, the energy output
nationwide is going to 5x, right, Five times that, and we don't
necessarily have the systems inplace on that.
Do you hear anybody talkingabout that, whether it's from
the county level or state level,of how, as St George goes,

(59:52):
we're on an island and we're,you know, rolling blackouts and
things like that can reallyimpact us.
Right, Because we have, we runall of the emergency for
basically five counties aroundus.
Right, we have the airport andthe tower there, the air traffic
control tower there.
We're such this like importanthub right here in the desert.

(01:00:13):
Has there been anyconversations about that?
Have you?
Have you looked at that at?

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
all yeah, and I think it's something we always have
to be looking at.
Diversifying and that'ssomething I know that Lori was
really big on and she did agreat job training Brian, who is
now over our energy department,and you know, I think even
looking at things like smallcell nuclear, I know, is a
really you know buzzword.
Right now it's kind of newerand you know I know that we

(01:00:37):
haven't fully bought into thatyet, but I think that's
definitely something that we'regoing to see more of in the
future and we are fortunate tohave Representative Colin Jack
down here I'm going to have toman.
you guys are having all thesepodcasts.
I need to go back and catch upon here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Oh, I'm going to have to.
Man, you guys are having allthese podcasts I need to go back
and catch up on.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Um, yeah, I love Colin.
I think he does a phenomenaljob and we're fortunate to have
his expertise with being theengineer and the industry.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
I think we talked for two hours.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Oh, he's so smart, yeah, but he's been a good job
protecting us legislatively tomake sure that these coal mines
and things are not shutting downlike we need this.
So yeah, but I think you'reright.
I mean, it's certainlysomething that we always need to
be looking into the future anddiversifying and assuring that
we have proper supply.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Do you think, do you think this Trump plan on
releasing, you know, theeconomic resources of BLM land
is that going to come into playhere in Washington County?

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
I need to do a deeper dive on that.
Honestly, I know I've beenseeing bits and pieces about
that and so I guess I won'treally comment too deeply on
that my opinion, because, yeah,I need to look further into it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Yeah, I think, like think about annexation of land.
Right, it's like we get closerto build out's like, well then.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Well, we got a lot of blm land next to sun river,
right, that that all of a suddencould be part of saint george,
and what I will say on that is Isome of the criticism I've
heard about it which I'm like,scratching my head a little bit,
is I would much rather havelocal control versus federal
control, and so I've seen somecriticism of oh no, we don't

(01:02:14):
want to, you know, take overthese federal lands, and I'm
like, but you trust the federalgovernment to have control over
it, like just not Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
They just don't want Trump to have control over it.
It's always the opposite person, right?
It's like, well, I would, Iwould let Biden have control
over it, but I'm not going tolet Trump have control over it,
right, and so, like that's the.
That's where there's tensionthere, but I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
I'd rather see local control.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
So it's state control even, you know like, whether
it's state control or citycontrol or wherever it is, I
think there's it's going to bean interesting path moving
forward over the next threeyears on how that kind of plays
out yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
And I don't want to see you know of government is
because I know I got some callson.
There was a news article aboutSt George potentially getting a
piece of that land for quoteaffordable housing, retainable
housing.
Now, you know, is there a needfor more attainable housing?
Of course we do have to becareful, though, in government.
I am never a fan of anything interms of, you know, rent
controls, price controls.
The city get involved inactually producing these quote

(01:03:15):
affordable housing like that isfor the free market and the
private sector.
Government can help byeliminating red tape and letting
entrepreneurs and the freemarket take over and fill that
void.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Was that?
Was there a big debate on thedowntown plan?
Because zoning, I think youknow back to the the city
council being 70 developmentright is like land use and
development.
You know, in havingconversations about the zone
changes and things like that isthere.
Is there a big spectrum ofopinions on the city council
right now as to what we shoulddo for for zoning in the
different areas, or I think?

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
we're not super far apart.
I think this is is whereactually Danielle and I probably
align the most in terms of I amnot a fan of restrictions, and
you know I.
Going back to property rightsand you know, love me or hate me
for this I believe that peopleshould be able to do what they

(01:04:10):
want with their own property.
Now there's a balance and thishas been probably one of the
more difficult issues for me asa council member and making some
of these land use decisions isbalancing my libertarianism in
that way and I'm a Republicanbut I'm also very libertarian in
terms of land use and propertyrights is balancing that with

(01:04:31):
okay, but you also have toassure proper infrastructure
right.
You also have to assure there'snot a true infringement on
somebody else's freedom orsomebody else's property rights
that are a true public safetyissue that's going to occur from
what they want to do with theirproperty.
Short-term rentals always comeup as a hot button Right and my

(01:04:51):
opinion on that I'm sure differsand I know differs from other
council members because, again,I think, as a property owner, if
I want to live in my propertyand short-term rent part of my
property, that's my right asproperty owner and especially
having it be owner occupied iteliminates a lot of the concerns
out there of noise, disturbanceand nuisance and all of these

(01:05:12):
things that people worry about.
So personally I don't have aproblem with owner occupied
short term rental.
But anyway, that's a balancingact and you know, I think
actually Danielle and I I'm notgoing to speak for her, I guess,
but from conversations I've hadwith her I think that we

(01:05:34):
actually align a lot on, youknow, being giving property
owners that ability to, in termsof zoning you know, do what you
want with your property so longas you meet those other
requirements.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Yeah, yeah, and I think there's been a lot of
progress, if I can use that term.
Progressive opinion on land usein St George more so than other
cities right, but St Georgecan't just do it themselves.
Right, and affordable housingis and I've said this a
bazillion times.
It's so complex and there's nomagical wand that's just going
to solve the problem, and mostof it is impacted by, pure and

(01:06:00):
simple, the interest rate.
Is that it was reallyaffordable to live here in 2015
and 2017 because property valueswere kind of an enormous space
and interest rates weren't superhigh.
And those.
Those are the two littlefunctions that make up 60% of
affordability, the other beingwages, and I think the city and
government can do a little bitbetter in raising the wages for

(01:06:22):
city jobs and government jobs,but they have to do it within
their budget, right, and so ifthey have sound budgetary policy
and they can afford to pay thegovernment employees more, I
think they should, becausethat'll help raise the wages
across the county in the privatesector as well, because the
government employs like 40percent of our county Like
truthfully, it's like 40 percentis government jobs.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
It's high at the hospitals, a high the school
district which is part ofgovernment, Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
And city officials and all those other things, and
so it's such a huge, hugeportion of it is where you raise
the wages there.
It typically is going totrickle into raising wages for
the private industry, but wehave to have land that is used
for entrepreneurial businesscreation and I think I think
we've done a pretty good job ofthat, especially with tech ridge
.
Uh, what they've done out indesert color?
Um, there's.

(01:07:11):
There's these master plans thatI think have done a good job
bringing in new businesses thathave allowed to diversify Fort
Pierce Industrial too.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
Yeah, Fort Pierce.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
And it's honestly, I could say, on the industrial
side of things, with the inlandport out by the airport.
That's a good, that's a reallygood ad, because industrial
space there's a big need for itand we're right on I-15.
And now we have an airport thatcan support shipping stuff out
for it.
And we're right on i-15, andnow we have an airport that can
support shipping stuff out.
Industrial manufacturing, thosetypes of jobs I think are going
to be huge over the next 50years.

(01:07:40):
So anything the city can do tohelp grow, that'll be awesome.
Um, what else can we cover?
What else you want to chatabout?

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
man, I feel like we hit on a lot from like the drama
from the drama of the therhinos versus the extremists to,
yeah, the state to the citylevel.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Well, I want to have you back on specifically to talk
about your campaign and justhow you're going to
differentiate from thecandidates, and so anybody
listening in, we're going tocover.
It doesn't happen till lateJune.
It's like June 20th issomething like that.
Is that where they put theirname?

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
on the line.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
No, the filing is the first week of june yeah, june
2nd to the 6th.
Yeah, you have to file.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
Six is the cutoff okay, so once, once uh
candidates start filing weeks Iknow it's coming up fast, wow,
yeah so so we'll be followingthe the local elections for the
big five cities in WashingtonCounty, uh, interviewing the
candidates.
So love to have you back on.
It'll be a shorter episode we'regoing to talk, just campaign
like, hey, this is what youstand for, I'm gonna ask some
survey questions.

(01:08:41):
That way Everybody can go to asingle website and say, hey,
here are the candidates, this iswhat they stand on, here's the
interview, here's a list ofquestions, so that they can kind
of, if they can't make it out,to the meet and greets, which
they have a ton of those you'rein for a fun summer.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
So I have a question on that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
I can't wait.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
So since you've publicly announced,
congratulations.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Yes On the 435 podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
On the 435 podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Big announcement.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
Are you what's your strategy?
Like short-term strategy, maybein the next week or two?
Are you going to like hitsocial media hard, media hard?
Are you going to get a bunch ofsigns out?
Are you going to do things?

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
different maybe than you did last time.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
What's kind of your thought process there it's so,
and I have a reason in askingthat question yeah, and it's so.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
I'm actually going to be out of town on a
humanitarian trip nice leadingup until the filing, so there's
not a whole lot.
I'm going to be able to do umbefore then, but yeah, I'll
probably announce on.
So when does this drop?

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
uh, do you know?
Tuesday okay, it'll be tomorrow, so I'll probably announce on
social media.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Yeah, either we could delay it too, if you want oh, I
don't care, you can put it outwhenever, um which I mean, yeah,
I guess where we talked aboutthe convention too, you might
want to drop it yes, while it'sstill kind of relevant right
semi-fresh.
So yeah, I don't know, I'llprobably announce on social
media, maybe when I officiallyfile that first week of June and

(01:09:58):
I threw out all my campaignsigns.
So I'm going to have to liketotally redo all of that.
I need to start making phonecalls and see where I can put
signs and get them designed andall of that.
So it'll be interesting,because the first time I ran I
didn't know what to expect.
I was a no name, nobody knewwho I was, and so I kind of just

(01:10:19):
came out of nowhere.
And then, you know, to be thetop vote getter in that primary
election was like, oh OK, Iguess.
I guess my message is comingacross.
And my message was so simple.
It was just about liberty andfreedom.
And of course that was freshduring COVID, when all of us
were so tired of the mandatesand that's what really, you know

(01:10:40):
, spurred me to get involved.
And so this time, where there'skind of been some distance now
since COVID and some of thosemandates, I mean my message
hasn't changed in terms ofthat's still, what I'm about is
individual freedom and libertyand the proper role of
government, but it's the workisn't done yet Like we need to
continue to move like we've.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
We've shifted the needle in a really positive
direction.
I got a campaign slogan for you, michelle Tanner keeping St
George great.
I love it you can take it free,okay, thank you, hey.
I need all the help I can it.
You can take it free, okay.
Thank you, hey.
I need all the help I can get.
I didn't mean to cut you off,no.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
I need all the help I can get, and so yeah, that's.
I guess what I would say is, ifpeople like what I stand for,
then yeah, like it's going totake all hands on deck and it'll
be really interesting because,because I am such a person that
I'm not afraid to say something,even if it's politically
unpopular.
I've at times offended the left.

(01:11:36):
I've at times offended theright, like I'm not really boxed
in, as we started this openerwith.
I've been painted as a rhino,I've been painted as an
extremist right, because I'msimply not afraid to say what I
believe.
And you know, what I think isright is what I'm going to stand
on principle over popularity,and so that's why I think this
race slogan too, so, that wasactually part of my campaign.

(01:11:59):
Slogan last time was principleover popularity and and um
silence in the face of tyrannyis dangerous was also one of my
my campaign slogans as well,cause I don't think we should be
afraid to be a voice and, youknow, stand on those principles.
So I don't know where there'speople in both of those camps
that I've probably offended inone way or another.

(01:12:20):
I'm hoping that you know kindof the the middle ground there,
who who is willing to have thatopen dialogue and wants to
continue to see my type of avoice on the city council.
That I do feel reflects a lotof our community.
I'm hoping that we are able torally together and move forward.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Sweet Well.
Michelle Tanner, st George CityCouncil.
Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Thanks for having an unpopular opinion every once in
a while.
We always got to have it.
City elections coming up thisyear, november mayor and two
city council seats coming up.
Michelle tanner's running uh,let's see who steps up against
michelle tanner.
I don't think there's gonna bea whole lot of people raising
their hand being like, oh yeah,I'll face michelle, that's kind
of my reason behind asking thatI was gonna wrap question, go it

(01:13:06):
do.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
it is, I think, if you and I don't know anything
about campaigning, but if youcome, come out hot and heavy,
it's going to weed out a wholebunch of people, because last
time, when there was like 16 orsomething, it's just it's
completely pointless and sohopefully some of these people
that are thinking about justpaying the 50 bucks and being
annoying they see you run andthey're like I'm going to mess

(01:13:30):
with it and instead maybe we'llhave like six candidates that
will have like meaningfulconversations and debates.
Yeah, it'll be interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
I mean I think it's healthy.
I mean as much as it would bevery, a lot easier and less
stress in my life to just rununopposed.
I doubt that's going to happen,obviously, but it's okay, it's
healthy to have that debate Iagree, but I do think there's,
especially from the lastelections.

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
There was probably six, seven, eight people that
just did it, just because theycould throw their think there's,
especially from the lastelections there was probably six
, seven, eight people that justdid it, just because they could
throw there, and there's nothingwrong with that.
They can.
Yeah, I can think of one.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
I can think of one.
He runs every time he's goingto run again.
It'll be.
It'll be interesting.
All right, guys, thanks forcoming on.
We got to wrap.
Enjoy everything we talkedabout.
Make sure you like, subscribe,hit the bell and follow Michelle
Tanner on social media becauseshe says a lot of great stuff.
All right, guys we'll see youout there.
Thank you, bye, bye.
Thanks for listening in.

(01:14:20):
If you enjoyed this episode,please like and subscribe.
Make sure you're following uson all the social media websites
.
We love your support.
We love the dialogue.
We want to continue that goingFind.

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