May 14, 2024 • 20 mins
Today, The Two Mikes spoke with Ms. Tricia Jackson who is running for the position of State Auditor in West Virginia.
Ms. Jackson graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Liberty University in business administration with a concentration in Project Management. She also holds two HR certifications as a Professional in Human Resources.
In her career, Ms. Jackson has been a mother, small business owner and, since 2020, has served as County Commissioner in Jefferson County, the county in which she was born. Like the other candidates for state office in West Virginia, Ms. Jackson has been crisscrossing the state by car to meet and speak to as many people as possible before the primary election on 14 May 2022.
There is, for The Two Mikes, something refreshing about not seeing candidates flying around in private jets and being more interested in speaking with the media and big donors rather than with the voters.
And Ms. Jackson has a good story to tell as she describes one of the state's problems; namely, that money that is appropriated in the state budget does not always get spent on the project or program for which it was intended.
If elected as state auditor, Ms. Jackson said that she intends to have her department provide steady and in-depth tracking over spending in all of West Virginia’s counties and municipalities in the state to make certain that tax dollars are spent in the manner in which they were intended to be spent.
As auditor, Ms. Jackson has an Inspector General in her department, and she said she will ensure that the IG and his team will be busy in rectifying any misspending that is identified.
Dr Michael Scheuer & Colonel Mike co-host Two Mikes. This show discusses current events from a Pro-America, Constitutional perspective. These two have guest hosted radio shows for 6 years and are excited to join with like minded people on Freedom First Network. Dr. Michael Scheuer is a former CIA analyst who ran the Osama bin Laden tracking unit, as well as the author of many books. Colonel Mike is also a former liaison & contractor for many years in South East Asia. He's also an advisor and businessman with many contacts around the globe.
Subscribe to Freedom First Network on Rumble to watch all of our shows LIVE: https://rumble.com/c/freedomfirstnetwork
Elevate your meals with Freedom First Beef… even if you find yourself in the middle of the apocalypse! Use code TWOMIKES for 15% off and enjoy high-quality beef whenever you crave it today or tomorrow! https://freedomfirstbeef.com
Be ready for anything life throws your way with The Wellness Company's Medical Emergency Kit. Order today using code TWOMIKES for a 10% discount at https://twc.health/ffn.
Protect your financial future with precious metals! Schedule your consultation with Our Gold Guy today and take control of your financial destiny! https://ourgoldguy.com
Unleash the spirit of liberty in every cup with Freedom First Coffee's Founders Blend. Order now using code TWOMIKES and savor the unparalleled taste of freedom in every patriotic sip. https://freedomfirstcoffee.com
Ms. Jackson graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Liberty University in business administration with a concentration in Project Management. She also holds two HR certifications as a Professional in Human Resources.
In her career, Ms. Jackson has been a mother, small business owner and, since 2020, has served as County Commissioner in Jefferson County, the county in which she was born. Like the other candidates for state office in West Virginia, Ms. Jackson has been crisscrossing the state by car to meet and speak to as many people as possible before the primary election on 14 May 2022.
There is, for The Two Mikes, something refreshing about not seeing candidates flying around in private jets and being more interested in speaking with the media and big donors rather than with the voters.
And Ms. Jackson has a good story to tell as she describes one of the state's problems; namely, that money that is appropriated in the state budget does not always get spent on the project or program for which it was intended.
If elected as state auditor, Ms. Jackson said that she intends to have her department provide steady and in-depth tracking over spending in all of West Virginia’s counties and municipalities in the state to make certain that tax dollars are spent in the manner in which they were intended to be spent.
As auditor, Ms. Jackson has an Inspector General in her department, and she said she will ensure that the IG and his team will be busy in rectifying any misspending that is identified.
Dr Michael Scheuer & Colonel Mike co-host Two Mikes. This show discusses current events from a Pro-America, Constitutional perspective. These two have guest hosted radio shows for 6 years and are excited to join with like minded people on Freedom First Network. Dr. Michael Scheuer is a former CIA analyst who ran the Osama bin Laden tracking unit, as well as the author of many books. Colonel Mike is also a former liaison & contractor for many years in South East Asia. He's also an advisor and businessman with many contacts around the globe.
Subscribe to Freedom First Network on Rumble to watch all of our shows LIVE: https://rumble.com/c/freedomfirstnetwork
Elevate your meals with Freedom First Beef… even if you find yourself in the middle of the apocalypse! Use code TWOMIKES for 15% off and enjoy high-quality beef whenever you crave it today or tomorrow! https://freedomfirstbeef.com
Be ready for anything life throws your way with The Wellness Company's Medical Emergency Kit. Order today using code TWOMIKES for a 10% discount at https://twc.health/ffn.
Protect your financial future with precious metals! Schedule your consultation with Our Gold Guy today and take control of your financial destiny! https://ourgoldguy.com
Unleash the spirit of liberty in every cup with Freedom First Coffee's Founders Blend. Order now using code TWOMIKES and savor the unparalleled taste of freedom in every patriotic sip. https://freedomfirstcoffee.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
How many times have we heard let'shave one minute of silence for the genocide
that's going on in gossip. Well, what I'm going to do on the
two mics is I'm going to giveyou one minute of silence before the show,
and as you listen to this music, think about the innocent people that
(00:26):
have died in this genocide, andthink about the flotilla that was stopped as
(01:34):
stock st five four three two one. Hey, welcome back your own with
(02:04):
two mics doctr Michael Show, yourNew York Times bestselling author and one of
the best blogs out there, Nonhyphen Intervention number two dot com. You
got to read it. It's upon the two mics dot us. You
can see the blog. It's upthere. Yesterday Mike wrote a scathing blog.
And by the way, uh,you can also go to America out
loud dot news, America out Louddot News and Monday, Monday night tonight.
(02:29):
I think tonight's Monday. Yeah,Tonight's Monday, eight o'clock. We'll
be doing a live show and we'llbe talking about what's going on, and
it's a it's gonna be in Mike'sblog also, so you may want to
look at that all right, withoutfurther ado, as we say in France,
McCrone and the cheese. We're goingto go right to the guests,
first time with us. And she'srunning for an office and take me home
Country Rose, West Virginia. Hername is Tricia Jackson. Tricia Jackson,
(02:51):
welcome to two Mikes. Thank you, thank you for having me. I
appreciate, appreciate the opportunity very much. Well, you're a fighter, and
we know you had a little bitof legal hassle, which is a problem
always and when you have a legalhassle, that means you good because somebody's
going after you. So you cangive us a little bit of a background
on that, and then we wantto talk about the race. You ring,
(03:12):
okay, great? So yeah,I mean it's made news, some
misinformed news around the area. Thereare actually two tracks going on. There
was a removal petition which the hearingtook place on March twenty sixth and twenty
seventh and last Wednesday, May.First, it looks like the three judge
(03:34):
panel ruled to remove myself and myfellow commissioner from office before there's a criminal
track as well, so before thecriminal track was even heard to determine if
we've broken any laws or violated anycodes. They've determined that we needed to
be removed for office. And Idon't think it's ironic that the decision fell
(03:58):
on the first day of early voting, so that's I don't think it was
quite a coincidence for that, butnonetheless, but a petition for removal that
was submitted by the prosecuting attorney.I just want to say that we have
an overwhelming amount of support from ourresidents and the people that voted for us,
(04:24):
that are behind us and supporting us. So they did not ask for
this. They did not ask forus to be removed from office. They
very much enjoyed and liked what myfellow commissioner and I were doing, and
that was taking things to the people, letting the people know what their government
was doing, their local government wasdoing, and getting those folks engaged.
Now, this is Jefferson County,West Virginia, which includes give us a
(04:47):
couple of towns there that borders LoudonCounty, Virginia. Correct, Yes,
so does that border Frederick also FrederickCounty? Yeah, it does border Frederick.
So what the major towns are CharlesTown's the county seat. You have
Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry. Okay,gotcha. Shepherdstown Harper that's where the university
(05:09):
is. Harry is the National BattlefieldPark, which a lot of us known
visit. And so this is areally beautiful area in West Virginia when you
come right over the border of Virginia, whether you're coming from Winchester or Leesburg
Loudon County, and it's it's thatcorrupt, and it's right over the border
from Virginia. Gosh, yeah,I never I grew up here, so
(05:34):
I kind of you know, theterm everybody uses is the good old boy
system, and I kind of knewit existed because I lived some of it.
I just didn't know how deep itwas until I got in office.
And then this is at a wholenew level, like going after your political
you know, opponents, or politicalpersecution is what I refer to it as.
(05:55):
But yes, it is down tothe local level at this point.
So let's ask the question, howare you doing in this race for auditor?
And you're running against two Okay,so I have three opponents. I
have two delegates. One was aformer delegate. He resigned to focus on
the race and one is a senator. So I'm running against Delegate Householder who's
(06:19):
out of Berkeley County, former DelegateHannah who was somers County or Nicholas County
and he moved to Kanaal County.And then there's Senator Mark Hunt, who
is in Kannall County. So thismust be a good position, Tricia,
for all these guys wanting to run. Well, it used to be a
(06:43):
position that you know always, Ithink, along with treasure, would fly
under the radar. But what's reallyimportant about the Auditor's offense is the auditor
not only has is not only theofficial bookkeeper of the state and the agencies
and tracking those expenses and revenues,it's also has oversight over the counties and
(07:05):
the municipality. So it's very importantdown to the county and the municipal level
this position, having that oversight,being able to audit the information so you
will know how the money flows andword flows and left right and center right,
correct? Yes, How are youdoing? How are you doing in
(07:26):
the polls? How are you doingin the race. I haven't seen too
many polls. I saw a polllast fall that had me in second place
after Senator hunt, and I knowthat was a sampling and down around the
Canal area. I haven't seen apoll since. I am working very hard
to get out and meet the peopleand bring some vigilance to the Auditor's office
(07:51):
and exactly what it is we do. So as far as my engagement with
people, and I think I'm doingvery well, but I really don't have
pull numbers to tell me. Allright, So let's ask you a question.
Now, who's the auditor in yourstate? Now? Okay? So
the current auditor is mister j.B. McCuskey. Oh, he's been
(08:13):
on our show. Yes, Yes, JB is not very nice man.
He's been on our show. Yeah. And he's running what is he running
for now? Governor? He wasrunning for governor. He's now running for
attorney general. Okay, attorney general? Got you? Got you? Okay?
How's he doing? I don't know. I think it's close between him
(08:35):
and mister Mike Stewart, Senator Stewart. Okay, but I haven't I haven't
really looked at a lot of thepolls. I've just been heads down trying
to get my mind. Are youChris crossing the state or are you just
going to certain sections within the state. So I've been in thirty seven of
the fifty five counties. Wow,since last fall. I started kind of
(08:56):
what I called soft campaigning last fallonce I determined I was on a through
Manhattan the ring for this and soyeah, I've been kind of targeting areas.
West Virginia looks like a small stateuntil you start driving it. It's
five or six hours to get tothe other side of the state. Yeah,
it's very true because Mike and Iwe used to live in northern Virginia
(09:18):
and people would say to us,Oh, do you go to how far
is it to Virginia Beach? Imean, you could be in New York
City before you get to Virginia Beach, you know what I mean. It's
like four and a half five outnow, depending if you took ninety five,
right, Mike, where's bumper tobumper? Now, it's like California,
you know, twenty four to seven. But you know, we used
to go to a studio down insouthern Virginia. It was like anywhere from
(09:39):
three and a half to five anda half hours, depending on the time
and day, right, And it'sthe same thing like you know, if
you come over the border from Marylandinto north the eastern Panhandle, and people
say, well, how far isthe capital? It's far? What is
it like hours? Right? Soit's five hours, but luckily there's some
(10:00):
major highway to get to the capitol. When you're talking about bordering counties with
Ohio and Kentucky, I mean that'slike six and a half hour drives,
you know, to get to thoseplaces. So amazing, Mike, go
ahead, Mike, you're being wellreceived on the ground, member, I
think I am. Yes, Iam engaging with a lot of people.
(10:20):
Some of the crowds have been reallygood. I am very much a people
person, so I like to hearwhat the constituents have to say. And
I think I am being being verywell received. Yes, an easy vincent
on the ground. Yet do peopleunderstand just to go back to the question
that the colonel asked and who answered, you must be trying to help them
(10:43):
to understand what the auditor does.Yes, I'm afraid so many people don't
know, you know, they seethe names, they see the title of
the office, but they don't alwaysknow what the office does. So anything
that a candidate can do to letthem know, I think is very worth
while. Out especially because if youdon't know, if you haven't had a
new person in there for a while, you don't know what's been good,
(11:05):
what's been bad, or what's beenbad or just misdone correct. Yeah and
yeah, So a lot of peopledon't know. I mean, when you
say auditor, you think audit,but you know, like most people would.
But I have been working very hardto help folks understand that it's not
just just auditing, or it's trackingthe tax dollars and making sure that they're
(11:33):
being spent as appropriated. But togo back to what was said earlier,
we have all this money sitting aroundto fix roads and we're patching potholes.
So they're the problem, right.So one of my biggest initiatives or messages
is, you know, obviously improvingtransparency, but I believe that people have
(11:58):
a right to know where they're moneyis being spent. And a challenge we're
having right now is you know,we're being taxed, and when you ask
for essential services or need essential services, well it's not in the budget for
that, Well why not, youknow, So it's it's we need more
money, and so people are notunderstanding. I mean, we've got counties
(12:22):
and uh, you know some otherparts of the state that don't have fire
ems service and they're scratching their headlike where's where's the money? Rather it's
municipal, county or state level,where is the money? Well, where
is the money? They charged fivecents per what is it? Five cents
(12:46):
for ghastly tax in your state?They do? Now that's supposed to be
or marked for the roads. Butyeah, it's uh, you know,
to fix and repair roads. Butyeah, that's one of my big initiatives
of getting in there. Now.I will say I think JB did a
great job rolling out what we callWest Virginia Checkbook, which is a transparency
(13:09):
portal where you can go on andsee the revenues and expenses for the agencies
around the state. He did offerthat to counties and municipalities Jefferson County did.
I was very instrumental in bringing thatto Jefferson County. It's called Project
Mountaineer as an extension for the countiesand municipalities. But I've learned going around
(13:33):
the state, like only twenty sevento fifty five counties are on this and
of the twenty seven, there's nostreamlining of the information that gets submitted to
that portal, and so there issome data entry which creates a huge opportunity
(13:54):
for error or you know, notanother leave. Wait, I want to
just say something to Mike. Mike, I by accidentally I muted you.
Can you go and unmute yourself,Mike? Can you hear me? My
wife does too. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, you know I was.
(14:18):
Oh, I really I'm sorry.But okay, So, uh,
we we want to say we wantto wish you good luck because we like
winners, and we like honest winners, you know what I mean. And
we're we're we're two Mikes. Wetell it like it is, and we
don't you know, we don't likethe hanky panky. We don't like small
town politics and you know what theydo to people in small towns, like
(14:39):
what they're doing to you in JeffsonCounty, which is a beautiful county,
you know, and people come overand there's a lot of tourism in that
Harpist Ferry area and you guys havethat new uh what is that that rubber
slide in the winter? Yes,yeah, yes, no tub being.
I tried that last one. Itwas really nice. So Tricia, can
(15:05):
I ask one more questions like that. Yeah, Tricia, if as state
auditor, do you have an armfor investigation if you find an irregularity?
We do have it's called an inspectorGeneral. So do you have a division
that if we do find irregularities?And I just want to go back to
(15:26):
that checkbooks for a minute. Theinformation that is put in is not audited
while it's put in. There's nostandardization for how that information is inputed across
the state from these counties. Butthere is an arm, it's inspector general
in the Auditor's office that when complaintscome in or there are irregularities, that
it does get investigated, and thenwe can proceed to have those types of
(15:48):
things you know down. Yeah,Yeah, that's that's that's a terrific thing.
You are not only not only havinga view of it, but you
can go after without depending on someonewho might not be quite as eager as
you are to go after it,right right, Yes, very good.
(16:08):
So I would just add, youknow, I think that's part of the
problem with having here in Jefferson County. I'm myself and my fellow commissioner were
targeted. We have a five personcommission and they had the vote stocked down
three to two on most stuff.But she and I talk to the constituents
and go to them and make themaware what's on the agenda or you might
(16:30):
want to pay attention to this,or this is what's going on. Obviously
things that we can share, andwe've definitely had some of the folks step
up and start to take an actof participation in their local government. Well,
I can't think of anything that wouldexcite people more than to see an
herm of government that's actually trying tofind out to find a way to make
(16:52):
sure the money is spent in themanner it was intended. Yes, So
what was what was it that theywould after you for? For you and
this other lady that the commissioner?Was it? Do you call it like
a county board commission or a boardchairmisis is a county commission. So I
believe there's two things. And likeI said, I can only say so
much, but I believe there's twothings. Like I said, so we
(17:18):
were having we had a vacancy,so we were a four person commission instead
of a five which West Virginia Code'swritten for three person commissions and we have
five. So we had a vacancy, there was some controversy around potential conflicts
of interest with the appointments in thatvacancy, and so we had had an
(17:42):
opinion. Ironically, this was submittedinto evidence during the hearing, so that's
the only reason I'm sharing this isand this was under testimony to the public.
It's not mine, it's someone else's. But we had an opinion from
the Secretary of State's office as wellas our own county attorney. That you
(18:02):
know, code is written for threeperson commissions. It does not contemplate five.
The whole process, there would beno legal way forward to make this
appointment if the commission did not agreeone who to put in a seat,
and we were deadlocked at one point, so we were challenging the code and
trying to find a legal path forwards. So we didn't want to do We
(18:26):
didn't want to break the law bydoing the wrong thing, and we wanted
to abide by the law, whichwas very ambiguous. So that prompted the
removal, and then out of theremoval, the prosecuting attorney requests a special
prosecutor to investigate if we actually brokelaw and there were criminal charges to be
(18:48):
filed and that dropped on March twelfth, and that date significant to me because
we besides being arrested, we weregoing in the first day of budget deliberations
where we were told that the CountyCommission was operating on a four point eight
million dollar deficit for fiscal year twentyfour and we're sitting in budget deliberations for
(19:12):
twenty five and I'm like, weneed an audit, Like where's four point
eight million dollars? Like that's abig error. We were arrested, and
the intent, in my opinion,based on the series of events, we
are arrested on a Tuesday, wewere arraigned, Our bond was set at
forty two thousand dollars, and wewere told if we did not make that
(19:36):
we were going to jail. Theydid not want Shan and I in those
budget meetings for one reason or another. So it's enough to vote for you
anytime while I'm still fighting despite allof that, No, we haven't.
Actually, the reason I'm proceeding withCushion is even though the removal the order
(20:00):
came out for that, the criminalsstill out there and we haven't had our
first hearing yet, so I can'tdivulge, sure too much, so I'm
trying to perceive the caution it didjust find men. Okay, all right,
thank you so much, Treasure.We wish you well. And the
primary is a couple of more daysdown of the road. We'll get this
up as fast we can and spreadit however you want. We'll get it
(20:25):
out there. We have a bigaudience in the United States and around the
globe. Okay, thank you.So people will know, people will know
your name, they will know whatyou're running for, what you stand for,
and people I know, the peoplewho listen to mics, they're not
gonna like to hear this story.Well I don't like living it, but
(20:47):
I still got a solid so yesman, ready, good luck, take
care down. Thank you very much. Bye bye, bye bye
How many times have we heard let'shave one minute of silence for the genocide
that's going on in gossip. Well, what I'm going to do on the
two mics is I'm going to giveyou one minute of silence before the show,
and as you listen to this music, think about the innocent people that
(00:26):
have died in this genocide, andthink about the flotilla that was stopped as
(01:34):
stock st five four three two one. Hey, welcome back your own with
(02:04):
two mics doctr Michael Show, yourNew York Times bestselling author and one of
the best blogs out there, Nonhyphen Intervention number two dot com. You
got to read it. It's upon the two mics dot us. You
can see the blog. It's upthere. Yesterday Mike wrote a scathing blog.
And by the way, uh,you can also go to America out
loud dot news, America out Louddot News and Monday, Monday night tonight.
(02:29):
I think tonight's Monday. Yeah,Tonight's Monday, eight o'clock. We'll
be doing a live show and we'llbe talking about what's going on, and
it's a it's gonna be in Mike'sblog also, so you may want to
look at that all right, withoutfurther ado, as we say in France,
McCrone and the cheese. We're goingto go right to the guests,
first time with us. And she'srunning for an office and take me home
Country Rose, West Virginia. Hername is Tricia Jackson. Tricia Jackson,
(02:51):
welcome to two Mikes. Thank you, thank you for having me. I
appreciate, appreciate the opportunity very much. Well, you're a fighter, and
we know you had a little bitof legal hassle, which is a problem
always and when you have a legalhassle, that means you good because somebody's
going after you. So you cangive us a little bit of a background
on that, and then we wantto talk about the race. You ring,
(03:12):
okay, great? So yeah,I mean it's made news, some
misinformed news around the area. Thereare actually two tracks going on. There
was a removal petition which the hearingtook place on March twenty sixth and twenty
seventh and last Wednesday, May.First, it looks like the three judge
(03:34):
panel ruled to remove myself and myfellow commissioner from office before there's a criminal
track as well, so before thecriminal track was even heard to determine if
we've broken any laws or violated anycodes. They've determined that we needed to
be removed for office. And Idon't think it's ironic that the decision fell
(03:58):
on the first day of early voting, so that's I don't think it was
quite a coincidence for that, butnonetheless, but a petition for removal that
was submitted by the prosecuting attorney.I just want to say that we have
an overwhelming amount of support from ourresidents and the people that voted for us,
(04:24):
that are behind us and supporting us. So they did not ask for
this. They did not ask forus to be removed from office. They
very much enjoyed and liked what myfellow commissioner and I were doing, and
that was taking things to the people, letting the people know what their government
was doing, their local government wasdoing, and getting those folks engaged.
Now, this is Jefferson County,West Virginia, which includes give us a
(04:47):
couple of towns there that borders LoudonCounty, Virginia. Correct, Yes,
so does that border Frederick also FrederickCounty? Yeah, it does border Frederick.
So what the major towns are CharlesTown's the county seat. You have
Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry. Okay,gotcha. Shepherdstown Harper that's where the university
(05:09):
is. Harry is the National BattlefieldPark, which a lot of us known
visit. And so this is areally beautiful area in West Virginia when you
come right over the border of Virginia, whether you're coming from Winchester or Leesburg
Loudon County, and it's it's thatcorrupt, and it's right over the border
from Virginia. Gosh, yeah,I never I grew up here, so
(05:34):
I kind of you know, theterm everybody uses is the good old boy
system, and I kind of knewit existed because I lived some of it.
I just didn't know how deep itwas until I got in office.
And then this is at a wholenew level, like going after your political
you know, opponents, or politicalpersecution is what I refer to it as.
(05:55):
But yes, it is down tothe local level at this point.
So let's ask the question, howare you doing in this race for auditor?
And you're running against two Okay,so I have three opponents. I
have two delegates. One was aformer delegate. He resigned to focus on
the race and one is a senator. So I'm running against Delegate Householder who's
(06:19):
out of Berkeley County, former DelegateHannah who was somers County or Nicholas County
and he moved to Kanaal County.And then there's Senator Mark Hunt, who
is in Kannall County. So thismust be a good position, Tricia,
for all these guys wanting to run. Well, it used to be a
(06:43):
position that you know always, Ithink, along with treasure, would fly
under the radar. But what's reallyimportant about the Auditor's offense is the auditor
not only has is not only theofficial bookkeeper of the state and the agencies
and tracking those expenses and revenues,it's also has oversight over the counties and
(07:05):
the municipality. So it's very importantdown to the county and the municipal level
this position, having that oversight,being able to audit the information so you
will know how the money flows andword flows and left right and center right,
correct? Yes, How are youdoing? How are you doing in
(07:26):
the polls? How are you doingin the race. I haven't seen too
many polls. I saw a polllast fall that had me in second place
after Senator hunt, and I knowthat was a sampling and down around the
Canal area. I haven't seen apoll since. I am working very hard
to get out and meet the peopleand bring some vigilance to the Auditor's office
(07:51):
and exactly what it is we do. So as far as my engagement with
people, and I think I'm doingvery well, but I really don't have
pull numbers to tell me. Allright, So let's ask you a question.
Now, who's the auditor in yourstate? Now? Okay? So
the current auditor is mister j.B. McCuskey. Oh, he's been
(08:13):
on our show. Yes, Yes, JB is not very nice man.
He's been on our show. Yeah. And he's running what is he running
for now? Governor? He wasrunning for governor. He's now running for
attorney general. Okay, attorney general? Got you? Got you? Okay?
How's he doing? I don't know. I think it's close between him
(08:35):
and mister Mike Stewart, Senator Stewart. Okay, but I haven't I haven't
really looked at a lot of thepolls. I've just been heads down trying
to get my mind. Are youChris crossing the state or are you just
going to certain sections within the state. So I've been in thirty seven of
the fifty five counties. Wow,since last fall. I started kind of
(08:56):
what I called soft campaigning last fallonce I determined I was on a through
Manhattan the ring for this and soyeah, I've been kind of targeting areas.
West Virginia looks like a small stateuntil you start driving it. It's
five or six hours to get tothe other side of the state. Yeah,
it's very true because Mike and Iwe used to live in northern Virginia
(09:18):
and people would say to us,Oh, do you go to how far
is it to Virginia Beach? Imean, you could be in New York
City before you get to Virginia Beach, you know what I mean. It's
like four and a half five outnow, depending if you took ninety five,
right, Mike, where's bumper tobumper? Now, it's like California,
you know, twenty four to seven. But you know, we used
to go to a studio down insouthern Virginia. It was like anywhere from
(09:39):
three and a half to five anda half hours, depending on the time
and day, right, And it'sthe same thing like you know, if
you come over the border from Marylandinto north the eastern Panhandle, and people
say, well, how far isthe capital? It's far? What is
it like hours? Right? Soit's five hours, but luckily there's some
(10:00):
major highway to get to the capitol. When you're talking about bordering counties with
Ohio and Kentucky, I mean that'slike six and a half hour drives,
you know, to get to thoseplaces. So amazing, Mike, go
ahead, Mike, you're being wellreceived on the ground, member, I
think I am. Yes, Iam engaging with a lot of people.
(10:20):
Some of the crowds have been reallygood. I am very much a people
person, so I like to hearwhat the constituents have to say. And
I think I am being being verywell received. Yes, an easy vincent
on the ground. Yet do peopleunderstand just to go back to the question
that the colonel asked and who answered, you must be trying to help them
(10:43):
to understand what the auditor does.Yes, I'm afraid so many people don't
know, you know, they seethe names, they see the title of
the office, but they don't alwaysknow what the office does. So anything
that a candidate can do to letthem know, I think is very worth
while. Out especially because if youdon't know, if you haven't had a
new person in there for a while, you don't know what's been good,
(11:05):
what's been bad, or what's beenbad or just misdone correct. Yeah and
yeah, So a lot of peopledon't know. I mean, when you
say auditor, you think audit,but you know, like most people would.
But I have been working very hardto help folks understand that it's not
just just auditing, or it's trackingthe tax dollars and making sure that they're
(11:33):
being spent as appropriated. But togo back to what was said earlier,
we have all this money sitting aroundto fix roads and we're patching potholes.
So they're the problem, right.So one of my biggest initiatives or messages
is, you know, obviously improvingtransparency, but I believe that people have
(11:58):
a right to know where they're moneyis being spent. And a challenge we're
having right now is you know,we're being taxed, and when you ask
for essential services or need essential services, well it's not in the budget for
that, Well why not, youknow, So it's it's we need more
money, and so people are notunderstanding. I mean, we've got counties
(12:22):
and uh, you know some otherparts of the state that don't have fire
ems service and they're scratching their headlike where's where's the money? Rather it's
municipal, county or state level,where is the money? Well, where
is the money? They charged fivecents per what is it? Five cents
(12:46):
for ghastly tax in your state?They do? Now that's supposed to be
or marked for the roads. Butyeah, it's uh, you know,
to fix and repair roads. Butyeah, that's one of my big initiatives
of getting in there. Now.I will say I think JB did a
great job rolling out what we callWest Virginia Checkbook, which is a transparency
(13:09):
portal where you can go on andsee the revenues and expenses for the agencies
around the state. He did offerthat to counties and municipalities Jefferson County did.
I was very instrumental in bringing thatto Jefferson County. It's called Project
Mountaineer as an extension for the countiesand municipalities. But I've learned going around
(13:33):
the state, like only twenty sevento fifty five counties are on this and
of the twenty seven, there's nostreamlining of the information that gets submitted to
that portal, and so there issome data entry which creates a huge opportunity
(13:54):
for error or you know, notanother leave. Wait, I want to
just say something to Mike. Mike, I by accidentally I muted you.
Can you go and unmute yourself,Mike? Can you hear me? My
wife does too. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, you know I was.
(14:18):
Oh, I really I'm sorry.But okay, So, uh,
we we want to say we wantto wish you good luck because we like
winners, and we like honest winners, you know what I mean. And
we're we're we're two Mikes. Wetell it like it is, and we
don't you know, we don't likethe hanky panky. We don't like small
town politics and you know what theydo to people in small towns, like
(14:39):
what they're doing to you in JeffsonCounty, which is a beautiful county,
you know, and people come overand there's a lot of tourism in that
Harpist Ferry area and you guys havethat new uh what is that that rubber
slide in the winter? Yes,yeah, yes, no tub being.
I tried that last one. Itwas really nice. So Tricia, can
(15:05):
I ask one more questions like that. Yeah, Tricia, if as state
auditor, do you have an armfor investigation if you find an irregularity?
We do have it's called an inspectorGeneral. So do you have a division
that if we do find irregularities?And I just want to go back to
(15:26):
that checkbooks for a minute. Theinformation that is put in is not audited
while it's put in. There's nostandardization for how that information is inputed across
the state from these counties. Butthere is an arm, it's inspector general
in the Auditor's office that when complaintscome in or there are irregularities, that
it does get investigated, and thenwe can proceed to have those types of
(15:48):
things you know down. Yeah,Yeah, that's that's that's a terrific thing.
You are not only not only havinga view of it, but you
can go after without depending on someonewho might not be quite as eager as
you are to go after it,right right, Yes, very good.
(16:08):
So I would just add, youknow, I think that's part of the
problem with having here in Jefferson County. I'm myself and my fellow commissioner were
targeted. We have a five personcommission and they had the vote stocked down
three to two on most stuff.But she and I talk to the constituents
and go to them and make themaware what's on the agenda or you might
(16:30):
want to pay attention to this,or this is what's going on. Obviously
things that we can share, andwe've definitely had some of the folks step
up and start to take an actof participation in their local government. Well,
I can't think of anything that wouldexcite people more than to see an
herm of government that's actually trying tofind out to find a way to make
(16:52):
sure the money is spent in themanner it was intended. Yes, So
what was what was it that theywould after you for? For you and
this other lady that the commissioner?Was it? Do you call it like
a county board commission or a boardchairmisis is a county commission. So I
believe there's two things. And likeI said, I can only say so
much, but I believe there's twothings. Like I said, so we
(17:18):
were having we had a vacancy,so we were a four person commission instead
of a five which West Virginia Code'swritten for three person commissions and we have
five. So we had a vacancy, there was some controversy around potential conflicts
of interest with the appointments in thatvacancy, and so we had had an
(17:42):
opinion. Ironically, this was submittedinto evidence during the hearing, so that's
the only reason I'm sharing this isand this was under testimony to the public.
It's not mine, it's someone else's. But we had an opinion from
the Secretary of State's office as wellas our own county attorney. That you
(18:02):
know, code is written for threeperson commissions. It does not contemplate five.
The whole process, there would beno legal way forward to make this
appointment if the commission did not agreeone who to put in a seat,
and we were deadlocked at one point, so we were challenging the code and
trying to find a legal path forwards. So we didn't want to do We
(18:26):
didn't want to break the law bydoing the wrong thing, and we wanted
to abide by the law, whichwas very ambiguous. So that prompted the
removal, and then out of theremoval, the prosecuting attorney requests a special
prosecutor to investigate if we actually brokelaw and there were criminal charges to be
(18:48):
filed and that dropped on March twelfth, and that date significant to me because
we besides being arrested, we weregoing in the first day of budget deliberations
where we were told that the CountyCommission was operating on a four point eight
million dollar deficit for fiscal year twentyfour and we're sitting in budget deliberations for
(19:12):
twenty five and I'm like, weneed an audit, Like where's four point
eight million dollars? Like that's abig error. We were arrested, and
the intent, in my opinion,based on the series of events, we
are arrested on a Tuesday, wewere arraigned, Our bond was set at
forty two thousand dollars, and wewere told if we did not make that
(19:36):
we were going to jail. Theydid not want Shan and I in those
budget meetings for one reason or another. So it's enough to vote for you
anytime while I'm still fighting despite allof that, No, we haven't.
Actually, the reason I'm proceeding withCushion is even though the removal the order
(20:00):
came out for that, the criminalsstill out there and we haven't had our
first hearing yet, so I can'tdivulge, sure too much, so I'm
trying to perceive the caution it didjust find men. Okay, all right,
thank you so much, Treasure.We wish you well. And the
primary is a couple of more daysdown of the road. We'll get this
up as fast we can and spreadit however you want. We'll get it
(20:25):
out there. We have a bigaudience in the United States and around the
globe. Okay, thank you.So people will know, people will know
your name, they will know whatyou're running for, what you stand for,
and people I know, the peoplewho listen to mics, they're not
gonna like to hear this story.Well I don't like living it, but
(20:47):
I still got a solid so yesman, ready, good luck, take
care down. Thank you very much. Bye bye, bye bye
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.