The American Dream: Politics, Beer, and Small Town Revival

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
and welcome in here to the two guys and beer podcast
studios.
Uh, and andy and sean back inaction.
Uh, it's been.
It's been a hot minute, it'sbeen a minute it's been a while,
a couple months but uh, we'regetting back into it, and what
better time than with America'sbirthday happening and America,
america, america.

(00:32):
So we do have a guest with ustoday, so we'll get a little bit
more into that.
I'll let you introduce yourselfgenerally, but we'll get to
some more of your details oncewe get to the beer drinking part
.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
All right, sure, so my name is Luke Merrill, interim
mayor of the city of I-San-E.
I've lived in I-San-E for 33years.
Pretty steady conservative.
I'm just trying to keep taxeslow and do what's best for the
people.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Perfect, there we go.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I like low taxes.
Yeah, you know I love low taxes.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Everybody does.
Conservative, democrat Doesn'tmatter, the lower the better.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
So the beer today Kind of went on theme, I guess
is kind of what we went withthis.
We went kind of the AmericaWith July 4th.
I think this is going to comeup maybe a little bit after that
, but that's kind of where we'regoing.
We're going to kind of cheersto America so we have real
American beer Is what this is.
So you can see it on the boxthere and yeah, it's a Hulk

(01:32):
Hogan beer.
Hulk Hogan beer.
Here we go.
Hulk Hogan beer, yeah, it's hisbeer.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Hell yeah, brother.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
He didn't create it, but he is the front man to it
and he is on the can.
He's got.
You know, it's his quote,that's on the can, and so it's a
Hulk Hogan beer, so it's.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
You know what we should have done?
I should have told Luke sooner,and he could have just ripped
off his shirt, for that there wego.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Depending on how this beer tastes, we might put him
through the table later.
Perfect, the flying elbow totaxes.
That's what it is.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
The leg drop, the Hogan leg drop.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Exactly something like that.
We'll make something happen.
First and foremost, though, thebest part of the podcast, I
guess, in my opinion, let'scrack open to this that's the
best part.
Ah, that's the best part.
So it just says light beer.

(02:31):
Not really, I'm assuming it'slike a version of a lager, but I
don't see it listed on on thecouple here that they have.
But uh, yeah, it just sayslight beer.
It is definitely a light beer.
This is a easy, easy drinkingkind of malty.
You know something?
You're going to have highlawnmower scale.
You can drink a dozen.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Oh, absolutely.
It's not like an IPA, where youget tired of it right away.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, I don't like light beer, so I think this
sucks.
If I drink light beer, it's aCoors Light, because Coors Light
actually has a little flavor toit.
It does, it does, trust me.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
We should have done a taste test.
If you do 14 of them, you'llfind some flavor in there.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Oh fine, my first drink of this.
I'm not too impressed with it,but it's a Hulk Hogan beer.
What do you expect?

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, it's all right, it's a light beer.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
To me it tastes kind of like a Bush Light or
something.
I can't stand Bush Light.
But we sell more Bush Light inthis part of Minnesota than
probably the country right here,probably true, have to go hat
free.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
We're trying to make it work with the hat, but they
couldn't do it.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, the attempt was there.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
There we go.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
We'll center it up up front here.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Not too much.
On the beer, though.
You got to highlight the beer.
Perfect, yeah, no, I like agood IPA.
I'm a big fan of a good IPA.
There To update, if you haven'tchecked in in a little while to
update you as well when wetalked the lawnmower scale, what
was the other one that we had?
Was it the campfire scale?
So at one point in time PeteCoors if you know Pete Coors,
coors, light head of all that,or whatever said he doesn't

(04:04):
understand craft beer at all.
He tried to kill when theybought the Blue Moon.
They tried to kill Blue Moonfor many years, tried to just
get rid of it, wipe it out.
But they had a couple of salesguys.
They're like no, no, we got tokeep it.
People really like it.
And he's like I just don'tunderstand it.
When I'm going to go drink beer, I'm going to have a couple,

(04:25):
two, three before I get good andready to mow the lawn.
I'm going to have a couplewhile I'm on the mower and I'm
going to probably have a couple,two, three afterwards when I'm
admiring my nice job.
I might not even be drunk atthat point, but it's a good,
refreshing drink and that's whathis mindset was for making beer
, thus Coors Light and the sameilk.
This is kind of in that range,but yeah so that's where an IPA

(04:48):
is going to be, like a one totwo for a lawn mowing.
You know what I mean.
Maybe you have one while you'redoing it, definitely one
afterwards, but you're not goingto have more than one.
It's just going to be too hotand it's going to be too heavy.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Be heavy and thick.
Yeah, you don't want that typeof beer.
When you're mowing the yard andyou're all sweaty and it's 90
degrees, Like after playingbasketball I know you play
basketball you don't want to gofor an IPA or an AL.
You want a light beer or lager.
You know, slammer down, so ofcourse, light water.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yep, yep, yep, I mean a flat, a flat of Mick Golden
Tallboys out of the softballtournament.
You know it's hard to beat it,you know, yeah, I mean the
softball you can beat.
But you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
So what do you think of the real American beer?
I like it.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
You think it's all right.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
I think it's something you could drink a lot
of, it's all right.
Yeah, you know I'm a big, Ilike a lot too.
But my favorite beer of alltime it's a black ale.
It comes from Michigan.
It's called Widowmaker.
Have you ever tried Widowmaker?
Okay, I haven't.
Oh, my God, the key when I'mbrewing.
Oh, yeah, I'm going to get yousome Widowmaker.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
I'm going to bring.
We drank all that we had hereProbably.
Yeah, that doesn't last verylong.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
It drinks like a light beer, like this, but it
has a dark flavor, okay, and ittastes kind of like smoky
campfire-y.
It's something I'm just goingto bring you something.
On Sunday, if you come upbasketball or something, bring
you something.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
I'll try that.
There was a Surly.
I think it was Surly Blacker.
It was certainly blacker.
It was like a combination witha couple breweries.
I had a bunch of that likeprobably six, seven years ago.
That one was pretty dark butthat one was good too.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Sure it certainly does a pretty good job,
Absolutely yeah.
A lot of their stuff is prettydamn good, I like Furious quite
a bit.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yep, yeah, you see that on the tap at the bar it's
like yep, well, that's what I'mgetting of.
Those is going to get you atleast feeling something,
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
And then you're good and you put the rest of your
money back in your pocket.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, not into pull tabs.
I'm not encouraging gambling.
Not into pull tabs?
No, I don't really do very muchpull tabs, unless I've had a
couple too many IPAs, and thenit's.
You know, then one of mybuddies is like well, okay, do
it pussy.
Yeah, me as well.
I can be talked into a lot ofstuff, but that's fine.

(07:10):
So let's see, here, greatCentral Brewing Company is kind
of who does this?
That's where it's from the realAmerican spirit.
It's got a whole quote fromHulk Hogan.
America is at its.
It's hard to read because it'sa gray on silver type of deal
here.
America at its best when united.

(07:30):
And if there's one thing we canall agree on, it's the simple
pleasure of sharing a beer.
That's why we started RealAmerican Beer to bring people
together.
One beer at a time.
Cheers to that, hogan.
Cheers Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
So, along with that, if we're bringing people
together, luke, when you're inthe parade, why don't you hand
out some beer to people?
I actually saw that when I wasin high school.
That's got to be illegal, soit's probably bad now, but 25
years ago it was okay to throw abeer out to people if you were
running.
I don't remember who he was orwhat he was running for, I just
remember he was handing out beer.
Then it couldn't have workedthat good.

(08:06):
Then you don't remember.
He didn't, I didn't, I was tooyoung so I didn't get it.
He was very selective.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
You can tell if he selected a bunch of the beers
and he doesn't remember thecoverage.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
I don't remember if it was Isani Mayor or Councilman
.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
I don't know what it was, but he was just like oh,
I'm going to profit In theI-Sanity Parade yeah, I was
handing out cans of beer.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
I like that idea, not too many, maybe one every 50
feet or 100 feet.
It was pretty minimal.
But he was like, oh here.
Then he said, oh, here Gets thepeople going.
I'm like that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
It's a good way to get some votes later about.
You know something with thatlike the social district idea,
the concept of that, wherecertain areas or like the whole
city is just like Vegas.
You grab a beer and you justwalk around, sure you know you
can have it wherever.
So I think Anoka has a sectionof it.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
I think Minneapolis is starting to do like a block,
or yeah, there's a couple ofplaces that have it, but it's
not super often, but it's kindof a fun idea.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
I but it's not super often, but it's kind of a fun
idea.
I mean some places it's more anunderstood social district more
than anything.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
I think that's kind of what most things are in
I-SANI.
We're a little bit relaxed andif you're not being an asshole,
you're going to be fine.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Well, and that's the key right there yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
You have the rules for the people that need the
rules enforced on them.
Otherwise, so be it.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, on the street dances, you know those go out
five, six times a summer.
You can drink up and down mainstreet.
Outside there there's a couplebreweries.
There was it last year.
Two years ago.
I went to one of them.
There's a couple breweriesthere at the stand and we're
selling beer and stuff thunderbrothers, uh, the lions club.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
I don't know if there's been any others, but
there's.
I mean there's a lot ofbreweries around here.
You know like 320 Brewing.
I haven't been up there in afew years, but yeah, there's a
lot of good breweries around.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, there is Thunder Brothers that we had on
the podcast a handful ofepisodes ago.
Lee Akram, I think, is his namefrom 320.
We've been in contact with them.
We've actually had to cancel, Ithink, two or three different
times.
Once it was a snowstorm, andthen the rescheduled date.
Oh, probably shouldn'treschedule for Super Bowl Sunday
.

(10:08):
Yeah yeah, so we've had thatplanned or whatever, and he's
still in, it's still coming,it's up and coming.
320 is going to be on the airat some point in time.
But yeah, I love me some goodcraft beer everywhere that I can
get it pretty much.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Shout out to Thunder Bros I-Sanity.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Business.
Yeah, there you go, and theyown the Rendezvous Coffee in
I-Sanity.
Yeah, a coffee shop yep Veryinvested in our community.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Absolutely.
That's a great company and thatRendezvous has been there ever
since I can remember.
That's the oldest house inI-Sanity fun fact.
Oh is it?

Speaker 3 (10:43):
yeah, so yeah, the second oldest house and
rendezvous is the oldest, that'sgod.
I think it's like 1840 orsomething, oh, really a long
time.
You know, all that area wasactually owned by the railroad
and then it, uh, and then itbecame isanti village when they
bought land from the railroad orhowever that worked.
I was reading up on it theother day and it's it's kind of
interesting.
But yeah, that house is still.
Yeah, I like history.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
It's all these little towns dotted every like five,
six miles, like right along arailroad, like even Graston here
.
You know, like Bram, grastonwas bigger than Bram for a long
time, sure, but people movethere.
You know stuff like that.
You know, henriette, you knowit's all along that railroad
track, little towns everywhere,which is kind of fun.
You know.
You go like up north or youtake the back way and you could

(11:25):
what are they called theChampaign Roadway or something
like that or whatever Just havelike drink here and there
everywhere.
So many little communitieseverywhere.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
I'd like to see the railroad utilized a little more.
So we actually have and I saywe have an opportunity for
railway spurs for businesses,and I think that's something
that's very interesting andintriguing because we're one of
the only cities in Minnesotathat has an unused railway spur
opportunity and we have a lot ofacreage that the city owns in
that area.
So we're looking to actuallyfind a big industrial business

(11:53):
that needs a railway spur, likea lumber yard steel yard a big
plant, like a 3M manufacturingplant, anything like that,
because you can utilize thatrailway spur and then create a
bunch of jobs in the community,a bunch of tax base, all that
stuff.
Inland right now is justfarmland.
So that's something that we'vebeen looking into.
The railroad just.
It could be used for so manythings and I think it's
underutilized because we're soused to trucking everything.

(12:15):
What does the railroad thinkabout it?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
They're all on board.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
So they've authorized us to do four spurs up to four
spurs.
Obviously, it's going to dependon a developer to come in for
that.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
The city's not going to front the millions of dollars
the company and business RightI got about 30 bucks.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Is that helpful, Right?
Or, if you like, share andsubscribe.
Maybe I'll get $32.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Sure towards Isani.
You know if we could bring insome more jobs and you know it's
known as a bedroom community,like people sleep there and then
go to work somewhere else.
But it'd be great if we could,you know, grow it to something
on its own, like not with abunch of taxpayer dollars or
anything like that, but justhave natural growth and provide
opportunities for people to work.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Sure, and just for the listeners and viewers out
there that don't know what aspur is, what is a railway spur?

Speaker 3 (13:02):
So it's basically just a hook off of the main
railway.
You know it's a couple hundredfeet long and there are a lot of
companies that use them.
They generally send up like athree or four car train it's a
short train and then the trainjust directs off onto the
railway spur into the business.
They unload, offload whateverthey got to do and then it just
goes back.
So it's nice, yeah, it's, it's,it's pretty cool.

(13:22):
I think it'd be a greatopportunity.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Is that something and this is you know I'm bringing
you know, local infrastructure,not infrastructure, but just
ideas here and there.
Is that something that maybeeven like Evercat, would you
know, like an expansion on that,or if they kind of you know,
just because I mean, fuels arefuels and you know wherever it
is and I know that they do afair amount of business, but
they're right on it.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
They're out of business now.
Oh really, they just went outabout four or five months ago.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Oh, I didn't know that.
I feel like I drove by it justrecently, yeah me too, yep.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
The state legislation on the Green New Deal totally
killed their business.
So them and pretty much everyother biodiesel plant in
Minnesota Wisconsin just quit.
So them and pretty much everyother biodiesel plant in
Minnesota, wisconsin just quit.
Yeah, there was a lot of poorlegislation.
You see that in tons of aspectsof business and governance
right now just piss poorlegislation from the state
killing things, and I think itwas a great thing.

(14:16):
It's biodiesel.
They recycled stuff that wasjust going to be thrown away or
having to be disposed of andthey make it into biodiesel
which can be used to transportmore goods.
So it was kind of productive orimproductive.
On the Green New Deal Well, youjust got rid of a green energy
source.
So, yeah, that was a big bummer.
I know their building is forsale, but yeah, that was a

(14:38):
pretty good location.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, it's a pretty good location for a company, I
think, or a business.
And I think the biodiesel thingis neat because my wife owns a
towing company.
Her family doesn't.
For a long time they made theirown biodiesel for their trucks
and actually they still collectvegetable oil from restaurants
all around Minneapolis, st Paul,the Mall of America.
We get all their oil, sure good, and we boil it down.
We don't make it anymore Ishouldn't say we, because I have

(15:06):
nothing to do with the company,but my wife and her family and
they do that and sell it off,once they boil it down, to
companies that do make biodieseland use other things for it.
So it's a neat thing.
It's a neat thing, yeah yeah,that was a sad one for us.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Absolutely.
Yeah, bummer, I knew a guy thatworked there.
Yeah, I do too.
I used to play baseball withthat guy.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
My neighbor was the head maintenance guy there since
they opened, so it was crazythey only got notified like
eight days before it was goingto close.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
No idea what a bummer .

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Nobody really knew Wow, just bad legislation.
That's why we got to fight forour state and fight to get it
back Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
I agree with that.
Well, now I got to come up witha different business idea to be
able to take that over there.
I've got all thesemillion-dollar ideas.
I'm just going to make IPA bythe VAT.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
I mean I think Coors Light or something could use
that railway.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Oh, there we go, there we go, there we go.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
I don't know why the hell they want to come to
Minnesota.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
We can make a two-guys-and-beer beer that we
talked about and haven't madeyet.
I love it.
Danny's got hops out there onthe silo.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
We could source everything right here be able to
do that.
We're going to get Brandonconnected in on that.
We'll make that happen.
Then just start releasing itout everywhere.
We'll start handing it out atparades.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
It'll have a.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Coke label over the top.
Yeah, that's an idea.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Never even know.
So just a couple of quickthings.
I want to kind of go throughthis just because it was here,
the beer and Sean did a greatjob getting me some prep work.
So some key facts.
Founded in 2015 by two friendsthat have a passion for craft
beer.
That is something that we'veheard fairly often, passion for

(16:42):
that.
You know.
Of course, it came from theChicago's Fulton Market District
, which we've had a couple ofdifferent Chicago beers that
we've done over time and such agreat area for beer, I guess for
the longest time.
Obviously, wisconsin I don'tknow about the craft beer, but
Wisconsin is known for beer.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
Or just drinking beer anyway, exactly.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
And Colorado a huge beer drinking scene and
Minnesota is a massive craftbeer capital.
I guess I never really, untilwe've done more, never really
realized that Chicago or thatIllinois area, Indiana, was such
a huge craft beer area.
But the more we've done it it'squite amazing.
With that, they do a lot ofcollaborations, including with

(17:23):
War Pigs, which is one of myfavorite beers, War Pigs is a
good beer, war Pigs is fantasticAll Rise Around the Bend.
So that's a.
It's actually the brewery isGreat Central Brewing Company
and Hulk Hogan's Real AmericanBeer is one of the collabs with
them.
So that's kind of where thatcomes from.
That's who actually makes that,or whatever.

(17:45):
So 2024 is when it startedLimited US markets expanding
through 2025.
So they're ever growing, butsold in patriotic cans, as you
can see with the red, white andblue.
I don't see an eagle anywhereon there, so we're going to have
to talk to their marketing team.
Click feedback and send it in.
Going to have to talk to theirmarketing?

(18:07):
Yeah, click feedback and sendit in.
But even uh maplewood breweryand distillery is uh something
that they collab with, so a lotof collaborations with that and
uh kind of a cool deal.
So, yeah, that's a lot of uhstuff with uh the great american
beer at great central brewingcompany.
It sounds like they don'treally have at least what I
could tell, unless I just missedit.

(18:28):
They don't have like their owntap room or kitchen.
It's more of a brewery thatwill collaborate with you know,
like here I have all theequipment, come and make your
thing here and then you candistribute however you want to.
It's more of a kind of acontracting kind of thing, a lot
of contracting.
they do yeah, which is good.
I mean, there's a place in themarket for that, I guess.

(18:48):
In my opinion, you know, thenyou're not spending, you know
tens of thousands of dollars inequipment and then the building
and all of the different stuff.
You know you can, if nothingelse, I mean, maybe eventually
you do that, but that way you'renot fronting all that money.
You can get into it a littlebit and like, hey, people like
my stuff, I'm going to go aheadand do it up.

(19:08):
So but yeah, that was kind of acool thing and a great place to
be able to do that in thatChicago area.
Again, just more Chicago beer,but I don't know Real American
beer Bringing people togetherlike us Bringing people together
Like us fine fellows.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Have you guys ever heard of microphone brewing
outside of Chicago?

Speaker 2 (19:29):
We did an episode.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
We did do an episode on that one I want to say it was
with the Three Nozzle.
I don't remember the name ofthe beer, it was something like
a double or triple IPA.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
He's got a lot of flavors in all of his beers.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
And they change constantly.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, that's a really nice place yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
I was out there for a car show Boy I think it was
right before COVID hit and I'mfriends with the owner on
Facebook and he messaged me.
He's like hey, you should comeout and check out the place.
And I was like oh hell yeah, ohnice.
I love craft beer.
So I went out and checked, youknow, looked at all the stuff
and and labeled and everything,so that was pretty cool.
He sent me home with a bunch ofdifferent kinds and I was like I

(20:04):
was really impressed when I gothome and tried them.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
I was like holy hell man.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Too bad, you're so far away, I can ship.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
I bet yeah, no doubt.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Their flavor was really good in all their stuff.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, I don't remember.
We had a few beers from them, acouple and they were super good
.
They make good stuff.
Was it the Depot?
Is that where we got it?
Or Amanda picked it up at theDepot?
I don't remember if it was theDepot.
They have the weirdoff-the-ball beers you'll find
anywhere.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, the Gabler Depot on West 7th.
Yeah, okay, yeah, I don't knowwhat that's called it was either
there, or it was down inRochester, or no.
Mankato I think there's anothercraft there or whatever.
That, just that's all they have.
They don't hardly have any, youknow, course, later anything
there, it's just walls and wallsof stuff that's cool.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah, he's a great guy.
That place was really cool too.
It had a bunch of like likeamplifiers cut in half and
mounted on the wall and also itwas more music based like mike
his name's mike, so it'smicrophone brewing.
I thought that was prettyawesome yeah that's awesome he
had some nice drink wearingstuff that I him.
His apparel was pretty cool.
He's a hot rod guy, so oh thereyou go.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, perfect Him, and I are like two peas in a pod
man so.
Well, now that we have acontact, maybe he wants to we
can do an episode.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
We'd probably have to travel.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
For that one, though, sure, because in the future
we're talking about doing That'dbe pretty awesome Once we get
more established a little bit,or mobile equipment at least
it's part of our great road trip.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yes, great two guys and beer road trip across
America.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Well, you said Chicago's good.
You said Chicago's good, sohere with you.
Just make sure you carry.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
There's a lot of them there, make sure you carry
while you're there and you'll beall right, there we go.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Well, technically we're not.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
And I just carried through there last week, so you
forgot.
I kept it in my truck, right.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, I don't want to go downtown Chicago at all,
nope, nope, just going there tothe ball game that we went years
ago.
How long ago was that?
That was 2010?
I don't remember, it must havebeen 2010.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Everything feels like it's yesterday to me.
It could have been 20 years ago.
Yeah, we did that the other day.
No, that was 20 years ago.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
It was 2010 because it was when I actually lived in
I-Sanity.
We were watching the Twins.
On a Friday night they weretaking on the White Sox.
I'm like God, that would havebeen a fun series to be able to
go to, as this game started togo into the late innings and
it's tied and we're getting toextra innings.
We're like so what are youdoing this weekend?
Should we just go?
And so Sean left.

(22:28):
I think the game went to like13, 14 innings or something like
that.
I think Sean left my house atlike midnight or 1 am 6 in the
morning and he's bam bam, bam,bam bam.
You ready to go.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
We're road tripping to Chicago, he's like we're out
of here, man, yeah, why not Randown there, watched two games.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
I think, amanda, we were dating at the time and
she'll hate me for telling thisstory, but we were dating and
she called me I wasn't on thatSunday, I think before we came
home, or whatever and she's likewhat are you doing?
You want to go get dinner?
What do you want to do?
And I'm like, well, I'm inChicago.
And she messaged me.
She's like I don't know if thisis going to work.

(23:06):
You are way too spontaneous.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
It wasn't even you, andy's, too wild.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
So I liked to heckle her about that a little bit.
So I brought her back a whitesock sweatshirt, mostly because
it was like 12 degrees there.
I had to buy it because I wascold.
I didn't pack and plan verywell for this trip.
I ended up in some random hotelin Indiana or something like
that.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
I think we went to like a Walmart to get some food
or some snacks or something likethat or whatever, and that was
a scary opportunity, I thoughtfor sure it was going to happen.
We felt like it Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Last time I was driving to Chicago I don't know,
it was probably two or threeyears ago I was on like an
interstate, probably I don'tknow 15 miles out of town or
whatever still, and there was ahuge brawl with like 50 people
on the side of the interstate.
I was like what in the hell,Just driving past, Like what,
the Perfect?

Speaker 2 (23:54):
spot for a brawl.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
It's just so weird.
I'm like what is going on outhere.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
I don't know, I don't know.
Yeah, that's a whole differentanimal down there.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
No, it can stay there .
I'll just get to be remotely.
Maybe we'll meet Mike inMilwaukee or something in the
Miller Park parking lot orwhatever.
It is now State Farm Park orwhatever.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Whatever they call it .

Speaker 1 (24:21):
I'm going to call it Miller Park forever, kind of
like.
The XL Energy Center is nowgoing to be the Grand Casino.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
Arena it is.
They announced it this morning.
Oh, that's pretty lame.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Everybody's going to call it the X anyway.
Oh, 100%, wow the fact that thecasino took over.
They paid for those namingrights.
That's very strange too.
Nobody's going to call it GrandCasino or whatever.
They is going to call it GrandCasino or whatever.
Oh, we're going to the X.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
What would be the nickname for that?
We're going to the jackpot.
We're going to the slot machine.
We're going to the pull tabs.
I guess we're going to work inblackjack.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know what you'd call it.
I'm sure they're going to havecome up with something.
Somebody smarter than me isgoing to have like a page full
of one-liners.

(25:05):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Put it in the comments below.
Let us know what you thinkExactly.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, give us feedback, the best one.
What we'll do, we'll send you aReal American beer yeah we'll
send you some real American beer.
So the best comment wins.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
And there might even be beer in the can too, if we
send it.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Okay, okay, I didn't want to overpromise.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Shipping's getting expensive guys, it's true, if
you're local, we'll just drop itoff on the way to work or
something.
So the other part.
So not only do we have the beer, but we also have, as I said,
the interim mayor and candidatefor mayor of Ice Shanty,
minnesota.
So we'll bring you I mean kindof already been in the fold here

(25:43):
no, no, that's great, we'llbring you a little bit more in
on your side of things.
We talked a little bit aboutsome of the stuff and you know,
with like Evercat Fuels and likesome of the other stuff going
on in town.
Let's get a little bit moreinformation.
Let's go deep into not intoyour eyes we're not going to be
weird, I haven't had enough beerfor that yet.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
A little bit about yourself and where you're from
and just kind of the Reader'sDigest version of your
autobiography.
All right, sure, all right.
Like I said, I'm Luke Merrill.
I graduated from CambridgeSchool System in 2010.
I went to UMD.
I got a bachelor's inpsychology and a bachelor's in
economics, with a minor infinance and a minor in marketing
.
I really I went pretty hardthose four years.
It was like 200 somethingcredits in four years.

(26:28):
I was on a.
They had this, you know, acredit system If you took more
than 15 credits, everything wasfree and everything after that
was free.
So I just went ham on it.
I grew up in a low income house.
My parents used to be methheads and I had a little bit of
a rough upbringing, never hadany money, so I've always kind
of been been able to get by withnot much.
So that was my what I did incollege.

(26:49):
You know I worked hard andworked my ass off.
I was the president of theEconomics Club.
I was on the Dean StudentAdvisory Council.
I did a lot of leadership typestuff.
I really want to get immersed.
I wanted to, you know, setmyself apart from everybody else
in the schools.
I had a goal of being like ayou know a manager at somewhere.
There are a lot of goodopportunities and when I

(27:14):
graduated I was one of the topprospects of the business school
.
I got three job offers but mydad was really sick at home.
So I decided, you know he wasgiven like six months to live
and I decided, you know what,I'm just going to put this stuff
on hold, go home, take care ofmy dad.
I turned down one really goodjob.
It was almost $200,000 a year,starting down in Austin,
minnesota.
I turned that down to just staywith my dad.
Family comes first.
Money you can always make later.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Family's number one Yep.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
And here we are.
You know, 10 years later he'sstill kicking somehow,

(28:05):
no-transcript.
So that was really cool to beable to do that, you know, and
stay at home and take care of myparents and kind of wrench on
stuff, stuff I love.
So that was, you know, that wasreally nice.
And then I started seeing somevery poor fiscal management in
the city that I love, isani andmy parents, like I said, have
always been low income and taxeshave been a big hit and there's

(28:27):
been years where they get theirtax statement they don't know
how the hell they're going topay it.
And in probably 2016, I startednoticing a bunch of
semi-corrupt things seeminglygoing on in Isani and they gave
like $1.2 million of money to ahotel project a subsidy,
basically directly out oftaxpayers' pockets to bring in a

(28:47):
Best Western, which, to me, Ibelieve in the free market and
the free market always wins.
If there's a demand for this,the free market, the businesses
will come in and they will theirbusiness.
They don't need the cities tosubsidize.
You know, I was at everymeeting pointing out there was a
lot of things that werefraudulent and not right about
it.
So I was at every meeting.
Pointing that out Went on deafears, and city council at the
time was just really.

(29:07):
They were just reallycomplacent.
You know they didn't think longterm.
There's just a lot of littlethings and it's like, well, I
don't like what I see in here,so I'm going to actually get
involved.
You know there's some people.

(29:30):
I got on the EconomicDevelopment Authority for the
city and then I got on citycouncil in 2022.
And then, technically, 2023, Istarted and then our great mayor
, jimmy Gordon, got elected tothe state house.
So the guys are.
I guess we needed to findsomebody to fill that mayor seat
so we could have a specialelection, and they all voted for
me other than one guy.

(29:51):
So I ended up in that seat.
I kind of fell on the swordbecause I want to make sure that
our city goes in the rightdirection.
There was another previousmayor that wanted that seat back
and during his previous fouryears taxes went up 44% and
that's not acceptable to beincreasing taxes an average of
11% per year.
So I got on there.
You know I'm the interim mayorright now.

(30:12):
The last two years we cut taxesalmost 18% and I'm hoping for
another, hopefully double-digitcut this year.
So, yeah, my biggest thing is,you know, try and keep taxes low
.
People should decide what theywant to do with their money.
The government shouldn't bedeciding what they want to do
with their money, unless it'sfor essential infrastructure.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Sure, absolutely to that, did you just not care?
Just like, whatever I, I'm toobusy working on hot rods, right
going to college and taking careof my family.
No, just like, what is this allabout?
And then does that just kind ofsuck you into it then yep, yeah
.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
So in college I didn't even know what I was.
You know, we would talk aboutlike politics, and it's like I
don't even know what I am.
And true, one of my roommates,like you're definitely
libertarian because you're likeanti-government spending, I was
like, ok, I'll take that, I'lltake that that role.
But I really didn't.
I didn't know what Republicanwas, I didn't know what Democrat
was, I really didn't care.
At college, you know, I was oneof them guys.
I just want, I just want tolearn everything I can about

(31:13):
things I care about, and kind ofbe specialized in what I know,
and and then just coming homeand impact on, you know,
families and my parents,especially on taxes, that you,
that's big time, you know, andit affects every single person.
And to me it's like, well, if Ican make an impact here and and
help every single family in thecommunity, that's big, you know

(31:34):
.
And then I'm still taking careof my dad.
I mean, what am I?
What else are you going to dowhen I say any?
That's kind of how I saw it andit was just.
I guess I just got motivated todo it and whenever I find
something that I'm interested in, I go 110%, I don't give up.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Sure, yeah, that's a way to be able to do.
You know stuff.
I mean agree, disagree withthis, that or the other thing,
or whatever, but to get involvedat all, like that's.
You know, like you said, it'seasy to be a keyboard warrior,
it's easy to just sit back andcomplain about it over a beer,
but you know, at the same time,like getting digging in, doing

(32:07):
the thing, doing the work,having an opinion, working with
people on it.
It's not, sometimes it's beingthe leader, sometimes it's
working with people, sometimesit's a combination of that, but
it's doing something.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Something's better than nothing and how many people
don't get involved?
You know it gets it's mindnumbing.
I always.
I don't complain about politicsmuch anymore but I've been knee
neck deep into it forever.
You know a long time and I havemy opinions and preferences and
who I vote for and whatnot.
And I think 99% of all senatorsand congressmen on the state
level, federal level, they allsuck anyways.

(32:43):
You know it's like those arethe people you don't want to run
, like the people that youreally want to run, regardless
of party, that actually areprincipled and honest.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
They don't want anything to do with it.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
They want nothing to do with running the office.
I can't blame them.
The people you get running foroffice are in it for themselves.
And kickbacks and specialinterest money and well I
suppose you could say APAC moneyor whatever you want to say.
You know it's.
They might go in with theintent.
Then they get sucked up byeverything and then they're gone
.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
You know it's really hard to and it's such a
thankless job to.
When you're local politics,it's great because you're you're
representing your community,but on one decision you're going
to have half of the people thatare really happy and the other
half that are pissed.
Or you know, you try and makethe decision for the majority
and you try and make the mostpeople happy but you're still
going to have people pissed offand it's basically volunteer
work.
It's next to no pay and whowants to put aside their whole
family life to do that?

(33:36):
It has to be a certain type ofperson, you know, especially on
the local stuff.
But then what's really sad isthe senators and house members
and whatnot.
They make a lot of money butnobody holds them accountable
because they're kind of far away, in a sense Versus, like the
mayor, even though the mayor isreally not that big a deal.
The mayor and city council getall the heat for everything.
Even if it's not a city relatedissue like a county related

(33:58):
issue, the mayor still gets theheat for it.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
It's like and then it's a tangible thing You're a
real person that I can see and Ican yep, you're really, really
there especially if you're moreaccessible.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
Like I've tried to focus on being very accessible
for people, because in previousyears I've seen where the
politicians the City Council,mayor aren't accessible and I
don't think that's right.
If you're gonna actually go outand and be that person, you
have to be accessible.
Facebook message call, howeverthe person's comfortable, you

(34:30):
Facebook message call, howeverthe person's comfortable, you
And I think a lot of senatorsget complacent because they're
not held to that standard by thepeople.
Like, if I make a decision,that's like people think it's a
bad idea.
Well, I hear about it, you know, and it's like well, then I
listen to what they say and Itry to just continue to be
informed on what the communitywants.
That's all you can do.
But senators and you know eventhe president, all that stuff
they kind of lose sight of thatbecause the job is so big.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
It's such a disconnect and that's I don't
know how you fix that.
I mean that gets into a waybigger conversation that I don't
think we need to have right now.
But it's just because I mean,when you're a half a country
away, you know, or I guess to be, if you're in California or
Oregon or something like that,you're a full country away.
It's such a disconnect.
And so you said such a biggerthing that like, ok, well,

(35:13):
here's this bill that's this big, that has billions of dollars
in it, Like, how do you evenbegin to try to?
This is going to affect these12 people.
You know it's local.
Politics are really where youcan have that change, but it's
such a disconnect and justbecause that's what it is, I
don't know, like I said, I don'tknow how you fix that or change

(35:34):
that or whatever, but it'sdefinitely such a hard thing.
You really got to drive thatlocal so much more.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
It all starts local.
You know the Sandy CountyRepublican Party has really been
rejuvenated the last couple ofyears.
There was some bad leadershipin there before and they were
skirting the legality of thewhole process and basically
recommending themselves forseats for, like the House member
seats and stuff like that.
So it was taken over,thankfully, and the I-Sanity

(36:02):
County Republican Party has doneamazing work trying to get new
county commissioners and citycouncil members and mayors into
place.
Because it all starts local andif every single local
jurisdiction does what theirlocal people want, then you have
an accurate representation ofyour people.
And I think if we're reallygoing to be serious about it, I
think we need to get past allthe state oversight on a lot of

(36:23):
things.
You know they like to preempt alot of things and make rules
that don't work for everybody,especially our shitty state
leadership down there.
They make rules for the Metro 7.
You know they think about theMetro 7, but then they forget
about all the rocks and cows.
You know what I mean, and thatdoesn't work for us.
You know they just passed newlegislation for the legalized
cannabis stuff.

(36:44):
Well, the city was supposed toget a large portion of that tax
money.
Now they pass legislation wherenot only did they up the tax
cost to the business owner, butthey took all of it away from
the city.
So now the state gets 15% taxall down to the state and
chances are we're not going tosee a dime of it, because the
way they allocate their moneydown there just doesn't work
with rural Minnesota and thatneeds to stop.

(37:05):
Government preemption,federally, statewide, everything
needs to stop and I think if wejust make it on every little
municipality, county to do theirown thing, I think the world
would be a better place.
So get rid of the senators.
You know there's noaccountability for them.
But how do you do that?

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Right, there's got to be a way.
Who knows?

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Omnibus bills got to go.
That's another thing.
Those omnibus bills are totalbullshit.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
They need to be one item, one bill.
That's the simple way.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
It sounds infeasible, but maybe they need to work a
whole year instead of threemonths.
Right, so be it.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
You can do 30 bills in a day.
Here's one bill.
Vote on this.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Next, next one in front.
They can do it, they just don'twant to.
Yeah, you heard the differentthings that have been brought up
, or whatever even about like,if you can't feasibly read or
review that bill within a normaltime frame, it should be failed
.
You shouldn't even be able tobring it to a vote.
You know, like which?
I think I mean again, we canget into the whole political
side of that, of what you shouldor not.
Like that, I think that if youcan't read a bill, how can you

(38:09):
vote on it?
Like, how can you have aninformed opinion about that?
I'm not saying we need to giveeverything, like you know, six
weeks where you can go back toyour.
In theory, you should be intune with your own jurisdiction.
Or you know voting members, youknow your people in your area
To have an idea.
When that you don't, you don'tneed to do like a poll of
everybody every single time.

(38:29):
You have something, but right,you should at least be able to
get past the cover sheet.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
And that's why it's important that people get on
vote.
You know that's there's a largepercentage of people that don't
vote and their votes not heard.
You know, if you have, say, 50percent of the population that
doesn't vote, what's that other50 percent thinking?
You know you have to.
People need to get out and voteand then their vote does matter
.
You know it's after 2020 andyou know other issues with
elections.
It's hard to say that and hardfor people to believe it, but at

(38:56):
the at the end of the day, ifyou don't get out and vote, what
are you doing?

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Right and you need to get out and vote in your local
elections not just for president.
Like yeah, like realistically,if everything was followed the
way it should on every level ofgovernment, it doesn't really
matter who the president is,because they really don't have
power.
They have power over foreignpolicy.
That's directly what they'resupposed to affect.
So, which is kind of crazy.

(39:21):
So if you vote the rightmembers in the House and
Congress, you wouldn't have.
It would really wouldn't make adifference, you know, because
they can stop anything thepresident does.
But what I was trying to get atanyways, I was getting off the
rampant ears.
Local elections matter the most.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
The grassroots.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Your city council, your mayor, your school board
and stuff like that needs tostart in your hometown first,
before expanding elsewhere,county commissioners, that's
another big one that peopledon't realize.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
That's a huge one.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Every district in the state has a county commissioner
and that county commissioner isalmost like your mayor of your
county district and if you havean issue in your county district
you need to go to the countycommissioner because they're the
bosses of the city officials,you know, in a sense.
So you know that's one big thingthat I think people need to
know more of is reach out toyour county commissioner.
They kind of pull the stringsfor your whole district and

(40:09):
that's big time too.
And I think the I-Sanity Countycommissioners it's a really
great group.
Now.
We've worked really hard andthe Republican Party has worked
really hard to get good peoplein there that are fiscally
conservative and think about thepeople and think like the
people.
You know like 72% of I-SanityCounty is Republican.
You hate to throw a label on itbut at the end of the day, if

(40:30):
you have Republicans in thererepresenting the 72 percent,
that's the best you're going toget.
So you want to make everybodyhappy but at the end of the day,
if you have the core valuesthat match your, your community,
that's what matters goingthrough the finder.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Apparently I didn't have enough real American beer
on that one.
That's what was going on there.
So we've kind of gotten biggrand picture with a lot of
stuff or whatever let's dropback into local.
So you're the interim now.
So I'm guessing it's probablysimilar to what the actual role
would be.
But what is there anydifferences right now with that,
or is it basically all of thethings?

Speaker 3 (41:10):
So the interim mayor is.
Everything's still the same asregular mayor.
You still sign the checks, youstill run the meetings.
The mayor really doesn't havemuch more power than that.
You can decide when to lowerand raise the flags for like
half staff, otherwise the mayoris just 20% of the vote.
You know I signed the checks.
I can call a special meeting onmy own if I want to, without
the rest of council majorityagreeing to it.

(41:32):
I haven't done that and Iprobably won't, but you never
know when you have to do that.
So it's just as muchresponsibility, just as the word
interim in front of it.
So, yeah, and I'm in that roleuntil I think it's well.
August 12th is the election,but I don't remember if there's
like a week after that or whenI'm actually out of it.
But hopefully I'll just stay init.
We have really good, a reallygood team right now.

(42:00):
The five of us work fantastictogether.
This has been the most open andmost conversational and
educated city council board I'veever seen.
And I say any hands down, noteven close.
We've done a lot of things anddove into pretty much everything
, because we're kind of tryingto run the city like a household
.
You know, households are goingto be efficient with every
dollar.
They're not going to go out andsay, hey, oh, we have the money
here, let's just go spend it ona truck.
You know, it just doesn't makesense.

(42:21):
So we've been trying to runeverything like that.
You know, households converstime is what we're going to do.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
So if it doesn't go to that, would you revert back
then to like a city Cause yousaid you were on the city
council.
Okay, do you have to resignthat position?
Okay, I wasn't sure how thatworked or if it's kind of like a
dual role.
I suppose then you'd have like40% of the vote instead of 20%.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
You'd wield a big stick, then that was a really
hard part of that decision.
You know people wanted me torun for that mayor seat the
interim mayor seat and you knowcouncil appointed me.
I mean it's I don't know, butit was really hard for me to
decide because I really likedbeing on city council.
I like being able to be vocaland being able to be that strong
conservative is.

(43:10):
And now it's just differentwith the mayor seat.
You know you have to try andyou have to try and play the
middle more, which is fine, I'mgood at that too, but it's just
different and that was a bigpart of me thinking.
It's like well, do I really wantto fall on the sword and lose
my council seat to be the mayor?
I really don't.
I don't need or want the mayorrole or like the mayor, I don't
know stigma.
I just want to be a normal dudeand that's kind of how I'm

(43:33):
running it, you know, just anormal guy trying to do the best
for the community.
But that was tough.
So I gave up the council seat.
We appointed someone in thatseat and he's great Nick
Peterson.
So he's taking my seat and if Ihappen to not get in then I'm
just out for now and knock it in, then I'm just out for now and
I can build hot rods or dowhatever I want.
If that's the case, obviouslyI'd like to stay in there,

(43:55):
because we've made a lot ofreally good changes and a lot of
good headway on taxes and Ithink we're going to see a good
decrease this year.
So yeah, nice.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
I'm excited about it.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
You can still show up to the meetings and bang your
fist on me.
Yeah, be that guy.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
I can show you some decrease in taxes that are on my
property.
Unfortunately it's not in IsaniCounty or the city of Isani.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Right, yeah, everybody, you know you just
look at what counties and citiesand even schools, what they're
doing with taxpayer dollars.
It's like they've totally lostsight of how households work.
You know, and it's justmind-boggling to me when you see
, oh, this is 3 million.
Well, what a lot of peopledon't do in leadership is you
need to divide that 3 million bythe amount of residents you
have.
So that's a big thing.

(44:38):
I always think like, say, if asplash pad, for instance, that
was a big one that the previousadministration and the mayor I'm
running against, previous mayorI'm running against it's a big
thing for him.
But that splash pad ended upbeing like $1.5 million and we
had to put a Knicks day on itbecause it got so crazy.
Think about that $1.5 milliondivided by 7,500 residents, and

(44:59):
then there's three residents perhouse, so you can divide that
1.5 by 2,500 houses.
That's a shit load of money.
That is that's like.
That's like that's what is that?
Six or seven hundred dollarsper household just to pay, just
for in the tax money to pay forthat splash pad?

Speaker 2 (45:13):
and that's not ongoing maintenance costs, I
suppose that's just initial inyour water usage.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yes, and and and.
We're actually getting heatfrom the dnr because we have
grown so fast as a city but sois our water usage.
So we're actually like just atthe top of what the dnr even
allots us to have.
So if we had that splash padthey can start sanctioning us
and fining us for being abusiveuse of water.
And we looked into like watercirculation systems but to like

(45:39):
to follow the epa and the health, the health board standards it
that was like another 600 000bucks for recirculating, because
you have to treat the water.
Because there's kids, you haveto treat the water as there's
kids, you have to treat thewater as it goes in.
So you basically have a miniwater treatment plant so it just
got out of hand.
It's like that's not feasibleat all and you have to think
would the average householdthink this is worth $600 or $700

(45:59):
per household?
Sure, maybe 10%, 20% might.
But what about the other 80%?
That's like oh, we don't haveany kids, we're not going to use
that.
That's silly.
And that's where I thinkgovernment loses sight of things
.
And they get these pet projectsin their mind like, oh, that
would be really cool, I want tohave my name on that, but then
people are paying for it forever.
And then another thing is likethe maintenance of that.
So you have, if you had anamenity, say, a basketball hoop,

(46:22):
a basketball court, and so it'slike a.
It's a multiplicative effectand we just need to bring it
back and hold it and provide theessentials, provide great parks
, all that stuff.
But there's frivolous thingsthat that couldn't be done

(46:43):
without and I think householdsagree with that.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah, I think they do too mostly, and I do a lot too.
I always wonder it comes backto these people that want those
things.
Sure, they're nice amenities tohave, but if you can't put it
in your own house with your ownmoney, why are you expecting
everybody else to pay for it?
Why should somebody like me,let's say, pay for a splash pad?
I will never use it, so why doI have to help fund it If you

(47:14):
want it?
Why don't you privately fund itand privately build it and
somebody can privately maintainit or something which, for a
splash pad, probably wouldn'thappen, with private donations
and ongoing maintenance andstuff.
But whatever happened to that?
Why does everybody expect thegovernment to buy all these
things?
Like Cambridge has been wantinga YMC forever, why should the
government and the taxpayers payfor that?
It's not a responsibility of acollective to build a gym so

(47:36):
somebody can go play basketballor lift weights or run around a
track.
You know, like that mentalityis just goofy.
To me it's very goofy.
Everybody wants something fromthe government.
Oh well, it's federal dollars,it doesn't matter.
So now somebody from Californiais paying for your splash pad
and I say, hey, Minnesota, why?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Yeah, well, that's the thing that I think gets
forgot sometimes is like, okay,well, it's money from the
government, so it's like freemoney.
No, you repaid for thatyourself, so it's some of your
own money that came back inthrough that.
Yeah, we had this conversation.
I was a friend of ours that wewere discussing this is and we

(48:14):
could get into the schoolreferendum and stuff like that
or whatever if we wanted to.
But we were discussing onelocally this is probably four or
five years ago now and itpassed and it had a lot of stuff
that did need to get done andyou know the things with that.
But the discussion was well,why wouldn't you vote on that?
And he's like, well, I don'thave any kids.
Like, well, you don't want itto be better.

(48:34):
It's like, well, I want it tobe better.
But he was a farmer that hadlike a thousand acres of land
and it was like, well, it's onlylike thirty five cents an acre
or something like that.
And it's like, well, yeah, butnow I'm paying like ten thousand
dollars and I don't have any,like, not that you don't want it
to be good, but it just be.
You know, and I mean I think heended up voting for it because

(48:55):
I think he supported what it wasat the time and what it was
supposed to do.
They were still in school orjust out of school.
That lived in town, that hadlike a little quarter, you know
corner lot with half an acre orsomething like that.
Oh, don't worry, it's thisamount of money spread out

(49:17):
amongst all of this, like, ok,well, now you get 10,000 acres
worth of land that that personnow is doing something with it
Don't have kids or whatever thatyou have to consider everybody
to get one vote on that insteadof 10,000 votes Right.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
And I always say, like, one of my favorite things
to even just think about is thegovernment isn't here to be your
friend.
They're not here to provide thethings for your family that you
should provide for your family.
They're here to provideessential infrastructure roads,
water, police, fire, some parksOK, sure, but we're not here to
have social programs where wepay for you to sit on your ass
all day.
That's just not.
That's not how governmentshould work, you know, and

(49:55):
that's that's where we're kindof going astray, I think, in
this state especially.
And the government's not hereto be your friend.
Go and make friends on your ownif you want to raise money for
something that you believe in.
Great like we have.
Uh, illuminate isani, which is alight show that was started by
the previous administration andthe candidate that I'm running
against and it was very poorlyplanned from the start.
They took like $100,000 oftaxpayer money and bought lights

(50:17):
and they really didn't havemuch direction with it.
And you know, we, when I got in, we kind of had this, this
burden, every year If we wantedto keep this event going.
It's 50,000000 to run it,$50,000 to run it, and we did it
.
We tried to switch it up everyyear and finally I pushed really
hard to get volunteers, becauseI think it should be a
volunteer-run event andfortunately there's a great

(50:38):
group of people that haveoffered to volunteer and now
we've authorized $15,000 thisyear and they're raising money
and they're almost already at 15grand and all that donated
money they get back goes rightback into the city's account.
So now we have it structured soa volunteer group provides this
amenity, which is, I think, howit should be.
For the more frivolous items, ifa volunteer group, if the
community thinks it's that greatand they can get people to do

(51:01):
it, awesome, get them the toolsthey need to do that.
You know, if we got a front15,000 bucks to run the event
and then they give it back afterdonations, great.
I think that's the way itshould be ran.
It shouldn't be ran withtaxpayers' dollars when they
don't have a decision on it.
This group decides if they wantto volunteer, taxpayers don't
decide if they want to pay.
So that was something thatwe've been working on really
hard and I want to give ashout-out to iSaniTogether, the

(51:23):
organization that started that,or started the volunteer group,
and I think that's how mostcities should be ran.
You know, get the people in thecommunity.
If they think it's thatvaluable, they'll help.
So yeah, I'd like to see moreof that in all levels of
government.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Let me, I'm going to ask you a question.
This is going to sound like I'mpushing back, but I promise I'm
not pushing back.
This is me.
Just I'm asking for curiositybecause I don't know the answer
and so sometimes I like to, Ijust want to pick your brain, I
want to, you know, find out.
So let's take that, theIlluminate, just as an example.
We'll take something like thator whatever From the standpoint

(51:59):
of okay, so you have this nowamenity that brings, maybe,
people to town from other areas.
The argument on the other sideof something like that is
usually the tax base.
Or you're bringing people intotown and they're going to spend,
you know, fourteen dollars more, a quick trip or something like
that, you know, or whatever thereasoning is determined, or

(52:31):
what are your kind of thoughtslike on when it becomes kind of
like this is a thing that reallydoes provide that benefit?
It may be kind of frivolous andwhatever, but there's a lot of
people that come to town for it.
You know, you've seen it with,I mean, I think illuminate it's
kind of like the bentleyville,you know there's yeah, yeah
hundreds of thousands of peoplethat go to that yep, or even
like the, the bmx track andthings like that.
I mean, yeah, the jewelry days,yeah, things like that.

(52:53):
How do you determine where thatline is?
Or how do you even research theamounts?
You know what I'm saying?
I'm not trying to push back,I'm just how do you determine
that?
I guess that's where and that'swhy you're in that position and
I'm here drinking beer.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
So that's a great question.
We this year and I think lastyear, we got I think they call
it streetlight data from Google,so it tracks everybody's phones
and we can tell where thepeople come from, where they go
afterwards.
All this stuff and the numberone visitor after Illuminati was
Walmart in Cambridge, which isgreat, and that the argument is
you know, you bring people intotown and it spends more money in

(53:32):
town, but in real life forIsani taxpayers, that does
absolutely nothing because thesebusinesses aren't taxed on what
they sell or how much they sellor their volume.
Obviously, they want to sell alot of stuff, but they're taxed
on their square footage.
That's it.
So when you have, when you haveevents in town and you bring in
people, it's great for thosebusinesses.
Obviously I'm very pro smallbusiness and I love to see

(53:53):
businesses thrive.
But the argument that itactually does anything for
taxpayers is it doesn't doanything.
You know it doesn't.
Directly, you don't get anysort of tax benefit back,
nothing.
So you know that's the argumentthat's always used for more
social type programs and iteconomically it doesn't make
sense.
Now, obviously, like sociallyit makes sense like, hey, let's
get everybody some more business.

(54:14):
Yeah, it's great, but that'snot a very good fiscal argument.
So it was.
It was interesting to see youknow the streetlight data and
see where people spend theirmoney.
Quick trip on isani was one ofthem.
Fun fact that quick trip inisani was the number one quick
trip in the country.
Oh wow, in like 2023.
That's a big time sales pitch.
The coburns in isity was thenumber one cook trip in the
country in like 2023.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
That's a big time sales pitch.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
The Colburns and I-Sanity is the number one
Colburns, oh really.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
That's a great spot too.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
I-Sanity our liquor store is doing amazing and the
municipal liquor store.
A lot of people don't realizethat all the profits from that
go back into reducing taxes forresidents.
So every year we take roughly$500,000 of the profit from that
and we put it towardsdecreasing the levy.
So every household saves atleast $200 a year on their taxes
from iSandy, just from themunicipal liquor store.
You're welcome.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Yes, I have contributed to that.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Thank you, cheers, real American beer.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
Yep, so that's a big one, the municipal, and you just
have to think of everything ina financial light.
That's how I think of it.
I guess you don't have to, butthat's how I see.
You know, that's how I seegovernment and finance.
I mean, it's kind of mybackground, so it's it's fun for
me to try and find where we canbe efficient for taxpayers.
And you know, looking at thatdata from Illuminate Isegni and
seeing you know where peoplecome from, how many visitors,

(55:25):
and then we even saw you know, Ijust did it in my head, quick.
I don't remember the exactvisitor count, but we did the
math and it basically, if everyresident, or if I'll say that
there's 5,000 people come Ithink that's what it was and it
costs 50,000 bucks to run theevent, that means it costs the
city taxpayer $10 per person.
Now, does the average personvalue that at $10?
Maybe, I mean probably thepeople that attended, but what

(55:48):
about everybody that didn't?
Yeah, so that's where it comesdown to for me.
You just always think of percapita or per house, and does it
make sense in that light?
Sure, now, what about I?

Speaker 2 (55:58):
don't know if you have access to this kind of data
.
What about how many residentsof I-SANI attend specifically
I-SANI?
What if the 80% of the populaceof Sani attended the event?
Then would it make a littlemore sense.
Or is it only 10% of theresidents of Sani?

Speaker 3 (56:15):
Sure, yeah, that makes total sense.
We looked at that.
I think it was around 50%, if Iremember correct there was 15%.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
That seems decent.
Yeah, I mean it was fair.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
Yeah, so I don't.
You know.
I personally love the lightshow.
I think it's awesome.
I love driving around.
You see it and I love it, I'mall for it.
And you know, if I wasn't afiscal conservative and caring
about taxpayers, I'd say, yeah,we should do this every year.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
I love it myself If it's somebody else's money, yeah
, but I don't think like that.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
So that's right and that's how government shouldn't
think, because then you get in athere, but they're going to
have some serious problems inthe next five to ten years.
They're subsidizing developersand they're blowing money left
and right and their taxpayersare starting to feel it and
they're really going to start tofeel it in the next five years
and we're actually going theopposite way.
So I mean, and it makes iSANImore competitive.

(57:01):
We have businesses moving fromCambridge to iSANI because the
taxes are lower.
We have a lot of businessesmoving from the metro to I-SANI
because the taxes are lower,crime is lower, the people are
better.
So you just make yourself morecompetitive when you have a good
group of leadership and then,when you're more competitive,
you're going to get housingdevelopers that want to come in
and develop and then you haveeconomies of scale because

(57:22):
you're building more people topay the taxes and you do it
organically.
You don't push it, becauseorganically it always works.
The market works.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Yeah, you don't push it because organically it always
works, the market works, orbuild those spurs like we're
talking about the spurs.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Yeah, Not the.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
San.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
Antonio spurs, that's a different conversation.
But only if the developer willfront the money for that,
because otherwise, you know, youlook at that, if it's a million
and a half bucks and over thenext 50 years they're going to
give a million and a half bucksof tax payback to the city, well
, does that really makefinancial sense?
Probably not.
So you have to think aboutevery decision like that.
What's the payback period, youknow?
So it's like investing in thestock market.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
The market?
Sure is yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
So we talked a little bit about like the spurs and
things like that.
So we talked about the negativethat you know, if you don't get
that now it's positive Sunshineor rainbows here we go, you're
elected.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
You have like nine hundred and seventy four percent
of the vote yeah, I don't knowwhere all these other people
came from, but you know, you'vewon it.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
You've won a landslide.
It's new records everywhere,and so now you have this term.
What is it so?
Is it a partial term?
Then?
Is it OK?
So what would that term?

Speaker 3 (58:27):
be.
So.
It's a year and four months, soI'll have to be running again,
campaigning again for next year.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Okay, so you're kind of like right back into the fire
.
You know, unfortunately that'sthere.
You go Handing out cans of beerat the parade.
No, that's not okay.
Okay, so let's say we'll changeit and we'll say you get that
one and then reelected becauseyou won so big that time that
they're just we're not evengoing to have the next election.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
I don't think that's going to happen in five plus
years.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
So let's you know, like on the list, let's take
that five year kind of likeoutlook.
You know we talked a littleabout some of the stuff or
whatever.
You talked a little bit aboutthe Spurs potential commercial
area, things like that.
What are kind of your thoughtsin that time frame?

Speaker 3 (59:09):
So there's a lot of smaller ideas and I've always
said, you know, like I don'tthink government should have an
agenda, I don't think peopleshould have pet projects,
because then you just get in it,get it like the blinders on and
you want to just have this petproject.
Another example is theamphitheater in Isanian.
That was 300 grand and it'sonly been rented once in the
last five years and that was abad investment.

(59:30):
Oh, is that?

Speaker 1 (59:31):
kind of by the.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
Illuminati.
Okay, I was like where is theirempathy?
So that was.
I don't think you should go onhaving pet projects.
We kind of take everything youknow right now is when it comes
to us.
Does it make sense?
But I would like to see moreveteran stuff.
We are working on a veteranmemorial with the VFW, so that's
something that I think isreally good.
I would like to work on juststuff like that Appreciating,

(59:53):
you know, our police, our fire,always fostering that
relationship because theyprovide an essential service to
our community.
You know, we just we justauthorized take home squads.
Fun fact, I say any police, all, all of our officers, except to
live in the city limits.
Officers except two live in thecity limits.
So that's really cool and wetook that into account,
obviously, because every daythese officers have to come in

(01:00:13):
and officers are really hard tofind.
Right now in the state ofMinnesota, legislation has made
it impossible to be a cop or towant to be a cop.
A lot of them gone to Wisconsinjust because.
So we've tried to make thatbetter.
The squad take home squads, Ithink is a big one the fact they
live in IsI.
It saves them 45 minutes a dayroughly doing their change out
from their normal pedestrianvehicle to their squad car.
It also provides theopportunity for each person to

(01:00:36):
basically have their own carthey're stuck with, and when you
have your own car, you know thesounds and you know when
stuff's going wrong, versus whenyou're migrating you don't know
.
So the maintenance it'llactually make our maintenance
program easier to control,because the officer that drives
that car knows the car.
The officer will be cleaninghis car and then also on big
calls, you know, obviously, ifthere's a big crash and we need
more police help, well it'sright at their house you can

(01:00:57):
call them in.
They don't have to go to thehall and take that 45 minutes to
change out.
They can get right in their carand drive to the scene.
I think it also makes peoplefeel safer.
So that was something that Ithink was a good amenity for us
to add, for people and for ourpolice.
And we also just hired our fulltime again, so we just hired

(01:01:18):
another officer.
So that's that's good.
And that incentive for takehome squads was what put it over
the top.
Yeah, because most places areoffering that, and if you don't
offer that, I mean it's a prettybig benefit.
And if you think about it.
nobody's going to be taking thatsquad car for non-police
related stuff.
You know like a company vehicle, a lot of companies, if you do

(01:01:38):
that in a cop car you're notgoing to get away with that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
You're not just hooking up to the camper and, oh
yeah, it's definitely not awork truck.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Otherwise, you know I don't really have an agenda per
se.
I would like to see something Iproposed in the last meeting.
I would like to see our.
So right now we do what theycall a park dedication fund.
Every developer that comes inthey have to pay $1,800 per unit
to the city for park dedicationdollars.
The park dedication dollars canonly be used for new park
amenities or replacing an oldamenity with something different

(01:02:08):
.
So it's funny because when Igot on city council they said it
was only new park amenities.
But I read the rules on itprobably 50 times and it doesn't
specify it.
It can only be for newamenities.
So we actually have been able totake some of that money and
replace existing equipment witha newer model and it still fits
the mold.

(01:02:28):
You know, I argued with thelawyer and the city staff and
finally we found they figured itout and now we've been able to
do that.
So that saves taxpayers a lotof money.
Because now if, say, a slidegoes out and those slides are
unbelievably expensive Like youwould not believe, a slide is
$50,000.
It's crazy, wow.
It's unbelievable expensive Forone plastic spiral slide.
It's unbelievable what theymake.

(01:02:50):
So now we can take this parkdedication dollars, which was
only supposed to be for newamenities, which is good, but
now we can take it and buy a newslide.
But I want to go a step further, and I'm seeing all these
amenities that we're buying, allthese things we just put in a
very expensive play park for ADAaccessibility, which is great.
The price tag was huge, though,and you just worry about the

(01:03:12):
long term maintenance of thatright.
So I would like to get rid ofthe park dedication funds or
park dedication dollars that thedevelopers pay and do like a
park maintenance instead,because right now we have we are
twice the acreage per capitafor city parks that almost every
city in the state is, so wehave twice the parks per capita
that almost every city in thestate does, and if we have these

(01:03:32):
dollars to just buy new parksor just add new amenities, it's
just going to snowball.
Every year.
We're going to have more andmore maintenance, more and more
upkeep on everything.
So if you say, if you spend,you know, $500,000 now, it's
going to cost you a millionbucks over the next 20 years at
least.
So I would like to, instead ofbuying new amenities or new

(01:03:53):
playground equipment, I wouldlike to put money aside just for
maintenance, because themaintenance is what the
taxpayers are hit with.
So the average taxpayer pays Ithink it's.
I did the rough math it's like$300 per year in park
maintenance and that's a bigamount.
When you're only paying $1,500towards the city or whatever it
is on average, that's a bigamount when you're only paying,
you know, $1,500 towards thecity or whatever it is on
average, that's a fairlysubstantial margin.
So if we can have developerswho are already paying in some

(01:04:14):
money, instead of paying intothat account they pay into a
park maintenance account, thatwould make a lot more sense for
taxpayers, because then you'renot taxed for it, just the
developers are paying for it.
And obviously developers pay forit because new people want
parks, you know, but we stillhave great parks and you're
still providing a park service.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
So I have a question about this those developers that
build their apartment complexesor whatever they're developing,
do they pay a yearly fee in thedepartment?
It's just a one-time thing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
And that's the problem with the park dedication
dollars.
We had like $700,000 in it andthen we did that playground and
now now we're at like 300,000.
So that tells you how muchplayground is.
So now, once that developer'sin and their money's gone, we'll
never see it again andeventually I say he's going to
run out of land to sell todevelopers or to develop on, and
then everybody that's payingtaxes has to pay a huge amount

(01:05:04):
of taxes to keep everythingmaintained because you're not
getting any dollars coming in.
So then what is to keepeverything maintained because
you're not getting any dollarscoming in?
So then what you know we'rethinking I'm thinking 50 years
down the road and I did the math.
You know, 50 years from now, ifwe even just if we sustain
where we're at in maintenancecosts and everything else,
you're over $100 million in 50years in just park maintenance.
That's big towards ourtaxpayers.
You know, you divide that by7,500 again residents, 2,500

(01:05:26):
again residents, that's bigmoney.
So that's only 50 years.
That's 100 milli.
Where are you going to get that?

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
So there's a lot of numbers.
I love the numbers, but youhave to have projections Not
getting in pull tabs.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
I was thinking what if you took that, so the
developer pays, and you put 20%for new equipment, 80% into the
maintenance account, orsomething, because then you can
still upgrade once in a bluemoon too, or something, because
then you can still upgrade oncein a blue moon too, you know,
yeah, so that's just Do a littlebit of both.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
That's something I pitched at the last meeting.
Of course I got a lot of heaton it from people that don't
understand on the internet.
Sure, you know, if we can do it, if we can, you know, kind of
break the mold and do somethinga little more creative to save
people money and just setyourself up.
You know that's justspitballing the idea and trying
to get it in city staff's head,get it in front of our attorney

(01:06:11):
and see if that's something wecan even do.
I mean, maybe there's I wastold there's strict development
laws and we can't do it.
But I've been told there's alot of things we can't do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
Oh, sure, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
You got to push and shove.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
Yeah, yeah, it's worth having the conversation.
Ask the questions Every meeting.
Ask the question can we do thisany more efficiently to get
better bids on things?
You know, and we have seen abig payback on that type of
stuff.
You just ask the question andget you know.
It's a great group of five ofus working together.
I ask one question, somebodyelse has a different idea and
then we go with that ideabecause it's awesome.
You know, and you just have toask the question and communicate

(01:06:46):
and work well as a team andthat's what teams should do.
You know a team shouldn't justcome in as council groups and
just vote aye on everything, orjust vote and get through the
meeting in seven minutes.
You're there to talk and you'rethere to make the best informed
decision for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
And that's.
I mean, that's Andy on a littlesoapbox here.
I'm usually the happy-go-lucky,fun-loving beer-drinking guy,
but if that's one of the thingswe talk about, ask the question.
Everybody should ask thequestion in just about
everything, and if somebodyisn't going to give an answer,
if they're going to get angry ordefensive about it, then
there's maybe something to thatquestion.

(01:07:19):
But really it should be like aI understand your question.
This is what we have for theinformation.
And that's why I say, like, whenI ask the question, like I'm
not asking because I'm attackingor anything like that, it's
just I want to know the answer.
And you had an answer, and thatwas that.
I love questions.
It wasn't an argument, andthat's.
I feel like we've lost theability to have conversations.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
That's on a different page.
Here there's a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
There's a lot of that .
There's a lot of that, you know.
You try and have a conversationand somebody gets offended
because you flipped one wordaround or spelled something
wrong Like come on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Everybody feels challenged with everything.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Well, can we, can I ask the question and you can
give me your answer?
Right, I might agree with you.
I just want to know your takeon it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
I love conversations.
The more questions and moreconversations the better,
because when people are askingquestions, it gets people
thinking you know, and you thinkand you do the best work when
you're questioning, when you,when you come up with a solution
as a team.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
And then, like you already said, more ideas come
about.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
Yeah, oh, 100 percent from everybody involved in the
conversation.
I love that part of working withwith the group that we got.
It's freaking awesome man.
So that's something we've beenpushing for and I've been very
vocal about it.
Like, communicate guys.
If anybody wants to say anythingat any time, even members of
the audience you know peoplethat come in from the community
I let anybody speak at any timebecause they have the technical

(01:08:39):
open forum or public commentsection.
I think it's bullshit.
If you want to talk and youhave a question during a meeting
, you should be allowed, as longlong as you're respectful, to
come up to the podium and offeryour suggestion, because
sometimes we get a great ideafrom that person and all of us
are like holy shit, you know,that's awesome.
So I think we need more of thattoo.
You know and Cambridge has donea really piss poor job of that
with not letting people gettheir voice out and not

(01:09:01):
listening to their people and Ijust want to break the mold on
that too and be open and leteverybody have a voice on that
too, and be open and leteverybody have a voice.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Just because we're elected doesn't mean we're the
only voice, right?
Yeah, okay, you're arepresentative of the community.
Yep, the community, thecommunity drives what you do
yeah america america

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
that's right.
That's what it's fun to foundit on right hulk hogan said it
best what was punchline?
Didn't he have like a?
Wasn't it Booyah or something?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
I can't remember what Hulk Hogan's was.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
All I keep thinking of is Jim Duggan with the hill,
but that's a whole different,you know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
All I can think of is Randy Savage, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Woo, but I didn't really watch wrestling back then
.
I watched it when I was in highschool so I was watching
Diamond, dallas, page and theRock and stuff like that.
So I really didn't get intowrestling quite back then.
Okay Same.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
I think I watched a little bit of like the old
Saturday Morning because it wason, but I don't know that I
followed Other than Hulk Hogan Idon't think I could have named
hardly anybody at all.
Well, other than Hulk Hogan, Idon't think I could have named
hardly anybody at all.
So probably was it Mean Gene.
He was the guy that did all theinterviews.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Yeah, he did a lot of interviews.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Yeah, that'd be about it, but that's because he was
there all the time, right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Yeah, it's before my time too, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
So I was kind of going.
We're going to back the truckup a little bit because you got
me thinking a minute ago, youknow, with you talked about that
amphitheater that everybody,the government, wanted.
I don't know if the residentswanted it or not.
I'm sure there is a portionthat may have, I don't know.
Yeah, but one thing I wishwould get more involved.
Like you said, there's thatvolunteer group, yep, that's

(01:10:42):
doing things.
Now I wonder if they might beinterested in trying to run
fundraisers for those type ofthings.
Correct, and I want to bringthat back to Bram, because I was
a Bram resident for 12 yearsbefore I moved just outside of
Cambridge and just the TucsonTack alone raised $1.2 million.
It took them like 12, 13 yearsbut they built a whole city

(01:11:02):
center a whole community centerwhere weddings are.
Comedians have been there, likeLouie Anderson.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
Oh, that's how they prayed for the Bram Event Center
.
Yeah, it was completelyfundraised.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
I was always wondering about that, yeah and
most of the money came out ofthe little thrift store Tucson
Tac.
That's awesome.
It was all community-raised, ittook them 12 years but, hey,
not a single penny of, to myknowledge, no taxpayer money,
which it was all funded by.
You know the thermometer isslowly going up, you know, from

(01:11:31):
donations.
Yep, like it'd be nice ifpeople like the community
members that want everybody tohave everything they have, to
start donating that way.
Or put a little group togetherto hey, we're going to fundraise
every business.
Can we put a bucket there?
All this money is going tobuild an amphitheater in the
park.
Yep, you know.
Then the taxpayers aren'tpaying for it year and the ones
that don't want it aren't payingfor it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
Correct.
And like I said earlier, if youwant it, go get it.
If you think it's thatimportant for your community to
have it, put in a few hours, 10hours a month or whatever.
Everybody wants things butnobody wants to do the work for
them.
But at the end of the dayyou're having to work to pay the
taxes to do it.
And everything with governmentis more expensive because all
these companies inflate theirbids 40 to 50 percent, because

(01:12:12):
they think oh, is it that high?

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Yes, it is.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
Because they think the city is just going to pay it
, because historically that'swhat government does.
They just say, yep, motion toapprove, motion to approve.
But you have to start breakingthat mold and save your people
money, and that's a great way todo it.
I'm super stoked on thatvolunteer group, you know
they're, I think they're goingto do awesome and you know I

(01:12:35):
think illuminate isani will besort of the introductory.
You know, run to see how wellit goes and then maybe after
that, maybe it balloons, andthat's why they named it isani
together and not just likeilluminate isani together.
They try to keep it vague sothat they could, in the future,
go on to other things, andthat's freaking awesome, awesome
, yeah.
So that to me is big time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
How many people are involved in that.
I Sani Together program.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
Their goal was 50.
I think they're at somewherearound 30.
They usually have like six orseven at every meeting, even 30
people.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Yeah, that's a pretty good amount.
A lot of people yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
And there was a lot of negative press about
Illuminate.
I, Sani, and you know, I saidover and over if we don't get a
volunteer group, this is goingto go away, this is going to go
away.
And I took a lot of heat for itand people were just
motherfucking me to everybody.
But at the end of the day itgot people thinking, hey, maybe
we should start a volunteergroup.
You know, and that's whatleaders do they get the people
initiated to do something.

(01:13:22):
And now we have something greatfor our community, Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
So for our community.
It makes sense, because if youjust have it as like, oh, here's
a project, the people aren'tinvested in it, right, I mean,
it's just that we're going toput up the lights and like, okay
, here we go, come on, let's go.
But if you get somebody youknow, volunteer groups,
something like that, like peoplethat are invested in the
success of the thing, they'regoing to be doing a lot more

(01:13:46):
just to make it go, you know.
I mean, you can tell somebodythat's invested in cares and is
passionate about something, asopposed to somebody that is
there because it's their job.

Speaker 3 (01:13:57):
Definitely.
Yeah, I'm super stoked on thatproject.
I love Illuminate Isania andjust the money alone is going to
be.
It's not sustainable, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
So would you consider that movement together, I say
kind of like your biggestaccomplishment you think, in
city council or as interim mayor, or do you have like any type
of big accomplishments you thinkyou've really worked hard on
for the people of Asante, Asidefrom the beard?

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
That is probably it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Oh thank you.
No, so my biggest goal isalways, always and always will
be taxes and getting moreefficient bids on projects.
You know we've reformatted alot of things, especially in the
last year or so, because I wasseeing these bids come in and I
was talking to contractors.
I was very thorough on what canwe do to make this bid process
easier for you guys.

(01:14:45):
This bid process easier for youguys, because there are bids
where you know you have a$100,000 project and they have
to pay an attorney $5,000 toeven put in a bid because they
don't want to.
You know, short, stringthemselves on something that's
in the contract and miss it Sure.
So these contractors werehaving to pay out all this money
but nobody wanted to pay a$5,000 to put in a bid for you
know what I mean.
So we've worked really hard torestructure our construction

(01:15:07):
projects road projects which areour biggest expense other than
staff.
So we've worked really hard torestructure those.
This year we restructured abunch of that and we actually
got like three times the bids onour summer projects that we
usually get and they wereextremely competitive.
So we had estimated for ourmill and overlay projects this
year roughly $1.5 million andthey came in around a million.

(01:15:27):
So there's $500,000 that wejust saved taxpayers.
We are doing another wellproject because our well
capacity is not high enough forour growth and that was sort of
an unexpected expense because weweren't projected to grow as
fast as we have.
So we looked into doing anotherwell and you know, the status
quo is you always build a wellhouse where your well is.
And I asked why do we have tobuild a well house nowadays?

(01:15:49):
Because you have all thisremote technology.
It used to be you'd have tohave a well house.
You'd have meters like manualmeters you could read and all
this stuff.
We have all this remotetechnology.
Why are we building a wellhouse?
And that saves about $500,000.

(01:16:11):
That's another $500,000.
So in the last seven monthswe've saved a million bucks on
projects just by askingquestions.
Just ask the question.
Just ask the question and if youcontinue to ask these questions
and continue to think outsidethe box.
Like now, all the remote datastuff is going to be housed in
our main water treatmentfacility, which just makes more
sense anyways, because now theguys don't have to drive out to

(01:16:31):
a well, they can just look at itright there and you know we're
able to do that, and that's it'sjust efficiency from the start.
You know you have to beefficient and you have to think
about everything, and becauseyou don't know when you're going

(01:16:53):
to be able to eat next and Ithink families feel that same
way and government should workthe same way.
So I mean, there's been a lotof great things we've done.
Uh, we removed the highway 65overlay district, so now
businesses on highway 65 aren'thandcuffed.
It used to be that if you had abusiness on Highway 65 overlay
district, which is basically afew acres off of Highway 65,
basically the prime real estateright you have to meet a certain

(01:17:16):
standard.
And if your building doesn'tmeet that standard, even if your
grandfather, even if you'vebeen there for 50 years, like I
said in your ready mix, you haveto now meet city standards if
you want to do any upgrades toyour building.
Now meet city standards if youwant to do any upgrades to your
building.
So if you want to add on a bayto work on your truck, you have
to now basically demolish yourbuilding or buy another property
outside the district so you canbuild on.
So if you look at Knife River,they have it's kind of weird

(01:17:38):
they have one building right on65, right, and then you go down
Kojima Street and you'll seetheir second building.
Well, they had to build asecond building because they
weren't allowed to build ontotheir first building, because
it's in that district.
So there was all sorts of stufflike that Sign rules, like Dairy
Queen had to ask for anexception to have their red and
blue colors on their sign.
Why is that?
Even?

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
in writing, which is amazing because 65 sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
It's ridiculous and that's bureaucratic bullshit, is
what it is.
So we got rid of the Highway 65overlay district and that has
been a huge welcome relief for alot of these businesses.
I mean, we have three or fourof them that are now adding on
what they wanted to have,investing their money in our
community instead of leavingbecause they're mad.
So when you have businessesthat thrive and community
members that thrive, you know wewe got rid of a lot of the

(01:18:25):
restrictions on people having,you know, garages, because there
was zoning ordinances that weretotal nonsense.
Like there was a guy like fourhouses down from me this was
another reason I got on council,because it's like this is not
even fair.
Four houses down from me he wasbuilding a garage, his house is
like 500 square feet andapparently I didn't know this
until I got on council.
But the city has a rule that ifyour house is under a thousand

(01:18:48):
square feet, your garage has tobe one square foot or more or
less than your house.
So he has a 500 square foothouse or whatever.
He couldn't even build a twocar garage on his own property
and he started building itduring COVID, like the city
apparently wasn't responding tohis request for payment or
whatever.
So he started building.
He got caught and to me it'slike this guy wants to add value

(01:19:11):
to his home, which adds valueto everybody else's house.
It's not an egregious request.
He wants to build a two-cargarage so he can park his cars
inside.
That's not ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
Which is another, I think, policy or ordinance or
whatever for improved storagefor items too.
There's a lot of that stuff I'mgoing to get fin like improved,
to like storage yeah, for itemstoo.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
There's a lot of that stuff so we?

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
I'm gonna go find out that I blame tanner.
You're in the county, though,but it's different you know,
obviously.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
So we changed that.
So now, like blaine actuallyhad a mold for, which is
interesting you think blaine ispretty nice, yeah, but they had
a, a percentage of land that'sbasically like built on, so like
a driveway, a house, a garage,patio, deck, like it all.
It's impervious, I think it'scalled impervious, impervious
surface.
So they had like I don't know,I don't know if there's 40 or

(01:19:55):
50% that you could build up to,and if you looked at what our
old city standards was, it waslike 15% as an aggregate.
So we we upped that becausethen if somebody wants to build
a two car garage and their houseis too small, they're not
handcuffed.
Or if somebody wants to, ifthey have a big lot, like like
my parents and I, we own a biglot and you know we could build
a bigger garage because we haveall this green space.
So the the rule was originallyto reduce the amount of storm

(01:20:18):
water that's going into thestorm sewer.
So you want to have green space, grass to suck up the water.
So it only makes sense if ifthat's why that's that way
people who have bigger lotsshould be able to have more
space built on.
It just makes common sense.
If you have a 30-acre lot andyou have 5,000 square foot built
on, that's a lot different thansomeone who has five acres in
town that has the same squarefootage.

(01:20:39):
It's proportionate to the lotsize.
And that was one thing wechanged.
We made the city of Isania a 2Adedicated city.
I actually led the charge onthat because there was a lot of
bad House files and Senate filescoming down.
That was one of the firstthings I brought forward as a
council member and then we wrotea strong letter to the county
on that and then the countydecided to make Isania County a

(01:21:00):
2A dedicated county and that'sbecause we pushed for it so hard
.
We voted unanimously on it andwe pushed for it so hard and the
townships got involved and youknow you start that thought.
You know the city of Isenia wasfirst, the townships were
second.
You know Cambridge was againstit but as a majority the county
commissioners heard us and theymade it a two-way dedicated
county and that means that thecounty sheriff sent a letter to

(01:21:21):
the state recommending, you know, no more gun legislation.
There were a bunch of housefiles and Senate files that got
nixnayed and there were, like Iwant to say, 37 other counties
that did a similar thing and wewere like the one of the first.
So, you know, you start thatconversation, ask the damn
question, you know, and you makepositive change.
Now it doesn't really mean awhole lot, but there's a lot of

(01:21:42):
people that you know obviouslycare about that sort of thing
and constitutional rights arebig time and this community is
big time in that.
So if you go around, you know70% of the people pro 2A and
that's you know.
So you represent the majorityand that's what you do.
Obviously, there's going to beother things that come through
and they just fit the people.
So, yeah, there's been a lot ofstuff that I was trying to

(01:22:03):
think about that before thispodcast and it's like, man,
we've done so much.
We've done so much becausewe've been in tune with each
other as a council.
Our city staff is awesome.
I love our city staff.
Just working with them has beengreat, especially our city
administrator.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
What about the residents of the City of Asante?
Have you noticed any morepeople trying to participate or
show up at council meetings, oremail ideas or I mean both
positive, maybe, like all theabove, it's just it's been more
people.

Speaker 3 (01:22:35):
Yes, and that's been a big for me too.
When I got on council theyweren't doing Facebook live and
it was hard to find like theirtheir video recordings.
I mean they did them on YouTubebut it's not convenient for the
people.
So you know, average we weregetting like 50 views per video,
right.
So when I came on, that wasanother idea I had we should do
Facebook live.
I think it's big, I think it'sgonna do well for us.
We initiated that.
We got that in place.

(01:22:55):
We had to spend a couplethousand bucks on AV equipment,
which it's tough to spend themoney, but now we see almost a
three thousand percent increasein viewership and interaction.
All right, and that's bigbecause now you have, like every
average council meeting we'regetting like 2,500 views and
before we were getting 50.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
Yeah, that's, that's, that's big.

Speaker 3 (01:23:14):
So now you have people that have the opportunity
to listen from their home andif they're comfortable coming to
the meeting, obviously they'rewelcome to come in.
But some people just like, likeme, if I miss a meeting, like,
or if you know, I was in Europefor a couple of weeks and I
watched it online and that wasawesome.
And then, like the park boardyou know I'm not on the park
board for the city so I couldwatch that online.
You know, it's just, it'sconvenient.

(01:23:34):
People can watch it when theywant.
My neighbor watches all themeetings or listens to all the
meetings when she's at work.
She can do that sort of thing.
There's a lot of people that dothat and you make the
information as readilyaccessible and easily accessible
for people as possible and theyget more involved.
You know, obviously it bringsout a little bit more Looney
Tunes, people that are upsetwith what's going on, oh sure,
and you see it on Facebook.

(01:23:54):
It's kind of a lot ofbelligerent people that don't
understand how stuff actuallyworks, and you know.
Obviously they're upset withhow the political climate has
become, and that's fine, Iunderstand that.
But at the end of the day, ifyou don't know the actual

(01:24:14):
information you know, you shouldeither vote for somebody that
you think will provide bettersolutions for you or get more
involved.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
You know that's democracy.
So, and that's the nice thingabout that access, you know
access and involvement, like yousaid, you jump from 50 to 2500.
I mean, like you said, it'sgoing to come with, you know,
like the extremes.
But at the same time, I mean,like you said, it's going to
come with you know, like theextremes, but at the same time
you're allowing that access forpeople that either wouldn't or
didn't, and maybe it could beeven.
You know access and functionalneeds.
You know it might not, it mightnot just be the crazy, it could

(01:24:41):
be somebody literally can'treally even get out of their
house, but they want to stillhave that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:04):
Exactly have that ability to hear their voice.
And like now they can feel't doanything because of the laws.
But that was one thing.
It's like how can we make thisso people can interact with us,
Kind of like they were here?

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Almost like a town hall kind of situation.

Speaker 3 (01:25:17):
Yeah, so people can interact with us and then we can
think about that idea, Becausesometimes I read the comments
like, oh shit, that was a goodidea.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
But we didn you know.
So why is that a law?
It's open meeting law.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Where does this law come from?
I don't remember the specificsof it.
We talked about it a lot.
That was right when I got on.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
Can you just not do it?
I'm not saying not do a law,but in this case it benefits the
citizens of the city you'reworking for.
Who's going to come in and tellyou you can't do it?
That'd be the state government.

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
Sure, yeah, or the federal government.
It's probably a federal.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
Why is that a problem during a meeting?
I don't know the lady, but Ihear once in a while in the
background, you know, when youask her a question or a council
member, and then she answers thequestion why not every five or
10 minutes?
So here we have a questionright here from a resident of
Asante, and then say thequestion to the mayor and the
council members and chat aboutlike, oh, why is that such a

(01:26:09):
problem?

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
I don't know.
I pushed at that issue andpushed it.
I don't remember the exactanswer.
I've asked a lot of questionslike that, but I know that was
that was one that I brought backto like at least four or five
council meetings Because I'mlike I want to be able to do
this, no matter what.
I know there was a thing with,like obscene language can't be
rebroadcasted.
I don't know.
There's a bunch of stuff withit and then it's not fair to

(01:26:31):
people that aren't watching liveor something I don't remember
exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
It was open meeting law violation.
Well, if they're not watchinglive, they're not in the
building.
Well then, they're not payingattention to what's happening
that day.
Anyways, right, they'reprobably watching a reality show
on Netflix, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
Yeah, I don't blame them.
I mean, city business is kindof boring Right.
It's really passionate, like Iam.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
So what I'm hearing is that we need to just have
somebody that has the chat openon a laptop.
That's like oh, a question fromthe gentleman in the front.
And then they just have 345questions that night, sure.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
Yeah, and then also yeah.
Where do you stop that, though,too, Cause you get a lot of
yeah, and that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
Who is it that has the discernment with that?
The mayor does, because whoeverdoesn't like, okay, well, this
one's not going to get.

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
Well, now my voice isn't heard, or whatever, so you
can get sued and you know, andif they show up and they're
passionate enough to talk aboutit, they should get the

(01:27:40):
opportunity to talk about it.
And I used to go into themeetings and I actually got
removed from a meetingphysically one time because I
asked a question that the mayorat the time didn't like, and
that shit's not happening.
I've been harassed my mom wasactually berated in the city
hall hallway at the last meetingand by three people that don't
like me and she was berated andcornered by them and that's not
fair.

(01:28:00):
But at the end of the day, it'sa public space and what are you
?
What are you going to do?
You know, unless it getsviolent, you know if it gets
violent that shit's going tostop.
But at the end of the day,people should be allowed to
speak and that's why we've takenthat policy.
And it's funny because there'speople that say we're not
transparent, but then they smashtalk us for allowing people to
talk anytime in the meeting.

(01:28:21):
It's like they're like that'snot professional.
I'm like well, you wanttransparency and you want
professional.
Like, how do you do that?
You can't be more transparentthan we are.
We're posting everything onFacebook every day.
The city posts something likewe're as transparent as you can
get.
You can't get more transparent.
So it's an interesting,interesting road because you can

(01:28:43):
do all this work and all this,all this legwork for people and
sometimes it just don't resonate, but you do it for the majority
man.
So you know, I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
I think it's great, but it's difficult, no doubt.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was into politics fora long time, but the last few
years I just kind of gave upwith it.
Not so much the local and statelevel maybe I should get
involved more in that but on thefederal level.
I just ah whatever, I justdrink my beer and call it a day.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
Yeah, I watch the west wing.
I won't lie, that's about mylevel of politics.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
I do find it interesting.
What just really makes me madis like everything gets
stonewalled and the back andforth and all the corruption and
it's like these people.
They get power and then it'swhat they want.
They just get drunk with powerand they don't care about why
they're there anymore and theyjust get kind of churned out of
the system, you know, and suckedin.
It's like, oh, it's sodisheartening, you know it's
like ah, yep, what do you do, Iguess?

(01:29:33):
Well, you need to get money outof politics for start on all
levels.
That's my opinion.

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
Right.
Anyways, how is someone thatmakes that little money a year
that rich Right?
It's questionable Specialinterest.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
Both Special interests, both sides of the
aisle.

Speaker 3 (01:29:50):
It's not even Democrat or Republican.
I'm not talking a party, I'mjust saying yeah, it's crazy
Ridiculous, yep, but local stuff.
You know there's accountability.
That's big time.
How do you get that federally?
You actually should startgetting people in trouble when
they break the law.
Sure, that would be a start.
You know you, they're not doingnothing about it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
Where does this come from?
It's crazy, yeah, it's crazy.
But if you start on the locallevel, like we already talked
about, and good mayors show thatthey're good representatives,
good council members show thatthey're good council members,
and you just move your way up,you get a little bit of
experience.
Well, now I'm going to run fora house.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
Now I'm going to run for Senate and state level.
Now I'm going to run forfederal.
Jimmy Gordon, you're supportingJimmy.

Speaker 3 (01:30:30):
Fantastic, best mayor I've seen he's ever had, like
not even close.
And he's a great guy and he gotelected to the house and he's
doing great things and he's he'sfor the people, you know, and
yeah, that was something that itwas.
He told me he was going to doit and it's like man, I don't
want you to leave.
We have such a great group.
And then he's like, well, youknow, somebody is going to have
to take it over.
It's like shoot.

(01:30:50):
So.
But yeah, him down there, he's,he's very good.
Mark Horan is very good.
He's a senator, he's very goodtoo.
I mean, there's goodrepresentatives and there's bad,
you know, and it is usually theones that are there for too
long.
You know, I see it as a sixty,eight, six to eight year sweet
spot.
We had one mayor before thatwas in for 12 years and I think
his first six years he waspretty good.
So you know, I think six yearsis probably about where people

(01:31:13):
start to flip, you know.
So you got to move around.
You know you get you getcomfortable.
You know it's easy to do.
It was very easy to do.
Everybody's got lives andfamilies and other things to put
something on autopilot andwhatever else.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Sign off and do the research.
It's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:31:30):
Yeah, it's a hard thing, though, you know, being
in public office, I mean, yousaw it with what happened to the
senator and the House memberwho were shot.
You know a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (01:31:38):
Oh yeah, it's terrible.

Speaker 3 (01:31:42):
And that's a very real thing in politics, and it's
you know people are pissed offand you try not to enrage them
but at the same time you have tomake the best decision for the
majority of people.
You know so you're going tohave people that are upset and
it's a very it's a thankless job.
It's it's very difficult,mostly in draining not only the
person but their family,everybody involved.
It's not for the faint of heart.
You have to have really toughskin.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
So I think that having the access and
conversations, I think, yeah,that's really what changes.
A lot of that you know likecause it's, it's a thankless
thing and you'll get attacked,and you know stuff like that
that happens a lot of that.
I think it's just people thatyou know like well, I wasn't
hurt, or you know like it's.
I mean, I'm sure some of it islike I disagree with what you're
doing, but I think thatdisagreement changes to like a
whole different level when youknow somebody's just like oh,

(01:32:32):
you're not even listening at allto the other side or willing to
have that conversation.
I think that's when it startsto change.
So I really like the only thechange of the access and the
change of getting a lot morepeople involved and listening to
all the voices that you can.
Listening to all the voicesthat you can.

Speaker 3 (01:32:46):
Definitely, and that's a very hard thing to do
too.
Going into it, I was on citycouncil and I've always been
very strong, vocallyconservative, and now, when
you're in the mayoral, you haveto be something a little bit
different.
You know, and that's taken alittle bit of time for me to get
used to.
I'm getting better at it everyday, but it's hard because you
have to represent everybody.
You know nobody's perfect.
I had a difficult time with it.
I think you know it's justtakes takes practice.

(01:33:08):
But at the same time, whenyou're getting attacked by
people every day, it sure doesmake it hard to not just bubble
up and just do your thing forhow you feel.
And it's it's, it's a learningcurve.
So you know it's taking alittle bit of time.
I think I'm getting better atit and hopefully people can see
that you know.
Sure, yep, gotta be the voicefor everybody, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
Got to be the voice for everybody, right, yeah, yeah
, you do Always a challenge.
It absolutely is.
So what's you know?
We've been here and had, youknow, a lot of conversation, a
lot of really great conversation.
I hope that everybody's enjoyedthat and we've covered, like a
wide range of things.
Is there anything that wehaven't covered or something
that?

(01:33:47):
Either that and or somethingthat you really want people to
take away from this conversation, that you really really want to
put out there?

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
You know the biggest thing is get out and vote.
Vote for the people that youthink are going to do the best
job for you, whether you thinkyour taxpayer dollars are most
important or whether you thinksomething else is more important
.
You know you get out and vote.
August 12th is the vote forthat mayor seat more important?
You know you get out and vote.
August 12th is the vote forthat mayor seat.
You know I'd love to vote, butI understand if not, and you
know we just have to keep doingwhat we can for our community.

(01:34:15):
Be as efficient as we can forour community, provide the
essential services, you know,and let people spend their money
how they please.
If somebody wants a pool or asplash pad, you know, think
about it this way You're savingsix or seven hundred dollars.
You can take that six or 700and do it at your own house.
You can buy a pool for 300bucks, you know.
So it's.
It's just a little bitdifferent way of thinking, and
that that's I guess that's mybiggest message is just vote for

(01:34:37):
efficiency.
That's what my whole campaignis.
Vote for someone that's goingto be real and honest.
I'll tell it how it is, I'llswear.
I'll just say it how I feel,how I see it, and at least you
know I'm not going to try andstab you in the back or lie to
you to just get a vote, andthat's that's big time.
You know a lot of politiciansthey go out and they just tell
you why you want to hear to geta vote, and I'm.
My belief is, if people don'twant me in that seat for who I

(01:34:58):
am, then I don't want it becauseI don't want to sell my soul to
be in a mayor seat.
I want people to want me thereand you know, hopefully
appreciate the work that we'vebeen doing as a team and I think
it's.
You know it's shown we've donegreat work.
In 2023, the first year that Igot on council and Jimmy was the
mayor we had the highest singleyear drop in taxes ever 15.3

(01:35:20):
per 1%.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
Wow, and that's still impressive to me If you don't
really ever hear taxes goingdown at all, let alone like
double digits, double digitsdown, and we didn't have to rob
Peter to pay Paul.

Speaker 3 (01:35:32):
We just keep being efficient and we're going to see
, hopefully this year, you know,with over a million dollars of
under budget items, I thinkhopefully this year we can see
some good decreases again and Ithink that's big, that resonates
with everybody.
You know everybody willappreciate having $200 or $300
more in their pocket for justreally not doing anything other

(01:35:53):
than just asking the questionsand trying to be efficient.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
So, and if they don't , they can send it to two guys
in your podcast and like.
Po box?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:36:02):
And you know if anybody has any questions,
there's been a lot ofmisinformation going out and I'm
always open.
My inbox is always open.
Even if you're, you know, farleft, far right, I don't really
care.
I'll talk to anybody and askthe question, because there's a
lot of bad information out therethat people are spreading and
it's not fair.
And if you want to know thetruth, reach out.
And where can you find that?

Speaker 1 (01:36:22):
Is it like the city website, an email, or where's
the best way to be able to reachout or give feedback?
Contact you, whether it's youor the council or anything, yep,
so I guess even just governmentat large.

Speaker 3 (01:36:34):
So my big thing has been Facebook.
You know Facebook, my mayorpage, luke Merrill for mayor.
Otherwise my personal page LukeMerrill M-E-R-R-I-L-L.
Otherwise you can email me,luke J Merrill at AOLcom.
You can reach out to the city.
My phone number is 763-516-5082.
Shoot me a text or a call.

(01:36:56):
I'm always happy to answer anyquestions that anybody has about
anything.
Get ideas.
There's been a lot of ideainput that I've gotten from
people and that's big.
That's what I'm here for.
I'm that mediary between yourtaxes and your family, you know,
and I'm that guy.
So you know the rest of councilis too.
But I feel like it's it's kindof my responsibility to be the

(01:37:17):
leader of the group and you knowthat's what a mayor does.
I still only have 20 percent ofthe vote, but I can bring stuff
forward and mention ideas andjust go from there.
So if anybody wants to reachout, you can call City Hall and
ask specific questions, like alot of ordinance questions.
I don't have the whole thingmemorized, it's impossible.
So if you have ordinancequestions, reach out to City
Hall, 763-444-5512.

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
I feel like an infomercial we should have.

Speaker 3 (01:37:41):
Click here.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
Scrolling along the bottom.
If you can't tell, I've talkedabout this a lot in messages.

Speaker 3 (01:37:49):
It's big, you know, and I get more messages and
calls than I ever expected.
I mean I'm talking probablyalmost a dozen a day.
Oh wow, and that's awesome.
You know, I really don't knowif any other I know the rest of
council doesn't get nearly thatmany and I think it's just being
open and people know you'rereal and they know that they're
being heard.
I think it's just being openand people know you're real and

(01:38:11):
they know that they're beingheard.
I think that's big.
So, yeah, awesome, get out andvote.
Got to vote, get out and vote,show up.
And there's a new referendumfor the school.
I just want to mention thatNovember 4th this year, there's
going to be a referendum voteand I want people to know about
that.
People should have the abilityto vote yes or no on the
referendum.
Whether you think it's great orwhether you think it's horrible
, you should have the ability tovote and people need to know

(01:38:31):
about these elections.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
Is there a place to be able to find out, like, more
information about that?
Because referendums, I feellike, is one of those things
that, like, all you really everknow is like, do you want to
spend four hundred milliondollars and build a new school,
yes or no?
And it's like, okay, well, whatis that?
Is it going to have gold-plateddoors when you go in, or is it
just going to be, like, you know, styrofoam doors?

(01:38:53):
Like I know that gets a littlesimplistic, but you know what I
mean.
Like, is there a place to beable to find details or stuff
like that?
Because I feel like that's allyou're amount, right, and that's
a problem.

Speaker 3 (01:39:08):
I hate that.
When you have a specialelection for a referendum vote
and you have like threesentences, you have a whole
ballot that's empty.
You could put all theinformation and people could
read on it right then and there.
But it's deceptive, is what itis, and people need to be more
and more able to get thatinformation.
I know the school.
I talked to a school boardmember a couple of them actually
and they're talking aboutputting details on the website.

(01:39:29):
I don't know how advanced thatis.
They recommended that I meetwith the finance director
because I want to know what'sgoing on there, because there's
some things in there that Idefinitely don't agree with.
So I'm going to get a deep divein.
I don't know if I'm sure theyoffer that for everybody, but
that's really where you'd startis the school board's website.
I don't know when they'll havethat up or what their plan is
for that, but I hope it's astransparent as possible.

(01:39:51):
You can reach out to any of theschool board members Deida
Moose, Brett Halverson, MarkSolberg, Becky Roby oh boy,
there's a few more, but reachout to any of the school board
members.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
Googlecom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:40:34):
Reach out to the school board members.
Google, yeah, and I think it'sa good group of school board
members.
So I think most of thegovernment in Asante County is
great.
Honestly, it's been a greatlast couple of years.
Shout out to the RepublicanParty again of Sandy County for
getting great people to want tobe involved and then providing
them the means to do so, youknow with with contributions to

(01:40:55):
your campaign or just justhelping get the word out about
an election, and it's big.
In general, the August 12thelection is going to be big and
people should know to get outand vote.
So communication Perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
We should put that on a bumper sticker like a button
or something, maybe on thisreally sweet hat, we'll do it on
there instead or on the labelof a can.
There you go, sean.
Anything else you got heretonight.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
No, I don't really have anything else.
Luke, I appreciate you takingthe time to come on.
It was good to learn a littlebit more about local politics,
the CDI, sandy and what'shappening there, kind of where
you envision the city.
And thanks for coming on havinga couple real American beers
with us on the Two Guys and Beerpodcast.
Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
And I think that even some of the stuff that you said
I think, yes, it's Ice Sandyspecific to a certain extent,
but I think that a lot of thethings that we've talked about
tonight is have thoseconversations, ask.
But I think that a lot of thethings that we've talked about
tonight is have thoseconversations, ask those
questions.
It doesn't matter where youlive, what city you're at, look
into those things, ask thosequestions.
I don't think that that's aunreasonable, that's not even a
political take.
I don't think it is.
I try not to be too political.

(01:41:59):
I think that's kind of areasonable thing to be able to
mention.
So I think that's good.
Anything else you'd like to add?

Speaker 3 (01:42:07):
No, just Merrill for Mayor August, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
You can find on Facebook.
You can find it, you know, onthe city website.
A lot of information out there.
But yeah, that'll pretty muchwrap things up for us here.
The real American beer.
You can find it.
I don't know when do you findthis Cambridge Liquor Store.
There we go, oh traitor.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
They might have it in a.

Speaker 3 (01:42:28):
A shanty doesn't have it Really.
Oh man, we have such a hugestock there Our shanty liquor
store is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
I know that they got some good bourbon down there.

Speaker 3 (01:42:35):
Yes, the bourbon is a big one, the bourbon club yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:42:38):
The whiskey club there's a club, yeah the manager
there is doing a lot of things.
Just turn the camera off.
We're going to.
I'm loving it.
That's awesome.
Yeah, so that's the RealAmerican Beer with the Great
Central Brewing Company.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Of course, luke Merrilldiscussing the mayoral.

(01:43:00):
Fun yeah, everything going onwith that interim and, you know,
running for and the electionand all the stuff going on there
.
So if you have questions, reachout to him.
But if you have any feedback,comments you want to reach out
to us, or ideas, you know,topics you'd like us to be able
to discuss, absolutely reach outto us as well.
So, but otherwise I'm AndyBeckstrom, Sean Field, Luke
Merrill joining us tonight anduntil next time, everybody

(01:43:22):
Cheers you.

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